Editing Setting:Halo (section)

==Setting==
[[File:Reclaimer Symbol.png|400px|right|thumb|The Forerunner symbol for Reclaimer. This symbol is a special Easter egg to an even older [[Marathon|Bungie game.]] Yes it looks like the [[Tau]] symbol but [[Original character, do not steal|predates it by almost a decade.]] Games Workshop proving once again that they are a bunch of sleazy and ballsy motherfuckers.]]
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 Translight Engine) 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 [[Setting:Halo/Covenant|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, thanks to the revelations of the [[skub|''Reclaimer Saga'']],  humans were once an [[Grimdark|ancient, super advanced, totalitarian, bigoted, expansionist, racist, supremacist, violent, militaristic, war-mongering, nightmare of an empire]], like a way less competent junior version of the [[Great Crusade]]. All were fine and dandy when the Flood came out of fucking nowhere (Long story short, they came about when the humans kept forcing their pets to [[Drug|sniff some powder from an ancient, mysterious ship,]] [[FAIL|''what could go wrong?'']]) which forced the humans to take a page out of [[Kryptman]]'s playbook and invade into Forerunner territory as they were trying to save the galaxy from the Flood. The Forerunners not taking into the whole "I destroy your planets and exterminate your civilians out of benign and superficial reasons" promptly kicked the humans in the galactic nuts, stripped of their technology and de-evolved them back into caveman. So in short, Mankind in Halo basically were what [[Eldar]] are in 40k (Without "blasted into a stoneage part). Later, [[rape|the Forerunners ended up getting nommed by the Flood in the most ridiculous OCP way possible]] and found out how they fucked up so bad when one of them found out that the ancient humans once had the solution against the Flood ([[Just As Planned|Later claimed to be just an elaborate hoax to fool the Forerunners by the Flood]], though the one making this claim was also the Flood's [[Big Bad Evil Guy]], who at the time was speaking to a wavering, demoralized Forerunner leader, so about as trustworthy as the [[Chaos Gods]] promising to give an [[A Game of Pretend|unbiased]] view of the [[Emperor]]) that they had to [[Exterminatus|super-irradiate the known galaxy]] just to kill most of the Flood. Oh, and they also named the humans their Reclaimers as their way of saying sorry for turning them into cavemen and telling them to finish their job, [[Troll|fucking Forerunners.]]

This made the Covenant, or more specifically the Prophets kinda jealous, because it was them who first discovered the Forerunner technology, adapted it to their own, and finally started worshiping 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 ''[[Abbadon|truck nuts]] '' upset them just a little. [[Exterminatus| So, back to glassing]]. It's not long before the UNSC military, and humanity itself, finds out that it is being pwned. <s>Clearly the only solution to this would be a ridiculously tiny unit of infantry with clever armor named in allcaps. This leads to the SPARTAN-II program,</s> (SPARTAN:s were created to fight against human insurrectionists but happened to be extremely effective against the Covenant as well, and active just in time for them to come around too) humanity's last hope <s>(thirty three men and women to defend eight hundred planets, lolwat?)</s>, thirty-three super soldiers, divided into teams 3 or 4, and sent as ''force multipliers'' to assist the UNSC's beleaguered marines and mechanized divisions. Though not as a defensive planetary force (the UNSC having lost a large chunk of those 800 worlds early in the war), but as an offensive special ops unit, [[Alpha Legion|infiltrating behind enemy lines, assassinating commanders, and disrupting the Covenant's supply chain; doing the suicide jobs that others could not, slowing down or in some cases halting Covenant military build-up before it can launch further devastating attacks on the humanity]]. At exceedingly great resource cost and high lost of life, the UNSC together with the Spartans gradually turn the tide of the war (more along the lines of slowly and painfully pushing the Covenant's genocidal murder-boner from balls deep within humanity's asshole to a mere 3/4ths.)

To end the war once and for all, humanity enacts a desperate plan: They would send a specially refitted ship (the ''Pillar of Autumn'') along with Spartan contingent deep behind enemy lines and attempt to capture one of the Prophets (the select group of religious leaders that form the highest caste of the Covenant). But as usual, [[FAIL|it all goes horribly wrong]] [[Derp|before it can even begin]]. The UNSC's fortress-world of '''Reach''', and unofficially the Spartans' homeworld, is discovered by the Covenant. Next to Earth, Reach is the most heavily defended world in Human space. It falls in a matter of days, as the Covenant brings nearly a third of its entire fleet to lay siege over the planet. As Reach's defenses wither away, the Covenant simply brings in more reinforcements. Few escape the doomed Battle of Reach, but one of the ships that manages make it out of the system in time is the ''Pillar of Autumn''. Aboard is a single battle-ready Spartan II (plus another comatose one, but she doesn't count), suspended in cryostasis. Yet, that is where the story truly begins, for the Autumn blindly jumps right into a heavily-guarded star system containing a Halo; a colossal ring-world, hundreds of kilometers in diameter, built millions of years ago by the Forerunners, worshiped by the Covenant as an ancient artifact of unimaginable power, and which would totally never ever turn out to be a super-weapon for super-killing the flood. The Pillar of Autumn's fate and that of the Halo, becomes the setting of the original ''HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED'' game.

And it only gets more nuts from there.

<gallery>
Image:Tumblr_oehlv6Ulpc1ruienfo2_1280.png|Never knew [http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Eternity_(Earth-616) Eternity from Marvel] payed a visit to Halo...
Image:Haloring.jpg|One of the most iconic sci-fi architecture in video game history. One part bonsai garden. One part galactic WMD.
Image:ONI.png|[[1984|We are ONI. We have the power to make you 'disappear'. We have the power to turn the public against you. We have the power to erase you from existence. We will be watching. Always.]]
Image:The_Rookie.jpg|BRODST
</gallery>