- Artful Fiver
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- Exalted Heroic Member
There's the in-game chronology, and then there's the publishing chronology. Here in the real world Bungie decided Elites were good guys when Arby became a playable character in Halo 2.
You haven't shot at an Elite since then.
Regardless of timelines from the games/books/whatever, you will NEVER shoot at Elites in ODST, because Bungie classified them as friendlies and this game is attached to the story arc of Halo, Halo 2 and Halo 3.
Notice how brutes were introduced in Halo 2 to take their place, then polished up in terms of behavior and attributes (like power armor) by the time we got to Halo 3. Brutes are the bad guys now, not because ODST takes place in March versus June on some in-game calendar but because Bungie wants it that way.
Now, before you fire up AOTCR again just to pwn some grunts, elites, and hunters for old time's sake, remember Halo: Reach is set at a time when Elites are bad guys. Bungie can always do whatever they want in order to make a better game or tell a better story*, but at this juncture all existing evidence points to you shooting Elites again in 2010.
*In my opinion the Arbiter as a playable character meant Halo 2 suffered a 50% reduction in fun. Remember Bungie, we wanna be the Chief kicking covie butt. Honestly people, how often do you replay the levels with the Flood in them, hmm? Thought so.