Bungie Universe
This topic has moved here: Subject: Unexplainable errors in the Halo canon. (Spoilers)
  • Subject: Unexplainable errors in the Halo canon. (Spoilers)
Subject: Unexplainable errors in the Halo canon. (Spoilers)

Casuals? I thought my attempt to cobble together as much of the book and game as possible was pretty good.

Decent attempt, but eventually, you always fail as there's no way in the world you can assume competence as you reconcile two messed-timelines, based on different outcomes and conditions.

[Edited on 10.18.2010 8:49 AM PDT]

  • 10.18.2010 8:46 AM PDT

Pretty true sadly. I can live with many of the errors, but the lack of any real "showdown" between the main UNSC fleet (and their orbital defense platforms) and the main Covenant fleet was very disappointing.

[Edited on 10.18.2010 8:49 AM PDT]

  • 10.18.2010 8:49 AM PDT

GROSSMAN: Do you think of the Culture as a utopia? Would you live in it, if you could?

BANKS: Good grief yes, to both! What's not to like? ...Well, unless you're actually a fascist or a power junkie or sincerely believe that money rather than happiness is what really matters in life. And even people with those bizarre beliefs are catered for in the Culture, albeit in extreme-immersion VR environments.

KOTOR

Posted by: privet caboose

Posted by: Orphius_Rex
Posted by: KillerDie666
@Blam From MN
We've come up with the idea that cryosleep is the reason for the error, biologically he was 5 or 6 when he began training but technically he was 11.


Yeah, Cryo can really screw with your age perceptions...

And where's Caboose and/or Joker? They haven't been here in a while... Nor for that matter has JDYeash MkII. Where are they all?


I've read every post, I just don't really have anything to input. I've brought the errors to light, and now the community can try and justify Bungie's mistakes for them, or realize that these errors CANNOT be explained, and wait for Bungie to address their fans for once, and not just the casuals that muck up the Reach forum.


Oh, sorry, and I'm running out of ways to explain the supercarrier...

  • 10.18.2010 9:08 AM PDT

Shape Up or Ship Out*

I was thinking about many of these "errors" playing through reach.

for the cutscene at the end it could be Linda instead of John but that would still not explain why the pillar of autumn would stay in dry dock after sending blue team to destroy the nav.

maybe if i read evolutions and the whole diary it ll clear some stuff up

  • 10.18.2010 5:18 PM PDT

It's not about the road to Recon It's the friends you meet along the way.

Maybe BUNGIE should put some dl that would fix some of the errors becuase i would have found it pretty cool if you could be SPARTAN 117 in Reach i mean HALO was origanoly all MC but now they go all changing it. Wouldn't it be cool if we could play him when DR halsey went to see him as a kid or when he's on the nav station in space. anyways thats just a thought oh last idea update the campaign so that most of the stuff is in the right order and in The Fall Of Reach wasn't it only SPARTAN II's??? I don't remember any spartan number going past 150 though only 75 of them were chosen and 30 left when Reach was downed.

  • 10.18.2010 6:01 PM PDT

Don't worry, you're still your mom's favorite Bnet member.

Or maybe the game is the one that's right and everything else is wrong? 0.o

/sarcasm

  • 10.18.2010 6:33 PM PDT

GROSSMAN: Do you think of the Culture as a utopia? Would you live in it, if you could?

BANKS: Good grief yes, to both! What's not to like? ...Well, unless you're actually a fascist or a power junkie or sincerely believe that money rather than happiness is what really matters in life. And even people with those bizarre beliefs are catered for in the Culture, albeit in extreme-immersion VR environments.

KOTOR

Posted by: MegaMuffin16
Or maybe the game is the one that's right and everything else is wrong? 0.o

/sarcasm

Icwutudidthar.

  • 10.19.2010 11:04 AM PDT
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  • Exalted Legendary Member

Edit: ugh, didn't mean to do that

[Edited on 10.19.2010 1:04 PM PDT]

  • 10.19.2010 1:02 PM PDT
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  • Exalted Legendary Member


Posted by: Diagon619
I was thinking about many of these "errors" playing through reach.

for the cutscene at the end it could be Linda instead of John but that would still not explain why the pillar of autumn would stay in dry dock after sending blue team to destroy the nav.

maybe if i read evolutions and the whole diary it ll clear some stuff up


Yeah, before worrying too much about what doesn't fit, you should definitely read the diary. It doesn't make everything fit, but people keep reposting about some things they say are wrong that are covered in the journal such as Cortana being on Reach. Like I said, it won't explain everything, but it'll keep you from posting anything TOO redundant.

It also nicely explains some lingering issues from before Reach's release, such as the number of Spartans being off.... mainly that one.

  • 10.19.2010 1:04 PM PDT

nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, but recent studies show space can do what ever the !blam! it wants

one of the funny things i find is that real history is filled with errors, rewrites, lies, and omissions. and its mostly done by the survivors and winners. and most people dont care. you change something established in a part in the series later on and you have a mob beating down your doors. the way i look at is all the halo series is a story telling with a bit of inconsistent "oni editing."

  • 10.19.2010 5:08 PM PDT

Signatures are for squares.


Posted by: therizino
one of the funny things i find is that real history is filled with errors, rewrites, lies, and omissions. and its mostly done by the survivors and winners. and most people dont care. you change something established in a part in the series later on and you have a mob beating down your doors. the way i look at is all the halo series is a story telling with a bit of inconsistent "oni editing."


If you want a good and coherent universe you don't retcon material that has been established for the last 10 years.

You also don't prance around as if there's no errors at all(Legendary commentary.) when even the fans who've only read Fall of Reach can see the errors with the game...

  • 10.19.2010 5:15 PM PDT
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Posted by: therizino
one of the funny things i find is that real history is filled with errors, rewrites, lies, and omissions. and its mostly done by the survivors and winners. and most people dont care. you change something established in a part in the series later on and you have a mob beating down your doors. the way i look at is all the halo series is a story telling with a bit of inconsistent "oni editing."
ONI "editing" is a cop-out. And a cheap one at that.

  • 10.19.2010 5:36 PM PDT


Posted by: therizino
one of the funny things i find is that real history is filled with errors, rewrites, lies, and omissions. and its mostly done by the survivors and winners. and most people dont care. you change something established in a part in the series later on and you have a mob beating down your doors. the way i look at is all the halo series is a story telling with a bit of inconsistent "oni editing."

Last I checked, a video game universe has absolutely NOTHING to do with "real history" and how "real" history is told.If there's an established game universe that was put in place for the last 10 years or so (I dont even know), you don't go around screwing things over at your last game, thereby confusing the living crap out of the fanbase. ONI "editing" my assss. Star Wars is like 3 times as expansive as the halo universe and been around longer, yet you don't see any major cannon mock ups like you see here (they even try connecting all known comic books, movies, games, etc. in some of their sources...though this does NOT include the "clone wars" CGI series...that whole series is full of cannon mistakes and purely idiotic). There's no real excuse for these errors.

  • 10.19.2010 6:33 PM PDT
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Posted by: lbh
Star Wars is like 3 times as expansive as the halo universe and been around longer, yet you don't see any major cannon mock ups like you see here (they even try connecting all known comic books, movies, games, etc. in some of their sources...though this does NOT include the "clone wars" CGI series...that whole series is full of cannon mistakes and purely idiotic). There's no real excuse for these errors.


Whoa whoa whoa. Don't try to compare the cannon breaks in this one game with the ones in Star Wars. If you can find a group picking apart the details of star wars cannon the way is done to Halo here, you'd see that Star Wars has contradictions EVERYWHERE. 90% of EVERYHING written about the time before the original trilogy that was written before the prequels came out, had to be completely thrown out or retconned in a major way, as Episodes 1-3 pretty much made so many of those stories not work. George Lucas allows the expanded universe to happen probably because ts nice and flattering people want to tell stories in his world, but mainly because he makes money out the wazoo on it. He has said repeatedly however, that none of the expanded universe stuff is official cannon, or at least not the same universe as his movies, even though he approves all of it. The only stuff outside the movies that Lucas has said is official cannon on or close to the level of the movies, is Shadows of the Empire, and The Force Unleashed, and honestly, if he ever decides to do the live action show that takes place between the trilogies that he's talked about doing, he'd probably end up writing The Force Unleashed out anyway.
ANYWAY, long story short, Star Wars is FULL of TONS of cannon errors and contradictions (or would be if anything but he movies counted as cannon(although there are some errors even in the movies themselves))far beyond ANYTHING in all of the Halo universe.

[Edited on 10.20.2010 7:29 AM PDT]

  • 10.19.2010 9:04 PM PDT

nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, but recent studies show space can do what ever the !blam! it wants

cop-out really. one of the many papers that come with the halo reach game states that the is the most accurate recreation of the events that led up to the fall of reach. Meaning even the historic information is not 100% accurate in its universe. and in an interview with the head of 343 industries that odd number of Spartans that seem to have survived augmentation may not truly inconsistency from the the many writers, thus showing "fictional information tapering" its possible halsey has be given bad information who survived and who did not in an effort to misled the audience which is not uncommon. very few fictional universe do not suffer cannon problems, and the longer the franchise persists the more they can add up. Even when the entire story is being told by the same person. cannon issues can be intentional as well accidental. either way bungie and 343 are not going to show their full hand and say exact intent. so enjoy the ride like rest of us

  • 10.20.2010 1:22 PM PDT

nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, but recent studies show space can do what ever the !blam! it wants

also how people have told their history is not really any different how we tell fictional stories except the facts are made up. they often even use the same narrative styles. Much of what we know on major greek battles are the stories and plays written by people like homer.

  • 10.20.2010 1:31 PM PDT

nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, but recent studies show space can do what ever the !blam! it wants

and your star was reference, star trek was around longer, it has tons of then, but being a huge trek fan i don't go around questioning the storytelling. i enjoy storytelling even if enterprise messes up everything. point is nitpicking turns ruins enjoyable stories, let them finish the story first.

  • 10.20.2010 1:38 PM PDT


Posted by: therizino
and your star was reference, star trek was around longer, it has tons of then, but being a huge trek fan i don't go around questioning the storytelling. i enjoy storytelling even if enterprise messes up everything. point is nitpicking turns ruins enjoyable stories, let them finish the story first.
you got the right idea

  • 10.20.2010 1:50 PM PDT

Can anybody explain why marine armor changed several times?

  • 10.20.2010 2:14 PM PDT

What about Cortana? In the game, they find Cortana as a relic of forerunner technology, but I thought that the book tFoR mentioned that Dr. Halsey made Cortana and how that's why they Dr. Halsey and Cortana looked and sounded simular.

  • 10.20.2010 6:13 PM PDT


Posted by: Killer Cajun
Can anybody explain why marine armor changed several times?

Excellent question.....CE has this weird ass heavy plated armor that's all ugly and gray, then halo 2 has olive green, then halo 3 mixes heavy plating and green. I guess UNSC just can't make up their mine with their fashion. Wear different armor for every season, like girls wearing shoes. XD

  • 10.20.2010 7:00 PM PDT

Brains beats brawn get used to it

Fear the Red Comet

Variety is the spice of life.
Long live games.
Death to all fanboys.


Posted by: lMADISONl
What about Cortana? In the game, they find Cortana as a relic of forerunner technology, but I thought that the book tFoR mentioned that Dr. Halsey made Cortana and how that's why they Dr. Halsey and Cortana looked and sounded simular.


Cortana is made from Halsey...where did you get the impression that Cortana was a Forerunner artifact?

  • 10.20.2010 11:14 PM PDT

nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, but recent studies show space can do what ever the !blam! it wants

sorry did not mean to report, wrong button, any way think of it logistically. you have a massive military force, and you adopt a new set of armor or weapon and how long and hard it is going to be able to build that many equipment even mass produced. it could take months to years before everyone is brought up to the same level, until then they just have to make do with what they have. even today it takes months to get new standard equipment to everyone.

  • 10.21.2010 12:11 AM PDT

I keep reading that a lot of questions and plot holes are answered in Dr. Halsey's journal, but it's my understanding that you have to buy the Limited or Legendary editions to get the journal. Unfortunately for me, I bought the standard edition.

Maybe I'm not a big enough fan to deserve the full story since I only bought the standard edition - even though I own all the other games, including ODST and Wars, and all the books. People can tell me to read the journal all they want but I'm not going to shell out any more money, especially for some lazy story telling. It's pretty clear the journal's sole reason for existing is to provide some half-hearted explanations for all the deviations they made from the previously existing plot.

Marcus Lehto, the Creative Director of "Halo: Reach" basically said Bungie tried to make everything match up to the books but ultimately they went their own way. I'm sure this was linked before but here it is again.

So all these arguments about whether the books and the game actually do match up seems to be pointless. Some stuff they tried to make work, others they know full well doesn't match up.

He's even quoted as saying, "We've had discrepancies with Nylund on what we believe is canon and what should be made sacred in the canon. But that's always the case when you have others outside of Bungie building the fiction for the "Halo" universe."

So all those labels on the books that read "The official novel of the award-winning Xbox game!" should have read, "Here's some fan fiction set in an alternative universe based on the award-winning Xbox game!"

All the books were written with Bungie oversight - just take a look at the acknowledgment pages in each book - and have Microsoft, Bungie and XBOX 360 logos all over them. So it's pretty dirty for them to backpedal on the books being canon despite years of promoting the books as canon and making money from trusting fans based on that assumption.

It's strange how fan friendly the Halo multiplayer is and how much Bungie seems to care about its multiplayer fans and then how cheap and low Bungie treats the single player story. Bungie.net and all the online support is great but as good as the single player is, to expect the fans to just accept blatant retconning is a little insulting.

I've come to the conclusion that Bungie put the journal in the special editions because they figured the average fan wouldn't have read the books so those fans wouldn't notice the retconning because they wouldn't have read the books and would only buy the normal edition. The journal is a sad attempt at trying to tie up all the loose ends and prevent hardcore fans who had read the books and would be shelling out the extra cash for the special editions from making complaints about the inconsistencies - like in this thread.

Unfortunately the story is so different from the books that even the explanations require great leaps in logic and quite a bit of suspending disbelief.

Oh well.

I just hope whatever new game Bungie comes out with next, it will maintain tighter control on the story and not let a situation like this happen again where they wrote themselves into a corner.

  • 10.21.2010 12:23 AM PDT

Signatures are for squares.

The Journal isn't actually half-assed or anything at all. Infact, it's one of my favorite pieces of canon. The Journal is really well put together, and it clears up one of Halo's biggest inconsistencies,(before Reach released, anyway.) the number of Spartan II's.

The Journal fixed about three of Reach's larger breaks. (Cortana on Reach AND Space, The Pillar of Autumn on Reach, and [kinda] how Halsey was at Sword, then with John during the surgeries on him, then back at Sword...]

  • 10.21.2010 4:18 AM PDT