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  • Subject: BOOKS DO NOT EFFECT THE GAME !!NO OTHER SPARTANS!!
Subject: BOOKS DO NOT EFFECT THE GAME !!NO OTHER SPARTANS!!
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Information thanx to MLG Cheehwawa.

Posted by: MLG Cheehwawa
The novels are official canon to the Halo storyline, whether or not you see small inconsistencies in them, and whether or not your beloved Spartans other than the Master Chief are not seen in the games. Listed below is a huge collection of quotes from various Bungie employees, Microsoft employees, and novel authors.


GameSpy: When you were writing the game's script, did you want to tie the whole universe together, including stuff that was in the two books?

Joe Staten: The books are full of wonderful, complex elements that would be hugely problematic if we included them in Halo 2 in any meaningful way (e.g. the existence of other Spartans). That being said, I did my best to be take the books into account as I wrote, and there are definitely common themes and characters. The opposite is true as well; Eric Nylund and I spoke often as he gathered is thoughts for the third Halo novel, "First Strike."


How Stuff Works: Was the "Halo" story fully realized and segmented into different games, or did you take the story as far as "Halo 1" and when it came time for a sequel, build the story from the ground up?


Pete Parsons: The "Halo" universe has an overarching story that is well thought out and was well thought out before "Halo 2." We have roughly 600 years worth of "Halo" fiction, and we know what happens inside of that universe at any given time. The ["Halo 2"] story itself only existed as notes and was really fleshed out. We know ultimately, at least in the "Halo" universe, where humanity came from, where it's going to, at what point in time it comes in contact with The Covenant [the villains in "Halo"] and what happens well beyond that.

"Halo 2" picks up literally right after "Halo 1." But there is still plenty of story in and around that. And you can see some of that in the three novels we have.

How Stuff Works: The novelization of a video game is, well ... novel. Where does Eric Nyland <sic> get the background for his books?

Pete Parsons: We work closely with him on all the stories. So what we do is we have these story arcs of the "Halo" universe, and Eric goes in and says, "Well that's a really good piece to take and here is in a microcosm what I think that story will look like."

How Stuff Works: Are you guys very conscious to make sure that everything fits together -- that the books and games don't contradict one another -- so that everyone can look to any source and say, "This is very consistent, fully realized world"?

Pete Parsons:Yes, but not in the marketing kind of way. We do it because we want the "Halo" universe to be manifold. You can certainly probably pull out some inconsistencies, but as a general rule we really try to keep it manifold. Because we think that ultimately we are doing this for ourselves. And after that, we're doing it for our fans, and we want them to really believe in this place that is the Halo universe. I think the reason Halo has captured so many imaginations is because we care a lot about what's going on in that universe and how believable that universe is. We have this high level myth that we understand very well.


EGM: You mention Reach; have you read all of the Halo books?

Pete Parsons: Yeah, obviously the Halo fiction. The overarching Halo universe is crafted here, and then guys like...particularly [Halo book author Eric Nylund] has the job of really fleshing out the bones of that particular story arc.

EGM: So somewhere there's a Halo bible that has the basic storyline, including what goes on after Halo 2?

Pete Parsons: Yes, from the present day to the future.


HBO: As the Halo storyline has evolved, have you made changes to Halo: The Fall of Reach, or have you kept it going in the direction you started?

Eric Nylund: By the time writing began, the storyline of the Halo game was more or less finalized. An outline for the novel was approved by Bungie before I began writing-only very minor changes were made to the novel.


HBO: Have there been changes to the GAME (that you know of) due to the book, or due to research instigated by its writing?

Eric Nylund: Not that I'm aware of, no. I relied on the Story Bible quite extensively. The whole idea behind a Story Bible is that if you create a document that accurately describes the universe in which a game takes place, you can use it as a guide for writing a novel (for example) without needing to constantly check the developing novel against a developing game.




Bungie/Microsoft controls the licensing of all Halo products - including the novels:



GameSpy: Also in regards to the "Halo universe," who has ultimate control over where and how the storylines intersect?

Joe Staten: Bungie. Specifically, myself, Jones, Parsons and our community team. And we're very careful about the opportunities we pursue.


GameSpy: When it comes to the expansion of the Halo universe, we've seen books come out, action figures, things like that. Was this a conscious decision by Bungie, or did it just start to happen as the Halo snowball rolled on and got bigger?

Frank O'Connor: You know, if you come by the Bungie offices, the place is absolutely filled with action figures, toys, and other stuff like that. The cool thing about working at Bungie, and I can't speak for the other studios at Microsoft, is that they let us do what we want, and they let us have complete control over our intellectual properties. So, we get to make the things that we want to make. That why I think people like the Halo action figures. They're fully posable, they're really high quality, and they're really detailed, and that's a direct result of us having control over them. It could have been possible for us to just hand that off to some factory and say, "Just make something that looks like this," but every toy, model, and even cups and T-shirts, that come back here, we get final approval over. It's not just approval, though, we also get to make changes like, "No, that's not detailed enough, make it more detailed." That's a really cool thing about working in this studio.


And Shishka said the following in this thread.

Posted By: Shishka
The Fall of Reach, The Flood, and First Strike are official books. Yes, Bungie had say in their writing. Yes, the writers did some of their own work nothing was published without first receiving Bungie's approval.

However, what you fail to realize is that the books act as flavor for the hardcore. Guess what? Out of the millions that have bought and played the second Halo, only a tiny handful have actually READ these books. As such, it'd be unwise to reference the books directly in the game, as the reference would be obscure and misunderstood by the majority of players.

The books enhance the games, not the other way around.

The mistake in your thinking is that Halo 1 doesn't "reference" anything that happened in The Flood. It's the other way around. And, Halo 1 didn't reference anything that happened during Fall of Reach, just as Halo 2 didn't reference anything that happened in First Strike.


That just about wraps that up. Any questions PM me or ask them here. Thanks to [b ]The Watchers[/b] for the information.


Read it and weap, for all you people that think the game is based off the books, your wrong.

various interviews are found on that link, but this one stands out to say the games are not based on the books.

If you click the link you will read about bungie dev's knock down the rumors about the books coinsiding with the game. They dont, its just "Canon"

[Edited on 6/17/2006]

  • 06.17.2006 7:39 AM PDT

Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

Finally!! Now I can stop reading all these people saying "THERE WILL BE MORE SPARTANS!! YAAAAY!!!"

This REALLY makes me happy.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, sycomunkee.

  • 06.17.2006 7:44 AM PDT

Thankgod someones said something... Seriously.... all this stuff about new spartans adn stuff annoys me.

  • 06.17.2006 7:45 AM PDT
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can't we just drop it...?

  • 06.17.2006 7:45 AM PDT
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No problem guys, it took me like 45 minutes to find, i just want people to know the truth, just keep bumping this till everyone sees it.

Posted by: eliteslayer66
can't we just drop it...?


Why drop it when everyone else keeps saying there will be more spartans?? I want people to know they are wrong.

[Edited on 6/17/2006]

  • 06.17.2006 7:46 AM PDT
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Does shiska work for Bungie?
Besides it only says that the games empowers the books. Don't jump to coclusions grasshoper, there has been 10 times the evidence for then against, look at them before you get this one sentence garbage to back up your argument.

  • 06.17.2006 7:47 AM PDT
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im not so sure about not alot of people reading those books. i have had them since they came out and at my school i had alot of people reading them. the book the flood refers to halo 1 allthough it doent help u much it is helpfull in some ways.of im not sure but bungie has leaked out to a point that there might be other spartans in the future



fred follower


[Edited on 6/17/2006]

  • 06.17.2006 7:50 AM PDT
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Go read the entire post by clicking the link, until then STFU

shiska does work at bungie, read this weeks Weekly update, they mention his name.

  • 06.17.2006 7:51 AM PDT
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omfg you idiot you cannot confirm nor shiska that there are or arent any more spartans, and i have loads more info for you! Read the guy's other "no spartan" post page 4. then you will see my friend.

  • 06.17.2006 7:52 AM PDT
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just cuz they mention his name doesnt mean he works at bungie you dumbass lmao.

  • 06.17.2006 7:53 AM PDT
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" you can just look at the books. On Halo: The Fall of Reach, it says, "The official prequel to the award-winning Xbox game!". On Halo: The Flood, it says, "The official novel of the award-winning Xbox game!". And last but not least, Halo: First Strike, it says, "Continuing the saga of the award-winning Xbox game!".

It clearly says that these novel are the official stories to Award-winning Xbox game!, which is Halo: Combat Evolved."
http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=7380309 go here idiot

[Edited on 6/17/2006]

  • 06.17.2006 7:55 AM PDT
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so there are clever people here

  • 06.17.2006 7:55 AM PDT
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Then why woudl they mention his name at all? Shiska works for bungie you annoying little turd.

  • 06.17.2006 7:56 AM PDT
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They mention his name for the job of Forum Ninja...the only link he has with bungie is the forums not the game. get facts first then say what you want to say. quotes, links, thread posts.

  • 06.17.2006 7:57 AM PDT
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Posted by: The Pheonix
" you can just look at the books. On Halo: The Fall of Reach, it says, "The official prequel to the award-winning Xbox game!". On Halo: The Flood, it says, "The official novel of the award-winning Xbox game!". And last but not least, Halo: First Strike, it says, "Continuing the saga of the award-winning Xbox game!".

It clearly says that these novel are the official stories to Award-winning Xbox game!, which is Halo: Combat Evolved."
[url]http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=7380309[/ url] go here idiot


WHAT YOU NOT SEEING IS THAT BUNGIE CONTROLS WHAT IS IN THE GAME AND WHAT IS NOT IN THE GAME, IT IS ALREADY KNOW THAT THE MASTER CHIEF IN THE GAME IS THE LAST REMAINING SPARTAN.

BUNGIE ALSO SEES THE BOOKS, NOT EVERYONE READS THE BOOKS THEREFORE NOT EVERYTHING THAT IS BOOK RELATED IS IN THE GAME..


DONT BE DISAPOINTED WHEN THE MC IS THE ONLY SPARTAN IN THE GAME.

[Edited on 6/17/2006]

  • 06.17.2006 7:57 AM PDT
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Caps suck, they show your immaturity.

"Just for those in this post who are too lazy to read the books, I thought I would just give a quick summary on the current Spartans:

Okay. During the Fall of Reach, at a briefing, Dr. Hasley says that, out of the augmented Spartans over the years, three were killed, and one was severely wounded. In addition, during the meeting on Reach, three Spartans were too far away to be recalled for the battle. This would mean that, out of the 33 augmented spartans, 26 are currently at Reach.

During the fall of Reach, John, James, and Linda went on to a space station, while the rest of the Spartans. During Fall of Reach, we only know what happens on the Station. James is blasted off in to space, with a limited air supply. His status is currently unknown, presumed dead. Linda is shot by multiple plasma bolts, and is near death. When John leaves the station, he takes Linda with him, and places her in a cryo-tube.

From First Strike, we learn what transipred there: After their entry, their pelican was shot down, and they had to jump out. Their impact resulted in 6 being near-immoblilised, and 4 dead. So, 23 were in the pelican, 4 were killed, and 6 were immoblilized. So, that leaves 19 Spartans on Reach's surface. However, it is stated by fred that there were 22 Spartans after the fall, which leads to a few inconsistancies with numbers. Joshua is seen killed by Fred. Eventually, Fred, Kelly, Will, Issac, and Vinh regroup, meet up with Dr. Hasley, and head deep in to the mountains.

After the destruction of Halo, John retrieves a set of cryo-tubes that were ejected from the PoA. Just happens to be Linda's. After capturing the Ascended Justice, the Mc, as well as Johnson and the other survivors of Halo, return to Reach, to find that a region around the equator was not glassed. Upon landing, he met up with Anton, Li, and Grace, who were with Admiral Whitecomb. They then proceeded to go in to the mountain to rescue the other Spartans. By the time they got there, Issac and Vinh were already killed. The rest were evacuated up to the Ascended Justice. During the battle in the semi-slipspace realm, Anton and Li were killed.

So, that leaves John, Kelly, Fred, Will, Grace, and Linda in the Cryotube.

Linda is revived, and they get ready to go on a mission to destroy the unyeilding heirophant. At this point, however, Dr. Hasley kidnaps Kelly and leaves in an ONI scout ship. On the actual mission, Grace was killed by a Brute.

So, the only Spartans that we can confirm that are alive are the MC, Fred, Will, and Linda. It is also likely that Kelly is alive somewhere with Dr. Hasley. That leaves our count at 5.

However, there is still some room for speculation:

> 22 Spartans alive on reach. Subtract Fred, Kelly, Joshua, Anton, Li, and Grace, who we know the status of. Down to 16. Will, Issac, and Vinh were part of the injured 6, so the fact that they were alone means that the other three are dead. Subtract the 6 for all of them. That gets us down to 10. That means that there were 10 spartans on Reach who were not accounted for. These would be the Spartans that were guarding the power generators. Being as the power generators failed, it is very likely that they are dead, but who knows. there is a possibility that some survived,hijacked a ship, and are now in deep space.

> James had a limited amout of time to find a ship. While it is not likely that he did, it is always possible.

> The three Spartans that are too far away to be recalled. Unlike the other speculation, they are actually likely to be alive. At least, as likely as anyone else in the Halo Universe that is not seen. Considering the extreme focus of the Covenant armada, it is likely that they have been too busy gathering their forces, and the thre unrecalled spartans were not involved in any dangerous combat.

> The One injured spartan. This may be in reference to Cassandra, who was seen in Conversations of the Universe. As she was removed from the battlefield, she is definately alive, though not nessecarily combat ready. However, the Conversations of the Universe said that she was looking forward to having skin again, maybe in reference to her armor. So, she may be ready for combat by Halo 3.

So, we have 4 guaranteed alive, including the MC. Kelly is most likely alive, bringing us up to 5. The 3 unrecalled spartans are still out there, and may be alive. So thats 8. Cassandra is there, though may not be combat capable. Thats 9

As for not likely, we have James, plus the 10 Spartans on Reach.

So, thats 9 that are near definate, and 11 that are not likely. So, if Bungie wanted to pull out as many Spartans as possible, they could pull out 20 of them.


And yes, the books are canon. They are written based off of the Halo Bible, which is the exact outline of what happens in the Halo universe. The Halo Bible has more authority than the Halo games themselves. So, that means that the books are legitamate events in the Halo universe. "

  • 06.17.2006 7:59 AM PDT
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I DONT GIVE A FLYING F***K ABOUT YOUR DAMN THEORIES, THE MC WILL BE THE ONLY SPARTAN IN THE GAME, YOU BLATENTLY RETARDED INDIVIDUAL.

IF OTHER SPARTANS WERE IN THE GAME, SHOULDNT THEY HAVE HELPED OR HAVE BEEN MENTIONED BY NOW?

EARTH AND LIFE BEING DESICRATED IN THE UNIVERSE IS A PRETTY BIG DEAL, I'M SURE THAT THEY WOULD HAVE MENTIONED WHERE THEY OTHER SPARTANS WERE.

THEY HAVENT THOUGH, DO YOU KNOW WHY


BECAUSE THEY DONT EXIST IN THE DAMN GAME.

[Edited on 6/17/2006]

  • 06.17.2006 8:00 AM PDT
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im not an individual.

"the books are cannon to the Halo universe...look at everything that originated in the books..did these confuse you?


Tartarus

The Arbiter

The Prophet of Truth

Lord Hood


The Covenant Flagship; Ascendant Justice


Covenant A.I.s


Race: Prophets

Race: Brutes


Cortana; going whacky (it's hinted at at the end of H2, and in the H3 trailer)


Johnson; Escaped Halo's blast


Battle Rifle

Brute shot

SMG

Magnum

Archer missile pods

Orbital MAC cannons


New feature: Dual Wielding


Time warping crystal; we experience it's effects in Halo 2.


Ships; dual core, spinning reactors as seen on the PoA; not mentioned in the game but in the book


Slipspace; jumping from inside an atmosphere
"

this shows th cannon, "you little retarted individual"

Read these pages and see how many agree with me.
http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=7377429&po stRepeater1-p=1

Plus its not theory its a summary from books.

  • 06.17.2006 8:02 AM PDT
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ITS ALREADY BEEN STATED THAT BUNGIE HAS FREE REIN ON WHAT IS IN THE GAME AND WHAT ISNT.

OTHER SPARTANS ARE NOT GOING TO BE IN THE GAME, ITS ALREADY BEEN STATED.

ALSO BUNGIE HAS OVER 600 YEARS OF HALO UNIVERSE WRITTEN DOWN AS WELL AS A HALO BIBLE THAT THE WRITERS HAVE TO ABIDE BY OR ELSE THERE BOOKS DONT GET PUBLISHED, SO EVERYTHING YOU HAVE MENTIONED HAS BEEN WRITTEN BEFORE THEN PUT INTO A STORY.

Pete Parsons: The "Halo" universe has an overarching story that is well thought out and was well thought out before "Halo 2." We have roughly 600 years worth of "Halo" fiction, and we know what happens inside of that universe at any given time. The ["Halo 2"] story itself only existed as notes and was really fleshed out. We know ultimately, at least in the "Halo" universe, where humanity came from, where it's going to, at what point in time it comes in contact with The Covenant [the villains in "Halo"] and what happens well beyond that.


[Edited on 6/17/2006]

  • 06.17.2006 8:04 AM PDT
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show me where it says these words from a bungie employee "There is to be no spartans in halo 3" and i'll believe you.

Give evidence and people might give you a chance.

"I don't understand people who say this stuff- I don't know why people get so offended (ESPECIALLY ones who have NO IDEA what happened in them) at the suggest that *gasp* the Halo story goes a little bit deeper than it seems to at first. I don't know why this is an absurd suggestion.

As for your "no new characters"- that is a lie.

Bungie said they have nothing to do with the books- that is a lie also.

Where do you people get this stuff? The books set up everything that happens in the games. It's not a horrible suggestion, just because you didn't read them. "

  • 06.17.2006 8:06 AM PDT
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YOUR THICK SKULLED..... I'LL BET YOU AN XBOX 360 THAT THERE WILL BE NO SPARTANS OTHER THAN THE MC IN HALO3

[Edited on 6/17/2006]

  • 06.17.2006 8:07 AM PDT
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Thats not what im saying....im saying you cant prove and neither can i that you DEFINATELY know that there are or arent spartans RIGHT NOW in halo 3. If im so thick skulled how come im the only oen of remaining calm, not getting stressed over a game, providing evidence to back up my ideas? Answer that and i'll give you a cookie for your troubles you baby.

Also read what i posted the links too, they aslo agree strongly with me that the books are in fact in canon with the game.

[Edited on 6/17/2006]

  • 06.17.2006 8:11 AM PDT
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Wow, they use one frail paragragh to counter the many pages of evidence we have. Just one word





























*wow*

  • 06.17.2006 8:12 AM PDT
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thank you halo and pok3mon.

  • 06.17.2006 8:14 AM PDT
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Posted by: Spoonage UK
Thankgod someones said something... Seriously.... all this stuff about new spartans adn stuff annoys me.


Even though I like the books I know that they other Spartans will not be in the game.

  • 06.17.2006 8:15 AM PDT