Spoilers for Halo: Outcasts

Aagard is introduced in Halsey's journal, which describes him surviving a brain injury that then grows his intuition to an almost precognitive level, which prevents ONI from abducting him. The grab team blames it on the precog, Halsey blames it on mission incompetence.

5 IRL years later, in Hunter's in the Dark, some of Olympia Vale's background is revealed. Olympia's then unnamed father, a pacifist slipspace mechanic, divorced her mother after she was transferred to Earth HIGHCOM. The diplomatic shuttle transporting Olympia and her mother has its slipspace engine sabotaged, prolonging a 6 day journey into a 6 month journey, which Olympia suspected to be the work of her father.

8 IRL years later, Outcasts ties these two characters together, when it is revealed that Olympia's father Caleb Vale changed his name from Caleb Aagard after the abduction attempt. The whole story of Outcasts is about a scramble to retrieve a weapon from a long lost civilization that can destroy Guardians, a weapon that turns out to be from a much older source than the ancient civilization. The planet Netherop not only contains the weapon, but also Precursors that have survived since the war with the Forerunners. On this hellscape of a planet, they maintain a paradise facility that provides necessities and heals all wounds. Near the climax of the book, a character with a terminal illness is cured by the Precursors and has a brief conversation with them where they instruct her to take everyone with her offworld and never speak of them. This whole plot has nothing to do with Caleb Aagard, so why do the reveal that he is Olympia's father in this book, other than the fact that she is one of the main characters?

Based on how spaced apart these stories are, I don't think it was part of the original plan for Olympia's father to be Caleb, but a connection made as set up for a future story by Troy Denning.

I believe that Caleb Aagard has a Precursor in his head. Or at least is in contact with one on Luyten.

If you reexamine what we know about Caleb and look at it through a world where the Precursors still exist and can be hiding, a lot of pieces start to click together. Caleb surviving a brain injury from a farming accident at a very young age which develops into an almost precognitive ability can be explained with the Precursor's healing technology and increased awareness warning him of dangers. His personal pacifism could be a result of the Precursor's distaste for violence.

His sabotage of the slipspace engine in particular was strange, since this would have happened in 2547, when the Covenant was burning through colony worlds, but Earth was still considered safe. What reason did he have to believe that Luyten was safer than Earth? Why would he be unwilling to leave Luyten even after his daughter was going without him? What if he was tied to Luyten in some way or if he knew Luyten had a protector more capable than the UNSC? Going a step beyond, what if he was made aware, years ahead of time, that there would be an alien incursion into the solar system? If there were a Precursor feeding him this information, he could have known about the future movements of the Covenant, or perhaps another Precursor survivor's appearance over Earth, potentially the only thing a Precursor has to fear at that time period.

​

TL;DR: Olympia Vale's dad is probably talking to a Precursor or something idk

In Halo Reach the game is very explicit in showing us that this is happening all over the planet, with the skyboxes burning by time of OP: UPPERCUT. The entire Viery territory had forces engaged and we get numerous dialogues from UNSC Navy forces detecting the Covenant reinforcement fleet slipping in (also just after UPPERCUT), yet the current TFOR/H:R circular hole square block solution is that ONI covered it up.

The fleet that shows up post UPPERCUT was clearly originally intended to be the fleet of particular justice and most every mission post this has dialogue indicating that forces were directed to be evacuated (Troopers in New Alexandria) and torch and burn operations were ongoing. How are you stopping naval vessels from detecting covenant slipspace ruptures or just the presence of covenant ships.

The ONI coverup retcon makes absolutely no logical sense when you actually examine the game and from my perspective I'm suprised someone genuinely thought it was the only explanation to make. (Instead of IDK, retconning the dates in the book or the game).

Not only that but it makes ONI a lot more callous than originally intended, part of me believes this might be due to the GWOT losing public support IRL so 343 decided to make ONI more definitive "bad guys" to mimic the CIA.

I think the only logical explanation is that the coverup was purely for the crew of the POA but I'm unsure.

Although the Great Journey does not explicitly detail a higher power, wouldn’t sacrifices or other tribute perhaps be something that could be seen as beneficial in the religion? Elites have a sense of honor through dying in battle, so wouldn’t making sacrifices also be part of the religion?

The forerunners who the Elites view somewhat as a higher power (at least species) released/sacrificed themselves to activate the rings. Would the Covenant emulate those sacrifices on Grunts to “honor” the forerunners?

After you board the corvette the Savannah stays within weapons range of the corvette taking hits despite no longer needing to provide fire support for Jorge's pelican. It seems to me there was no reason not to withdraw immediately at that point. We see the frigate get torn apart while flying inside the corvette's broadside cannon firing arc. A corvette with disabled engines mind you. Why not maneuver above or below the corvette to avoid the main guns?

I know they were providing ECM/jamming support but there is no reason they would have to sit inside the kill box of the corvette's broadside guns to do so. They could also be standing by to retrieve the team after the bomb was armed but staying inside weapon range getting blasted seems like self-sabotage in that case.

Did the captain fuck up and get his ship destroyed for no good reason?

I read somewhere YEARS ago that said when ODST pods are dropped, there's a few empty ones/decoys that are also dropped with them in order to potentially draw fire to them instead of the occupied ones. Similar things were done with paratroopers in WW2. Was this ever canon or just something that someone thought would makes sense

I don't know if it a spoiler or not. When I was in Halopedia, I found that Omega team had 6 members who were Leon-011, Robert-025, August-099, Vannak-134, Riz-028 and Kai-125. In 2540, Riz-028, Kai-125, and Vannak-134 were assigned to Silver Team. So what are the chances of Silver Team within the Halo Books/Games Universe appearing or even being Canon? Would we get a showdown between Atriox and the Banished against Spartan Blue Team, Red Team, Omega Team, Silver Team, Gray Team and whatever Spartan-II remain?

Don’t get me wrong I love him as a character, but as a Captain he in my opinion has done some questionable things.

For starters Spartan Ops, I don’t think bringing Halsey aboard when she’s already been basically treated as a war criminal was the best call. She always has her own agenda and writes off everyone else as a “they’ll be fine” mentally. Which Palmer and Serin voiced concerns over. Maybe I’m remembering wrong but half of Requiem crapshow came from poor management. I feel like any other Experienced officer would’ve taken a different approach or held that leash extremely tight.

Halo 5 dude didn’t really do much apart from assist the Swords of Sangehelios. Which they did their job. I do give him credit for taking the infinity to random jumps to evade Cortana.

In infinite you could probably give more credit to Atriox for this but the way the Infinity just buckles is insane. Maybe it’s just from what we see but surely a ship with the caliber of the infinity can put up more of a fight against the Banished. Maybe I’m biased considering in Halo Wars 2 the Spirit of Fire did much more with less, but it does point out what Laskys experience in ship combat and strategy because I don’t remember seeing much of that apart from him assisting Chief with the Mantle Approach.

Am I missing anything or just being too harsh? (Also I know the writing didn’t do him any favors)

We know briefly about their training, we know they served on Onyx, and we know that the vast majority of SPARTAN-III's who survived the war were from Gamma Company. Is there anything else?

Is he stupid?

This usually implies someone is smooth with the ladies either sexually or with dating, but this doesn't really seem to be the case with him. To quote the novel Contact Harvest:

(Warning: Sex)

!She put her hands on Avery's shoulders and pushed him onto his back. Sitting astride his ankles, Jilan helped him with his pants. Then she crept upward, planted her hands on either side of Avery's head, and began to move.

Avery was instantly entranced by the back-and-forth sway of her bosom. He cupped the weight of her in his hands and knew at once he'd made a tactical error. The heavy roundness of Jilan's skin started an ache that crept up his legs and settled on the small of his back. All she had to do was squeeze, and a moment later he was spent.

This is the one time we see him in action and he hardly makes it 30 seconds. I don't think thats usually what the ladies like. Or did he literally mean "Ladies like scorpion tanks,"?

Edit: >!I didn't think I would need to clarify this is a shitpost, but it is. It's just an excuse to bring up the fact Johnson had a premature nut in a canon novel while also poking fun at a couple other Johnson related posts with obvious answers that have been made lately!<

Isn't it dangerous to not wear a helmet in battle? Also don't they have communication gear too? Why dosen't he wear a helmet?

I need a 6-7ft long M99 Stanchion body pillow now.

A lifelong fan of games, I am finding out more and more about the lore of Halo and how can I say that I am even more of a fan.

However, as someone who is used to games, I have always seen the UNSC as the "good guys" or, strictly speaking, just "the army". Except that the more I dig, the more I seem to see that it's just people accustomed to terrible war crimes and quite serious actions (perhaps I should have worried at the time when I understood that they used children to make super soldiers)

I even understood that they had atomized a human planet for not much.

History that I completely fall into the bath of the terrible lore of humanity, do you have any facts, resources, reading advice so that I discover the dark side of humanity in Halo?

I completely understand the narrative of showing players that death is there and that even strong characters can fall.

But the more time passes, the more I wonder how Spark was able to "one shot" someone like Johshon.

It's a Spartan I, certainly less efficient than the others and without special armor but he still received augmentations and obviously he shoots him in the chest, which is the most protected area of ​​Sgt.

Does anyone know or have already seen a debate on the subject? Am I underestimating the power of Spark's lasers or was it just a bad luck narrative sacrifice that this shot really did more harm than it should have?

Basically the title, in the game they are infinite, but in lore they shouldn't be like this, but from the appearance, Chopper seems to have no ammo belt, it feels like he can only shoot a few rounds before running out of ammo, the M290 Mongoose may Better, but doesn't seem to have much ammo either.

For a fanfic project I'm working on rn, I need to figure out a timeline of how these technologies were developed and integrated together. Rough dates for AI generations would help a lot.

I know AI goes from dumb construct to Smart and not every spartan had an interface. Why were dumb AI even used by some spartans if Smart AI was available? What was a spartan team using if none had a neural interface yet? Would there be military personnel assigned to program AI to do various tasks on the fly? For example, learning to interface with covenant technologies.

Cutter had a secret family. Vale's parents got divorced. Forge's became estranged with his wife. Keyes hit it once and knocked up Halsey.

Meanwhile Alpha-9 has 2 marriages that probably break fraternization regulations, but seem functional, though no kids.

Hello, everyone, how’s it going? On r/halo, fans are discussing how the entire storyline of Cortana was discarded, and even though many didn’t like it, they wanted the story to continue. So I thought, why didn’t 343i give a reason for her random villainy? As far as I remember, there were thousands of theories before the release of Infinite speculating that Cortana was either contaminated by the Flood, or being manipulated by the Warden Eternal, or even the Didact (I’m not even sure if that character is alive).

Imagine the following scene:

• As we go deeper into the ring, at one point, Cortana’s echoes gradually change from purple to green, and she starts repeating Gravemind’s lines, with both Cortana’s and Gravemind’s voices intertwining. At the same time, we hear her struggling against this plague… We would hear her screams of horror and groans of pain echoing (no images or scenes, just sounds). To make the scene more special, the original Flood soundtrack from Halo CE is played in the background, gradually increasing.

I’m sure this would have softened all the atrocities she committed in Halo 5 and other works. Additionally, the Flood would be in the story poetically and would bring impact. As Gravemind says at one point in Halo 3:
"Reignition is my virtue. I flow like water, ebbing and flowing."

As far as I remember from the story of Halo Infinite, Cortana is just evil. And the script suggests that she is not the fragment, she is really the Cortana from the original games.

Edit: I think many fans would be much less upset about all the destruction caused by Cortana in Halo 5 and Infinite.

Could he run for president or is he barred? Would ONI ttry to help or stop him at all costs?

In aerial battles involving fully enclosed vehicles like banshees, how can you distinguish an ally from an enemy? Assuming the vehicles are identical at times. With a Ghost, it’s clear because you can see the driver, but it’s unclear to me how it would work with completely sealed vehicles.

Some questions

1.why aren't kilo 5 Spartan 4s at least lateron? All4 meet the requirements with devero being theeast of the 3 but still being a capable pilot and ofc ODST in her own right. I can see Osman being intelligible due to issues with the augments but the rest would benefit greatly for the transition to s4s

2. Where the hell is their doctor? You mean to tell me oni never thought they would need an actual fucking Doctor so board a ship in hinge head space with a Spartan washout and a Russian onboard? The lack of any medical personnel is baffing at best and suicidal at worst.

3.where are they as of infinite? Like they should be on infinity given they are chinconis personal team and Infinity is currently tasked with humanities hail merry if there is anywhere to be its here.

4whst in the god damn is oni doing with the ability to make covi weapons yet something as dead simple as the same rifle as reach is in use on the Infinity I'm losing my God damn mode here.

Let's just assume here that if the Covenant never showed up or showed up after the UNSC won the insurrection what was ONI going to do with Dr Halsey's little "science project." Were they just going to kill the Spartan IIs or would they have some other purpose? Is there any info on this? If the public found out about them being child soldiers the insurrection might start back up again.

i'm kinda new to the halo lore, even though I played all the games in the past years (expect reach, odst and halo wars) and I always wondered how really strong are the spartan IIs.

for example, i always noticed how in the games you can almost one tap every enemy with just 2 punches.

so my question is, if a spartan II was in a room with an elite or a brute, who's more likely to win? and why?

and just for a personal curiosity, the spartan IIs can flip vehicles with ease like they do in the games?

I feel like if you’re an ODST getting hammered by Covenant from planet to planet I’d be happy to see a Spartan drop in and turn the tide regardless of ego. It confuses me in a war against a genocidal alien cult where you have little to no chance of winning id take anything. But seeing ODSTs having a rivalry with Spartans and officers like Ackerson almost getting them killed just screams incompetence especially when you look at the bigger picture.

(Epitaph spoilers, kind of)

So I know during the Forerunner-Flood War, the Flood could become intelligent enough to corrupt Precursor fixtures and I think the Domain was included in that. The rings firing damaged (or wiped?) the Domain in some capacity and it needed to be "rebooted" before the remaining Forerunners left the galaxy.

I haven't read Epitaph but I've seen synopses - the Didact "closes off" the Domain in some capacity. Would him doing it be enough to keep the Flood out? I figure probably not because there's some subtext that the Domain and the Flood's knowledge/memory transfer work on similar principles, but it's occurred to me that there's literally no guaranteed way to avoid being taken by the Flood outside of completely destroying your body uninfected and making your "soul" inaccessible to the physical world.

Say the Covenant, another race, or our own doing wiped us out.

What would they do in the face of leaving the relics of their civilization without an heir and a potential for the Flood to consume the galaxy unabated?

Would they designate another race as their reclaimers? Wipe the galaxy clean and reseed it again?

I know there isn't much lore about it. It's an open ended question.

edit: Clarifications and additions

I know they can kill elites with a single blow and send a 1200lb spartain flying across a room in games but is there an actual max punching force that has been established for brutes?

Has the Pelican ever been shown/stated to have the ability to sling load cargo? (E.g. CH-47D Chinook Sling Load Operations)

The only thing we know from Ghibalb is that it became deserted and uninhabitable, a "barren wasteland" exactly as sandbox not only looks but is actively refered as in the description. Obviously this is not enough.

The real clue is that the ruins are 1:1 the same as in sandtrap. Now what is sandtrap? It's ruins were moved there (the ark) just as delta halo's ruins were moved there while the ring was built, in order to preserve them (see bungie's commentary on sanctuary, the ruins were brought from ""a forerunner homeworld"") HOMEWORLD. We don't know exactly where did the precursors sepparate the forerunners from the human base stock but neither do we know for sure if the forerunners found other worlds with native ancient ruins made by the "base stock" like heian's and perhaps their self-censored history brushed it under the rug.

We only know for sure they knew ghibalb and that the ruins brought over to the ark in sandtrap are exactly like the ones in sandbox. We also know that these ruins aren't just primitive, but are already showing some signs of technological complexity. Some glowing bits seem to be comprised of energy when shooting them, the same way as ghibalb would have shown more developed architecture.