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Halo 4 Story Spoilers and Speculations

Fuchsdh

Member
Totally agree, last night I finally got past all of the pointless "journey across the Halo" stuff and actual interesting events began occurring. 20 chapters/approx. 200 pages of ponderous drudgery. I remember enjoying Cryptum more last year, but I can't remember a damn thing about it.

Are Glasslands and Thursday's War directly tie-ins to Halo 4?

At least a significant portion of their story directly tie in to what's going on, yes (in terms of introducing characters, factions, human tech, etc.)
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
Every time I see this thread, I'm so tempted to dive into it. I've maintained discipline thus far, though.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
I just got it physically. Easier to go back and cite page numbers that way. We'll see when it actually ships, though....
 
Greg Bear at one point mentioned that some of the characters in Primordium would have a direct tie to John-117. Would it be far fetched to perhaps make a guess that the spirit of Riser is inside John?

And just to be sure (Primordium/The Captive spoiler):

The Captive/Prisoner/Primordium/Timeless One from the book turned out to just be a Gravemind right? Not a actual living Precurser thingy? The book is incredibly hazy in my mind, primarily because it was far from interesting to read
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Greg Bear at one point mentioned that some of the characters in Primordium would have a direct tie to John-117. Would it be far fetched to perhaps make a guess that the spirit of Riser is inside John?

And just to be sure (Primordium/The Captive spoiler):

The Captive/Prisoner/Primordium/Timeless One from the book turned out to just be a Gravemind right? Not a actual living Precurser thingy? The book is incredibly hazy in my mind, primarily because it was far from interesting to read

It's a spoiler thread, I'm not sure you need to enclose it in tags, but now you've got me paranoid...

We don't really know. The Bornstellar Didact suggested it might just be a Gravemind in Precursor form, while the Primordial itself suggests it was the last Precursor. Its prison being of Precursor design suggests that it might have been imprisoned by its own kind.
 
Spoiler tags in a Spoiler thread?

Getting my copy of TTW tomorrow. Was there any word of Infinity having a ship A.I. yet?
 

broony

Member
What I got from the ending of the Thursday War
WHAT DO THE NUMBERS MEAN!?!?
lol

Lol

I got stuck on the idea that Jul's new gang is basically the tea party. Arbiter's crew is too left wing for him, Telcam is right wing but only superficially, Jul wanted some full blooded hate party. Space Sarah Palin. I take it this is obviously going to be the Storm.


Overall, really liked the book. I prefer the ongoing Bear trilogy but this scratched an itch pretty well waiting for Halo 4.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Cool. I was concerned from reading the 60-odd pages on the Amazon preview that it was going to suffer from the same issue as Primordium, in that it was a lot of table-setting as opposed to plot movement on its own.
 

Slightly Live

Dirty tag dodger
So, how about the first description of Didact in Halo 4?

Reaching the final stage of the level also introduced the game’s protagonist: a huge, grotesque Forerunner beast with sharp claws and a receding hairline of sorts, who is also the commander of the Prometheans and known only as the Didact. His introduction is fairly startling, as he has the verbose and hyperbolic crazy-man chatter that is synonymous with all good super villains and he’s a huge monstrous figure…

From here.
 
Lol

I got stuck on the idea that Jul's new gang is basically the tea party. Arbiter's crew is too left wing for him, Telcam is right wing but only superficially, Jul wanted some full blooded hate party. Space Sarah Palin. I take it this is obviously going to be the Storm.


Overall, really liked the book. I prefer the ongoing Bear trilogy but this scratched an itch pretty well waiting for Halo 4.

Well, now, someone doesn't understand the Tea Party worth a damn. It's more like Occupy Wall Street.

Thursday War: anyone want to hazard a guess as to what's going to happen on Venezia?
 

Unity2012

Member
pTRU1-8934427dt.jpg


There are so many novels out there about the Halo Universe. I was wondering if this Encyclopedia is any good for someone looking to have a general idea of the stories behind all novels.
 
Started Thursday War last night. Just coming off of reading the first book of Song of Ice and Fire, I'm greatly enjoying the fact that Thursday War will be a much quicker read.
 
Hmmm... not sure how I feel about this.

I imagined him as something sleek, forerunner-like. Instead he sounds like a decrepit disgusting flood like thing. :/

From what remember doesn't the didact needs some time to recover from a long sleep.
Something about recovering in some kind of fluid bath.
 

AzerPhire

Member
Finished Thursday War today, going to spoiler my thoughts for those that are still reading it.

-To be honest not much of note happens in the book
-ONI continues to play both sides of the Elites against each other but the book ends without a major resolution to that conflict
-The storyline around Naomi's father continues to go unresolved
-We get to see the first mission of the Infiniti
-The only Spartan II in the story is Naomi, no word on Fred, Kelly and Linda
-Spartan IV's are mentioned as being aboard the Infinity but only in one sentance
-Halsey is in the novel very briefly working aboard the Infinity, Travis continues to make her out to be a 'horrible' person but it is nowhere near as bad as the first novel
-The only major piece of information that comes out of the novel is that we find out the Didact has it out for humanity and that one of the elites (Jul) discovers the co-ordinates to Requiem where the Didact apparently is. Jul blames humanity for the death of his wife and seeks out the Didact as a means of revenge
 

UrbanGrafix

Neo Member
Finished Thursday War today, going to spoiler my thoughts for those that are still reading it.

-To be honest not much of note happens in the book
-ONI continues to play both sides of the Elites against each other but the book ends without a major resolution to that conflict
-The storyline around Naomi's father continues to go unresolved
-We get to see the first mission of the Infiniti
-The only Spartan II in the story is Naomi, no word on Fred, Kelly and Linda
-Spartan IV's are mentioned as being aboard the Infinity but only in one sentance
-Halsey is in the novel very briefly working aboard the Infinity, Travis continues to make her out to be a 'horrible' person but it is nowhere near as bad as the first novel
-The only major piece of information that comes out of the novel is that we find out the Didact has it out for humanity and that one of the elites (Jul) discovers the co-ordinates to Requiem where the Didact apparently is. Jul blames humanity for the death of his wife and seeks out the Didact as a means of revenge

Yup, thats all TBH.

Its a major let down of a book in my opinion, all filler and no substance. And its added VERY LITTLE to the universe as a whole
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Yup, thats all TBH.

Its a major let down of a book in my opinion, all filler and no substance. And its added VERY LITTLE to the universe as a whole

It's leading up to Halo 4. All the payoffs are going to be book 3.

Not saying that's a good idea from an episodic POV, but that we haven't gotten to the real meat yet (same with Bear's books.)
 

Flipyap

Member
All of the winky/noddy "teases" I've seen quoted are so unbelievably cheesy. Good lord.
They remind me of the nods to BR fetishists in Contact Harvest. In-jokey meta references are a good way to make a tie-in novel feel more like a wordy piece of merchandise, than anything resembling a respectable work of fiction.
 

Slightly Live

Dirty tag dodger
All of the winky/noddy "teases" I've seen quoted are so unbelievably cheesy. Good lord.
They remind me of the nods to BR fetishists in Contact Harvest. In-jokey meta references are a good way to make a tie-in novel feel more like a wordy piece of merchandise, than anything resembling a respectable work of fiction.

If only there really was an avenging god who could come and erase humanity from the galaxy.

There's like a dozen instances like the above, also essentially saying, "if only Didact was alive and became the big bad guy of the next Halo game!!".

I found it funny the first time. After the tenth I was pretty much rolling my eyes. Real subtle.
 

Veronica

Banned
Thursday War made me realize just how much I miss Eric Nylund. Greg Bear's books honestly bored me to tears and this author is just flat out bad.

Nylund's work is smart, amazingly well written, and gripping as hell.
 

Demon Ice

Banned
I think I'm gonna skip Thursday War and just read the summary from the Halo Wiki based off of what I'm reading in this thread. Don't really have the time to devote to a full length novel at the moment anyways.
 

wwm0nkey

Member
Thursday War made me realize just how much I miss Eric Nylund. Greg Bear's books honestly bored me to tears and this author is just flat out bad.

Nylund's work is smart, amazingly well written, and gripping as hell.

I really hope they can get him back, his books were great and if they really wanted to they could easily be converted into movies due to the way he writes and describes everything.
 

UrbanGrafix

Neo Member
It's leading up to Halo 4. All the payoffs are going to be book 3.

Not saying that's a good idea from an episodic POV, but that we haven't gotten to the real meat yet (same with Bear's books.)

O yea obviously, I mean sure Thursday War was about 50x better than Glasslands, as that was utter utter rubbish in all areas. But the story here, the build up to the story really has been very dull, at least with Bear we see new stuff that is exciting and well written.

I really just don't like authors deviating substantially from the past perspective of others i.e. the halsey subject and her presentation to the reader and thankfully it wasnt any where as bad this time but still.

Just a rant but yea I really hate multiple established authors setting out a character and then someone who doesn't know the lore comes in and then just goes meh i'm going to ignore everything written before me essentially.

Heres hoping that #3 gets better, at least we know Silentium will be awesome.
 

Monocle

Member
About to jump into The Thursday War so I can see how Karen Traviss has plotted the revelation of what we all knew secretly in our hearts: that Dr. Halsey is the time traveling twin sister of Stalin who had an affair with Vlad the Impaler and gave birth to Hitler on a pile of dead babies before popping into the future to invent the SPARTAN-II Program.

I'll tell you how it goes.
 

DopeyFish

Not bitter, just unsweetened
i don't like how thursday war is written

jumping perspectives just to have characters offer a thought without speaking is so distracting

and the story is trash

343 really has to nuke all books besides first strike / fall of reach

just take out minimal sci-fi elements and alien references and this book could have doubled for a cold war plot (aka fucking boring)
 
pTRU1-8934427dt.jpg


There are so many novels out there about the Halo Universe. I was wondering if this Encyclopedia is any good for someone looking to have a general idea of the stories behind all novels.

Man, as much as I want this I know it's going to be out-of-date every few years.
 
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