Ladies and gentleman, this is EU bitching at its worst. Hyperbole and whiny mixed into a cocktail of 'meh'.
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Halo 4 Story Spoilers and Speculations
- Thread starter Slightly Live
- Start date
Ladies and gentleman, this is EU bitching at its worst. Hyperbole and whiny mixed into a cocktail of 'meh'.
Zeouterlimits
Member
"She used the light-bridge."
It's stupid, but it's all we came up with.
How dare he criticise 343, what a geek, right? Only a loser would care about such things.
Having an opinion is fine. Writing 'but by the time the hand bro said "Librarian", I started throwing up blood, passed out and woke up covered in a mess of my own vomit, internal organs and poop'
Won't give anybody sympathy points from me. Learn to express that opinion in a manner that isn't in the form of middle school trying too hard edgy and MAYBE we can be civil. Otherwise my point stands.
NobleGundam
Banned
Playing it on Heroic & Legendary is very satisfying.
When looking back at Halo 1, 2, 3, & Reach; Most weapons I had to rely on was primarily the PP (and UNSC weapons) to eliminate Elites and sometimes Brutes, but since 343 wanted their players to focus with the newer additions of weaponry which, imo, they did good by introducing the Prometheans and not so much on the Covenant. There were several times I could've chosed to pickup the PP and Noob combo but honestly I did it once to a Knight and 10x to Covy enemies. Prom enemies drop weapons that players will see them useful and keep them for most (if not every) encounter within Campaign or SpOps. What made the last mission challenging is being faced against multiple Knights blocking your path to prevent MC & Cortana from fucking shit up within the Didacts ship. The best and most powerful weapon against killing multiple Knights is the Incineration Cannon, it helps every time when clearing a path.
Just a stupid bit.
Darth Tigris
Member
Well then get over yourself, because that's what happens in the real world all of the time. If your name is James and you move to Peru, your name is still James, not Santiago. And vice versa. Seriously, though it is your opinion, that is quite a ridiculous nitpick.
The Lamonster
Member
wow. You know it's crap storytelling when even HaloStoryGaf doesn't even get it.
I would call this the worst finale of any Halo game but it doesn't beat the abrupt disappointment of Halo 2.
I wouldn't say its crap storytelling if they don't specifically explain every detail away.
Something happened that saved MC from being vaporized, it could have been the light bridge, it could have been Cortana teleporting him away in the split second before the explosion, it could have been a combination of both.
Do they really need to specifically tell you?
NobleGundam
Banned
Look back before you faced the Didact. The generator was surrounded by a bubble shield.
Cortana uses similar concepts of foreign/alien weaponry and technology to benefit Master Chief, Herself, and the Unsc.
She took that same concept but instead used Hardlight to their advantage.
I'd prefer to actually see it happen instead of a white screen and magically appearing within a blue bubble after detonating a Nuke with my bear hands!
Really would have been better to see the hardlight shield at least grow on his hand right before he punched it.
The Lamonster
Member
Yes. It's a major moment in the game and a cop-out resolution to Chief not getting blown to smithereens. I agree with you to a certain extent but the vast majority of people playing this game are not HaloGaf dudes that spend any time researching Halo lore and reading expanded universe stuff.
For example, I played Midnight with a buddy last night - we got through the level and after the QTE final boss and subsequent inexplicable love scene with Chief and Cortana he was basically left saying, "wtf, that was lame as hell. Let's get back to multiplayer."
The Lamonster
Member
I have another related question about the ending - during the final cutscene where Chief is getting undressed, is that on Infinity or Earth?
If Infinity, how/why did they send him back?
If Earth, what is Sarah Palmer doing there, when she is on Infinity during the Spartan Ops story?
If Infinity, how/why did they send him back?
If Earth, what is Sarah Palmer doing there, when she is on Infinity during the Spartan Ops story?
I agree with this. I would say my most used weapon in the game was the Light Rifle and the Boltshot. It wasn't until very late in the game that I realized how effective the Scattershot is in dispatching Knights. I would say I used a greater variety of weapons in this game compared to every other Halo game I played. I would have liked to use the UNSC weapons a little bit more but I enjoyed being able to mix it up. The last run agains the Knights was a nice little cat and mouse affair for me. Hardlight Shield saved me many times.
BTW who is this Flipyap guy and why is he so excessively bitter about everything?
Not specifically explaining what is taking place in the scene doesn't seem to really tie into 'only Halogaf dudes that spend any time researching Halo lore...'
The event is simply not explained, and knowing the backstory isn't going to make it any more explainable.
Cortana did a thing so MC didn't die. That specific moment isn't really rendered any less impenetrable by knowing everything else in the lore. I'm not saying it couldn't have been handled better (like showing him being teleported away right as the screen lit up bright red or something, who knows).
Edit: after reading the post after my own, I'd like to add that my wife thought H4's story was the best so far. We watched all of the terminals in sequence through the campaign.
pedrothelion
Member
I have several friends who think this is the best Halo campaign story. None of them have knowledge of Halo lore. They didn't know who the Didact and yet the enjoyed the story. Personally I think the reason they felt this way is because the story doesn't attempt to placate the lowest common denominator. It doesn't spoon feed you every bit exposition. Everything you need to know about the story is there, you just have to pay attention to the details. Cortana states how she saves chief, you just have to pay attention.
For me this is the first Halo story where I felt invested with the characters. Cortanna's scene is great. It's a nice payoff to the tension has that built up between she and Chief over the course of 4 games. It was heartfelt and not the least bit contrived. It fits in with what we know of both characters.
Halo 3 Cortana in concept art was, but Halo 4 Cortana is repulsive to me.
Watch some Dylan Ryder porn. You'll think Cortana is pretty smokin' afterwards.
Darkmakaimura
Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
Really? Odd, because she looks so much more human in Halo 4. Prettier face, body, etc. She's got a little bit of fat on her which I like (can't stand stringy). I realize she's an AI but looks way too much like a computer program in past iterations.
NobleGundam
Banned
So, after watching Episode 4 of SpOps; Jul and Storm Company is attempting to force the Ancilla Librarian to appear and give access/knowledge to everything that they seek for power (Weaponry, Armor, Ships, etc.).
Episode 4 Intro.
Episode 4 Intro.
1. This has nothing to do with "EU" anything. It's terrible "writing". Even Star Trek had more believable alien-speak.
2. I love that you had to point out that this clearly ridiculous and maybe-not-exactly-totally-serious statement was hyperbolic. Is it the part about internal organs that gave it away?
...what? You don't seem to understand the difference between given names and generic noun titles. TRANSLATED titles... unless you're suggesting that Forerunners actually spoke English, in which case, I'll be in my corner, throwing up a lung.
The Lamonster
Member
I also noticed Lasky is still on Infinity during Spartan Ops but inexplicably he is also near Earth when Chief is there at the end. Is this just lazy storytelling or am I missing something?
Ghost_Protocol
Member
General Halo 4 question: Do we know who/what a reclaimer is? Or what the "reclamation" is? Is the latter basically the path by which humanity will continue to move towards universal domination?
Spartan Ops takes place 6 months later.
He's on the Infinity the whole time, which is also present at Earth when the Didact's ship arrives.
Reclaimers are the species deemed worthy of picking up the keys to everything the Forerunners have left behind, that act is known as reclamation. Humans were chosen for that role because the Librarian had a lady boner for us. And also because she could orchestrate our entire history (2.0), I guess. Uh.
TacticalFox88
Banned
This is unattractive to you?
Yes, I'm aware this isn't Halo 4 Cortana, but it's close enough.
The Lamonster
Member
Ah, okay thanks. I didn't realize Infinity could get around so quickly.
Apparently the Forerunner based engines make pretty pinpoint slipspace jumps easy... or something like that.
I know they've talked about some time dilation effect while in slipspace, but nothing really concrete (maybe somewhere in the books?). Basically it seems like they can get around really fast now.
NullPointer
Member
I think that's just a byproduct of any travel at relativistic speeds.
Slightly Live
Dirty tag dodger
When Cortana is is inside the Forerunner computer mainframe, she split herself into several personality fragments. These fragments then converge on Didact on the hardlight bridge to pin him down to give the Chief enough time to disable the Didact and then set off the nuke.
The nuke doesn't go off instantly. There's a few seconds from the denotation to the actual explosion. Cortana finds an open link to the Domain, the Forerunner equivalent of the internet, except it has all their collective knowledge, history, culture and technology stored on it. By transferring herself to the Domain, she gains full access to the vault of Forerunner knowledge, including the ability to cure her rampancy. Which she does. She then uses the systems on-board Didact's ship to teleport the Chief to safety.
She realises that with the ship blowing up, she'll be trapped within the Domain, the only link to it was the ship and with the ship exploding, she'll be lost there. So she says goodbye to Chief, using the suit neural systems to talk with the Chief one last time. That's why she can touch and feel the Chief - she's projecting an image of herself directly into the Chief's mind.
She says goodbye because she doesn't think she can be restored from the Domain - when Forerunner die, their personalities and memories and knowledge were uploaded into the domain to preserve their life experiences so that future generations could learn from it. Cortana sees this process happening to her so she concludes that this is her death and it's final.
Chief then gets picked up, cue final cut scenes.
There's a massive backdoor here allowing Cortana to return from the Domain as she was never really alive in the physical sense to begin with, she's essentially a fancy AI or ancilla and as we have seen, they can be restored and transferred easily.
What is interesting is that when, not if, we meet Cortana again, we'll finally see a human AI having reached meta-stability. Unless something goes awry for her yet again, but I think they should really rest the Cortana is in trouble plot for any future Halo title. Two games is enough.
What's interesting about that? Meta-stability (which I don't think is even a concept in the Halo universe) would be completely meaningless in this case, it would be nothing but an easy way out, complete backtracking on the loosely defined rules and workings of a Halo AI.
Slightly Live
Dirty tag dodger
It's an already established "way out". We already know that the Forerunners have used fully functional AI with none of the operational time restraints that Humanity currently has in-universe.
I think it would be entirely interesting to see because AI's are a very limited commodity in the UNSC. Doesn't help that they need constant replacing, something that could be fixed by using or adapting Forerunner tech - something Humanity has already starting doing with the Infinity anyway.
Forerunner AI changing their mind about their betrayal doesn't really relate to the concept of meta-stability, especially since Forerunner "rampancy" doesn't even seem to put them in "mortal" danger.
Was scarcity of AIs ever an issue in any Halo story? That really doesn't sound like anything that would affect the audience in any way, besides having to endure a particularly technobabbly paragraph.
ToyMachine228
Member
On the flip side, the Didact's after the credits speech makes me wonder if he believes that the Forerunners (Or he in representing them) are the ones now working to "reclaim" the mantle.
Darkmakaimura
Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
It was always kind of silly, but that goes with territory of most sci-fi epics. I mean there's Librarian, Composer, Bornstellar, Ancilla (because one meaning of that is 'servant or slave girl' and there's Cortana and little blue AI Forerunner girls.... get it!), etc. Star Wars is very guilty of this (Darth Maul, Darth Sidious....) It seems a bit trivial nitpicking at this stuff now.
Maybe she should have been called "The Composer" (drum roll).
The actual parallels being drawn in Halo 4 are between the Didact and the Chief. This is not spelled out, but it's clear to me from the terminal videos that what made the Didact go off the rails was the lack of contact with his more humane side (the Librarian) for too long. He simply stopped caring about anything but the mission at hand. Note how his tone changed from "we are afraid" when speaking to the Lord of Admirals and is later "meh, just need more resources to continue the war." The Didact became just a machine of war against the Flood and everything, even his love, was sacrificed to continue the lost war. The Forerunners were ground to nought but ash and all he could think of was how to destroy one more Flood ship, burn one more Flood spore. The Chief hasn't gone that far yet, but he might. And if the Librarian miscalculated, the Chief could have all the aggression of the old humans and all the hubris of the old Forerunners.
I suspect that this parallel will be more clear in Halo 5 with Chief probably going a bit off the rails without fellow Mk II Spartans who understand his travails and no Cortana. Halsey sure as hell isn't a very good mother figure. We already see Chief just robotically accept everything he faces since Halo 1. "Oh a giant ringworld with ancient tech. Meh, just point me where to go and what glyphs to slap." I was actually very pleasantly surprised that this element of his rather one-dimensional portrayal was given context and made him more than a cardboard space marine caricature. I really hope they stick to their guns and see the "high functioning sociopath" thread through.
I suspect that this parallel will be more clear in Halo 5 with Chief probably going a bit off the rails without fellow Mk II Spartans who understand his travails and no Cortana. Halsey sure as hell isn't a very good mother figure. We already see Chief just robotically accept everything he faces since Halo 1. "Oh a giant ringworld with ancient tech. Meh, just point me where to go and what glyphs to slap." I was actually very pleasantly surprised that this element of his rather one-dimensional portrayal was given context and made him more than a cardboard space marine caricature. I really hope they stick to their guns and see the "high functioning sociopath" thread through.
No, I do like Halo's descriptive naming schemes, I strongly prefer them over sci-fi's usual made up clumps of consonants and apostrophes.
What bothers me here is aliens using English translations; according to Halo 4, the Elites don't have their own word for the gods they've been worshiping for thousands of years before coming in contact with our sorry asses. That's not nitpicking, that's pointing out a huge logical clusterfuck. I'd call it an oversight, but I get the feeling this was done on purpose, possibly to give the viewers an impression that the Elites are actually forming sentences, instead of simply going "wort wort wort", but it just doesn't work.
Darkmakaimura
Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
I don't get it because we've seen nothing but English translations used throughout the series by the various alien factions. What makes this so different? Anyways, much like ancient Forerunners speaking perfect English, it's just to make it easier for the viewers to understand. Otherwise, you'd have to add something to replace 'Librarian' for the Sangheili and then explain what that what they're referring to is what we call Librarian. It's unnecessary confusion.
Edit: I imagine the Covenant do have their own words for their "gods" but we, as viewers, are seeing the English translation.
Er. I'm talking about the spoken alien language gibberish, not about the subtitles.
Darkmakaimura
Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
Well, I stand corrected watching the video again. However, he is directly talking to Glassman (his exact quote, "I know what the Librarian will say, Glassman") so it is conceivable that despite the alien language, he did know and understand the human word 'Librarian' and what it references and used it when speaking to Glassman. I've also noticed he emphasizes the word, using 'Librarian' first in the sentence despite the subtitles we see.
Either way, it's a tiny thing to nitpick at in the whole scheme of things.
I like what you are selling me, tell me more.
This is good stuff. I wish this was explained a bit more thoroughly in the game.
Also, prediction for Halo future: Cortana, who always wanted to be human, will use the Composer to switch bodies with Chief, who was always more of a machine, and is more suitable as an AI within the Domain. Freaky Friday stuff, folks. Fo reals.
This is a joke, people.
-- The Didact and the Chief are the ultimate warriors of their race. Both know nothing but war and loss, but had a stabilizing element to keep them grounded with he rest of their people (Librarian/Spartan teammates/Cortana). With the loss of all that what does the Chief have? If you think about it the guy has barely slept since Halo 1, it's almost been a nonstop killing spree. The guy doesn't even flinch at detonating a nuke in his bare hands. He doesn't question the need to or seek any alternatives. He doesn't even comment on the fact that he tried to suicide nuke himself for the sake of the mission. Indeed, noone else comments on that fact either, they just accept that of course the Chief would do such a thing.
-- It's pretty nuts if you look at his actions, the compressed killing time he's been through since Halo 1, and look at the stuff he did in the books immediately prior to Halo 1 and during interludes in the game chapters.
Der Flatulator
Member
Branching off the above:
If the Librarian's death caused the Didact to fire the Halo Array, something he was initially strongly against; will the death of Cortana have crazy affects on John?
"Was the reason the Master Chief succeeded that he was, at his very core, broken?" -- Unnamed man
"You want to replace him." -- Halsey
Could this (prologue) scene be occurring AFTER the events of Halo 4? I know they say he's MIA/KIA, but they do mention his success, and the possibility of replacing him, so I'm growing curious. That scene has to mean something.
Halo 5 : Space Jesus goesRampant Insane Mad
If the Librarian's death caused the Didact to fire the Halo Array, something he was initially strongly against; will the death of Cortana have crazy affects on John?
"Was the reason the Master Chief succeeded that he was, at his very core, broken?" -- Unnamed man
"You want to replace him." -- Halsey
Could this (prologue) scene be occurring AFTER the events of Halo 4? I know they say he's MIA/KIA, but they do mention his success, and the possibility of replacing him, so I'm growing curious. That scene has to mean something.
Halo 5 : Space Jesus goes
Cuban Legend
Member
I'm going to support this theory, so when it turns out to be true I can feel good about myself.
Oh wait, 343's storytelling is fuck-all compared to what we'd expected from the hype this game received, nevermind.