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  • Subject: What inspired halo?
Subject: What inspired halo?

"Who is the happier man - he who has braved the storm of life and lived, or he who was content to sit on shore and merely exist?" - Hunter S. Thompson

Posted by: Blackhawk75
I've seen on these forums a few theorys that halo is based on a few other storys such as the marathon series, the bible and also greek history. I'm interested in hearing the theorys of others of how the story fits into things like the bible and such like. For instance the historical spartans fought their last battle at the battle of Thermopylae, if you look at the soundtrack volume 2 you'll see there is a track called Thermopylae Soon. If you do a search on the wikipedia you find that the battle of Thermopylae was the historical Spartans last stand against a vastly superior persian army. In a nutshell the Spartans held up 120,000 troops (there were only 300 spartans) for enough time for the senior members of the greek army to make good their escape and re-group and eventually defeat the invading persian army. If you want to read more about the historical battle click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae

anyway i'd be keen to hear other theorys!
Thanks Guys


Unfortunately the Spartans didn't have 120,000 soldiers. All told, they had only about 7,300 - 300 of which were the Spartans themselves. The Persian army numbered to about 2 million. Thermopylae wasn't the Spartan's last stand, either. It was a stronghol that 300 Spartans and their allies of 7,000 had to hold for seven days. After the Persians finished king leonidas and his 300, Xerxes fought his way to the gates of Sparta, where he was turned back, and eventually pushed back to the borders of Greece.

Jason Jones is a Greek history buff, from what I've heard. I know that he has taken his cues from this, but I can't say that Halo - or even Marathon, for that matter - is entirely inspired by Thermopylae. They did help, though.

[Edited on 3/26/2006]

  • 03.26.2006 2:01 PM PDT
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Yeah, the Battle of Thermopylae was covered in one of the books. It was a history lesson given to the young Spartans to teach them the values of quality over quantity (and the principle is demonstrated in nearly all Spartan-involved instances - mostly in the books).

  • 03.26.2006 2:03 PM PDT
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January 30, 2004 (Warthog's Day)
The Master Chief emerged from his code. After seeing his dynamically lit realtime shadow, he went back for 9 more months of development.


Behold the power of the Originals, the Gods Axeone-Neurone.

One of the major influences as stated by Jason Jones is Starhammer and The Vang series by Christopher Rowely. These books have an oppresive alien race, a super weapon (capable of destroying stars), the Vang (Gods of Axeone-Neurone)=the Flood, a character almost exactly like Guilty Spark visually and in attitude. Beyone that that main characters name is Jon, and one of his friends lives in apartment #117.

Ring World was also an influence, but I have not got around to reading that series yet.

[Edited on 3/26/2006]

  • 03.26.2006 2:37 PM PDT
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Well they made an RTS first, and built into a FPS. Only the name Spartan came from thermopyle, because sparans were so badass.

  • 03.26.2006 3:19 PM PDT
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I think many people fail to realize how much deeper the connection was between Halo's Spartans and Greek's Spartans. Spartans were taken from childhood and trained to an almost inhuman level, unheard of outside of Greece. They were given training that some failed to pass. Their armor given for war was unbelievably heavy, but blocked most of the attacks taht other armies, such as the Persians, were vulnerable to. To others, the armor seemed ridiculous, but with the Greek's intensive physical training, carrying hte heavy armor was easy. The Spartan's training limited their individuality, and self expression was discouraged (in Halo, i believe they are all trained similarly), except for the battlefield, where the strongest, most strategic soldiers were encouraged to do their best, and this was the only place where they encouraged individuality. (i believe this is also true for Halo.) So as you see, teh Spartan influence on Halo's storyline is more prevailant than most successfully notice.

  • 03.26.2006 3:39 PM PDT

Well thats what I thought too. But I have also read about connections to the bible but I havent actually seen these theorys in detail. Does anyone know where you can find them or have any of their own?

  • 03.27.2006 12:39 AM PDT
Subject: What inspired halo?

I've seen on these forums a few theorys that halo is based on a few other storys such as the marathon series, the bible and also greek history. I'm interested in hearing the theorys of others of how the story fits into things like the bible and such like. For instance the historical spartans fought their last battle at the battle of Thermopylae, if you look at the soundtrack volume 2 you'll see there is a track called Thermopylae Soon. If you do a search on the wikipedia you find that the battle of Thermopylae was the historical Spartans last stand against a vastly superior persian army. In a nutshell the Spartans held up 120,000 troops (there were only 300 spartans) for enough time for the senior members of the greek army to make good their escape and re-group and eventually defeat the invading persian army. If you want to read more about the historical battle click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae

anyway i'd be keen to hear other theorys!
Thanks Guys

[Edited on 3/26/2006]

  • 03.26.2006 1:50 PM PDT
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Posted by: Blackhawk75
I've seen on these forums a few theorys that halo is based on a few other storys such as the marathon series, the bible and also greek history. I'm interested in hearing the theorys of others of how the story fits into things like the bible and such like. For instance the historical spartans fought their last battle at the battle of Thermopylae, if you look at the soundtrack volume 2 you'll see there is a track called Thermopylae Soon. If you do a search on the wikipedia you find that the battle of Thermopylae was the historical Spartans last stand against a vastly superior persian army. In a nutshell the Spartans held up 120,000 troops (there were only 300 spartans) for enough time for the senior members of the greek army to make good their escape and re-group and eventually defeat the invading persian army. If you want to read more about the historical battle click [url]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae[/url]

anyway i'd be keen to hear other theorys!
Thanks Guys


It's probably safe to say that the creators of halo have many different scifi themes gained from several sources ingrained into the "what's Cool" category in their minds and draw upon that for inspiration- the result is that you'll see bits and pieces that could have had inspiration from somewhere such as ringworld... the same can be said of marathon.

It's like being told or seeing a great idea and you internalizing it and then using a part of your version of that idea.

  • 03.27.2006 7:12 AM PDT
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Posted by: BeastIce
All this talk and no one mention Larry Niven's "Ringworld", which was obviously the source for the shape of the Halos as well as the descriptions of awe felt by the Covenant and the Humans.

Perhaps, but a question you must ask your self is where did niven get the idea from?


You ever heard of a guy named dyson?

  • 03.27.2006 7:13 AM PDT
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Posted by: BeastIce
All this talk and no one mention Larry Niven's "Ringworld", which was obviously the source for the shape of the Halos as well as the descriptions of awe felt by the Covenant and the Humans.


Shishka's answer to that was "That's like saying Command and Conquer was copying Sherlock Holmes because they both took place on Earth." Or something to that effect.

If anybody was interested in knowing, the only reason that the Spartans lost Thermopylae is because they were betrayed by a Greek, he showed the Persian army goat paths that enabled them to get behind the Spartan army.
The Persians had sent their vanguard (1000 of their best warriors that are at the front of the army) to capture the Spartans alive, but they got crushed. Then they sent another 1000 guys to kill the Spartans, but they got crushed. Then they were showed the goat paths. The Spartans formed a ring on a hill and the Persians were unable to defeat them so they sat back and shot arrows at them.

Another good battle is the battle of Marathon. A warrior saw the Persians land at the beach on Marathon so he ran for days back to Greece. The Greeks sent an army and met the Persians on the field of battle.
The Greek army had strong flanks, but a weak center. When the fighting started, the center was crushed and started to retreat. But the flanks maneuvered around the Persian army and cut them off from their ships. When the center saw this, it rallied back and the Persian army was destroyed. Then the same warrior ran back to Greece ot tell them of the victory and died upon delievering the message.

At least I think that hows things went, its fairly accurate but it has been a whiel since I read about this. Please correct me if I am wrong.

  • 03.27.2006 7:20 AM PDT

Go read revelation in the bible. Sounds like halo, seriously

[Edited on 4/2/2006]

  • 04.02.2006 10:05 AM PDT

Posted by: Elce Rolumee
Go read revelation in the bible. Sounds like halo, seriously


i've heard that before, although im really not keen on reading the bible. I once saw a web site that had the comparisons but i havent been able to find it again. Any suggestions would be welcome

  • 04.04.2006 7:43 AM PDT
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Halo - Feet First

Wanna talk outside the Bungie Forums? if_i_had_a_shotgun@hotmail.com

An obvious theory of what inspired Halo was the story of Noah's Ark. God (the Forerunner) made a Flood (the Halo's) to cleanse the world (galaxy) of all evil (the Flood) and some creatures survived by going on the Ark (on Earth).
There are other theories related to the Bible but i don't know where exactly.

[Edited on 4/5/2006]

  • 04.05.2006 9:34 AM PDT
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Posted by: Blackhawk75
I've seen on these forums a few theorys that halo is based on a few other storys such as the marathon series, the bible and also greek history. I'm interested in hearing the theorys of others of how the story fits into things like the bible and such like. For instance the historical spartans fought their last battle at the battle of Thermopylae, if you look at the soundtrack volume 2 you'll see there is a track called Thermopylae Soon. If you do a search on the wikipedia you find that the battle of Thermopylae was the historical Spartans last stand against a vastly superior persian army. In a nutshell the Spartans held up 120,000 troops (there were only 300 spartans) for enough time for the senior members of the greek army to make good their escape and re-group and eventually defeat the invading persian army. If you want to read more about the historical battle click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae

anyway i'd be keen to hear other theorys!
Thanks Guys

I think halo was inspired by being bought by Microsoft. i'm not sure read on here.
http://www.bungie.net/Inside/CustomPage.aspx?section=His tory& subsection=Main&page=6

[Edited on 4/5/2006]

  • 04.05.2006 10:41 AM PDT