Setting:Halo
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Halo is a vidya game series exclusively released for the ECKSBAWKS, ECKSBAWKS 360 and to the 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 in the 21st century when the PS2 and Gamecube were neck and neck in console sales, primarily because it was the only reason anyone would even want to play an ECKSBAWKS HUEG console. It's storyline is pretty much a copy of your everyday generic sci-fi storyline you can think of with a multiplayer that isn't too original either. It's also famous for it's FUCKING cliffhangers during the end of the game. /Tg/ isn't big on Halo and topics pertaining to Halo will normally be saged, trolled or told to go to /v/ or some combination mentioned in the former. On /v/ however, Halo is.....still widely hated, then again /v/ hates video games in general.
Setting
The HALO universe takes place chronologically in the years of 2500s, the 26th Century. Mankind, led by the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) has developed its own crude version of FTL (the Shaw-Fujiwara Drive) and finally colonized other worlds. At its height, human civilization occupied nearly 800 planets, forming a ring of outer colonies and rings of inner colonies with Earth as its capital.
Sometime in the year 2525, an agricultural world in the outer colonies, creatively named Harvest, is attacked by an unknown force with technology far superior to that of humans. In the succeeding months, all attempts to make contact, or even defend against the alien forces had been met with swift destruction. It is not long before more colonies are wiped out, or in the HALO terminology Glassed (the alien forces obliterate all life on a planet with such an intense plasma bombardment that it leaves a large quantity of the planetary crust smooth as glass). Humanity at this time, strangely have close to zero (0) energy-based weapons and pretty much has not developed weapons beyond that of chemically-propelled slugthrowers (like gunpowder. Seriously, Bungie? 26th Century?) and Railguns (nice, but Meh...).
The unknown menace finally identifies itself as the COVENANT, a coalition of several alien races bent on destroying humanity (yea, HALO is basically a group of alien races beating up one race). At first, the whole We-Come-to-Destroy-humanity thing is a bit cliche and kinda random, leaving people with a galaxy-wide WHAT-THE-FUCK, MAN!?. Later on, it is discovered that the story is somewhat deeper than your regular wednesday afternoon Sci-fi show, apparently humanity is the genetic descendants of an ancient super-technologically advanced alien race called the Forerunners (Covenant-recovered Forerunner technology seems to react to humans, some of the sentient technology even call humans Reclaimers).
This made the COVENANT kinda jealous, coz it was they who first discovered the forerunner technology, adapted it to their own science, and finally started worshiping the Forerunners as an intergalactic race of Space Jesuses. Apparently, knowing that your Gods had a favorite (humanity), finding out that it isn't you, and finding out that it's some backward civilization that has barely evolved past primate, induces much Alien Rage. So, back to Glassing. It's not long before the UNSC military, and humanity itself, finds out that it is being PWN'd so absolutely that it shits-itself just thinking about it (seriously, the Covenant has technology that basically turns a plasma bolt into a fucking guided-missile... as in ball of plasma follows you around... and knows where you live).
Nearly 20 years of Human-ball-kicking Ownage later, in steps the SPARTAN II Program, humanity's last hope. And the rest, is gaming-history...
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 Halser who is a fucken HAWT MILF who is the founder and former director of the the project. She and her team practically visited all 800 planets in human space, trying to find children who matched the exact psychological and genetic profile that would accept her newly-developed super soldier treatments. In the end, over 300 children where selected for the program but only 150 were actually upducted due to budget constraints. Those that were abducted were replaced by flash clones so the families would never know they went missing. A necessity that Dr. Halsey felt uber guilty about to the end of her days.
The child-recruits were brought to a secret, but heavily fortified military world called Reach (later the homeworld of the Spartans). In the canon, there, they were trained, given numbers instead of names, beaten, retrained, mindfucked, trained some more, and all around turned them into efficient and disciplined killing machines. Finally, the said 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. They were surgically modified to give them superior eye sight, hearing, and grafted alloyed-wolverine-style skeletons in their bodies (but ceramic rather than adamantium). 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. The result, however, were The Spartan IIs. They could think faster, had reflexes nearly 5 times quicker than a regular human, able to run over 40 mph in their suits, and lift nearly three times their own body weight (essentially like the warhammer 40k Space Marines except without Religion thrown in and emphasis more on tacticool operatan' rather than than balls out strength and bulldozery).
Later, the super soldiers were finally given their signature green armor. The prototype powered-suit, called MJOLNIR. The MJOLNIR Mark-IV armor enhanced the Spartan's already considerable speed to blurring velocities, and multiplied their potent strength twice fold. The suit had an in-built motion sensor, magnetic panels for securing weapons, life-support, and canonically weighed a metric tonne as it was grafted with overlapping layers of hardened ballistic and heat resistant alloys.
Over the course of the fluff, the Spartans are sent into several termed 'Suicide' 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. It is at this point that jokes about the high mortality rate of the Spartans start to manifest amongst the gaming community. The sheer difference in technology and numbers of Covenant warriors kill more Spartans than the actual fighting. This has been a great source of Manly Tears, Lulz, and some WTF, WHY?? from folks who follow the fluff, since to spite all their efforts, the Spartans are slowly dying off and there were very few of them to begin with. It is now commonly viewed that this is not so much the Spartan's or Humanity's fault, but Author Eric Nylon's effort to reflect the brutality and desperation that humanity is in, that even super soldiers have trouble stemming the Covenant onslaught.
Ironically, whenever a Spartan dies, it is recorded in the UNSC Naval registry as MIA (Missing-In-Action); with morale so low due to humanity being on the brink of extinction, UNSC Intelligence thought it best that the people believe that their Superhuman saviors Never Die, they just go missing.
The Covenant
The Covenant are a coalition of quasi-religious alien civilizations that are far more technologically advanced that humans. 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: 3-ft tall Cannon fodder/comic relief. They die like bitches.
- Jackals: Cannon fodder with plasma shields. A little tougher, and armed with Plasma pistols that can sear even through MJOLNIR armor. But they still Die like bitches.
- Elites: Lizardmen IIIIIINNNN SPAAAAAACE! But without tails. Forms the slightly more intelligent branch of the Covenant. As their name states, they are the Covenant's elite soldiery, armored with ancient ritual energy swords and armor able to cloak. Like the Jackals, the Elites are also equipped with Energy shields.
- Hunters: Some odd combination of worm/alien/giant thingy. They stand nearly 10 feet tall, but are actually a hive collection of worm-like aliens fusing together to form 1 giant thing. A single hunter is armored from head to toe in overlapping tank-class plate armor, and carries fuckheug shields. Making them notoriously hard to kill, and are only vulnerable when you get up close to them and shoot in between their armor plating. They are armed with powerful fuel-rod guns that can take out anything up to light armored vehicles. Known for raping anything, short of Master Chief and a starship.
- Brutes: Slightly intelligent Yeti/Cave Troll/Gorilla-like creatures......IIIIIINNN SPAAAAACE! Reputedly, they are the only race in the Covenant that had developed super advance technology through constant warfare, then became a space-faring race, then blasted their own civilization back to the stone age with their own advanced weapons, only to claw their way back up to space-faring again...AND LEARNED NOTHING FROM THE EXPERIENCE. They later replace the Elites as the standing go-to force of the Covenant, and bodyguards of the Prophets, forcing the Elites into exile. WTF?
- The Prophets: They form the leadership cadre of the Covenant, claiming that they alone know the truth 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 thread to The Great Journey.
Also, our only edge is that the Covenant actually think that tinkering with the advanced technology they dug up from the olden days is HERESY... ensuring that we can improve on it. It is often noted amongst mutual fans of Warhammer 40k and HALO that the Covenant closely resemble the Tau from Warhammer 40k as their philosophies are somewhat similar except that the Tau are Commies and predominantly asians, while the Covenant are religious nuts with a little african and brazilian thrown into the asian mix.
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 technologically superior foe, but it is a different story in space. Naval engagements almost always results in the obliteration of all human ships. The energy weapons of the Covenant ships are able to melt right through the unshielded battle-plating of human warships. While human missile barrages detonate harmlessly off Covenant shields. The only chance the Navy has are Nuclear ordinances and massive slow-firing Railguns called MACs (Magnetic Accelerator Cannons) that fling 600-ton Ferric-Tungsten rounds, able to break covenant ships in half. Sadly we do not have enough of them, since each ship is only equipped with one or two of these.
The Flood
The other antagonists are "The Flood". A race of parasitic organisms that exist only to infest other lifeforms and OMNOMNOMNOM them. They're sorta like a combination of a zombie virus from your generic zombie horror flic and the Xenomorphs from the Aliens movie franchise where they look like something that Nurgle would have probably made with a little Tyranid on the side. They were the ancient enemy of the Forerunners and why the Forerunners built the HALO devices. Battles with the Flood destroyed Forerunner civilization, as the flood could infest their own people and technology to use against them.
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 was finally died off due to starvation and were defeated...sorta. Small pockets of them hid themselves in the HALO devises waiting the day the new civilizations would rise so that they might feed again. Naturally, all the Covenants exploring of Forerunner technology, they accidentally reawakened the Flood. And humanity breathed a sigh of relief to note that finally, awakening an ancient galactic enemy from hibernation was so totally NOT their fault this time.
Space Marines
No, we're not refering to the Jihading Space Nazis, these are your everyday cannon-fodder from the UNSC who meet fates similar of the mobile infantry in the first Starship troopers movie or your typical Imperial Guardsman. Actually, they're more like Guardsman considering their service rifle is an assault rifle that uses rounds that would have probably been outdated considering it's been used since like.....1960-1970 and you're fighting aliens who have mastered gauss and Plasma technology and their armor are only fatigues and metal plates that are still incapable of deflecting anything properly while your enemy gets plasma shields and penis fingers.
Warhammer 40k and HALO comparison
Why this topic is so popular is beyond comprehension and probably only Tzeentch knows why it came into being. Still it should be addressed with some measure of competence, unlike some people. Firstly, it is rather absurd compare both universe, since it is like mix Apples and Onions; You don't know why it happened, but it did and you will have to eat the end result through your ass since that's the same way it's gonna come out.
Secondly, the dates are all wrong. Warhammer 40k takes place in the year 40,000 AD while HALO takes place in 2500 AD, there is like a fucking 37,500-year difference... That kinda throws a logical wrench in most conflicting facts about both.