About a week ago, I decided to play Halo:CE for old times sakes with my friend. (I was John, he was Fred)
We put it on Normal to make it a bit more canonish. So we start up the Pillar of Autumn. Blah blah blah, we get to the Cafeteria, to find something that we'd never seen before. There were TWO white sergeants, instead of two Johnsons, or Johnson and Stacker.
So, we push past that, with one Sarge dying. We get to the part with Johnson at the big staircase. The AI did something amazing: It thought through its actions. Johnson had a Marine throw a grenade to scatter the Covenant, then he and 3 Marines went up and took them on while they were still dazed. He left one marine downstairs to fight some Grunts that came from behind, which he killed. Johnson miraculously survived his actions, ending with he and his squad taking on a Major Elite and winning.
Then, on the next level, he came with me on the Warthog and survived the whole mission. Including the rock part, when we hid the Hog in a corner and put him in gunner.
I didn't see him again until the Truth and Reconciliation, where he and a group of Marines went on board with me. We fought, and the group survived the massive onslaught, and we made it to the Control Room. After the battle, we searched for Johnson, but couldn't find him. As I stood there sobbing, Fred dragged me to the brig and we freed Keyes. Then, we went to the Control room to find the boarding party dead. We moved on, and in the corridor, fighting two elites, was Johnson! He had stayed behind by some AI glitch and had thus avoided an untimely demise! We quickly left the ship, and we all lived happily until the Flood.
There, once you escape, I found him with Second squad. We survived the Flood onslaught, and he was running towards the swamp exit (Even saw him in ending cutscene)
It was amazing. Every time the game had intended for him to die, he found some way around it! Has anything similar happened to you guys?