Setting:Halo
Halo is a vidyagame series exclusively released for the ECKSBAWKS, ECKSBAWKS 360 and PC. The series was developed by Bungie, though Microsoft has bought the rights to the game. The Halo universe is pretty massive, with all sorts of media ranging from video games and graphic novels to action figures and a series of short movies released to DVD. It became famous for being the game that saved ECKSBAWKS from doing an Atari Jaguar by identifying an untapped new market of loud, stupid fratboys, and was the only reason anyone would even want to buy an ECKSBAWKS console.
Occasionally it breaks away from the generic sci-fi pattern and explores a more fatalistic and human side to the story without having to suck Master Chief's dick or obsess over ancient alien technology every three seconds, and is generally regarded as being about ten times better and more mature for it. Unfortunately, this lasted a grand total of one game before 343 Studios acquired the license.
/tg/ isn't big on Halo and topics pertaining to Halo will normally be saged, trolled, told to go to /v/, or some combination therein. On /v/ however, Halo is... still widely hated. Then again, /v/ hates video games in general. The hatred of /tg/ comes less from the actual game/gameplay, and more from it being off-topic and a few fanboys being retarded asshats.
Setting
The Halo universe takes place in the 26th century. Mankind, led by the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), has developed its own crude faster-than-light drive (the Shaw-Fujikawa Drive) and finally colonized other worlds. At its height, human civilization occupies nearly 800 planets, forming a ring of outer colonies and rings of inner colonies with Earth as its capital. This is not what they're talking about when they say Halo, mind you.
Sometime in the year 2525, an agricultural world in the outer colonies, creatively named Harvest, is attacked by an unknown force. In the succeeding months, all attempts to make contact, or even defend against the alien forces are met with swift destruction. It is not long before more colonies are wiped out.
The unknown menace finally identifies itself as the Covenant, a coalition of several alien races bent on destroying humanity. At first they seem to be doing this because that's just what aliens do, but later on it is discovered that the story is somewhat deeper. Apparently humans are the descendants of an ancient super-advanced alien race called the Forerunners.
This made the Covenant kinda jealous, because it was them who first discovered the Forerunner technology, adapted it to their own, and finally started worshipping the Forerunners. Apparently, knowing that your gods had a favorite, finding out that it isn't you, and finding out that it's instead the species that invented truck balls upset them just a little. So, back to glassing. It's not long before the UNSC military, and humanity itself, finds out that it is being pwned. Clearly the only solution to this would be a ridiculously tiny unit of infantry (thirty three men to defend eight hundred planets, lolwat?) In clever armour with a name in allcaps. This leads to the Spartan-II program, humanity's last hope.
The Spartan-II program
You have been called upon to serve, you will be trained... and you will become the best we can make of you. You will be the protectors of Earth and all her colonies.
— Dr. Catherine Halsey, founder of the program, to the young Spartan-II recruits
The Spartan-II program was originally a super soldier project intended to fight increasing terrorist and rebel threats throughout UNSC space. It was masterminded by genius geneticist Dr. Catherine Halsey, who is the founder and former director of the the project. She and her team visited practically all 800 planets in human space, trying to find children who matched the exact psychological and genetic profile of Big Boss that would accept her newly-developed super soldier treatments. In the end, over 300 children were selected for the program but only 150 were actually abducted due to budget constraints. Those that were abducted were replaced with clones so the families would never know they went missing, since apparently making stable clones is impossible in the future. It is unclear why nobody pointed out this pointlessly angsty backstory would probably result in all of them turning evil like in every other game where this sort of thing is tried, or asked how a fighting force of 150 would be useful to an alliance with five times that number of planets. Some may object in the Warhammer 40K universe there are much more planets then there are Space Marines, and still the Astartes are a very useful force, but That's because they can deploy in the dozens, hundreds or even thousands. And they have a specialized armory built to maximize their effectiveness as a fighting force. Spartans have to make do with the same "shittier than what we have in real life" arsenal that the cannon fodder does, because the UNSC can afford super soldiers and power armor, but not special guns for them (in every single game the best weapons are the ones you scavenge from your alien enemies, fer chrissake). Fucktards.
The child-recruits were brought to a secret, heavily fortified military world called Reach. They were trained, given numbers instead of names, beaten, retrained, mindfucked, trained some more, and in general subjected to the kind of treatment someone who's half-watched parts of Full Metal Jacket thinks of as military training. Finally, the children, now in their late teens, were cleared for biological enhancement. Using the latest experimental treatments, the 150 were pumped full of drugs that induced their muscles to grow, enriched their blood, and increase their brain processing to the point some of them even knew how to set up a TiVo. They were surgically modified to give them superior eye sight, hearing, and ceramic skeletons. The procedures were so dangerous that over half of the remaining recruits were lost in the surgeries. Only about 33 of the original 150 survived the experimental augmentation procedure program that would've utterly crippled all those without the proper genetics (which makes you wonder how this process was developed to begin with). The result, however, were the Spartan-IIs, who had a laundry list of biologically unlikely abilities. On the other hand, severe psychological issues result in them thinking all objects are exactly the same size for inventory purposes, from a rocket launcher to a pistol. This makes day-to-day life difficult, as they stand confused in front of their dresser trying to figure out whether to drop their car keys or wallet in order to put on their clothes.
Later, the super soldiers were finally given their signature green armor, a prototype powered suit called MJOLNIR (the second choice, as ALLCAPS was already taken). The suit added mechanically unlikely abilities to their biologically unlikely abilities, and canonically weighed a metric ton. Despite that it doesn't make people sink into the ground or fall through every staircase in the universe, thus showing Halo's fluff writers have no fucking clue what they're talking about.
Over the course of the fluff, the Spartans are sent into several missions that even the UNSC elite forces (the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers or ODST) can't go in. Basically, the Spartans Get Shit Done. By the time the Covenant starts to attack human worlds, the Spartan-IIs have been in service for nearly a decade and they are quickly redeployed with the new MJOLNIR Mark-V armor, each complete with a reverse-engineered personal shield stolen from the Covenant. Almost all of them then die since in Crunch (and even in some fluff) their armour provides slightly less protection than lingerie and the shield goes down if a space lizard sneezes on them. The rest of the fluff was apparently played on a secret super-easy difficulty where you defeat every enemy in the game with your penis in the first ten minutes.
Overall, humanity's ass was only saved because the elites noped out of the covenant at the best possible time, the SPARTANS by and large accomplished jack and shit.
The Spartan-III Program
Late into the war. People relished they were running out of Spartans. So people who not only hated Halsey but hated that whole kidnapping thing started the Spartan IIIs. So rather than break into homes and steal babies, they rounded up orphans of glassed worlds pumped them full of drugs and sent them out on human wave suicide missions. IIIs had none of the cool armor instead they used cheap knock off versions which lacked the shields. Minus the ones you play in Halo Reach. So basically, this entire situation can be blame on not only humans obsession with technology, but the lack of leadership, tactical geniuses and manliness.
The people in change even have the balls to claim the moral high ground compare to Halsey stating that all of the IIIs were volunteers. Because as we know, 14-year-olds who just watched their world burn totally understand what they're signing up for.
Furthermore some of the spartan III's wear a special armor called SPI which turns them invisible, effectively making them Catachan Devils with Predator Cloaking and more bat-shit insane.
The Spartan-IV program
In Halo 4, it has revealed the child soldier program is no longer enable, because that old cougar Halsey is fed up with child kidnapping and abusing crap. The new Spartan IV program is similar to the original Spartan program,which only requires typical adult volunteer who weren't beaten to shit since childhood, nor kidnapped. The Spartans will be training in a X-men training simulation, where they fight each other in a safe environment.
Then again, the real life Spartans were destroyed by a small volunteer army (despite outnumbering the force 10 to 1) from Thebes. The Spartans' own harsh training methods meant they couldn't replace their losses in time for Thebes to show up, free their slaves, as the slaves were the only one thing keeping Sparta running (as all the free men were warriors) Spartans quickly fell and became a run down shadow of its former glory to a point where no one ever invaded it because it was so worthless it wasn't worth the effort.
So grimdark training isn't really needed to make badass soldiers. Also the fact that, well those Grimdark Spartans FAILED. The IIs were expensive as all fuck, took forever to train, had high "drop out" rates. And while kicked a tons of ass there were so few it didn't really mattered. The IIIs were glorified cannon fodder, much like real world child solders and often had 100% casualty rates and missions only really delayed the Covenant. They would have been far better used as squads deployed to lend overwhelming support to critical points in battle instead of "disposable heroes" (that is a canon quote on exactly what the III's were created to be). So it is only a matter of time at around Halo 5 that the new Spartan IV would gain enough power to challenge even Spacemarines...speaking of which Halo has been getting alot of power boosts lately (UNSC speaking).
The IVs are what the Spartan II were designed to be only cheaper and easier to make. Furthermore, while there were about three dozen "graduate" Spartan II's, there are at least three hundred graduate Spartan IV's and more being pumped out each year or so. Plus, the player only gets to know how skilled the Spartan IV's are when they play Spartan OPs and those can be soloed on Legendary, so the IV's are plenty good enough. Not to mention they are granted second generation armor that is (plot-wise) greatly superior to the Mark VI.
UNSC Marines
These are your everyday cannon-fodder from the UNSC who in fluff meet fates similar of the mobile infantry in the first Starship Troopers movie or your typical Imperial Guardsman (Except they don't have non-super human combat monster such as Yarrick or Tactical Genius such as CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDD!!!, and they rely everything on Spartan). In crunch, they vary from scripted death-by-anything to being able to laugh off multiple Fuel Rod Gun hits. But anyway, in contrast with the guardsman, they are not expendable, Since most of the planets humans colonize in Halo were glassed, so does many civilians, were shoved in the ass by energy sword and blasted by plasma fire. But hey, that happens to the humans in Warhammer 40k everyday, so welcome to the club I guess? This club sucks. Besides, the humans in Warhammer 40k are living in way worse condition compared to the humans in halo, which some of them that had survived since childhood, are badass with a strong will, and that should tells us how competent those motherfuckers on Cadia really are. But the UNSC does has some non-super human elite, like the ODST, which they got their own shitty spin off 60$ game. Many whiners complain about the ODST game but it's only because you don't play as a Spartan and it has a plot beyond "go here, kill everything". Not to mention that badass motherfucker from Halo Wars who should be commanding an entire Imperial Guard Army with full Terminator Honors, due to his Balls being so big it should be classified as Power Weapons; Examples include tackling down the largest elite who has been given Khorne's RAEG, that also dual-wields energy swords. awesome ensure.
The Covenant
The Covenant are a coalition of religious alien civilizations. They venerate and worship the Forerunners and are known to utilize some Forerunner technology for their own means, giving them a colossal fleet of ships that outmatches the UNSC Navy. They are composed of the following:
- Grunts: Ewoks wearing giant seashells with technicolour blood. Typically shout "he's unstoppable!" in their helium voice and then die. Since the UNSC marines are bunch of incompetent faggot pansy, these grunt are somehow very effective in terms of being expendable. Breath methane, and sometimes explode when shot under the pressure of their own fail.
- Jackals: Irritating bastard-creatures with space shields who like to spam grenades and camp like they were playing Call of Doody,only with particle rifles. Basically Kroot, but with more piracy and fewer genetic shenanigans. Notably only going along with the Covenant because of pragmatism instead of faith, and therefore better than the other races. Never entrusted with boarding missions because of the fear they might steal the ship and generate some lulz.
- Elites: De-tailed lizardmen IIIIIINNNN SPAAAAAACE! They have the same shields as a Spartan, and are a bit tougher than the lower-ranked enemies. Some are Arbiters, equipped with laser swords with which they Arbitrarily kill you. Eventually join the humans due to the plot. How the fuck they eat and drink without a bottom jaw is never explained.
- Hunters: Some odd combination of worm/alien/giant thingy. They stand nearly 13 feet tall, but are actually a hive collection of worm-like aliens fusing together to form 1 giant thing, and usually come in pairs. A single hunter is armored from head to toe in overlapping tank-class plate armor, vulnerable only to fire from heavy weapons and badly-balanced OP handguns. They are armed with powerful Fuel Rod Guns that can take out anything up to light armored vehicles in fluff and can deal anything up to minor damage to NPC Marines in the game. Basically terminators that don't get shit done, with slightly interesting fluff and a vaguely samurai-esque warrior poet feel to their culture on the extremely rare occasions it gets a mention. Their species can also made into a gigantic quadruped walking tank known as Scarab, and as seen from Halo Legends become as big as Titans...why the Covenant never employ the bigger ones is beyond anybodies guess.
- Drinols/Sharquoi: Giant EXBOXHUGE walking Dinosaur Tanks, is armed with two equally EXBOXHUGE Spike Fists that goes HULK SMASH!. For some reason Bungie and 343 decided not to add them in the game, despite the fact they already made a model for one which looked completely awesome, and were referenced in some of the books. Only famous to be one of the elusive creatures noted to be kept "Hidden" by the Covenant.
- Drones: Bee people with guns! And that's...pretty much it. They're apparently good engineers and don't feel fear, but they die like grunts and their queens shit out eggs by the thousands. They're annoying fuckers who are a pain to hit, swarm around in the dozens, and zap you to death with elite guns. ...Vespids?
- Engineers: Flying ball sacks made out of nanomachines (son!), who are nonviolent technophiles who go around randomly fixing anybody's shit and churning out kit. Made by the forerunners who were lazy fucks, sometimes used as unwilling suicide bombers.
- Brutes: Slightly intelligent Yeti/Cave Troll/Gorilla-like creatures... IIIIIINNN SPAAAAACE! Reputedly, they are the only race in the Covenant that had developed super advanced technology through constant warfare - namely, nukes - then became a space-faring race, then nuked their own civilization back to the stone age, only to claw their way back up to space-faring again...and learned nothing from the experience. They later replace the Elites as the go-to force of the Covenant, and bodyguards of the Prophets, forcing the Elites into exile. This makes sense somehow. They bolt blades onto all of their weapons to make it easier to get choppy, have pistols that fire eight-inch steel spikes and hammers that manipulate gravity for no reason other than dickishness, somehow hadn't developed shotguns until they encountered humanity and stole the idea from them, and have a tendency to start ripping people in half once they get bored of shooting. TL;DR they are the copypasta of the Mangalores from The Fifth Element.
- The Prophets: They form the leadership cadre of the Covenant, claiming that they alone know the true purpose the Forerunners had for them, leading the Covenant in a spiritual-militaristic philosophy called "The Great Journey." It was the Prophets whom discovered that Humanity was the genetic descendants of the Forerunners, and declared humans as a threat to The Great Journey.
The Covenant actually think that tinkering with the advanced technology they dug up from the olden days is HERESY, meaning most of their stuff kinda sucks and they don't know much more about how it works than humans do.
Battles with the Covenant by the humans have often resulted in catastrophic losses on the human side. On the ground, UNSC Marines, armored divisions, and Spartans can hold their own against their foe, but it is a different story in space. Naval engagements almost always results in the obliteration of all human ships. The weapons of the Covenant ships are able to melt right through the meter-thick battle-plating of human warships. The only chance the human Navy has are nukes and massive slow-firing coilguns called MACs (Magnetic Accelerator Cannons) that fling 600-ton rounds, able to break Covenant ships in half.
The Flood
The other antagonists are "The Flood". A race of silly bouncing potatoes that exist only to infest other lifeforms and OMNOMNOMNOM them. They are more or less a viral form of the Star Trek Borg, and make you sprout gross stuff
and serve their hive mind if they touch you. They were the ancient enemy of the Forerunners and why the Forerunners built the Halo devices. Battles with The Flood destroyed the Forerunner civilization, as The Flood could infest their own people and technology to use against them.
Previous to the Flood - Forerunner war, an advanced AI named Mendicant Bias was interrogating a creatively named being, The Captive. This captive later turned out to be a Gravemind and convinced Mendicant Bias to join The Flood. Originally designed to operate Forerunner defenses, and in emergencies their fleet, Mendicant Bias assaulted the Forerunner homeworld using said fleet. In response to this the Forerunners created a second AI, Offensive Bias, to lead the remnants of their fleets against The Flood, seeing as an AI fleet-master worked so well the first time.
Finally, with all their massive fleets defeated and all their soldiers massacred, the Forerunners committed mass suicide on a galactic scale to prevent more of their people and other fledgling civilizations from falling prey to The Flood, depriving The Flood of its essential hosts and food sources. The Flood finally died off due to starvation and were defeated...sorta. Small pockets of them where kept in stasis by the Forerunners in installations across the galaxy, which is fucking stupid because they are just going to goddamn escape.
This shows the Forerunners were completely incompetent and if The Flood hadn't come along they'd probably have been eaten by a swarm of space rats or fallen down some space stairs eventually anyway.
Prometheans
In Halo 4, some machine living being called Promethean's was introduced as the new enemy for the new game. They have awesome weapons and blade that are capable of turning living beings into digital dusts. They are also capable of warping by blend themselves within time and space, making them similar to Warp spiders in many ways(even appearances). These creatures were once ancient humans, but were transformed by the dick known as the Didact in order to combat the flood. However, the councils found out and kick banned him into orbit. The rest of the surviving Prometheans then serves the Didact in halo 4 to turn those poor bastard living in Pheonix into digital dust with their awesome death star. Sadly, Master Chief single-handed killed off every Promethean by shooting them with any xeno weaponry he can find on the ground, and defeated the Didact in a very lame boss sequence with Cortana's help (wtf? Cortana can split herself into three and grab a living being?) and push the Didact down to the energy pit.
The Halos
The actual Halos are artificial "ringworlds" stolen from a book by Larry Niven, which are covered in illogical geography, annoying copy-paste buildings because the level designers were feeling lazy, and together form a superweapon that kills all complex life in the galaxy. This was created by the Forerunners to defeat The Flood, the ancient super-race apparently not really understanding that if you destroy all sentient life to defeat a race that will destroy all sentient life it still counts as losing.
Battletech and Halo
Taking full advantage of the resurgence of mech combat in video games and the currently crippled state of Battletech's videogame franchise, Halo 4 now includes a Shadowcat lookalike. Fear the coming "Halo did that mech first" cries from thirteen-year-olds everywhere.
Warhammer 40k and Halo comparison
Spartan stats
The majority of arguments in favor of the Spartans neglect to let the opposition use an Independent Character; they consistently use Master Chief as the base of comparison to your average Space Marine. Which is at least a 125-150pt character against a 16pt Marine. The below is an attempt by a writefag to make a set of stats for a basic Spartan soldier. As you can see, the dipshit horribly fumbled by giving them a statline statistically identical to a marines, and better weapons at a relatively low cost.
WS 3 / BS 4 / S 4 / T 3 / W 1 / I 4 / A 1 / Ld 8 / Sv 4+/6++
Composition
3 Spartan-IIs
1 Spartan-II Squad Leader
Unit Type
Infantry
Wargear
- MJOLNIR Armor
- MA5C Assault Rifle
- Combat Knife
- Frag Grenades (Offensive)
Special Rules
- At All Costs - As per their tactical doctrines, Spartans are combat veterans of independent action and deep infiltration missions. Spartans gain the Stubborn rule from the Warhammer 40k Core Rulebook.
- Shoot First, Ask Later - Spartans specialize in ranged tactics, and prefer not to engage powerful enemies head-on. Spartans will more often than not disengage from melee combat to use their ranged weapons instead. Spartans gain the Hit & Run rule from the Warhammer 40k Core Rulebook.
- Interface Targeting - Spartan wireless interface targeting systems merge flawlessly with UNSC weapons, giving a degree of precision and accuracy that is almost superhuman. The Spartan gain +1 to his Ballistic Skill (BS) when wielding weapons from the Spartan Armory, already incorporated above in their stat line.
Options:
- May Include up to 4 additional Spartan-IIs for 14 points per Model
- Any model in the squad may take an Onboard AI for 3 points per Model
- For every 4 models in a squad, one model may replace their MA5C Rifle with one of the following:
- M90 CAWS (Shotgun)...............................6 points per Model
- SRS99D-S2 AM (Sniper Rifle)..................10 points per Model
- M41 SSR MAV/AW (Missile Launcher)........15 points per Model
SPARTAN ARMORY
- MJOLNIR Armor - Created parallel to the Spartan-II Program, the MJOLNIR Armor is a sealed system, capable of extravehicular activity or operations in toxic atmosphere. Weighing over half a metric ton, the armor's shell is constructed in overlapping layers of Titanium-A plating and highly durable ballistic alloys of remarkable strength. It has even been augmented with a refractive coating capable of dispersing a limited amount of energy weapon strikes. The Spartan gains a 4+ Armor Save.
- MJOLNIR armor is equipped with a full-body recharging energy shield that was reverse-engineered from captured alien technology. The shield itself is utterly transparent and does not hinder sight in any way but briefly flashes a greenish-gold color when hit. The Spartan-II gains a 6+ Invulnerable Save.
- Onboard AI - All MJOLNIR Mk V models or better feature a complex crystalline matrix within their neural interface, which Cortana likened in structure to the computer systems of the Pillar of Autumn. An AI construct increases tactical awareness, provides an indispensable guide, serving almost as a co-pilot and navigator, and multiplies the Spartan's already phenomenal reflexes. A Spartan equipped with an Onboard AI increases their Initiative value by 1.
- MA5C Assault Rifle - The MA5C has an attached electronics suite that provides information on rounds remaining in the magazine, compass heading, and capable of wireless up-link with MJOLNIR systems for improved accuracy. Made of Titanium Alloy and Polymers, the rifle performs well in a variety of environments. Having a rate of fire of 650 rounds a minute, and chambering the old-school M118 7.62x51mm NATO Armor Piercing, Full Metal Jacket Rounds, the MA5C is fully capable of a withering barrage whilst even in motion or on a charge. Though lacking strength and stopping power, these rounds are designed to pierce most conventional ballistic body armor.
- It has the following stats: Range 24" / Strength 3 / AP - / Type Rapid Fire
- M90 Shotgun - is a pump-action, magazine-fed, dual tubular non-detachable type weapon. It uses the Soellkraft 8-Gauge Magnum Shotgun Shell, a large round capable of phenomenal stopping power.
- It has the following stats: Range 12" / Strength 4 / AP - / Type Assault 2
- Sniper Rifle S99D-S2 AM - aka the "SR System 99D-S2 Anti-Matériel", it is a semi-automatic UNSC sniper rifle that fires 14.5 x 114mm APFSDS (Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot, with a tungsten or depleted uranium core) from a 4-round magazine. As a sniper rifle, it is fitted with a variable-magnification optic that shows real time images in infrared vision when not looking through it. When looking through it, the scope shows a target's distance and elevation. The rifle is so powerful it even can be used effectively to fire at light armored vehicles.
- It has the following stats: Range 36" / Strength X/ AP 6 (When firing at vehicles, the rifle adds D3 to its Armor penetration value) / Type Heavy 1, Sniper
- M41 Rocket Launcher - aka the "M41 SSR" fires 102mm HEAP (High Explosive Armor Piercing) shaped charge rockets. The launcher sports a 2x scope and can fire rockets over long distances with devastating accuracy, and its two launch tubes allow the wielder to fire two rockets before needing to reload. The rocket launcher spreads a huge amount of damage over a large area. It is capable of taking out entire groups of infantry at any range and is effective against most vehicles.
- It has the following stats: Range 42" / Strength 7 / AP 3 / Type Heavy 1
- M6D Handgun - This is a laser. You point it at people and they die.
- It has the following stats: Range 36" / Strength 4 / AP 4 / Type Heavy 2
Codex: The Covenant
As we know, the Covenant is pretty incompetent, but their tech and machines are pretty nice in a WH40K setting (Ignoring the statements above, look at the vehicles from Halo Wars), just like the Ancients from Stargate, the Covenant has pretty nifty tech but just can't seem to use it well. So this Codex is what would happen if the Covenant was actually lead competently.
Furthermore, for anybody asking about what a Covenant Lich looks like, imagine the bastard offspring of a Tau Manta and a Flying Scarab, does it look Derpy? Yes it does, but by God is that thing Derpy in a Glorious Way. (Also the Harvester look like it has been given birthed by a Tyranid Hive-ship that immediately packed off from being too hideous, but hey at least it has a XBOXHUGE LAZER!)
