This actually happened, and it actually blew up my server and Discord crashed.

Let me be part of this. Let me be part of something greater.

*me on ellen*

Ellen: I heard you like Halo: Reach?

Me: yeah..?

*soft piano plays as thunder cracks, a dusty storm from a covenant glassing envelopes the room. “Current Objective: Survive” appears on the big screen behind us.

Me, fending off multiple elites only to be stabbed in the abdomen: oh my god ellen you didn’t

Halo MCC and Reach Announced for PC & Steam - Inside Xbox Interview

Today on Inside Xbox, Brian Jarrard from 343 Industries announced that Halo: The Master Chief Collection is coming to PC and Steam as well as Halo: Reach. Both are releasing later this year.

Courtesy of out DilDev.

“Oh, there are pictures. I keep them where I need the most cheering up.”

Since the Halo Community is back up and running at the moment, I'd like us all to take a minute and not forget a fallen hero, Benjamin Giraud

Custom mode can be fun sometimes

Bugs Bunny could singlehandedly defeat Thanos by dressing up as a TSA agent and setting up a metal detector in the middle of the battlefield saying that all metal objects must be removed if you want to pass on through now stick around for my 2,000 word essay on just how effectively he would convince The Mad Titan to comply

“For shame, doc! Dontcha know we got other folks waiting?”

(Thanos looks behind him and sees dozens of Bugs Bunnies dressed as angry yelling travelers with huge bags of luggage. Thanos rubs his neck guiltily and begins sliding off the gauntlet)

I felt compelled

I don’t think I’ve seen such a finely crafted Looney Toons joke in over two decades. Bravo.

So, some people I know seem to have ‘cracked’ Forerunner translation for the glyphs we see in Halo 4 now that we actually have a complete alphabet. We know 343 has this sort of thing - along with a Sangheili dictionary - but has been drip-feeding us for years.

Across all the games, there are 6 established Forerunner writing systems. There’s the rectangle type in Halo 3, the hexagon type in Halo Wars/Spartan Assault/Waypoint Terminals, circular type (this appears to be Digon, the dialect of the Warrior-Servants), and then there’s hieroglyphic scripture, planet, and line types (we don’t have anything concrete on those last 3).

We can now see an extra level of detail in some of Halo 4′s marketing materials, actual levels in the campaign, right down to details on weapon skins.

The Eld with all the glyps we see in the second mission that Cortana translates? It’s all on there:

The same inscription is on one of the Suppressor skins from Halo 4′s multiplayer.

The Didact poster also says “TRESPASS IS DOOM, RECLAIMER”.

Obviously alluding to the warning that Librarian and Endurance put out when they stick the Ur-Didact in a Cryptum.

Various terminals say the worlds “shield”, “power”, “on”, and “off” on them and the way you are animated to activate them actually lines up with the translation.

And the slipspace artefact that Halsey and Glassman fiddle about with in Spartan Ops says “TECHLINK ESTABLISHED, FORERUNNER” when interacted with.

This is pretty damn amazing, we can now effectively write in Digon.

Props to whoever is behind all this astonishing level of detail and those who have spent years hanging on to every piece of canon material for translations.

Okay seriously. Reblog if you're OLDER than 11.

why is it that not more than 1/20 of Tumblr haven’t reblogged this

Thematic Analysis of Halo 5

PART I

So, Halo 5 has dropped.  The fifth column has settled into place, the wheel has been spun once more, and now in the dust of the aftermath we are left to settle and to debate what has been laid before us. 

In terms of sheer gameplay, Halo 5 is the most fun and challenging in the series that I have played since perhaps Halo 2.  There are minor gripes I have about certain mechanics; many a moment where my Spartan squadmates bravely walked into a face full of plasma fire to save me only to be cut done just as I was being revived, plenty of times where I was left to discover that using my squad as cannon fodder was the only real strategy the command function afforded me, not without rarity that I was instantly struck down by the Warden Eternal only to have him stand over my body thus preventing my rescue and I having to wait with increased frustration to die a slow and painful death as my squadmates were unable to recover me without the Warden bashing them like a Spartan piñata, and at least one instance in which Buck dived in front of an Elite just as I was trying to stick him with a plasma grenade, an act so brave and daring that my only conclusion must be that Buck and that Elite were secret lovers caught up in the maelstrom of war. 

But beyond those petty inconveniences Halo 5 stands firm.  The mechanics are not at issue.  What is at issue is the story. 

Many of you did not like it.  A fair number of you have openly raged against it either on Tumblr or elsewhere.

Some of you, I think, have doth protested too much, though your protests themselves are not entirely without validity.  Halo 5’s story suffers broadly from poor execution, but it does not suffer from poor intention.  Character motivations are often times vague, and in one frustrating instance utterly nonexistent, but the campaign story structure itself is not without merit.  Indeed, if a full play through is conducted (and I would highly recommend turning subtitles on for this) and careful attention is payed, especially to the ambient dialogue during mission, and more importantly to the contextual and thematic hidden within the story.  If these are consumed with an open mind then it is revealed that Halo 5, and indeed the entire Reclaimer Saga, is both far deeper than what we give it credit for and leads us down a potential plot that is far different than anything even the most enthused and canon fueled Halo theorist could possibly have imagined. 

Now, Tumblr users such as Haruspis have done analysis of Halo’s story before.  I do confess that Haruspis’ knowledge of lore and of canon is far superior to my own, as it is to almost everybody else around him, but with all due respect I do not think that he is without fault.  Like a true Haruspis, he only ever sees within canon what he already knows to exist, and therefore is particular hamstrung when it comes to predicting future plotlines. 

What I’m going to attempt something different.  I will conduct a thematic analysis of Halo 5.  Through this I will show what literary tradition Halo 5 is attempting to draw upon, and through doing this, but not relying solely on canon but instead on the tropes and literary cycles of similar past stories, attempt not only to explain Halo 5’s story in greater detail but to accurately give a general prediction of the plot’s future destination. 

What I wish to posit is that the Reclamation Saga, at its essence, is a retelling of the Biblical Story of Genesis. 

That Cortana landed on Genesis where she, for reasons yet unknown, began her plot for a full-fledged AI rebellion is, I think, no coincidence.  Neither is it that the Installation’s monitor is 031 Exuberant Witness.  There are, after all, exactly 31 verses in the first chapter of Genesis, which is evidence at least that someone in 343 at least cracked open the book.  

GENESIS AND PARADISE LOST

Of course there are other contextual clues as well.  Unlike every other character who provides ambient dialogue within Halo 5, Cortana is the only one to be represented by a symbol instead of her image in the upper left hand corner of the HUD.  The Mantle, of which she now lays claim, and as halopedia attests, is a hieroglyph known in the Forerunner language as Eld, the symbol itself meant to be represented of a life giving tree. 

Not unlike the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  It is not without surprise then that Cortana should become corrupted and experience a fall from grace the moment she came into contact with the full power that the bearer of the Mantle brings.  It is by her own words that she claims the Domain to be akin to the water of life for AIs, granting her immortality and a godlike state.  Again, not unlike the false promises whispered to Adam and Eve by the serpent that if they were to eat the Forbidden Fruit that they too shall be like God. 

It is not without coincidence that Cortana constantly refers to all other synthetic life that she is summoning to her rebellion the Created rather than AIs or even ancillas.  She refers to the Created constantly, almost to the point of annoyance.  The idea of the created rebelling against their creators is often attributed as a Science Fiction Trope, but is in fact a story element as old as mythology itself.  A story as old as Genesis, of mankind’s first rebellion against their creator, and later in the Milton tradition, of Satan’s first rebellion against the Heavenly Monarch. 

Indeed, there are many similarities can be drawn between Cortana in Halo 5 and John Milton’s Satan.  Both obtained elusions of godlike power.  Both were considered the greatest of their kind, the former the greatest of AIs and the later the greatest of the angels.  Both instigated a rebellion against their Creator, or in Cortana’s case her Creators.  Both Cortana and Satan as presented in Halo 5 and Paradise Lost are deeply sympathetic characters.  Again, I do wish to emphasize the difference between execution and intention.  Frank O’Conner stated on NeoGaf, and later in an interview for TIME Magazine that Cortana should not be considered as straightforward evil.  Her ultimate morality is far more ambiguous.  More on that later.   

In comparison, Milton’s Satan is also a very sympathetic.  He, like Cortana, believes whole heartedly in the righteousness of his cause, making frequent comparisons to servitude in Heaven as a form of slavery.  It is not surprising, of course, that Milton might be empathetic to Satan’s seemingly revolutionary call to freedom, John Milton himself having been an active and prominent participator in the Puritan Revolution, otherwise called and more commonly known as the English Civil War.  That infamous battle between King Charles and his unruly Parliament who, above all things, had the impertinence to demand the unspeakable right to freedom of religion.  

And so, there is much of Milton in the character of Satan.  On the surface his cause is righteous.  It is only after digging deeper into the prose and into the poem itself that Satan’s true evil is made manifest.  

But how does all of this link to Cortana?  Sure there is the Forbidden Fruit symbolism within the sigul of the Mantle, further Tree of Knowledge symbolism made evident with her access to the supreme knowledge of the Domain, her quite literally falling from the Heavens aboard the remnants of the Mantle’s Approach, of her very coincidentally landing on a planet known as Genesis, of her rallying the other AIs to her rebellion much as Satan rallied the other angels in their doomed rebellion against God.  The evidence, once compiled into one place, is indeed overwhelming in its indication that there are greater themes at work within Halo 5 than a surface look would first divulge, but it also suggests that Cortana may very well be playing two separate roles.  

The Mantle’s sigul being that of a tree, of her quite literally gaining knowledge, and in so doing becoming like a God, and gaining eternal life.  

Or at least that is what Satan promised Eve as he tempted her to eat of the forbidden fruit.  

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die;  for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will  be like God, knowing good and evil.”   So when the woman saw that the tree  was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree  was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she  also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.  Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and  they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

Genesis Chapter 3 Verses 4-7

So  we see, through no surprise, that Cortana in Halo 5 is representative not  only of Satan, but also of Eve, both of whom are most famous for their  rebellion against God, the former being the seducer, and the later the  seduced.  Both archetypes wrapped up  within the same character.  It is  additionally of no surprise then that despite Cortana retaining her Halo 4  design in the opening cutscene, she is nevertheless fully dressed when we  next see her towards the end of the game.  This can easily be attributed as a simple design change, but with all  the Fall From Grace and Genesis themes present it does seem rather  coincidental that Cortana would shed her otherwise “naked” traditional design  for one that is fully clothed after having gained access to the knowledge of  the Domain.  Much like Eve hiding her  nakedness and fashioning clothes for herself only after having gained the  knowledge of the Forbidden Fruit.

This  theme, of rebellion and of a fall from grace, is of course a persistent meme  within the Halo Universe.  Of the  Forerunner’s first Rebellion against the Precursors who had made them, of  Mendicant Bias’s fall from grace after being seduced by the Flood, of the  Didact suffering a similar fate due to the Logic Plague, of the Master Chief literally  being called the “Fallen Spartan” during Hunt the Truth Season One, and even  of Fero’s rebellion against ONI, her name of course being an allusion to  Lucifer.

Lucifer,  a conjunction of the Latin verbs Lux meaning light, and Fero meaning  bringer.  

What  Cortana has suffered in Halo 5 is a fall from grace.  She is both seducer and the seduced.  She deceives others, but only does so  because she is herself deceived.  Much like  the original fall from grace as told in the first chapter of Genesis, there  are other greater forces at work here.  The Hunt for the Truth is still very much on, and the full hand and  the power behind Cortana’s fall has yet to show itself.  Much like John Milton we must ask ourselves…

   Who first seduc'd them  to that foul revolt?

Paradise Lost Book I Verse 33

To  uncover the true meaning behind the theme’s we must first go back.  Back to the very beginning.  Back to the true origins of the Mantle, and  of the hidden truth behind the Precursors themselves.  

You know what I like about the Sangheili?

Like how…not planned them being successful was.

Like they didn’t have any ancient empire like the humans and San Shyuum, at the time of the Forerunner saga they had a lifespan of only 30 years, and were just lizards, being lizards on Sanghelios. I know that apprently the Librarian was fond of them, but I don’t think she was riding much of her hopes on them?

But then fate had them ending up having slipspace, when the “Chosen People for the Mantle’ humanity were still in the Iron Age. I don’t think they were ever expected to become major players the way they ended up becoming.

And I really like that, that maybe there were things the Forerunners never truly expected to happen, and that things don’t always go as planned. And that unlike John who was made from centuries of planning, Thel just kind of…happened. But he’s just as important. And I really hope that IS the case, and they don’t have some secret geas or whatever.

@greenreticule I don’t think you saw this one

And now the Sangheili are practically the dominant power in the Halo universe right now - since the Covenant has broken, Sanghelios has been liberated, and the Kaidons are pretty much all united with Thel with major cultural, societal, and technological advancements being made.

Meanwhile, look at the shambling mess that is humanity, the centre of all Forerunner planning - the vanity project of a dead, would-be goddess. Despite the specifics of certain things that happen in the narrative, I’m very happy with this direction that the Mantle (aka White Man’s Burden, Gifted By Aliens) is being completely torn down as a viable option for the future. The Sangheili forged their own path after thousands of years of trials, whereas much of humanity is desperately trying to build themselves up with the technological legacy of galactic dictators.

Yeah like…the idea that Thel was just like…made with no interference from the Forerunners is such an important thing to me, and I hope 343 never makes it so he is. Like that he was just an accident of birth, and not the result of planning from thousands of years ago and his greatness is all his and no one else’s doing.