Halo (series)/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

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== How did Johnson survive the explosion at the end of Halo CE? ==

During the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWnhteDN98Y legendary ending of Halo CE], Johnson is fighting an Elite over an Assault Rifle. After the Elite and Johnson realize their fate (''This is it baby, hold me''), they decide to hug each other as Pillar of Autumn's reactor core explodes in the background. Later Johnson returns in Halo 2, and mentions that ''It's classified'', with no further explanation when he is asked about how he escaped. Also, the time between Johnson shown on the ring and it's destruction is too short for any creative work around that may have been written into the novels.

* Because Johnson fighting with the Elite is a non-canon [[Easter Egg]].

** Johnsons escape off ring is explained in the Novel First Strike. He managed to fight his way to a surviving Pelican drop ship, get off ring and link up with Master Chief in the Long Sword.

*** First Strike might as well be UNSC propaganda, nothing in the games (without referencing external sources) adequately explains Johnson’s survival. I’m more confused as to how Gunnery Sergeant Stacker survived the events of HALO, especially when Stacker didn't get his own book.

*** First Strike was still canon. Johnson was, apparently, a SPARTAN-1. Which also gives a clue.

* He didn't his death was retconned out (the Arbiter, despite not even being a character until Halo 2, also wouldn't have survived). Cortana explicitly mentions at the end of Halo: CE that there are no other survivors, no life signs and no ships after performing a scan of the entire sector. You also clearly see the entire interior of the ship was empty, so there was no way Johnson could have stowed away on board and they forgot to mention it. The only survivors of Halo: CE were Master Chief, Cortana and 343 Guilty Spark.

** The whole "Spartan-I" thing is in that dubious area of canon where the games have never (and probably will never) acknowledge it. Even so, it doesn't really provide an explanation for his survival, unless one of the Spartan-I abilities was to transform into a stealth, hyperdrive equipped ship that has no life signs.

*** The Arbiter survived as it was revealed in First Strike the Covie fleet was hiding behind the moon. They appeared a few minutes after Halo 1 ended. As for the pelican it wasn't detected as they were hiding in amongst the billion bits of debris from the destruction of Halo. And they stole a Covie ship to get a 'hyperdrive'.

** Exactly what constitutes the "whole area"? Master Chief escaped in a [[Space Fighter]]. It is doubtful its sensors would be that highly tuned to pick up every single object, much less a life sign, in orbit. Cortana has no sensors of her own (she's just software), so she simply assumed that was the case.

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* Apparently, those were research centers before they blew up the universe, and they never gave the kill order. Also, there might be more in another galaxy, and if a cure or prevention could be discovered before they arrive, you'd be glad you kept some to study.

* Why bother killing them? They're a unique species that could yield valuable research, and they're all safely contained on the rings. The Forerunners' extinction was ''not'' Part of The Plan.

** The Forerunner's extinction was totally part of the plan. They knew what the rings would do to them.

** Nor was some ignorant alien shmuck blinded by religious dogma and unable to read the warning signs pressing the "Open" button.

* If you recall the [http://blog.ascendantjustice.com/halo-3/the-terminals/ Terminals] from ''Halo 3'', you'll note that the Flood had consumed most life in the galaxy; the Forerunner, prior to firing the Ark, only had little more than ten thousand ships commanded by one AI as a last line of defense. This was against a fleet of ''five million'' ships, commanded by the Gravemind '''and''' a rampant AI. So prior to the first firing of the rings, the specimens on the Halo Installations were just an infinitesimal portion of a galaxy-spanning infestation.

* It's implied that the Didact was considering activating the rings as a last resort.

** They did activate the rings, during the battle between Mendicant and Offensive Bias. That was the actual pivotal moment in the battle that let Offensive Bias win.

* The Flood [[The Milky Way Is the Only Way|originated from outside the galaxy]], so even if the Forerunner had managed to exterminate them, the prospect of being helpless against future invasions would make this a bad plan. Ideally, after wiping out all “wild” Flood in the Milky Way, the Forerunner would want to have captive specimens to research an effective counter with.

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** You're the Reclaimer, heir to the Forerunners. Guilty Spark very likely has inhibitions against attacking you, just as he would inhibitions against attacking any Forerunner. It isn't until the very end of the third game, when Guilty Spark has clearly gone rampant, that he can attack you ''at all''. (Apparently, adding you to the Sentinel targeting lists is a loophole in his programming, but then Guilty Spark's been slowly going insane for eons, its just that it isn't until the final scene that he ''completely'' loses it.)

*** In Halo 1, Guilty Spark wanted your head intact when you were killed, presumably because he can activate the ring with only a human head in the absence of a living, consenting human. Also, Cortana was plugged into the Chief's helmet, and he wanted her so he could read through her databanks, perhaps about stuff such as human history in the last 100,000 years. He might have left the job to the sentinels because he was afraid his extremely overpowered laser would completely incinerate the Chief, therefore losing both the Reclaimer and the Construct.

**** His head had Cortana who had the Index. That's just what he wanted.

* Clearly, during Halo 1 he was still [[Memetic Mutation|charging up his lazer]]. And furthermore, it looks more like a overclocked Sentinel Beam than a Spartan Laser. It only stands to reason that as the installation's monitor he would have an extremely powerful form of self defense.

** It's possible the laser beam was damaged, and he had it repaired between Halo 2 and 3.

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** There's also that the 'Flood use biological radio' theory would make both the Forerunner and the Covenant look like '''total idiots'''. Remember, a Gravemind does not form until there is a certain density of Flood. This means that the Flood need the hivemind in order to be intelligent at all. And if their hivemind ran on electromagnetic frequencies, ''it would be vulnerable to electronic jamming''. The Flood would be walking around with a giant neon sign saying "Please, shoot me in this horrendous weakness with your ECM jamming pods until I am totally lobotomized". Granted that even a non-sentient Flood rush is still a dangerous local hazard, its only a ''local'' hazard. The thing that let the Flood destroy a galaxy was that they were as intelligent as we were and could fly starfleets... but they're only that intelligent when there's a lot of them and they can communicate amongst each other. And yet, a species as technologically sophisticated as the Forerunner is supposed to have never thought of trying to disrupt the communications medium so as to render its enemy enormously more easily killed? No, its ''much'' more plausible that what the Flood use to network among themselves is ''not'' biological radio, because otherwise they'd be enormously less of a menace than they were.

** Two things, first psychic powers is still technically biological so it would be more appropriate to simply say they don't have built in radios. Second a medium is still required for any Psychic powers to work at such a large distance, it is impossible to say that some thing with psychic powers can instant message a guy in another ''star system'' (light year distance) espcially if the psychic powers work as a [[Hive Mind]]. Considering the distance the gap is too big for the Gravemind to use his supposed psychic powers, unless he could mystically use the FTL to use his powers instead of collective network of flood across that distance then that would make the Gravemind's psychic powers pretty much like a radio thus rendering the spychic powers being more plasuible argument moot. The key detail is distance, the gravemind cannot single out one guy who isn't [[Buffy-Speak|psychically]] standing out on a planet ''light years'' away full of living things with roughly equal... [[Buffy-Speak|psychic-ness]] without the FTL. Which would render the powers as being the same as a radio, with the same limitations.

** ...right. None of those arguments apply, as neither reality nor the game define psionics. Reality defines the rules and mechanics of radio; the game defines special exceptions to it. Solid arguments can be made regarding radio. The same cannot be said of psionics.

*** Those arguments actually work fairly well. Just because the game doesn't directly define psionics doesn't mean the [[Older Than They Think|basic conventions]] couldn't apply.

*** As mentioned, psychic powers don't appear anywhere in the game before the Flood stuff. So...how ''could'' the heroes know the mechanics of Gravemind's communications? Assuming it's psychic, it'd be rather implausible to have some random [[Mr. Exposition]] suddenly know how the Flood work. Given the existence of the Flood is a [[Genre Shift]] in and of itself, I'm not sure why the existence of the paranormal has to be dismissed simply because the protagonists aren't informed on the matter.

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* ...that did not occur to me. Maybe she doesn't decay if she's not running full-out? She could go into stasis herself, setting a few surface algorithms or whatever to activate her if something interesting happens/.

* Smart AI lifespan has apparently been cut from canon. The latest novel, ''Contact Harvest'', has Loki/Mack, who is/are a smart AI(s) that has/have been around for decades, alternating when they reach a point of rampancy. Keep in mind, Bungie's own canon policy is new stuff overrides old stuff, and ''Contact Harvest'' was written by Joeseph Staten himself.

** As of ''The Cole Protocol'' it has been reduced to "Legally, after seven years, we gotta put you down" Juliana, it is implied, is older than the mandatory seven.

* There's also the possibility that either A: She IS rampant and well past the point where an engineered death SHOULD occur, or B: accessing Forerunner tech and Flood hivemindery have left her with a severely expanded amount of 'room', and in turn lifespan.

** You forget that the final stage of Rampancy is Meta-Stability, a phase when the AI finally gets over the fact that it's not real. from what i've noticed, cortana hit meta-stability when Chief rescued her from Gravemind.

* There is a planet ''really'' close by, didn't you see it turn to the day side as soon as he said that line?

* It is also possible that Cortana KNOWS she's not going to be around forever. With her ability to make trillions of calculations, and many of them within the space of an instant, it is entirely possible that she (and perhaps even the Chief, what with them being so synced up) knows of the possibility of her lifespan coming an end on the trip. Therefore, the Chief says to wake him so that they can be together in her final moments.

** "[[Fridge Brilliance|Wake me]] ... [[Tear Jerker|when you need me]] ..."

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*** To be fair, the only reason the Covenant weapons arent that much better is because they dont really utilize their fullest potential, due to most of their tech being derived from Forurunner artifacts, and them viewing it all as Holy relics. It's mentioned in the novel, First Strike I think. So in universe, plasma weapons could be far better than humanity's ballistic weapons, theyre just not cause the Covenant are too stupid (or religious) to use them properly. But yeah, just cos its the future, doesnt mean humanity will be using lasers. SO I wouldnt be expectin humanity to be using lasers, or at least, I wouldnt find it farfetched that theyre not. Though the weapons do still seem fairly low-tech in some ways. No real sights on the assault rifle, no attachments on any of the guns ([[T Hough]] to be fair, the Marines helmets doo-hickeys probably render most attatchments unnecessary). I guess its just to humanize humanity in the future, too much high tech could make it harder to relate to them.

** They will be more advanced. This does not translate directly to 'lol laser guns'.

*** Plus, there are already a few legitimate laser weapons in the games. Halo 2 brought forth the Sentinel Beam, a laser beam that sucks compared to other weapons. Halo 3 brought us the Spartan Laser, which has the explicit purpose of being a rocket launcher in laser form.

** ''"In the 26th century (when Halo is set) mankind would be using laser guns, not obsolete bullet firing ballistic guns."'' Wow, you can see into the future! There are a whole host of reasons why "primitive" weapons like ballistic firearms would still be used, not the least of which are cost, efficiency, and effectiveness. And to tell the truth, lasers are terribly inefficient as infantry weaponry anyway; the kinetic energy emparted by solid-slug projectile weapons can do a lot more damage to a soft target than direct energy transfer, and has better penetration ability when it comes to armor.

*** Ballistic weapons do have drawbacks. Ammunition for starters is unsafe no matter the storage. Coil guns that use bullets without a charge would be safer to store. Besides, over the next six centuries weapons technologies will advance eneough to make laser weapons effective. Remember how ineffective the first ballistic weapon was back in the 1400's. Check the history books.

*** I see. Tell you what... check back with me in 600 years, then we can have this argument with a little more weight behind it. But as long as you have decided we'll DEFINATLY have lasers in 600 year, I've decided that in 600 years.... we won't even exist

*** And why would the batteries powering these portable coil guns be any safer to store than ammunition? Current capacitors ''explode violently'' when overcharged. Just saying something does ''not'' make it true. What about the inefficiencies of laser weaponry? The limitations present in them being limited to line of sight? The laws of physics will not be radically different five centuries from now, whatever you might think.

*** WRT ammunition safety, I have a simple question - how many times has a soldier's ammunition cooking off actually been an issue in combat? Current ballistic ammunition is actually quite safe, and is usually quite securely stored. And more importantly, its cheap, its effective, and again, kinetic energy is more effective at both penetration and damaging soft targets than direct energy transfer. The same amount of energy you'd expend producing a laser beam or ball of plasma you could spend far more efficiently on a projectile.

*** Its worth noting that the UNSC's "primitive" firearms are also capable of defeating Forerunner-crafted super-alloys, penetrating Forerunner shields, and penetrating Forerunner and Forerunner-derived armor. Not to mention that such weapons have comparable performance characteristics with much, much more "advanced" Covenant and Forerunner weapons, and the armor crafted by UNSC technology is able to match up against "advanced" alien/Forerunner weaponry as well. That ''alone'' indicates that "primitive" UNSC weapons and armor are far more advanced than outward appearance would indicate. More likely than not, the UNSC put its efforts into further boosting the effectiveness and efficiency of its available technology, refining their weapons' capability once form had been perfected. After all, current firearms technology is simply a refinement of the basic firearms developed centuries ago, so who's to say that the UNSC hasn't been refining its tech in the intervening centuries? Just because the rifles and shotguns they use ''look'' like current ones doesn't mean that they are ''exactly'' the same.

*** ''"Mass orbital bombardment and relativistic missiles can be used to destroy Covenant worlds.'' Yeah, they have those. They're called MAC guns. They accelerate thousand-ton slugs at close to the speed of light and impact with force comparable to mind-bogglingly powerful nuclear weapons. Covenant Shields are STILL able to withstand the ship mounted ones to some extent (but not the planetary orbit ones).

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*** As any troper knows, Sword > Gun. So doesn't it stand to reason that Sword > Gun > Laser? The level of broken that the melee weapons are seems to indicate that this was the line of logic followed by the developers.

*** I find it interesting the original poster is arguing for laser guns over projectile guns and then brings up mass driving as a viable weapon in his very next comment. Oops.

*** Not to mention would not an atmosphere high in moisture render laser weapons ineffective due to the droplets diffusing the beam in the air on its way to the target? With the advancement of slug throwing weapons, you could develop them to shoot exploding rounds that would rip apart soft materials and blast most personal armour.

* You would think that 600 years in the future we'd at least have an automatic shotgun that can shoot farther than five feet.

** Considering that we currently have automatic shotguns that fire mini-grenade rounds that go fairly far, i.e. more then 10 meters, I do find it a bit jarring that humans aren't using more advanced weapons, on a regular basis.

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*** Though, the auto shotgun has more customizable ammunition and holds far more of it then an assault rifle? Also, the bullets would be much more lethal, and have more stopping power. If the auto shotgun were using solid slugs instead of buckshot that could easily be more then .50 cal. It is more of an urban warfare weapon though.

*** It's also a balancing issue. If the shotguns could shoot 30 feet and still do a good amount of damage, they'd be too good.

*** The thinking that the shotgun is useless after five feet JBM. A shotgun blast will kill a grunt or a skirmisher in one shot at around 20-30 yards, and it'll mess up a shielded jackal at similar ranges as well (well, their shields anyhow). Shotguns don't work on elites, brutes, hunters, or spartans - all of which but normal brutes are either wearing seriously bad-ass armor, force shields, or both. Even the brutes probably have a solid layer of fat taking the primary blast of the shot.

* Hi there, welcome to [[Standard FPS Guns]].

* [[Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better]]

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** No it couldn't because pretty much every gun is less advanced than modern guns.

* The thing about UNSC firearms isn't so much will we be using bullets it's that they're less advanced than what we use now? Where are their under slung grenade launchers, scopes, UAVs, automatic shotguns? There is an Israeli weapon they use now that tells you if your bullet has hit the target or now. I know dialogue gives the hint the [[MA 5]] series is like their AK47 but you'd expect to see fancier weapons around. Sure the bullets may be cool enough to go through energy shields and other super hard alloy but the guns that fire they’re pretty low tech. There should also be mroe caseless ammo as they have solved the problems with it. I know the answer in reality to the debate is as said above they used standard FPS guns but that’s not a valid in universe explanation.

** Yeah, this is my major problem with the Halo series (well, the first game at least, I haven't played much of the others). The human weaponry is at best on a par with what we have now, and at worst is far inferior. The [[MA 5 B]] assault rifle is accurate to about 10 yards, and you'll be lucky to land a single bullet out of a magazine on a target at anything beyond about 30 yards. Compare this to a standard modern assault rifle, which can accurately hit targets at 500+ yards. I would certainly take an M16 over the [[MA 5 B]]...in fact I would probably take virtually any weapon of the past 100 years over the [[MA 5 B]]! I understand the need for game balance, but I think they really mucked up that weapon; for instance, why say that it fires 7.62mm bullets, and then give it a level of power resembling a BB gun? A 7.62mm bullet carries far more energy than the .50 bullet used by the Halo pistol, yet does far less damage in the game.

** It's better in ''[[Halo: Reach]]''. The MA37 (a derivative of the MA5B) is accurate to a much greater range, as long as you fire in bursts. It also does greater damage. The M6G Pistol, meanwhile, deals much less damage, but is still effective against unshielded targets.

*** The pistol bullets are high explosive headed. And actually the pistol is the only really futuristic human gun in halo. It is a pistol yet packs a punch and has a scope.

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== Why board the Truth and Reconciliation on foot? ==

* In Truth and Reconciliation, you troop around the walls of the plateau and fight your way to the elevator, then ride it up to a blatantly predictable ambush where your entire team is probably slaughtered and the ship is put on high alert. Sure, typical FPS silliness. Then when you need reenforcements, Cortana just tells them to ''fly right into the docking bay and unload'', which they can do repeatedly with impunity. Why wasn't ''this'' Plan A?

** Because the docking bay is ''locked from the inside''. You have to physically lower the shields from a control terminal inside the docking bay before your reinforcements can enter the ship.

** If you enter the docking bay at the beginning and lose all your Marines, Cortana will call Foehammer in to drop reinforcements off. However, right before you enter the bay, you can see a dropship take off from the bay through, opening the forcefield when it does so. I suppose no one thought to close the forcefield in the ensuing firefight. It would make sense that they wouldn't consider directly depositing troops into the bay itself as a viable plan without actually having eyes on the location to confirm that they ''could.''

== What's the deal with the human grenades? ==

They don't even kill, at worst they mess up your shield, or they tip your vehicle. Even if you're standing right on top of it. Are the humans ''trying'' to lose the war?

** * facepalm* It's because of ''game mechanics''. Do you really think that the games are an accurate depiction of the actual war?

*** No, which only makes things even stranger. It sorta made sense when it was a simulation of war, as those grenades might've been made for squishier people. However, with game mechanics, the grenades are made for Spartans, shouldn't they be able to kill a Spartan?

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== How much do the Covenant know? ==

* At the start of the first game is said the covenant were talking about Halo being a massive weapon, hence the reason why we went to such great effort to search it and stop them. The only thing they didn't expect was the Flood being sealed, never stated they were going to activate the rings at least not without proper study. This doesn't match up to the second game when they thought it was a way to the great journey and wouldn't have known about it being a weapon.

** According the Covenant, it's both. They believe it'll take them on a Great Journey, and kill all humans and heretics.

** In the first game, Cortana says that ''she'' believes that the Covenant think that Halo is a weapon. She adds the caveat that "If I'm analyzing this correctly...." Cortana isn't infalliable, as the rest of the game shows, and she wasn't analyzing it correctly. She probably confused all the refernces to "cleansing fire" and "divine light" as references to weapons.

** The Covenant think it will send all true believers on the great journey while wiping out the rest of existance. They still think it's a weapon, just that it works differently.

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*** Never understood that weakness of Gravemind as he can rebuild himself (or rather the flood makes a new one) provided there is enough biomatter so his death wouldn't have mattered. You would think he would send a bulk to the ark A) to prevent the rings from firing B) if the rings fire they're outside the range but also leave behind a suitable number to go to weaker planets and rebuild their numbers in the event of their success. Also if all of the Flood went to the ark why did we only see High Charity. I thought Cortana said a fleet of Flood controlled ships where on their way to Earth?

*** Cortana says he's coming with an "army" of Flood, not a fleet.

**** The fastest way we know of to reach the Ark is through the portal they opened on Earth. Being direct Forerunner tech, it should be faster than the derivitive Covenant tech. It's very possible that the human fleets simply fought off the Flood. Miranda's ship was the only human ship that went through, the rest were Covenant Separatists. There was still a sizeable human force on Earth under the command of Lord Hood.

*** Or of course, it could be that the Flood really will return. When Halo 3 ends on Legendary we see Master Chief floating to a planet. What's to say this isn't hundreds of years into the future, and all that is left are Flood in hibernation?

*** Also, don't forget that the Flood are extra-galactic in origin - meaning there could very well be a whole galaxy full of flood out there we.

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** First off you need to separate gameplay from other canon, Elites in the games are strong, but in the novels short bursts of gun fire do kill them fairly quickly and they'd NEVER say take a rocket or sniper bullet to the face and live. Frankly the novels and other sources have always portrayed the Elites as so driven by a thirst for glory and honor it blinds them to logic at times. Also for the first bit it's not like Forge got him a boxing match and won or something, he went after him with a bloody ''assault rifle'' at first, and still pretty much got his shit ''completely'' ruined until he out right ''tricked'' him by exploiting his enemies one weakness: pride. A well known Elite Achilles heel. To me this made it even ''more'' awesome.

*** Absolutely nothing you said above even remotely explains how or why alleged Honor Guards entirely forgot to just stay back and use carbines and beam rifles, which would have the range advantage against Spartans armed with SMGs and shotguns. Or why three enemies standing clumped next to each other in a narrow place they can't maneuver in was not treated as the obvious plasma grenade bait they were. Or how an unaugmented human being supposedly tackled an Elite and knocked it flat on its ass, when the Elite is twice his size, three times his weight, and ten times his strength. Or how he actually survived being punched by the Elite's full strength repeatedly. Or any of the other ridiculous crap in that video. Hell, that video ''isn't even consistent with itself'' -- the Elite that Forge fights takes multiple assault rifle and pistol shots on its shields without flinching, but all the "Honor Guards" go down from single SMG bursts or shotgun blasts as easily as unshielded Grunts would have. Seriously, the UNSC war propaganda office needs better CGI.

**** [[Fan Dumb]] see ''Culture Alien'' that's you right now, seriously. Halo is more or less an action movie you can play and you're complaining about the hero being improbably tough and beating the villain in a somewhat unlikely way... I'm pretty sure you really just don't get the genre at this point.

*** The one Forge was fighting wasn't another honor guard; ''It was a previous version of the Arbiter''. You also need to keep in mind that Forge was beat to hell after that battle, had obvious signs of internal bleeding, and was going on sheer adrenaline. He knew he was in bad shape, which is part of the reason he volunteered to detonate the bomb.

*** Forge also only took a single punch; other than that, he was simply being thrown around by the Arbiter. And its worth pointing out that Forge was pretty much out of the fight immediately after that initial punch, most of which was absorbed by his armor, and as the above troper pointed out, he was obviously suffering from serious internal injuries.

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*** I've always wondered that myself. There are close to 200 caskets in the Mausoleum of the Arbiters. That armor has survived its wearer dying nearly 200 times, yet is still intact... Of course, the prophets are lying bastards so this might just be another one.

*** They could have simply built a new suit, or keep multiple suits around.

**** It's explicit in Halo 2 that it's always the same suit, and they ''always'' get it back. Arbiters are generally all but expected to die during the course of their duties.

*** No, it isn't explicit. The only indicator that the suit itself is old are references to the suit's cloaking device being not as "new" as the Spec Ops Elites' units, which could mean something as simple as the cloaking device is old and hasn't been replaced.

**** Close inspection will show that the ''Halo Wars'' Arbiter's armor does look different; it has more jagged edges and spikes on the arms, as well as bigger handguards.

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**** Oh waaa. Maybe you're conveying the orders ''from''' Cutter to Forge in those instances.

*** BTW; Master Chief wouldn't have to follow orders from a O-1, according to the halo wiki his rank was "Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy" which is the highest enlisted rank and given a "3-star protocol equivalency." So I guess that means only a full admiral can order him around.

*** Just to correct what an above troper said, simply for clarity purposes, in the Marines, we call ranks by their rank. If you wee to call a Sergeant Major a Sergeant, you're likely to get knocked down. Motto mention SFC is an Army rank and it is indeed the Army in which all variants of sergeants are called sergeant. And to add to the discussion, MCPO, especially MCPON if the Troper before me is correct, is not a rank to be ignored even by combat experienced officers as at that level of the enlisted ranks, even an ordinary man is someone with a considerable wealth of knowledge and experience, things you don't simply discount. In regards to Sergeant Forge, in the Marines your Segeants are some of the most versatile people on the battlefield due to general youth, battle experience, leadership experience and simply being directly preset in the conflict. An officer who ignores his enlisted advisors is a poor leader.

== Delta Halo ==

This has always bugged me since ''Halo 2'': It makes sense that the first Halo they run across (Installation 04) would be referred to as Alpha Halo, but why is the second one (Installation 05) Delta Halo? Wouldn't something like Beta Halo (since it's the second one encountered by humans) or Epsilon Halo (since it's the 5th Halo installation) make more sense?

** Another meaning for delta is "different." 05 is a different Halo, ergo, Delta Halo, as opposed to the first Halo, which is Alpha.

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== What's with Slipspace shockwaves? ==

How come when a ship enters Slipspace while in an atmosphere, like Regret's assault carrier, it causes a tremendous backlash wave of energy, yet whenever we see a ship ''exit'' Slipspace into an atmosphere, like in cutscenes in Halo 3 & ODST, this doesn't happen? Has this particular mechanic of Slipspace been explained yet?

** In an interview with the Halo Story Page, Joseph Staten (Halo's head script writer) explained slipspace mechanics using the following analogy, supplied to him by Robt Mclees (another of Bungie's main story writers):

{{quote|"If we look at the mechanics of a Slipstreamspace jump in its most basic form, the exit and re-entry points into real-space could be represented as two panes of Plexiglas suspended parallel to one another. The pane representing the exit has a hole drilled in it - say, big enough to accommodate a ping-pong ball - and a sheet of latex attached to it opposite the re-entry pane. A "rupture" is created when the ping pong ball gets pushed through the hole, stretching the latex until it touches the re-entry pane. The mechanics of how the ball passes through the pane are much less interesting than what happens to the stretched latex after the ball is removed. Basically, it '''snaps back'''. And this is why traveling through Slipspace is so dangerous: if you do it haphazardly - if you don't have good math - there's a good chance somebody is gonna get smacked (see the citizens of New Mombasa in Halo2)".}}

** In short, the forces at the jump entry point are far more violent than those at the exit point. Here's the [http://halostory.bungie.org/staten083106.html full interview] if you're interested.

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*** The Cole Protocol is only nigh-foolproof from the electronic side. While they do wipe all electronic information, and USNC ships are supposed to self-destruct to avoid capture, that doesn't change the fact that the Covenant can and do get human prisoners, and that all it takes if for one human with the right knowledge to break under torture. Even with Orwellian misinformation campaigns(which is risky on military) and prisoners giving false information that leads to ambushes (which is countered by scout ships), the Covenant have to get lucky exactly once.

*** Except the Covenant ''don't'' usually take prisoners. They simply kill all humans they encounter, without bothering to interrogate them.

*** How would an average human soldier, or hell, even a navigator, be able to tell the covenant where earth is? One owould think computers would do all the work.

*** Yeah, I think it's safe to say that computers would do most or all of the navigational work in this setting when the setting makes it explicitly clear that purging navigational data is foolproof enough to secure human colonies and population centers, and that the Covenant are only able to find human worlds through old-fashioned methods like bugging human ships.

*** It's pretty much confirmed in the short story ''Midnight in the Heart of the Midolothian'' (written by Frank O'Connor himself) in ''Halo Evolutions'' that only an AI actually knows the coordinates of Earth.

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** No, Cortana says that they were heading toward Earth's ''location'', not that they had found the homeworld of humanity.

** A fleet of one hundred ships need not be for direct military action. When you're ascending to godhood, it's probably best to do so with a massive entourage.

** Consider that, in Halo 2, Cortana points out that "it's odd a prophet would have such bad intel on his enemy's homeworld." This means that she's surprised that one of the '''leaders''' of the Covenant didn't know that the planet he was going to was the same planet the fleet in First Strike was going to attack. This is evidence that the fleet ''was'' Truth's, and that he had not told the other prophets about his intel.

* Allow me to explain. In Halo: First Strike, they stop The Prophet of Truth's invasion fleet. Truth DID know about humanity, but was a backstabbing asshole and didn't tell the other Prophets. Regret, therefor, didn't know about humanity being on Earth. He went there because they were picking artifact readings. Regret knew about the artifact, and Truth knew about humanity, but they didn't know what the other one did. Had they not been greedy, they would have won.

** There's no evidence the fleet in First Strike was Truth's.

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I suppose we can assume that the UNSC's territory extends in every direction around Earth. If this were true, then the Covenant invaders would have had to sweep the entire UNSC territory for colonies, and somehow not find Earth, which is just completely ridiculous. They should have at least half, if not more of their colonies intact, which makes 400+ . This is assuming that the covenant invaded from one side the UNSC and didn't somehow simultaneously attack the entire circumfirence at once.(which would also be ridiculous.)

* This also leads to the notion of there being only 200,000,000 humans left. Even if this number is just for Earth's population, how did all those people die? From what we see, the only place that was glassed was Voi and the surrounding area. And it seems like only africa, and a few other scattered places were hit by invasion forces. A very conservative guess would put Earth's population in 2553 at around 10,000,000,000. There is no possible way that the covenant killed 49 out of 50 people on the whole planet. They only had about 27 ships left when they went through the portal to the ark, which is not nearly enough to almost completely destroy a planet like earth.

** WRT ther only being 200,000,000 humans left on Earth: Do you honestly think the Covenant wouldn't go out of their way to kill as many humans as possible?

** "They only had about 27 ships left when they went through the portal to the ark, which is not nearly enough to almost completely destroy a planet like earth." Go read your fluff. 30 ships is enough to completely strip the atmosphere from a planet in 24 hours.

*** According to ''Reach'', it isn't. {{spoiler|1=It's a rumour spread by a Council of human AIs, who have secretly been aiding humanity in its advancement and (later) it's survival.}} I have also heard that that figure might simply represent the number of UNSC personnel currently serving. High, but not impossible (100 million where mobilised during [[World War II]]).

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It's directly stated as being weaker than its contemporary equivalents, and, yeah, it does have symbolic value - as a direct servant of the Prophets' will. Considering how honor-obssessed the Elites are, I'm surprised they didn't destroy it.

* Two possible explanations. It was an Elite symbol of honor before it became a Prophet mark of shame, so he wears it with honor, to show his indepence of the Prophets' control. He received it at a major turning point in his life, so he might feel it's a major part of him now. As for regards to practicality, the Elites, and the Covenant in general, have shown themselves to hold honor/tradition above practicality. Hence they wear armor that's bright blue, red, or gold, as opposed to something that'll blend in with the background.

** The second explanation is that he feels he still deserves it. He knows the Covenant religion is all a load of crap now, but he was taught that religion from birth. Something ingrained that deeply into your psychology doesn't disappear in a matter of a couple months.

* The Arbiter is a symbol of the Elites as a whole. Note that when the Arbiter is fighting the Brutes in Halo 2, one of their responses if they kill you is to say that they've torn out "the heart of the Elites." The armor is a part of that symbol. Hell, its entirely possible that the Elites are simply viewing the armor as a different symbol now that the Arbiter has switched sides, taking it as a sign of their rebellion. Symbols only have as much meaning as those who look upon them put into them.

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== Elites in ODST ==

Or more specifically, the fact that they're all dead. An entire city full of Proud Warrior Race Guys with dug in positions, heavy armor, and air support. Dead within seconds of a ship full of them leaving, and replaced by brutes like nothing had ever happened. the only evidence that they had ever been there is a dozen or so corpses scattered around a city they had completely occupied moments before. and we are give no explanation as to why this happened.

* This is after/during the Brute uprising. The dead elites are there because the brutes killed any Elites still on Earth, and occupied it themselves. It might make the timeframe a bit wonky, since Regret only ''just'' left, but everything else fits. The ornate Brute armor (which they should still be naked like in Halo 2 if it was before the Brute uprise), the multiple ship invasion (wasn't Regret more or less the only ship in Halo 2?).

** ODST is pretty much one big [[Retcon]] - see the ''completely'' redesigned New Mombasa that doesn't have the suspension bridge from Halo 2 anywhere in sight.

** I'm more peeved at the fact that every single elite in the whole damn city just drops dead within seconds.

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Why does the activation of the warm up sequence on Delta Halo turn the immediate surroundings into a prime futuristic battlefield complete with grav lift, ''totally'' unlike the control room of the first game?

* Because they're different Halos and thus have different design specs. I thought this was obvious, considering how vastly different the layouts between the two were.

* We never saw the warm up sequence for the Halo in the first game either, since Cortana sabotaged it. And in Halo 3, you activate it prematurel, causing the place to immediately fall apart, so there's no way of knowing what standard Halo warm up sequencing is, as we've only seen one.

== Spartan-IIIs in Halo: Reach ==.

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** ...Point. The idea of variable power outputs honestly never occured to me. I assumed MACs all had only one power setting: Full Power Total Annihilation. It didn't even cross my mind that they could be fired at half-charge or 10% charge or such-and-such.

** Also, that figure is probably horribly wrong. A frigate that size is carrying around 600 ton shells? What happens after it fires all four of its projectiles?

*** Not necessarily I thought so to, but in another example of not trusting the gut I ran some numbers and was surprised. Even a seemingly "small" object can be extremely heavy if it's dense. If one runs the numbers for a solid tungsten projectile(density about 19250 kilograms per cubic meter) a a 600 ton slug actually only requires about 28 cubic meters of volume, this can be gotten by a cylinder shaped slug about 3 meters wide by 4 meters long. It's not tiny, it's still roughly equivalently to loading a minivan into the breech, but on something significantly more massive then a modern super carrier(which even a Frigate is) you could in my opinion certainly find room to pack them away a few hundred at least.

*** We know the rounds are very dense we see the Super MAC rounds in Halo 2. They weigh thousands of tons and are barely bigger then the Chief. The ship ones could be tiny so plenty could be fitted inside. The books do mention limits to the ammo, it was three rounds on the first MAC destroyer and about 6 rounds on a modern frigate.

** Why is the animation for the Mac guns so...weak? In Halo 3 and Reach they look like pop guns. That frigate that killed the tower in Reach didn't have to be RIGHT on top of the thing to take it out. He could've sat back miles away.

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*** It's all but confirmed that the Super MAC platforms are in geosynchronous orbit over certain points on the planet (most likely over the cities they're named after, i.e. Cairo Station is in geosynch orbit over Cairo, Egypt, Athens Station orbits high over Greece's capital, etc).

*** Yeah, except we can clearly see the Super MAC guns in Halo 2. They're ''not'' stationed at the Legrange points. And again, there's a weak point in the UNSC defensive sphere, which coincidentally happens to be over the point on the planet Truth is interested in.

** Please remember, all 16 guns over Reach were capable of engaging the covenant fleet.

*** Likely to be non-canon now. In ''Reach'' Jun is incredulous that the SPARTAN-IIs are being deployed to protect civilian transports. It's probable it was a cover for whatever was going down with the ''Autumn''. Most likely scenario in regards to the MAC guns is {{spoiler|the Covenant supercarrier ''Long Night of Solace'' destroyed them after Noble Team disabled its cloaking shield.}}

*** Actually Reach had 20 guns all capable of attacking the fleet. Don't ask me how badly the guns were arrayed for this to happen but maybe there was another set on the other side of the planet that wasn't mentioned or maybe they are mobile as the whole station can pivot, or perhaps they were deployed at the poles and the Covenant were stupid enough to attack side on so both sets could get them. Though the book gives the impression the Super [[MA Cs]] are all in the one cluster away from both poles. BTW the Supercarrier couldn't have destroyed them as they're used in the battle later. All I can think is the UNSC really were stupid enough to put them all on one side of the planet and the Carrier was on the other side.

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*** Read the revised edition, all 20 super MAC guns still up and running till the final battle.

== UNSC ship shields ==

* Okay, I am pretty sure this one has already been asked, but I couldn't find the answer so I'll ask again: why do UNSC starships not have energy shields? They managed to miniaturize them enough to put a fairly powerful shield in the MJOLNIR battlesuit, so why can't they just put a larger one on a ship? Wouldn't that significantly increase their chances in a space battle? The Saber fighter from ''Reach'' has shields on it... Is it ever explained?

** Yeah, it is. The MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor required a ''fusion reactor'' to power its shields. The smallest one ever built, in fact. If they need that much energy to generate an energy shield around a single person, how much do you think a ship would need?

** Plus, the MJOLNIR energy shield is not all that powerful. On Heroic difficulty (which we can safely assume is the most canon choice since it's described as "the way Halo is meant to be played" as of Halo 3) the MJOLNIR energy shield can take ''maybe'' five or six direct hits from a plasma rifle before failing. If human-made energy shields can only take that much punishment from simple small arms fire, imagine how quickly they would fail under the much more powerful weapons of a Covenant battlecruiser.

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== Why is it that, in at least Halo 2, everything from ragdolls to vehicles to broken bits broken off of stuff had full-on physics applied to them, but grenades and dropped weapons still did that annoying "Quake bounce?" ==

* I can only assume it's a programming issue. Things that ragdoll aren't picked up and used, while weapons and grenades are. Maybe it was too difficult to program something to be both ragdoll and pick up-able.

== Hammer ==

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*** ...''So why does he have a flashlight?!''

**** So [[Unpleasable Fanbase|you]] can see.

**** Are we sure it's a [[FLAS Hlight]] and not...you know, the OTHER kind?

**** [[Gameplay and Story Segregation]] I just re-read one of the novels. The Chief does have thermal imagery and probably quite a few other toys in his HUD we just can’t use them in game. As for why he has a light as well several guns come with it as standard and it seems sensible to always carry a torch. Maybe it’s so he can light up things for marines?

== Why did Keyes keep his pistol unloaded? ==

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** Mostly because they don't really exist by the time of the main games. The Seperatists were mostly only active in the Outer Colonies, which were wiped out by the Covenant. By the time of the main games in the main series, they aren't around anymore. That being said, in Halo Wars, Seperatists appear as minor enemies on some of the skirmish maps, protecting certain strategic points.

** It's worth noting that in the first mission of ''[[Halo: Reach]]'', wherein you investigate a Relay Outpost that's gone silent, the assumption is that it's Insurrectionists that have caused it. Also worth noting that when you play as the Arbiter in ''Halo 2'', you never fight humans '''once'''. Maybe Bungie just has an aversion to killing humans in their games.

*** Either that or humans just aren't very good enemies. Marines are unshielded, and don't really have any edge over elites. It'd be like fighting taller grunts.

** Actually, if you turn the Marines in the first game into hostiles, they can kill you damned fast. There was also a mod for Halo 2 that replaced the Covenant troops with Marines in each level...and the difficulty spikes dramatically.

*** Yes, but that's because the developers ramped up their accuracy to 100%. During normally gameplay, they have 50% accuracy, but to punish betrayals they get an accuracy boost.

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** True, but it did make it a lot easier to snipe quickly while parked.

*** If you're gonna park and snipe, you might as well just hop out.

* I think the side seat is mostly designed for transport anyway, like in objective games, or if you need to bring somebody besides the turret guy for whatever reason.

== Why don't the rings have better safety/containment features? ==

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== Do Spartans get paid for what they do? Or have any personal property at all? ==

No. Payment and personal property are things that they don't care about. The Spartan-~~[[I Is]]~~ were conditioned for war from childhood. Life outside the military is alien to them. Spartan-[[II Is]] may have a better grasp of civilian life because they were recruited at a much older age, but I don't think they get paid either, though they definitely have personal property, to some degree (Emile in particular).

No. Payment and personal property are things that they don't care about. The Spartan-IIs were conditioned for war from childhood. Life outside the military is alien to them. Spartan-[[II Is]] may have a better grasp of civilian life because they were recruited at a much older age, but I don't think they get paid either, though they definitely have personal property, to some degree (Emile in particular).

* I'm heard Jorge say "That's why they pay us the big bucks" in the Reach campaign. So maybe Noble Team gets paid. Or maybe he was just joking.

** "That's why they pay us the big bucks" is most commonly used as a joking expression that really means "We don't get paid enough for this." By itself, it means nothing.

* okay, the last level of halo 3. I get that the pelican must've taken some damage, but why did it crash at the beginning? Is the chief just a really bad pilot? Was it another call back to the beginning of the last level of the first game? It just seems kind of ridiculous not to land on top of the control structure (or near it, if the pelican wouldn't fit.).