History Literature / HaloEvolutions

** The story's author, Tobias Buckell, [[http://goingrampant.blogspot.com/2010/03/examination-of-female-characters-part-3.html has admitting to doing this unintentionally]], but feels it's justified within the plot's context as a KillEmAll story.

* ThePerilsOfBeingTheBest: Cole is reputed as the greatest admiral the UNSC has ever had. He suffers the many, many, downsides because of having that sort of reputation, a few of which include: 1) he can't surrender in battle because no enemy would believe it's anything but a tactical ploy of some kind, (especially since he has pulled an ISurrenderSuckers when he first became a captain), 2) he is the target of many rebel Insurrectionists, including one who turned to be his wife, 3) he is under constant stress from PTSD, leading to four divorces and several replaced organs, and 4) he is constantly pulled out of retirement to battle the Covenant. Eventually he goes "Screw it" and [[spoiler:executes his own DyingMomentOfAwesome during his biggest battle yet during which he fakes his death and flees with his old wife to places unknown.]]

* ContinuitySnarl: Cortana feels sorry for James Ackerson's death... which hasn't happened yet. Not for another week. There's no way she could even learn about it while aboard High Charity.

* PrecisionFStrike: Lopez lets out one when [[spoiler:[=MacCraw=] bails on them, just as they have 3 minutes to escaped the ''Mona Lisa'' before it's nuked.]]

* CuriosityIsACrapshoot: If ONI had just left the Flood alone, it would died as the ring's remains fell into the gas giant Threshold. Instead they brought aboard the ''Mona Lisa'' ForScience, [[GoneHorriblyWrong and then...]]

* TimeBomb: [[spoiler:Subverted. See {{Troll}} below.]]
* {{Troll}}: After regaining control of the ''Heart of Midlothian'', Mo Ye [[spoiler:activates a countdown to the self-destruct. All the Covenant aboard panic and try to flee, but then Mo Ye reveals she was just joking about the countdown. Immediately, she blows the ship.]]

* EnemyMine: Black Team teams up with a Drone named Hopalong, who will help them into the mine in exchange for freeing his fellow Drones. Team Black is very uneasy about him, and don't know if he can be trusted. [[spoiler:He couldn't. The Drones are all psychotic "Unmutuals" who are too mentally imbalanced to be part of their hives.]]

* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: [[spoiler:Black-Two goes back to rescue a wounded Black-Three from the freed Drone prisoners, despite Black-One ordering her to evacuate.]]

* DevouredByTheHorde: After Spartan Black Two frees a swarm of enslaved Drones, a Hunter that was pursuing her ''panics'' and flees for its life. But it's too slow to escape, and the Drones swarm it and tear it to individual worms. Black Two at first thinks it's odd that the Hunter would flee, as it's a powerful foe and Drones are GoddamnedBats at most. But seeing this swarm's viciousness, and a few other clues, lead her to realize that [[spoiler:these aren't ordinary Drones, but psychotic "Unmutuals" that were imprisoned to keep them from being a danger to others.]]

* DependingOnTheWriter: The Flood are apparently capable of quickly infecting people through simply stabbing them, rather than just an Infection Form (which are never seen infecting anyone on-screen ironically enough). Three of the Marines are infected in this manner. Though not exclusive to this story, the speed is.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Subverted. Cole faked his own death at the Battle of Psi Serpentis.]]

* BreatherEpisode: After the horrifying BreakTheCutie story preceding it, ''Connectivity'' is SweetDreamsFuel.

* IDidWhatIHadToDo: Smith claims this when confronted with the fact that he [[spoiler: knowingly infected both Elites and humans with the Flood for the sake of research.]]

* MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch: Most Elites are arrogant {{Proud Warrior Race Guy}}s, but "Henry" is very docile for one. Notably, several times he saves his human allies's lives rather than letting them be killed, and even consents to using a human assault rifle, when Elites have been seen choosing to fight barehanded rather than use a human weapon.

* OnlyAFleshWound: The Flood infectees can recover from almost any wound. Only a headshot, heart shot, and then crushing or tearing apart the body guarantees they'll stay dead.

* AscendedFanon: A contest was held for the reprints where fans could submit artwork for each of the short stories' covers.

Some of the stories received motion comic adaptations.

* AnimatedAdaptation: ''The Mona Lisa'', ''The Return'', ''Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian'', and ''Headhunters'' have received them.
* AscendedFanon: A contest was held for the reprints where fans could submit artwork for the short stories' covers.

* KillEmAll: Several stories end this way. [[spoiler:''The Mona Lisa'' and ''Headhunters''.]]

* DangerouslyGenreSavvy: The Prophet of Conviction knew the shipmaster would come to kill him after his betrayal and tried to surprise him with a plasma pistol. However, it wasn't enough to save him.

* KillEmAll: Several stories end this way. [[spoiler:''Dirt'', ''Stomping on the Heels of a Fuss'', ''The Mona Lisa'', and ''Headhunters''.]]

* EnemyMine: Black Team teams up with a Drone named Hopalong, who will help them into the mine in exchange for freeing his fellow Drones. Team Black is very uneasy about him, and don't know if he can be trusted. [[spoiler:He couldn't. The Drones are all psychotic "Unmutuals" who were being imprisoned to keep them from being a danger to others.]]

* [[spoiler:CareerEndingInjury: Soren's gimp legs and twisted bones means he can never fight in battle.]]
* [[spoiler: DreamCrushingHandicap: Soren is left off the Spartan team because of his disabilities, since armor would not fit him and Mendez worries the Spartans would be overprotective of Soren.]]
* [[spoiler:HandicappedBadass: Soren still has the greatest upper body strength of any Spartan, and manages to hold his own against the healthy one Randall.]]
* {{Homage}}: Soren's tale resembles that of [[spoiler:Ephialtes of Trachis]] in ''Film/ThreeHundred'', [[spoiler:who was rejected from the Spartans because he was crippled, and so betrayed them.]]

* [[spoiler:NeverFoundTheBody: Soren and Partch's Longsword is shot out of the air and crashes back onto Reach. Partch's body is found in the wreckage but Soren's isn't.]]

* [[spoiler:DownerEnding: Brian and Dasc are the only prisoners to escape, and Dasc kills Brian shortly afterward to keep his existence a secret.]]

* [[spoiler:HeroicSuicide: Michael Baird lets an Elite kill him so that Mo Ye can circumvent [[ThreeLawsCompliant her inability to harm a human]].]]

* [[spoiler:TakingYouWithMe: Shortly after reconnecting, Mo Ye blows the ship up to kill all the Covenant aboard.]]

* TimeBomb: [[spoiler:Subverted. See Troll below.]]

* ContinuityNod: VISR from ''VideoGame/Halo3ODST'' is in use here.

* [[spoiler:EyeScream: The Spec Ops Elites torture Jonah by burning out one of his eyes with their energy sword.]]

-->'''Roland:''' You were a bully as a kid, weren’t you?
-->'''Jonah:''' Me? No. I was the twelve-year-old.
-->'''Roland:''' Ha. You’d think that’d teach you to have some sympathy for—
-->'''Jonah:''' Sympathy? Shit. If getting my ass bruised every other week taught me anything it was the simple truth that it’s better to be the bully than the bullied.
-->'''Roland:''' You are one enlightened individual, my friend.
-->'''Jonah:''' Hey, I tend to think I turned out okay.
* [[spoiler:TakingYouWithMe: Jonah blows up himself and six Special Ops Elites along with any other surviving Covenant for a mile.]]

* [[spoiler:BolivianArmyEnding: The story ends with Sergeant Lopez and the Elite "Henry" fighting for the last escape pod as the Flood approaches and the ''Red Horse'' prepares to fire a nuke at the ship.]]

* [[spoiler:ChildhoodMarriagePromise]]: At the end of the story Master Chief meets Lieutenant Parisa, [[spoiler:and discovers they were friends as children, learning this when he sees her photograph of herself and him as kids. She tells him that young John had saved her from drowning, and promised to marry her, but he (or rather, his degenerate clone) died soon after. The adult John's decision to not tell her who he is was quite the TearJerker.]]
* [[spoiler:CloneDegeneration: Flash clones are highly prone to mental disorders, organ failure and an early death. Thus Master Chief learns from a now-grown childhood friend that his clone was dead within a few years.]]

* [[spoiler:{{Determinator}}: Despite all the Gravemind's attempts, he cannot succeed in making her give up Halo's index. Cortana is very broken by the end, though.]]

* [[GratuitousIambicPentameter Gratuitous Trochaic Heptameter]]: Cortana calls out Gravemind for speaking everything as a poem. It seems rather offended by her "lack of taste", and speaks more simply afterward.

* [[spoiler:DatingCatwoman]]: Unintentionally. Cole meets his match in the captain of the Insurrectionist frigate ''Bellicose'', which manages to outwit him three times. [[spoiler:She turns out to be his wife, Lyrenne Castilla.]]

* ISurrenderSuckers: After [[YouAreInCommandNow gaining command of the]] ''Las Vegas'', Cole signaled the Insurrectionist ship ''Callisto'', declaring the crews' surrender. However, he then ordered his crew to place their last missile in the docking bay. When the ''Callisto'' docked with the ''Las Vegas'' the missile was fired directly into the corvette.\\
\\
Cole's faked distress signal was both a stroke of genius and breach of protocol so severe that UNSC CENTCOM dithered over whether to award him the Legion of Honor or to have him court martialed. Ultimately they did neither, to avoid setting precedent. However, from that point on Cole resolved to never again send a distress signal in enemy territory; no one would believe it. As he stated in his personal log: "Surrender, quite literally, is no longer an option for me.”

* [[OneManArmy One Ship Fleet]]: However, said Covenant ship managed to kill 13 human ones beforehand. [[FromBadToWorse And this is just the second battle of the war]].

* [[spoiler:ScrewThisImOuttaHere: SURGEON and USUAL SUSPECTS theorize that Cole faked his death because he was tired of fighting the Covenant and wanted to retire in peace. That left humanity with another ten years being wiped out, though, and the two ONI agents wonder if they might be able to find Cole and convince him to return to the post-war UNSC.]]

* [[spoiler:AdvancedAncientHumans: This short story is the first hint of the prehistoric human interstellar civilization that was revealed in Literature/TheForerunnerSaga.]]

* [[spoiler:DrivenToSuicide]]: At the end of the story, [[spoiler:the Minister of Discovery ends his memoir then unlocks the doors to his chamber so the Flood may pour in and kill him.]]

'''Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe''' is a collection of short stories set in the ''{{Franchise/Halo}}'' universe written by several different authors. Some tell stories from the perspective of the Spartan {{Super Soldier}}s, some from the perspective of [[BadassNormal ordinary human troops]], and some even from [[VillainEpisode the Covenant themselves]].

-->"Chief, I believe that I can honestly say that even though [[OneManArmy you are an honest-to-Buddha one-man death squad]], [[MemeticSexGod and that if you were to ask nicely]] [[CareerVersusMan I'd give up my lucrative career in the Corps]] [[StayInTheKitchen and start pumping out your babies]] just as fast as you could put them in me, there is no way I am gonna run across fifty goddamn meters of open terrain covered by three Jackal snipers ''that I can see'' just to jump into an open vehicle. Throwing myself on a goddamn grenade makes more sense than that."

* MemeticSexGod: John-117, In-universe! As seen above.

''Dirt'' is a short story by Tobias Buckell, who also wrote ''Literature/HaloTheColeProtocol''. It takes place on the colony of New Jerusalem, as a rookie ODST finds a fellow dying ODST, who stops him to relate his life's story.