- anton1792
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- Noble Legendary Member
"Find where the liar hides, so that I may place my boot between his gums!" - Rtas 'Vadum
Posted by: ROBERTO jh
Truth eliminated the Elites because the Brutes are obedient. This is foreshadowed in Contact Harvest.
"Tartarus: You dare lecture me about faith?
Macubeus: You are obediant, nephew. One day I hope you learn the difference."
/paraphrased, I'm not going to go searching for it atm.
It is the same thing. Part of faith involves the appeal to authority, obedience. It is a part of the irrationality of faith - appeal to incredulity, appeal to tradition and appeal to authority. If you want to say that the Brutes were obedient whilst the Elites were increasingly not then that assumes that their faith was weakening. Why would obedience be a problem when their faith was strong?
Losing faith in the core tenets of the religion, essentially the whole reason for the entire thing really, and other things will fall away as well. Increased scepticism lead to them questioning the Prophet's war on Humanity.
The Elites asked questions, such as: why are we not letting the humans join? Some of the Elites respected the humans as warriors. And we already had a case of where Elites had broken from the Covenant because they were more accepting of the truth (which, if you'll note from the ending of Halo 2, the obedient Brutes were not).
Here we go: "Only some thought this, but luckily not enough so that my new pet novel can make perfect sense". This reasoning is nothing more than an abandonment of your reasoning faculties, and is to a lesser extent completely self-serving. Despite the rather explicit statement given by the Encyclopaedia which states that the Elites have a long standing tradition ingrained into their society of viewing with high respect and admiration opponents who are tenacious, courages and cunning and that it is quite frankly the only reason why the Covenant was as strong as it was, it is to do nothing more than to grasp at straws to turn around and say that Staten wrote Conversations from the Universe for nothing more than to waste paper, especially when Halo 2 and Halo 3 would end with the Elites helping Humanity, and that they would get almost half of the entire game to characterizing them. Of all the material that was cut from Halo 2, almost an hours worth of cinematics, this went in to that booklet over everything else. However, apparently it is not significant to the story. Go and take comfort in your completely pathetic apologetic reasoning for this, this whole "Ohh, only some think this", but it is utter nonsense.
Truth ordered a species wide extermination of the Elites. This is not merrily explained away by the use of the word "Some".
The Prophet of Truth took up the role as High Prophet for the sole purpose of keeping the Covenant together, not to ignite the Great Journey (his insanity lead to that in the end). The Elites were too individualistic and free-thinking for the Covenant to have survived under the then-current climate, so Truth changed the guard to the more obedient Brutes, who would not question their Alpha Male.
And then you go and contradict yourself. Brilliant. So first only some are sceptical of the war and the faith, but now they are collectively referred to as free-thinking and sceptical? Do you even know what that former word implies?
I'm baffled at how some of you are trying to shoe-horn more Glasslands hate into this. You are trying to say the opinion of one Elite Keep represents the opinions of all Elites everywhere (which the book itself makes sure the readers know isn't true with the Arbiter and his followers) and that this somehow makes the Great Schism impossible or harder to work out. The very reason behind the Great Schism is again and again repeated and reinforced throughout Glasslands, that the Elites are not a single minded entity that will obey the notions set forth by their leaders. They are a race of individuals with their own personal ideals and notions.
Some of the more instinctive people, like Jul and his Keep, remain arrogant, as the Elites always had been. What do you get when you kick the crap and ruin the lives of a people as arrogant as the Elites? They'll be angry and want to prove their authority and superiority to the object of their anger and what they percieve as the source of all their problems. What happens when you take away that problem with a swift stroke?
They'll focus their anger on the next best thing that they can get in their cross hairs. While coming up with reasons to justify it.
In Karen Traviss' myopic little world, the Sangheili have stopped butchering Humans because they do not have the ships or resources to do so. Levu said that he does not want peace, that he believes that Humans should be coerced to keep them in line, that they are deceptive. So it is apparent that even those who "support" the Arbiter are not in it because they want to stop killing Humans. This is what we have, not this bullshit about differing opinions and all that rubbish. Do you actually think that Traviss thought about any of that when she not once hinted at anything contrary to Jul other than Thel, and had Philips drum it in throughout the tripefest of a novel that the Sangheili utterly despise Humans and only allied to stop Truth?
Raia, what we thought would be a voice of reason, actually turns out to support Jul's genocidal intention. Bekan, Telcam and Forze are all the same. Phillips testament is the final nail in the coffin though. The author basically used him as a mouthpiece to say "Here is the situation". It is all we have got and is likely all we will ever get. When Thel walks into the council chamber he is mocked and no one supported him. Where is this varying opinion then?
Here is something. If there was as much variation in their opinions on the war as you imply with this novel then how the hell does Jul think he has any chance of persuading his people to continue butchering Humanity? He would fail, because his people would say no based upon what they should already know by this point, based upon their principles of honour and like you said, behaving as follows: "the Elites are not a single minded entity that will obey the notions set forth by their leaders". He has a chance to re-ignite the war, so evidently all these opinions do not exist to any meaningful degree if he thinks that the only opposition that faces him is the Arbiter.
It is essentially grasping at straws; an ad hoc. All the Sangheili characters in the book share exactly the same opinions. I see no reason to hold out the belief that any of their previous characterization means anything, especially not with the authors BS "psychological profiling techniques", which is a fancy way of putting "re-write characters".
3,000 years of being lied too, an additional 30 years of mass murder and genocide, and all of the juicy anger and hatred that comes with it, does not go away over night, especially with a people as arrogant as the Elites. There will be groups who see the bigger picture, like the Arbiter and his people, as their is multiple opinions for any debate, but not all opinions will be the same.
And now we are back to the premise that only some doubted the war. So we have went full circle. First some believe, then they are suddenly free-thinking and independent collectively, and now we are back to implying that only a few doubted. Your post is one great big contradiction. The anger and hatred from the war that was being replaced by doubt and admiration?
So this is all the Glasslands apologists could crap out tonight? I am disappointed.