Spoilers Halo: Season One - Discussion Thread

[1987SpaceGuy]

I like this show more than I thought, but would prefer more episodes at once (like 2-3).

Spoiler: including Halo Episode 3

• like how the portray Master Chief's journey from "drone" to "self thinking" or so it seems at least.
  
• evil scientist lady / UNC plan foiled since the artifact does not react to Cortana alone, only with MC.
  
• still waiting for the evil scientists daughter who "works" in the parallel team to join MC on his journey
• the creepy/weird scientist assistant is possibly is a mole/traitor or clearly has his own agenda
• fully expected the evil scientist lady to be offed by the clone, now thinking it will be on the MC "home planet" they are going to, possibly by MC or/and Cortana, but then the show would loose one of it's most interesting characters, even if shady as hell at the very least
• not really caring about the "teen survivor" going on revenge battle story (yet)
• lol for all Expanse fans
  Spoiler: Expanse season 4 character spoiler

  > Murty's actor being the new (sell out) leader on the teen survivor planet. Can't wait for him to be offed. Amos where are you?
• the artifact connoisseur/reader lady got more interesting seeing her kidnapping backstory
• creepy snakes on a plane worms on a spaceship with Stargate Goaul'd like snake larva

 

[fireproof78]

Spoiler

creepy snakes on a plane worms on a spaceship with Stargate Goaul'd like snake larva

Oh shit. Hunters.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I am not really sure it is "love" Halsey feels, to me she is the quintessential coldhearted scientist, probably with psychopathic tendencies, who manipulates everybody to achieve her goal.

Yeah, that's exactly the opposite of how I read it. Any other science fiction story would write her as a monster who doesn't care about them and Karen Traviss did that.

However, Halsey will die for her "children" and loves them and would burn the rest of the human race for them by the end of her character arc.

 

[FPAlpha]

Yeah, that's exactly the opposite of how I read it. Any other science fiction story would write her as a monster who doesn't care about them and Karen Traviss did that.

However, Halsey will die for her "children" and loves them and would burn the rest of the human race for them by the end of her character arc.

That doesn't sound psychopathic to you?

I guess she "loves" them as much as anyone loves their successful projects. I don't believe at this point in the show that she views them as human beings with their own feelings, egos and desires. For her it seems they are living proof of her genius and i'm sure she loves that.

We'll see how her character develops in the show but she sure is one of the most interesting parts of the show, the other humans ( i'll exclude the Spartans here) are currently rather bland.

 

[Charles Phipps]

That doesn't sound psychopathic to you?

In the context of psychotic being a word for lack of empathy vs. "evil" no.

Halsey is SEVERELY screwed up but she views the Spartans as people now more so than she views most other people including her daughter, who is just an annoyance.

I guess she "loves" them as much as anyone loves their successful projects. I don't believe at this point in the show that she views them as human beings with their own feelings, egos and desires. For her it seems they are living proof of her genius and i'm sure she loves that.

Yeah, that's definitely how other science fiction media would write her and a rather bland choice, I think.

We'll see how her character develops in the show but she sure is one of the most interesting parts of the show, the other humans ( i'll exclude the Spartans here) are currently rather bland.

The show version seems to have kept Halsey cares deeply....but this version only cares about John.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I'm willing to bet $20 real money that Kwan will watch Madrigal glassed and realize the Covenant is the real enemy.

 

[thribs]

Considering how the humans are acting, I’m not sure the Covenant are the baddies.

 

[FPAlpha]

Considering how the humans are acting, I’m not sure the Covenant are the baddies.

But that was always the case. I'm not even sure why the Spartans were needed after all as they were initially developed to fight the Insurgents other than to see if they could by pouring enough money into the project. "Regular" Special Forces with state of the art equipment might have done it for the fraction of the cost and you would have far more of these than Spartans, so more tactical choices. I know, games operate in the Rule of Cool and i'm not complaining as most stories bend realism and logic to their whim, or else it wouldn't work as intended.

Most of that is however buried in the background and expanded material, most gamers don't dig that deep and are content blasting away Covenant in the games.

 

[fireproof78]

Considering how the humans are acting, I’m not sure the Covenant are the baddies.

That's the idea.

 

[David cgc]

But that was always the case. I'm not even sure why the Spartans were needed after all as they were initially developed to fight the Insurgents other than to see if they could by pouring enough money into the project. "Regular" Special Forces with state of the art equipment might have done it for the fraction of the cost and you would have far more of these than Spartans, so more tactical choices. I know, games operate in the Rule of Cool and i'm not complaining as most stories bend realism and logic to their whim, or else it wouldn't work as intended.

Most of that is however buried in the background and expanded material, most gamers don't dig that deep and are content blasting away Covenant in the games.

Blame Eric Nylund (I sure do!). The whole backstory with insurgents and Spartans being designed specifically to put down very justified-sounding political unrest was an invention of his book, and forced the backstory into a different direction from what the game's developers originally intended. We only have some very small windows on what Halo's human backstory might've been like* if Microsoft hadn't insisted on a tie-in novel, or if the novel had been obscure enough to be ignored rather than hitting the bestseller lists, but it definitely wouldn't have been this. One of the interesting things about the show as a long-time fan is how it's fitting the world of the original games into the world of the early tie-in novels, where they were initially very different, and the games and multi-media material didn't start to really fit into each other until well into the post-Bungie era.

*For instance, Halo 1's manual suggests that Spartans actually were commissioned specifically to fight the Covenant, though they were based on blue-sky supersoldier research. No indication is given to why there was any money going into supersoldier research at all, whether it be wars between different human nations, cold wars, piracy/terrorism/supercrime, or just military-industrial make-work in a galaxy at peace. Likewise, Cortana was originally intended to just be the computer system of the ship they were on, with her special, secret backstory being that she was derived from or related to Durandal from "Marathon" explaining how she was more capable than the average starship AI.

 

[Charles Phipps]

But that was always the case. I'm not even sure why the Spartans were needed after all as they were initially developed to fight the Insurgents other than to see if they could by pouring enough money into the project. "Regular" Special Forces with state of the art equipment might have done it for the fraction of the cost and you would have far more of these than Spartans, so more tactical choices. I know, games operate in the Rule of Cool and i'm not complaining as most stories bend realism and logic to their whim, or else it wouldn't work as intended.

Most of that is however buried in the background and expanded material, most gamers don't dig that deep and are content blasting away Covenant in the games.

What, military overspending on unnecessary projects? The Flood you say!

Blame Eric Nylund (I sure do!). The whole backstory with insurgents and Spartans being designed specifically to put down very justified-sounding political unrest was an invention of his book, and forced the backstory into a different direction from what the game's developers originally intended. We only have some very small windows on what Halo's human backstory might've been like* if Microsoft hadn't insisted on a tie-in novel, or if the novel had been obscure enough to be ignored rather than hitting the bestseller lists, but it definitely wouldn't have been this. One of the interesting things about the show as a long-time fan is how it's fitting the world of the original games into the world of the early tie-in novels, where they were initially very different, and the games and multi-media material didn't start to really fit into each other until well into the post-Bungie era.

*For instance, Halo 1's manual suggests that Spartans actually were commissioned specifically to fight the Covenant, though they were based on blue-sky supersoldier research. No indication is given to why there was any money going into supersoldier research at all, whether it be wars between different human nations, cold wars, piracy/terrorism/supercrime, or just military-industrial make-work in a galaxy at peace. Likewise, Cortana was originally intended to just be the computer system of the ship they were on, with her special, secret backstory being that she was derived from or related to Durandal from "Marathon" explaining how she was more capable than the average starship AI.

I think the attempt to add some moral ambiguity isn't a bad thing. Not every space opera has to be Good vs. Evil.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I think the attempt to add some moral ambiguity isn't a bad thing. Not every space opera has to be Good vs. Evil

There wasn’t much moral ambiguity in the original version of the Insurrectionists as they were usually insane terrorists to a level the book was using to justify kidnapping children to turn into super solider with brutal unethical experiments and then had them conveniently fuck off when the war with the Covenant got started so the Spartans don’t have to do any morally ambiguous shit.

 

[fireproof78]

Eh, the UNSC and ONI always felt ambiguous to me.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Eh, the UNSC and ONI always felt ambiguous to me.

The UNSC maybe, but ONI was always shady as fuck.

 

[Tuskin38]

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[cooleddie74]

I like how Cortana has the look of a video game CGI character and they didn't make her appear like a real flesh-and-blood human played by an actress speaking her lines in real time.

 

[Noname Given]

I like how Cortana has the look of a video game CGI character and they didn't make her appear like a real flesh-and-blood human played by an actress speaking her lines in real time.

Did they ever display her as/give her a human holographic avatar in any of the actual Halo games, or was she just VO AI in them?

 

[cooleddie74]

She appeared as a body as a holographic projection in at least one game.

 

[David cgc]

Did they ever display her as/give her a human holographic avatar in any of the actual Halo games, or was she just VO AI in them?

Constantly. The first cutscene in the first game had her speaking to Captain Keyes as voice-over before presenting herself as a hologram as a little reveal (I guess you were supposed to assume she was a human elsewhere on the ship or something). Something the Anniversary edition completely messed up, by the way. The original framing was set up so the foot-tall Cortana hologram seemed to be standing eye-to-eye with Keyes, but the remake moved the camera for some reason so there's just a tiny woman suddenly on the screen. It's always nice when a game gets a remake and I get to think, "I could've done that better, hopefully they'll get it right when they remake the remake."

In the most recent game, there are alien propaganda towers broadcasting demoralizing messages to the human forces, and a few of them touch on how, the UNSC soldiers may think the Master Chief will save them, but he'll dump them in a hot second if the "blue lady" who lives in his head is in trouble.

 

[fireproof78]

Did they ever display her as/give her a human holographic avatar in any of the actual Halo games, or was she just VO AI in them?

From the first scene.