Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Literature / HaloTheFallOfReach

Go To

1[[quoteright:275:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Halo_Cover_Fall_of_Reach_7257.png]]
2
3->''"The four Spartans that composed Blue Team covered his back, standing absolutely silent and immobile in their MJOLNIR combat armor. Someone had once commented that they looked like Greek war gods in the armor....but his Spartans were far more effective and ruthless than Creator/{{Homer}}'s gods had ever been."''
4
5''Halo: The Fall of Reach'' is the first novel in the ''{{Franchise/Halo}}'' series, and sets up the backbone of the franchise’s lore. It was written by Eric Nylund in 2001. Beginning several decades before ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'', the book explores the history of Spartan John-117 – later to become the Master Chief – and his rise through the ranks of the United Nations Space Command's (UNSC) [[SuperSoldier Spartan-II]] program. Originally developed as an elite strike team to counter human Insurrectionists, the Spartans are transformed by FirstContact and the subsequent war with the [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Covenant]] into humanity's greatest heroes, as they are the only group the UNSC can consistently rely on to get results in the war. The book follows John through a childhood immersed in military training, his struggles adjusting to his enhancements, the battles he fought on behalf of humanity, and his eventual acquisition of the [[PoweredArmor MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor]].
6
7It is notable that the book went from initial concept to final publication in the space of four months, with Nylund writing the final draft within six weeks of beginning the project. The [[BroadStrokes broad story details]] of this book are considered vital to the ''Halo'' ExpandedUniverse, with specific references popping up as early as ''{{VideoGame/Halo 2}}''. While ''Halo'' canon has evolved significantly since the original writing (the game ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' both intersects and contradicts some aspects of the book, and the novel itself was slightly rewritten in its 2010 and 2011 editions to make it mesh better with later canon), the core elements of the Spartan program and the characters depicted here have been largely untouched.
8
9It has been suggested by many fans that the book is a good starting point for a [[TheMovie movie adaptation]] – indeed, Stuart Beattie submitted a draft script and concept art based on the book once Creator/PeterJackson’s project fell through. The novel has been adapted into both a comic series published by Creator/MarvelComics and an animated series created by Sequence (the same studio behind the ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}: Anniversary'' and ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}'' terminals), and many aspects were also adopted for the ''Series/{{Halo 2022}}'' TV show.
10----
11!!Tropes featured:
12* AbnormalAmmo: The fougasses used in the prologue to take down a wing of Banshees when they fly too low to the ground.
13* AcquiredSituationalNarcissism: A ''very'' minor example; after the Chief is wounded during his first combat mission, he is very proud of his Purple Heart and works hard to keep it shiny. However, news of Harvest's destruction at the hands of the Covenant makes him quickly realize just how little medals really matter.
14* ActionGirl: Any of the female Spartans, particularly Linda and Kelly.
15* AliensAreBastards: The Covenant, who are also ScaryDogmaticAliens.
16* AllThereInTheManual: The book is essentially the backstory for ''Halo: Combat Evolved'', filling in many of the blanks that were at most only alluded to in the game itself, such as the origin of the Spartans, Keyes's past exploits (such as the "Keyes Loop" mentioned in CE's manual), Cortana's creation, and, of course, the titular Fall of Reach itself.
17* AndIMustScream:
18** Those who wash out of the Spartan program, many of whom are too mangled to stand or even move.
19** [[spoiler:James]]'s presumed death is considered to be this for the Spartans, as he gets blasted out into space, left to drift until he runs out of air.
20* AnimatedAdaptation: The Vancouver based animation studio, ''Sequence'' adapted it into an AllCGICartoon mini-series to tie in with ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians''.
21* ArcNumber: 117, Master Chief's service tag.
22* AnArmAndALeg: [[spoiler:James-005]] loses half of his lower left arm to a Hunter assault cannon blast during the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV, signaling that the Covenant are stepping up their game.
23* ArtificialGravity: [=UNSC=] ships used CentrifugalGravity until more traditional [=AG=] is reverse engineered from downed Covenant ships.
24* ArtificialLimbs: [[spoiler:James]] gets a prosthetic replacement for his missing arm.
25* AsskickingLeadsToLeadership:
26** Chief Mendez and the trainers who put the young Spartans through their paces.
27** Also Jacob Keyes, whose "Keyes Loop" during the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV got him promoted to Captain.
28* BadassCrew: The Spartans, who are firmly established as the most badass unit in the entire UNSC.
29* BadassNormal: Mendez, who can keep up his Spartans despite being an otherwise normal human who's significantly older than them.
30* TheBadGuyWins: The Covenant wins the Battle of Reach, and Keyes is forced to retreat from the planet with John-117.
31* BashBrothers: Every Spartan learned to trust the rest of their unit completely, and because each member received the same training they don't have to worry about any weak spots. Every time Master Chief comes across a random team of marines he worries that they wouldn't be able to keep up with the Spartans, since normal combat for Spartans tends to be far too much for regular soldiers.
32* BerserkButton: John accidentally sets off an ODST's one in the gym. It doesn’t end well for the latter. [[spoiler:It latter turns out that the [=ODSTs=] were ''ordered'' to pick a fight with John in order to test his augmentations.]]
33* {{BFG}}: The Super MAC platforms, which fire magnetically accelerated projectiles at almost a fraction of the speed of light. The ship-mounted [=MACs=] can only badly damage Covenant shields. The Super [=MACs=] go ''through the shield'', through ''the ship'', out the other side, and possibly into ''another ship'' unlucky to have been in the way.
34* BlindJump: A key competent of the Cole Protocol is that any UNSC ship forced to retreat from the Covenant must make a blind jump away from human worlds. As established in ''Combat Evolved'', the ''Pillar of Autumn'' makes a blind jump in order to escape Reach and arrive at Halo. However, it's revealed here that [[spoiler: Cortana had secretly used untested coordinates from a Forerunner artifact instead]].
35* BodyHorror:
36** Some of the Spartans who [[FateWorseThanDeath "wash out"]] gain physical deformities that turn them into this. It's implied some of them may eventually be healed and possibly made fully functional as medicine advances.
37** A video of a Marine (read: a normal human without the Spartan's augmentations) testing a [[PoweredArmor MJOLNIR armor]] is shown to the Spartans. Every minuscule twitch of his body is heavily amplified by the armor, causing the Marine to spasm, [[ViciousCycle which is further amplified by the armor]] until the suit literally tears his muscles and bones apart as he writhes in pain.
38* BornLucky: It's first established here that a main reason why John is the best of the Spartans is because of his extraordinary luck; it's even the reason why Halsey picks him as the first Spartan to try on MJOLNIR.
39* BulletProofVest: The MJOLNIR armour takes this to its logical extreme. Doesn’t stop sustained plasma fire, though.
40* BullyingADragon: John-117 at age fourteen accidentally angers a quartet of arrogant Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (he removed a pin from a weight set to test the varying gravity section in the gym). [[CurbStompBattle John easily wins the fight]], which ends with him (accidentally) killing two of the [=ODSTs=] and severely injuring the others. In the aftermath, the [=ODSTs=]' CO encounters Mendez and realizes John was one of "them". [[spoiler:It's later revealed that this trope was ''deliberately'' invoked; the whole fight was set up to test John's augmentations. [[GoneHorriblyRight In that respect, it was a total success.]]]]
41* BurialInSpace: The bodies of the Spartan trainees who died during the augmentation process are launched out of the torpedo tubes of a ship, accompanied by an appropriate military funeral procession.
42* CasualInterstellarTravel: Averted and played with. ''How much'' a civilization can play this trope straight is a major indicator of their general "technology level"; up until the end of the war, human slipspace travel is somewhat inconsistent, unpredictable, and crude (travel times for the same journey can vary by days, sometimes even weeks). A major advantage the Covenant have is their far faster, more accurate, and efficient slipspace travel capability.
43* CentrifugalGravity: Oddly, the books depicts the UNSC as needing to produce ''all'' their ArtificialGravity through rotating sections, even though ''Combat Evolved'' itself and subsequent media portray the UNSC as having at least ''some'' gravity generators.
44* ChessMotifs: After being activated, Cortana's first words are the Italian proverb "Quando il gioco è finito, il re e il pedone vanno nella stessa scatola."[[labelnote:Translation]]When the game is over, the king and the pawn go in the same box.[[/labelnote]]
45* ChestOfMedals: After the Chief becomes a galactic war hero and has been awarded almost every medal in the UNSC Navy, he's shown at one point walking in with a uniform coated with medals, but not caring at all how they look.
46* ChildSoldiers: The Spartans, who undertake their first mission at age 14.
47* TheChosenOne: Sort of inverted, as Master Chief is, by the selection standards, completely mundane. Halsey only picks him after noticing he fights the hardest to stay on top during a game of King of the Hill and after a coin toss. Eventually, he proves himself to be the most gifted Spartan overall. This leads him to be chosen as leader of the Spartans, and is also why he's later chosen by Cortana to receive the fully AI-compatible MJOLNIR armor.
48* ColdSniper: Linda, the best shot among the Spartans, and rather unsociable even by their standards.
49* ComicBookAdaptation: ''Creator/MarvelComics'' made a three-issue series in 2010.
50* ComingOfAgeStory: At its core, the first part of the novel is about John literally growing up into a soldier and leader.
51* ContinuityNod:
52** The pipe that Keyes has in the first ''Halo'' game is never lit. It’s explained why at the start of the book.
53** Within the book, there's Fhajad, one of the Spartan trainees. We don't directly see him again after he washes out, but he eventually writes a paper that then-Commander Keyes reads before the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV.
54* CurbstompCushion: The eponymous battle ends with the Covenant utterly annihilating Reach's defenses, including most of the remaining Spartan-[=IIs=]. However, the UNSC does not go down without a fight, [[PyrrhicVictory inflicting severe casualties on the attacking Covenant fleet]] and preventing them from obtaining Earth's coordinates. And of course, the ''Autumn'' is able to escape with Chief and Cortana in tow.
55* CruelAndUnusualDeath:
56** Some of the Spartans who "[[BodyHorror fail]]" the augmentation process die in horrible agony.
57** PlayedWith in regards to James-005's death. While drifting in space until suffocating is already fairly unsettling, John-117 finds it particularly unenviable due to dying against an "enemy" that cannot be fought.
58* DeadlyDodging: At Sigma Octanus IV, Keyes's ship is able to shake off homing plasma torpedoes by making a last minute course correction that leads to the torpedoes hitting a Covenant destroyer instead (though Keyes's own ship does receive some heavy damage anyways when it scrapes against said destroyer's shields during the dodge).
59* DeadlySparring: A fourteen-year-old John is confronted by four [=ODSTs=] before being ordered into a boxing ring to fight five men at once. Due to his [[SuperSoldier SPARTAN augmentations]], John winds up killing two men and maiming the rest without breaking a sweat. This incident led to widespread distrust and resentment toward the SPARTAN Program throughout the Marine Corp.
60* DeathOfAChild: What with the ChildSoldiers. [[spoiler: Sam is the first of the Spartan-[=IIs=] to die, at ''fourteen.'']]
61* DefeatMeansFriendship: There's a variation of this with how John, Kelly and Sam first became friends. Specifically, it was them coming in last place in the first exercise which ended up bringing them closer together.
62* DeflectorShields: Part of what makes the Covenant ships so hard to stop. The shields can take repeated hits from any weapon carried by a UNSC ship. Keyes scrapping his ship against a destroyer's shields does heavy damage to his ship and he notes if his touched the shields at a different angle it would have been ripped in half.
63* {{Determinator}}: The Chief's persistence against the odds is established as one of his most defining features, even as a pre-Spartan child.
64* DoesNotKnowHisOwnStrength: Following the augmentation surgery, John has a brief moment at the gym where he wonders if the artificial gravity has somehow been reduced. Shortly afterwards, he's forced into a spar against four veteran Helljumpers, with John accidentally killing two as a result of this trope.
65* DoomedHometown: Reach, the very planet where the Spartans were raised and trained. It’s in the title of the book.
66* DoNotGoGentle: The UNSC [[ForegoneConclusion loses]] the battle of Reach, but they certainly make the Covenant work hard for their victory.
67* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: As the first major entry in the ''Halo'' canon, as well as the work that establishes the bulk of the series' backstory, it is bound to have some of this:
68** Dr. Halsey shoots down John's assumption that killing a Prophet would end the war or at least demoralize the Covenant, instead pointing out that such a thing would enrage the Covenant enough to make them fight ''harder.'' As early as ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'', this line of thinking is dropped, with Cortana (who is born from Dr. Halsey's mind) recommending killing the Prophet of Regret to destabilize the Covenant, [[spoiler: which [[EnemyCivilWar it does]]]].
69** The book depicts Covenant terrestrial forces as being comprised ''entirely'' of Grunts and Jackals for the vast majority of the war; the Hunters are first encountered at Sigma Octanus IV only a few months before the Fall of Reach, while the Elites remain unseen by ''any'' UNSC personnel until the invasion of Reach itself (having spent all the previous years holed up in their spaceships). Brutes and Drones are nonexistent all together, and Prophets are only known to the UNSC via a handful of intercepted transmissions. Subsequent works would go on to instead show that humanity had in fact directly encountered virtually ''all'' the major Covenant species from pretty much the very beginning of the war. Conversely, the book shows the Chief encountering the non-combatant Engineer race that were removed [[ProductionLeadTime late in the development]] of ''Combat Evolved'' but RefittedForSequel in ''VideoGame/Halo3ODST'' eight years later.
70** As noted above, the UNSC is depicted as being wholly reliant on centrifugal gravity, unlike in later media.
71** The Pelican dropship is implied to be much larger than would be later established, as it is capable of carrying all of the 75 Spartan trainees. For comparison, in ''First Strike'', it is stated that a Pelican's interior had to be stripped of all amenities in order to squash in 27 Spartans. The reprint changes the dropship in this example to an Albatross, an upscaled Pelican, which was first introduced in ''Halo 2''.
72** The Beta Centauri system is said to have been colonized by humanity, as a type of champagne is named after it. The reissue changes it to Procyon (the system [[VideoGame/HaloWars Arcadia]] is located in), and all future examples of colonized star systems are nowhere near as far from Earth as the 350-light year Beta Centauri system was.
73** The Jackals are referred to as having fins on their heads and arms, instead of the hairlike quills the games depict.
74** The Covenant are portrayed as holding a strict LeaveNoSurvivors attitude, with them refusing to take any prisoners. This was downplayed once the concept of 'Reclaimers' were introduced, with the Covenant often needing to take humans hostage in order to have an easier time interacting with Forerunner tech. ''Combat Evolved'' ended up including a rescue mission after Captain Keyes was taken prisoner, and ''VideoGame/Halo2'' even has a section in which you raid a Covenant prison on board High Charity and rescue Marines being held captive there.
75** FasterThanLight travel using Slipspace was depicted as extremely inconsistent in the length of time and the exit point, often taking several weeks to get to a location, which was why [[HumanPopsicle putting most crew members into cryosleep was standard]]. Later works, due to the needs of the story, downplay this aspect so the plot can move much quicker.
76** ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' ends up doing several {{RetCon}}s to much of the content of the book, including the Battle of Reach itself. Some of this is reconciled through the collectors edition of Haley's Journal and [[BroadStrokes small throwaway details]] in the game[[note]]In the book [[FacelessMooks MJOLNIR Armor was identical for each Spartan]], with Halsey knowing who was who based on body language alone, in the game Halsey notes with contempt the [[CustomUniform individualized modifications]] of Noble Team, Spartan III's she did not train, with "What have you done with my armor?"[[/note]]. The book has a rather happenstance explanation for the discovery of the location of Alpha Halo where she has a EurekaMoment with some random artifacts from Octanus IV, while the game implies this information was deciphered from a Forerunner outpost on Reach.
77** As a moment of characterization, it is mentioned that by 2552, John-117 [[ChestOfMedals has earned every medal]] except the Prisoner of War Medallion. However, ''Literature/HaloGhostsOfOnyx'' depicts him being briefly captured by the United Rebel Front about two decades ago. This detail is fairly easy to justify, as it is likely that the UNSC wouldn't want to acknowledge that a Spartan ''could'' be taken prisoner, just like how dead Spartans are only ever labeled as MIA to keep up the illusion that they're unkillable, but it's still something to note.
78* EscortMission: Played with. The Spartans are told they'll receive a hacking escort for their biggest mission yet; they immediately object on the grounds that, civilian or elite soldier, the escort couldn't possibly keep up with a Spartan. Cue Cortana, the Chief's trusty AI companion who's usually safe inside his armor.
79* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: The final arc of the book is about how the planet Reach falls to the Covenant. Pretty self-explanatory.
80* ExpandedUniverse: The beginning of ''Halo''[='s=] EU is here, as the book was written concurrently with the first game's development. It was actually a brilliant piece of preparation, as ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'' purposefully began InMediasRes. This book gave you the details of everything not mentioned in the game.
81* FearlessFool: Averted, as the Spartans actually feel fear; they've just been trained to acknowledge its existence and put it aside. When John-117 sees the Hunters for the first time, he has to expend a little more effort than usually in putting aside his fear.
82* FateWorseThanDeath: Some of the Spartans who "wash out" qualify. Also, the Master Chief actually believes death would preferable to living without his [[TrueCompanions teammates]].
83* FictionalDocument: The 2010 rerelease to celebrate the launch of ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' includes a series of documents and transcriptions of various other encounters.
84* FiveManBand: The original Blue Team:
85** TheHero: John-117: Team leader, perennial badass, and protagonist of the games.
86** TheLancer: Samuel-034: John's best friend and fiercely loyal supporter [[spoiler: right up until his death]].
87** [[TheBigGuy The Big Girl]]: Linda-058: The [[TheQuietOne quietest,]] most intimidating, and in John's opinion, the "strongest" Spartan.
88** TheSmartGuy: Frederic-104: [[TheNonDescript The everyman]] (at least by Spartan standards) and the most rational of the group.
89** TheHeart: Kelly-087: John's ''other'' best friend, one of the more emotional Spartans, the glue that sticks the team together, and one of the only Spartans [[GallowsHumor with a fairly active sense of humor]].
90* FlawedPrototype: Early attempts at the Mjolnir armor was deemed inadequate to the needs of the Spartans. The first attempt was more of a converted construction mech, which in an exercise deployed ''against'' the Spartans they were able to damage them with their bare hands. The Spartans don't officially get the Mjolnir armor until the Mark IV, when they managed to miniaturize the fusion reactor needed to power it properly (previous ones required a power tether). But Chief got to be the first to test the Mark V which came with DeflectorShields and truly realized what was promised by the Spartan's in Mjolnir armor, and Chief's armor in particular was customized to carry Cortana.
91* GeniusCripple: The SPARTAN-II candidates who washed out during the augmentation process may not have much in the way of physical capabilities anymore, but it's noted that they still have a role in the UNSC as strategists, analysts, and the like, as they were selected as much for their intelligence as their strength and thus were instructed in history, science, math, and tactics. Indeed, one of these washouts, Fhajad, writes a physics paper that proves vital in the UNSC's victory at Sigma Octanus IV.
92* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:After Sam's suit is irreparably breached, he chooses to stay behind on the Covenant ship to cover his teammates' retreat and ensure that the warheads goes off, become the first Spartan-II to die in combat.]]
93* HighSpeedMissileDodge:
94** Part of the famed "Keyes Loop" maneuver involves dodging homing plasma torpedos and [[DeadlyDodging having them hit a Covenant ship instead]].
95** The Chief does this ''on foot'' when when testing the new MJOLNIR Mark V armor, by slapping the missile aside just before it hits him. No, his armor and physical augmentations don't give him reflexes ''that'' ridiculous; Cortana handled the timing. He wasn't completely undamaged by the missile's explosion, though.
96* HumansAreBastards: This is the first of many times in ''Halo'' canon that the UNSC is hinted at being... not ''entirely'' heroic. The Spartan-II program involves ''kidnapping children'' to be used as test subjects in an experimental super-soldier program, subjecting them to a training regimen so grueling it qualifies as torture, and performing highly dangerous medical procedures on them that kill many of the subjects outright. And the kicker? When this was happening, the UNSC had ''no idea the Covenant existed''. The original purpose of the Spartan-II program wasn't to save humanity from genocidal aliens, but to quell political dissenters, secessionists and rebels, of which there were very, very many.
97* ILikeThoseOdds: Four Spartans vs. a thousand Grunts is described as such:
98-->'''Kelly:''' Four of us, and a thousand of them? Piss-poor odds for the little guys.
99* TheJuggernaut: Covenant warships are hard to stop. The reader gets a taste for how dangerous they are when a UNSC ship engaging a Covenant one throws everything at it, [[MacrossMissileMassacre missiles]], its [[WaveMotionGun MAC gun]], a [[NukeEm nuclear warhead]], and none of them are able to destroy it. It makes Keyes' success against the Covenant stand out where he has successfully destroyed multiple ships but even then it's clear his victories are the exception, not the rule. In most engagements the UNSC is only able to win with two to one advantage in its favor.
100* LittleMissBadass: The female Spartan-II trainees are all this, but in particular there's Kelly; at the age of seven, she not only outruns full grown Marines, but can knock one unconscious by simply side-arming a rock at his head.
101* InMediasRes: The prologue starts right in the middle of the Human-Covenant War, with the Spartans in the middle of a mission. Then the book goes back to the very beginning of the SPARTAN-II Program, before the war has even started.
102* IWorkAlone: When John, Sam, and Kelly are grouped together for their first training exercise, John goes lone wolf and abandons his teammates. While he is the first to finish the challenge as a result, the victory conditions specified that the ''entire team'' has to finish together. As such, John's selfishness means that Sam, who had the might but not the speed, and Kelly, who had the speed but not the strength, were left behind and out-classed by the other competitors. Fortunately, John quickly learns his lesson from this, and comes up with an effective plan the second time around that allows his team to finish the exercise together and avoid being last.
103* KnightOfCerebus: The Covenant. The book isn't exactly lighthearted given the darker side to the UNSC, but it's a ComingOfAge story that feels hopeful about the main character's future. Then the Covanent and launching declare war on humanity, offering no mercy, they only bring extermination. [[HopelessWar And for most of the book they are winning]].
104* LimbSensationFascination: Midway through the book, the Spartans all marvel at their new PoweredArmor, Samuel in particular [[DidIJustSayThatOutLoud spouting "I think I'm in love."]] Averted earlier with their physical augmentation; there the Spartans' reactions are mostly dizziness and confusion post-surgeries.
105* MadeOfIron: Invoked in that the Spartans' bones are reinforced with powerful metals that make them far different to stock-standard human bones. It's repeatedly mentioned that without that reinforcement they wouldn't survive using the MJOLNIR powered armor, which is demonstrated by a video of a Marine in partial MJOLNIR moving his arm and immediately screaming in pain as his arm's bones are crushed.
106* MagneticWeapons: The MAC and "Super" MACs mounted on Orbital Defense Platforms work in this principle and are one of the few relatively reliable ways of destroying the superior Covenant ships.
107* MathematiciansAnswer: During the final test of the MJOLNIR Mark V armor, a tester instructs the Master Chief to count to ten after he (the tester) leaves the room. During that time, Cortana senses the presence of an incoming squad of [=ODSTs=], and asks the Master Chief what his plan is for dealing with them. He responds with "I'm going to finish counting to ten."
108* AMillionIsAStatistic: Played with, since one of the book's themes is about making one's sacrifice count for the greater good. This particularly comes into play with the Spartans themselves, since they were created by sacrificing the childhoods of 75 people (and the lives of almost half of those) in the hopes of saving many more lives.
109* MythologyGag: When Halsey first sees John, he's playing a game of "King of the Hill". During the Spartans' training they play CaptureTheFlag. Both of these are gametypes in the ''Halo'' games[[note]]This becomes even more interesting when you consider that ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}'' established multiplayer gametypes as being legitimate training scenarios[[/note]].
110* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler: Cortana, in one of her bored moments, discovers that three supposedly civilian ships docked at an orbital station are actually ONI prowlers set to leave Reach for a routine intelligence gathering mission. In response to this security breach, the ONI operative in charge of the mission orders that one of the prowlers, the ''Circumference'', have its computers isolated and registry scrambled to prevent it from being found out. So when the Covenant launch their attack less than a day later, the AI on Gamma Station cannot delete ''Circumference''[='s=] navigation database, posing a serious risk that the Covenant capture it and find all remaining human worlds.]]\
111** It ultimately leads to a case of NiceJobFixingItVillain, as [[spoiler: the Covenant's attempt to retrieve ''Circumference''[='s=] database is what keeps John from participating in the disastrous ground defense of Reach with most of the other Spartans, instead putting him in position to board the ''Pillar of Autumn'' after stopping the Covenant in space, leading to the events of ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'']].
112* NoSocialSkills: John knows only three ways to interact with people: as superiors (which he obeys), teammates (which he helps), or targets (which he neutralizes). Part of the trouble a 14-year-old John has with a belligerent ODST squad is that the latter could be any of those three. It's implied that the rest of the Spartans have similar problems.
113* OneSteveLimit: Apparently there are no overlapping first names among the 75 Spartan trainees. Our John is the ''only'' John.
114* OutsideContextProblem: The [[AliensAreBastards Covenant]]. The UNSC was prepared to fight against the many political dissenters, secessionists and rebels threatening it. They were not prepared for aliens to show up with a fleet of ships that have the UNSC's fleet hopeless outgunned, and as it turns out later, out manned as well.
115* OriginsEpisode: The book is this for the Spartan-[=IIs=] in general. In particular, it's about how the Master Chief became the Master Chief, and establishing him as something other than a heartless Space Marine.
116* PoweredArmor: So powerful that no normal human can use them without killing themselves; only the Spartans' unsurpassed physical conditioning and virtually unbreakable bones allow them to operate MJOLNIR safely. It's an interesting acknowledgement of the fact that any real life powered armor (or any piloted vehicle in general) has to stay within the boundaries of what the pilot/operator is physically capable of surviving. Halsey even specifically tells John, "You are the only ones who can use them, Petty Officer. Who else would we give them to?"
117* PowerIncontinence: It's shown that when a non-Spartan tries to utilize the MJOLNIR armor, they will literally break themselves due to their inability to control their new super-speed and super-strength.
118* PyrrhicVictory: A running theme.
119** The Spartans ''always'' won their confrontations, but almost every minor victory they accomplished was accompanied by some sort of greater defeat, either a destroyed city or a glassed planet. "A death worthwhile" is almost ArcWords.
120** Chief Mendez told John that it's acceptable to spend lives to insure the success of a mission, but not waste them. The Master Chief would continue to ask himself this before a mission.
121** The Battle of Sigma Octanus IV ends with millions of civilians and Marines dead and a large number of UNSC ships destroyed, along with a major city on the planet's surface being nuked. But hey, at least the Covenant didn't win.
122** The Fall of Reach itself, at least for the Covenant. Out of a fleet of 300 ships, over two thirds of them are destroyed, not to mention the ground casualties.
123* RammingAlwaysWorks: At Sigma Octanus IV, Keyes has his ship ram a tiny Covenant stealth ship in response to it jamming his missiles' tracking capabilities. Though Keyes's crew "barely felt the bump", their ship did receive some hull damage in the process.
124* {{Retcon}}:
125** A number of things about the titular Fall of Reach were overwritten by ''VideoGame/HaloReach'', though some of the conflicts were explained in Halsey's Journal, a booklet co-written by Nylund himself that came with the limited edition of ''Halo: Reach'', and six [[http://www.halopedia.org/Data_Drop "Data Drops"]] released by Creator/ThreeFourThreeIndustries.
126** Additionally , a number of details were changed in the 2010 rerelease in order to make the book mesh better with later canon, as well as to simply fix internal inconsistencies; for one thing, Elites are no longer referred to as a newly encountered species when the Chief finally fights one. The very next year, Tor had to release yet ''another'' edition to change some inconsistencies that were missed by the 2010 edition.
127* RightForTheWrongReasons: Keyes gambled with a risky maneuver that involved dropping off a nuke to be used as basically a hidden mine while doing a high speed orbit of a planet in order to outrun Covenant plasma torpedos, and then using the nuke and a WronskiFeint to take out three Covenant cruisers. It paid off and came to be known as the "Keyes Loop". Keyes comments that if any of his students had proposed that plan to him he would have dismissed it as something approaching HollywoodTactics; the fact it ''worked'' was a fluke.
128* SacrificialLion:
129** [[spoiler:Samuel, who sacrifices himself to help deliver the UNSC's first decisive victory against the Covenant; he was also the first Spartan to be lost in combat.]]
130** [[spoiler:Linda]] at the end. [[spoiler:Though [[Literature/HaloFirstStrike she gets better]].]]
131* SatelliteCharacter: Whilst it does focus on other characters at times, the book is pretty much Master Chief’s gig, with most of the rest of the cast circling around him.
132* SaveSat: The UNSC station ''[[http://www.halopedia.org/UNSC_Cradle Cradle]]'', sacrificed with all its crew to absorb a Covenant barrage.
133* SpoilerTitle: Reach falls.
134* StraightForTheCommander: After 27 years of losing the war against the Covenant, the UNSC plans an operation to kidnap a Covenant Prophet in hopes of forcing a truce. [[spoiler:The operation is interrupted by the Fall of Reach. Fortunately in ''Halo 2'', backstabbing politics within the Covenant end up killing off the Prophets for them.]]
135* SuperPrototype: The ''Pillar Of Autumn'' was overhauled into probably the UNSC's most powerful cruiser. Deceptively old, and considering previously to have been obsolete. But when the rest of the book explains how long it takes to fire ''one'' MAC round, the Autumn was refitted to fire ''three'' consecutive shots from the same gun[[note]]In ''[[VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved Halo: CE]]'', Cortana mentions that she managed to destroy four Covenant ships (in addition to damaging several others) before they finally disabled the ''Autumn’s'' MAC cannon. For a single human cruiser against a numerically and technologically superior force of Covenant vessels, this is practically unheard of[[/note]].
136** That's just the offensive combat abilities. The ship also includes three reactors with new technology that uses chilled ions to cool the waste heat, meaning that the more power they use, the more they cool the waste heat. And the ''Autumn'' can take one hell of a pounding.
137* SuperSoldier: The majority of the book is about what is required to get the Spartans to be the ultimate soldiers. Only half passed the augmentations, with 2/3rds of those who didn't "graduate" dying and the others becoming horribly deformed. But out of those who passed and went on to become the ultimate soldiers, only a handful died during the nearly three decades of constant combat between the start of the war and the Fall of Reach.
138* SuperSpeed: Kelly is frequently noted as being the fastest in a group of superhumans.
139* SurvivedTheBeginning: There are seven characters who join the Blue Team at some point in the novel: John, Fred, Linda, Kelly, Fjahad, Sam, and James. Sam and James both die and Fjahad is crippled and leaves both the team and the series, all in the first book. The other four, however, go on to survive all the way up to the latest media in the series.
140* TakeAThirdOption: When Keyes's ship is face-to-face with four Covenant ships (each one alone more than a match for it), he realizes that he's not going to be able to either directly outfight or outrun them, and quotes this very trope ("Yes... he did have a third option") when he comes up with a solution, which involves using some elaborate DeadlyDodging, a sneakily-deployed nuke, and a gravitational slingshot to destroy three of the four Covenant ships and make the fourth one retreat.
141* TakingTheBullet:
142** [[spoiler: Sam]] for John. Unusually for this trope, he isn't that badly hurt; but it breaches his suit badly enough that he won't survive the trip back.
143** At the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV, the ''Cradle'' (a space ''drydock'') takes a plasma salvo to save the fleet. Keyes describes the fleet's returning MAC salvo as "a 21-gun salute three times over". The tactic gets reused in the Battle of Reach, to some effectiveness.
144* TrainingFromHell: The first part of the book is about how the Spartan trainees were put through hell to become humanity's greatest soldiers.
145* TrueCompanions: The Spartans act like surrogate siblings very early on, enabling them to frequently win on missions from the get-go. John himself learns the hard way (at age 6) that winning must include his entire team, so they stay close together.
146* TwoActStructure: The book can be easily split into two halves: The first half covers the origins of the SPARTAN-II Program, the training regimen the Spartans went though, and their first contact with the Covenant. The second half takes a TimeSkip to 2552 and covers the Spartan's attempts to turn the tide of the war until they get caught in the Covenant's invasion of Reach.
147* UriahGambit: During a test for both Master Chief's new Mark V armor and his partnership with Cortana, [[spoiler:Halsey's rival Colonel Ackerson takes over the test in hopes of getting the Spartan killed, attacking him with ODST squads, anti-tank mines, automated chain guns, and [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill an airstrike]]. John and Cortana made it through ALL of them.]]
148** Cortana then attempts {{revenge}} by [[spoiler:reassigning Ackerson to the front lines. However, ''Literature/HaloFirstStrike'' reveals that he quickly slipped out of it]].
149* VictoryIsBoring: For John-117, his normal life was simply too easy; he did well in school and always dominated any physical or mental activity. Mendez and Halsey were the first people to really give him a challenge and he appreciated it.
150* VoiceWithAnInternetConnection: The book features Master Chief and Cortana's first experience working together. Cortana learns quickly that MC knows how to read a battlefield just fine, he just needs her to scout other options.
151* WakeUpCallBoss: The Spartans spent early fights against Jackals and Grunts, winning easily. Then they run into a pair of [[HeavilyArmoredMook Hunters]], one of the Spartans losing a hand in the fight. They aren't even able to kill the Hunters, just push a giant stone obelisk onto them, which while the Hunters can't push off, still isn't enough to kill them.
152* WaveMotionGun: The MAC ([[FunWithAcronyms Magnetic Acceleration Cannon]]) platforms, but more specifically the "Super" MAC orbital defense platforms. So powerful even the ''hundreds'' of Covenant capital ships attacking Reach stayed out of range. By the end of the battle, about 2/3rds of the several hundred Covenant ships in the ''Fleet of Particular Justice'' were destroyed, most of them by a mere twenty Orbital MAC platforms.
153** Note that the Super MAC guns are NOT Wave Motion Guns in the normal sense of an absurdly powerful energy weapon; rather, the guns are massively upscaled MAC guns that fire ''very'' large payloads at ''absurdly'' high velocity.
154* TheWorfEffect: It doesn't matter how good the [[SuperSoldier Spartans]] are, they are just soldiers on the ground and can't do anything about the Covanent's warships, which are far more powerful than those of the UNSC, which can go about wiping out all life on the planet with an OrbitalBombardment after defeating the UNSC fleet. This becomes especially notable with the Battle of Reach because John was redirected to a different problem while all other Spartans were sent to protect the planet-side generators and they were unable to make it back to the Pillar of Autumn.
155* YoungerThanTheyLook: Due to good genetics and TrainingFromHell it's said that by the time John was 14 he looked like an adult Olympic athlete. This is reflected in other media set around the same time period showing such Spartans with either an absurdly well-defined musculature or extremely tall with a baby face.

Top