Halo (series)/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Actor Allusion: Nathan Fillion appears in H3, voicing GySgt Reynolds.
  • Aluminum Christmas Trees: There really is a "Master Chief" rank in the US military - Master Chief Petty Officer is a naval rank, and yes, the correct way to address one is "Master Chief". Quite understandably, when a suspect of such a rank once showed up on NCIS, surprise and confusion ensued for some.
  • Cash Cow Franchise: Three main games, various books and comics, the requisite action figures, an anime series, Halo Wars, ODST, and Reach. This is actually less than some other franchises.
  • Defictionalization: Some Windows Phones and Nokia phones have Cortana as their AI Butler pre-installed. Cortana also later came bundled with Windows 10.
    • Non-Nokia and Windows Phones requires downloading a Microsoft app.
  • God Never Said That: Before Halo Wars, Halo fanon had claimed that the armor worn by Arbiters was the same exact suit that it had been through history, the successor receiving it after his predecessor had died (which is implied, but not said, in Halo 2, with the Prophets saying that the bodies were all in the mausoleum, and the armor's systems being outdated). However, the Arbiter of Halo Wars Ripa 'Moramee was killed and pushed down a chasm before his body was destroyed in a Earthshattering Kaboom. Henceforth, that meant the armor had been destroyed with it. Fans were annoyed, but it was later pointed out that since the Arbiter is intended to be sent on suicide missions, there would have been many cases where the armor was destroyed and/or impossible to recover. Such as falling to the core of a gas giant, like Thel 'Vadamee was about to.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: Early-rising fans of classic rock in Chicago will recognize Master Chief's voice as that of Steve Downes, the 5AM-10AM DJ on 97.1FM. Bungie was based in Chicago before being bought by Microsoft.
    • Falco dislikes flip music.
  • Hire the Critic: Luke Smith of 1UP got hired to Bungie after he wrote the article "Broken Halo", where he criticized Halo 2's multi-player for being highly unbalanced. Following that, he put some real work into designing the multi-player for Halo 3 and Halo: Reach.
  • Jossed: Halo 3's entire storyline, specifically The Forerunners' relationship with the Flood, the Forerunner's relationship with humanity, and the possible (lack of, as it turned out) ulterior motives the Prophet of Truth had for activating Halo.
  • Mid-Development Genre Shift: The first game was originally conceived as a Real Time Strategy game, but it made it to shelves as a First-Person Shooter, probably because its plot and factions coupled with its genre would have made it too similar to RTS heavyweight StarCraft. They eventually revisited the RTS idea, though.
  • The Other Darrin: Both Miranda Keyes and the Prophet of Truth get new voice actors in between Halo 2 and 3.
    • Doubled with Miranda Keyes, as she gets a new (even sexier) design as well.
    • In the Halo Legends episodes "The Package" and "Odd One Out", John-117 is not voiced by Steve Downes. Cortana isn't voiced by Jen Taylor in the latter, either.
      • Doesn't sound like either of them returned for the Halo 4 trailer either...
  • What Could Have Been: Among the most famous, influential and profitable console first-person shooters ever... was originally going to be an RTS. For Mac.
    • The Film of the Game was going to be directed by Neill Blomkamp, the director of District 9.
  • The Wiki Rule: Two, Halopedia, an independent wiki and Halo Nation, which is hosted by Wikia. The two were previously one wiki, but split apart after a dispute about the new Oasis skin for all Wikia websites. Just a quick look should tell you where most of the community went.