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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)

Signatures are for squares.

1. Remember at the start of First Strike, how the Pelican gets shot down in orbit, and the Spartans are forced to jump from the Pelican while they're still in atmosphere(pretty much) Basically the cutscene would show the pelican get shot down, with Fred telling everyone to jump. The gameplay is Fred in freefall, and you can look around and see the other spartans falling along side you.

2. Malcolm was a Spartan from First Strike. In the book, he was one of the four spartans who died from the drop. Fred was forced to salvage a piece of Malcolm's armor because Fred's armor malfunctioned when he hit the ground. In the games case, I made it the shielding that malfunctioned.

3. No, Joshua was shot down by the troops that were on the ground. I'm pretty sure it was one of the AA needler turrets the covies had set up. That specific cruiser never got a chance to glass anything. Kelly turned it into a giant frag grenade.

4. ---

5. Fred instructed Delta Team to secure a fallback point for the spartans incase things got too hot. The fallback point was Castle Base.

6. ---

7. Eeh, more like The Package.

8. Any type of mission really.

9. Mission objective: Preserve as many Moa as possible.

10. Yes.

11. I know, isn't it?


I still have my fingers crossed for a campaign DLC.

  • 04.01.2011 11:42 AM PDT

While your plot is interesting, I noticed that it still changed events from the book, which is what you were raging about with Reach. The three spartans which left to bomb the cruiser launched from banshee recovered from the battlefield (Which no Covenant were at) and parked in the bunkers.

The piece of armor Fred replaced was a pressure seal, and that was at the bunker as well.

Though, while sure it'd be awesome to see Red team's actions in a game form, You want to know why bungie didn't? Because it wouldn't add to the lore. You'd get a simple redo of stuff the guys who really care about the backstory already know (With a few additions).

I mean, we'd learn nothing new really about the fall of Reach.

  • 04.01.2011 11:48 AM PDT
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CoD is a good game, even if the Halo series are better in some aspects. Anyone who insults either is just bad in that game. Grow up.


Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
While your plot is interesting, I noticed that it still changed events from the book, which is what you were raging about with Reach. The three spartans which left to bomb the cruiser launched from banshee recovered from the battlefield (Which no Covenant were at) and parked in the bunkers.

The piece of armor Fred replaced was a pressure seal, and that was at the bunker as well.

Though, while sure it'd be awesome to see Red team's actions in a game form, You want to know why bungie didn't? Because it wouldn't add to the lore. You'd get a simple redo of stuff the guys who really care about the backstory already know (With a few additions).

I mean, we'd learn nothing new really about the fall of Reach.


Well...the point of games at all is for the certain experience that is offered by any particular game, not for information. The point of this story which Caboose wrote up would have put us in the shoes of the Spartans we know about and yet have never actually seen in action (at least not visually in games). The addition of the Beta team Spartan survivors would have also made for some emotional storytelling for those of us who have read the novels.

Also, you have to remember that the majority of Halo gamers probably have not read all or even any of the novels, so this story would have been new for them anyways.

With enough effort, the quality of this plot line would have been enough to overshadow its lack of new info.

[Edited on 04.02.2011 10:15 AM PDT]

  • 04.02.2011 10:15 AM PDT

Hence my pointing out "To the people who know the lore, the campaign would offer nothing new."

Basically, everybody who buys games for the campaign, and not MM wouldn't be getting new information on the lore. Look at what 343 said they plan for their games. "It'd be incredibly lazy and unimaginative if we didn't add in new questions, mystery, and information to the lore."

He basically said something like that in an interview I read.

  • 04.02.2011 10:59 AM PDT
  • gamertag: An0nz
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CoD is a good game, even if the Halo series are better in some aspects. Anyone who insults either is just bad in that game. Grow up.


Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
Hence my pointing out "To the people who know the lore, the campaign would offer nothing new."

Basically, everybody who buys games for the campaign, and not MM wouldn't be getting new information on the lore. Look at what 343 said they plan for their games. "It'd be incredibly lazy and unimaginative if we didn't add in new questions, mystery, and information to the lore."

He basically said something like that in an interview I read.


Games aren't made only for people who are familiar with the lore. The current Halo: Reach proves this.

Still, Caboose's plot line still includes plenty of unexplored content, and all he made was just an outline of how things can happen. No one says no new info can't be made if you simply write the game story ALONG with the novels, similar to how the Flood still had quite a bit of previously untold information even though it's essentially (key word here) a novelization of Halo: CE. It wouldn't be hard to reverse the process...after all, new info is added onto what came first.

It's not like the current Halo: Reach features much "new" info anyways, for the most part it's just retconning. We know the ending of the Battle of Reach before we even played the game; all they had to do was portray what happened during the battle, and that doesn't really lend to adding new info in the first case.

On a side note, the AI datapads can easily be added to any other story since they don't actually affect the campaign.

[Edited on 04.02.2011 12:07 PM PDT]

  • 04.02.2011 12:07 PM PDT

Halo Reach didn't retcon a massive amount of things. It simply showed the battle from another point of view.

  • 04.02.2011 12:43 PM PDT

"What do you hear?"
"Nothing but the rain."
"Then grab your gun and bring in the cat."
"Boom, boom, boom!"

Posted by: privet caboose
Mission 1:
Main Character: Fred
Description: ODST style mission where it's an intro cutscene, only difference is there's some actual gameplay. You can maneuver around and look through the sky as you fall from the pelican towards Reach. You'd see your spartan team flying through the sky with you.

Mission 2:
Main Character: Fred
Description: Training-esque mission. The player is forced to play without a gun or shielding while moving through a forest and regrouping with his spartans. Eventually you'd kill something(via melee) and get a plasma pistol from a jackal or grunt. Once you've got a weapon, your objective is to get to Malcolm's armor to salvage a piece of his armor. Once you get to his location, you get shielding again, as Fred's shield generator malfunctioned after the drop. Your final objective is to fight through the rest of the forest and regroup with the surviving spartans.

Mission 3:
Main Character: Fred (Alpha Team)
Description: After a cutscene where the Spartans find the generators, Fred splits his Spartan's into four fire teams, and they all split up. This level follows Alpha Team's assault on the covenant camp. You'd fight Covenant as you make your way to the Banshees. Once in the Banshee, you'd fly over the thousands of Covenant troops below(it's possible, Shishka even said that the portion of Kingdom Hearts II where you fight 1,000 heartless proves it so.) You'd avoid turret fire, other banshees, and shoot at troops below until you reach a certain point under the cruiser, and that's when a cutscene of Kelly throwing the bomb into the gravlift is played. The mission continues as you fly the banshee out of the vally and Josh is shot down. The mission ends as you see the ship explode.

Mission 4:
Main Character: Grace (Gamma Team)
Description: Make your way from the generators to Admiral Whitcomb. There's a lot of freedom for Bungie here, because this part of the story wasn't described. They can move through a town or pretty much anything. So long as the mission ends with Gamma reaching Whitcomb.

Mission 5:
Main Character: William (Delta Team)
Description: Delta Team takes two warthogs and heads towards Castle Base to secure the fallback point. Once again, Bungie has a lot of freedom here as the only thing we know is that all 6 spartans left the generators in two warthogs, and only three of the Spartans made it back to Castle. They could have the team get split up at some point in the mission. Mission ends once Delta Team arrives at Castle Base.

Mission 6:
Main Character: New Spartan (Beta Team)
Description: Firefight style mission where the objective is to assist your fellow spartans in defending the generators for a specified amount of time. There would be turrets set up around the facility, as well as tons of ammo and rockets. You'd have AI Spartans assisting you, and there would be a "health" bar for the generators(much like generator defense.) The mission ends after 10:00-15:00 minutes, and a cutscene plays showing 5 or 6 of the Beta Team spartans dying, and the remaining Beta members retreat as the Covenant overrun the facility. The cutscene ends as one of your spartans sends the transmission: "The generators are over-run, we're falling back-"

Mission 7:
Main Character: Fred (Alpha Team)
Description: The mission begins directly after mission 3 ended. The beginning cutscene shows various Covenant ships breaking orbit as Fred hears Beta Teams final transmission. Kelly says, "That's it, we've lost." Fred replies, "maybe not," and the mission begins. The objective is to fight through heavily populated Covenant territory. Eventually you come across two unmanned wraiths, and use them to push your way towards your fallback point, which is castle base. The mission ends with a cutscene of Fred and Kelly linking up with Delta Team, who then open the door which reveals Halsey.

Mission 8:
Main Character: Beta Team Spartan (Same one you played as in mission 6)
Description: The remaining members of Beta Team attempt to survive and link up with UNSC forces. Bungie has total freedom with this mission, as it's an untold part of the story.

Mission 9:
Main Character: Beta Team Spartan
Description: Once again, Bungie has total freedom as this mission would be a part of Beta's story, which is untold.

Mission 10:
Main Character: Beta Team Spartan
Description: The final mission of the Beta Team story. The final few Beta Team spartans would need to end up dead by the end of the mission, otherwise, Bungie has total freedom with this. They could be trying to evac civilians or anything really.

Mission 11:
Main Character: Master Chief
Description: A cutscene dated weeks after the Battle for Reach is shown. We see the planet on fire(how we see it on Condemned)only a small portion of the planet remains intact. Johnson and the other survivors from Alpha Halo board a Spirit and fly down to the planet. The mission begins as Chief gets a waypoint over a small shelter a few kilometers away after hearing a transmission from Gamma Team. As you pilot the spirit, you fly through burning cities(like New Alexandria) and see various covenant vehicles below. You regroup with Gamma Team, and then head to Castle Base after you're informed that that was the fallback point. You'd then fly the spirit towards Castle and see the enormous camp around the facility. A cutscene plays of you flying inside of it, and then there's a small gameplay segment of you landing and fighting off waves of Covenant as Halsey and the surviving spartans board the Spirit and you fly away. As the spirit gets into the Covenant ship overhead, The Spartans question how Chief got a Covenant ship, to which he replies "it's a long story, lets find a way home." Then the game ends.


Do this in an ODST style expansion and I'll gladly put down $30-$40 for this. ^^

  • 04.02.2011 1:00 PM PDT
  • gamertag: An0nz
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CoD is a good game, even if the Halo series are better in some aspects. Anyone who insults either is just bad in that game. Grow up.


Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
Halo Reach didn't retcon a massive amount of things. It simply showed the battle from another point of view.


It didn't retcon too much, but it certainly did, and on some fairly significant issues as well. This is, of course, forgiving the smaller details caused by lack of effort and gameplay limitations.

The point is, a lot of the things that may have been considered "new info" were retcons.

  • 04.02.2011 2:43 PM PDT

- Dragon Ball/Z/GT and it's merchandise are awesome.
- All "abriged" parodies are hilarious.
- Humanity, as a whole, is stupid.
- I have asperger's syndrome
- This is the best used 20 seconds of your life
- Official helper to the Halo: Reach - The Armor You'll Be Wearing This Fall! Thread

You guys STILL havent account for Halsey's journal/the bonus stories in the recent novel reprints?

They solve most of these canon breaks.

[Edited on 04.02.2011 6:11 PM PDT]

  • 04.02.2011 6:11 PM PDT
  • gamertag: An0nz
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CoD is a good game, even if the Halo series are better in some aspects. Anyone who insults either is just bad in that game. Grow up.


Posted by: JABBERWOCK xeno
You guys STILL havent account for Halsey's journal/the bonus stories in the recent novel reprints?

They solve most of these canon breaks.

If you're talking about some of the ones in the opening post, sure. But those are hardly all of the canon breaks, it's the tip of the iceberg.

  • 04.02.2011 6:26 PM PDT

- Dragon Ball/Z/GT and it's merchandise are awesome.
- All "abriged" parodies are hilarious.
- Humanity, as a whole, is stupid.
- I have asperger's syndrome
- This is the best used 20 seconds of your life
- Official helper to the Halo: Reach - The Armor You'll Be Wearing This Fall! Thread

Posted by: Beowolfe

Posted by: JABBERWOCK xeno
You guys STILL havent account for Halsey's journal/the bonus stories in the recent novel reprints?

They solve most of these canon breaks.

If you're talking about some of the ones in the opening post, sure. But those are hardly all of the canon breaks, it's the tip of the iceberg.


I meant the OP and the first 15 pages or so, I can't read the entire thread.

if you could post which ones are still issues, i'd be able to help more.

  • 04.02.2011 6:30 PM PDT

Signatures are for squares.

Posted by: JABBERWOCK xeno
You guys STILL havent account for Halsey's journal/the bonus stories in the recent novel reprints?

They solve most of these canon breaks.


The journal and added content fix nothing in the errors I've listed. I own all three reprints as well as the Journal.

  • 04.02.2011 6:44 PM PDT

- Dragon Ball/Z/GT and it's merchandise are awesome.
- All "abriged" parodies are hilarious.
- Humanity, as a whole, is stupid.
- I have asperger's syndrome
- This is the best used 20 seconds of your life
- Official helper to the Halo: Reach - The Armor You'll Be Wearing This Fall! Thread

Posted by: privet caboose
Posted by: JABBERWOCK xeno
You guys STILL havent account for Halsey's journal/the bonus stories in the recent novel reprints?

They solve most of these canon breaks.


The journal and added content fix nothing in the errors I've listed. I own all three reprints as well as the Journal.


Can you please list the errors?

The OP only lists 3, and I cannot go through all 72 pages to find them.

  • 04.02.2011 6:51 PM PDT

Signatures are for squares.

The OP has 6 errors.

  • 04.02.2011 6:54 PM PDT

- Dragon Ball/Z/GT and it's merchandise are awesome.
- All "abriged" parodies are hilarious.
- Humanity, as a whole, is stupid.
- I have asperger's syndrome
- This is the best used 20 seconds of your life
- Official helper to the Halo: Reach - The Armor You'll Be Wearing This Fall! Thread

Posted by: privet caboose
The OP has 6 errors.


The ONI/ cole protocole error you listed is a side effect because of the date error, so it only counts as one.

The PoA being of the planet is the same deal. It's also possble that...

Hold on, that's not right.

Sorry, I have been up since 3:00, and it's 10:00 now, I am very tired and not thinking right.

I apologize for disrupting the thread.

I'll be back in the morning when I can properly think this through and help out.

  • 04.02.2011 7:03 PM PDT
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In the end its just a dead mans game................

spartans never die there just missing in actoin..............

  • 04.02.2011 9:06 PM PDT

I don't like cocaine, I just like the way it smells.

Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
While your plot is interesting, I noticed that it still changed events from the book, which is what you were raging about with Reach. The three spartans which left to bomb the cruiser launched from banshee recovered from the battlefield (Which no Covenant were at) and parked in the bunkers.

The piece of armor Fred replaced was a pressure seal, and that was at the bunker as well.

Though, while sure it'd be awesome to see Red team's actions in a game form, You want to know why bungie didn't? Because it wouldn't add to the lore. You'd get a simple redo of stuff the guys who really care about the backstory already know (With a few additions).

I mean, we'd learn nothing new really about the fall of Reach.


Exactly. But that's that point, don't forget the Halo: Reach tagline, "From the beginning, you know the end".

[Edited on 04.03.2011 11:09 AM PDT]

  • 04.03.2011 11:05 AM PDT


Posted by: Vegerot
Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
While your plot is interesting, I noticed that it still changed events from the book, which is what you were raging about with Reach. The three spartans which left to bomb the cruiser launched from banshee recovered from the battlefield (Which no Covenant were at) and parked in the bunkers.

The piece of armor Fred replaced was a pressure seal, and that was at the bunker as well.

Though, while sure it'd be awesome to see Red team's actions in a game form, You want to know why bungie didn't? Because it wouldn't add to the lore. You'd get a simple redo of stuff the guys who really care about the backstory already know (With a few additions).

I mean, we'd learn nothing new really about the fall of Reach.


Exactly. But that's that point, don't forget the Halo: Reach tagline, "From the beginning, you know the end".


Yes, the end. But nothing leading to that point from the viewpoint of Noble Team.

  • 04.03.2011 11:10 AM PDT
  • gamertag: An0nz
  • user homepage:

CoD is a good game, even if the Halo series are better in some aspects. Anyone who insults either is just bad in that game. Grow up.


Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron

Posted by: Vegerot
Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
While your plot is interesting, I noticed that it still changed events from the book, which is what you were raging about with Reach. The three spartans which left to bomb the cruiser launched from banshee recovered from the battlefield (Which no Covenant were at) and parked in the bunkers.

The piece of armor Fred replaced was a pressure seal, and that was at the bunker as well.

Though, while sure it'd be awesome to see Red team's actions in a game form, You want to know why bungie didn't? Because it wouldn't add to the lore. You'd get a simple redo of stuff the guys who really care about the backstory already know (With a few additions).

I mean, we'd learn nothing new really about the fall of Reach.


Exactly. But that's that point, don't forget the Halo: Reach tagline, "From the beginning, you know the end".


Yes, the end. But nothing leading to that point from the viewpoint of Noble Team.


The viewpoint of Noble Team is not a good perspective of the overall battle. Like I've said many times before, if I told you the story of Ephialtes of Trachis, it doesn't really show you the big picture of what happened at the Battle of Thermopylae, although his actions were quite significant in affecting the outcome of the battle.

Noble Team's story is, all in all, a side story to the main Battle of Reach, if we were to look at the game alone, you'd never actually see any space battles or significant ground engagements. (Tip of the Spear was still pretty small considering the amount of forces on either side) The fact that this new story even has any relevance to the entire plot line is due to the retcons.


[Edited on 04.03.2011 12:19 PM PDT]

  • 04.03.2011 12:18 PM PDT

I gaze upon the stars and see the majesty that is the universe.


EGO mos bulla astrum.

While Halo Reach may bring some unexplainable canon issues, we really have no say in what is and isn't canon regardless of previous books and media.

Also, it is explicitly stated that MAC Cannons were attacked while Long Night of Solace was in orbit. A small distraction would have been all the UNSC needed to divert manpower away while the Covenant swiftly drop in troops before the UNSC can recover.

  • 04.03.2011 9:41 PM PDT
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Posted by: ArtooFeva
While Halo Reach may bring some unexplainable canon issues, we really have no say in what is and isn't canon regardless of previous books and media.
Well, if the majority of the fanbase complains I'm sure they'd fix it. Though the majority of the Halo fanbase couldn't care less about the canon.

  • 04.03.2011 9:51 PM PDT

I gaze upon the stars and see the majesty that is the universe.


EGO mos bulla astrum.


Posted by: xXFatal v1

Posted by: ArtooFeva
While Halo Reach may bring some unexplainable canon issues, we really have no say in what is and isn't canon regardless of previous books and media.
Well, if the majority of the fanbase complains I'm sure they'd fix it. Though the majority of the Halo fanbase couldn't care less about the canon.

Yah I know they'd probably fix it if the community REALLY hates it. My point was that we aren't the ones who decide what is or isn't canon.

  • 04.03.2011 9:53 PM PDT


Posted by: xXFatal v1

Posted by: ArtooFeva
While Halo Reach may bring some unexplainable canon issues, we really have no say in what is and isn't canon regardless of previous books and media.
Well, if the majority of the fanbase complains I'm sure they'd fix it. Though the majority of the Halo fanbase couldn't care less about the canon.


Actually I don't think they would, ultimately its Bungie's, 343's now, and they'll tell the story however they want, regardless of how the community thinks of it.

  • 04.04.2011 7:58 AM PDT

I like elites

  • 04.04.2011 8:07 PM PDT