Headscratchers / Halo 4

Learning about weaponry

• Why is there no cutscene in which John first picks up a Promethean weapon and figures out how to operate and reload it? Instead, he just magically knows how to use guns he's never before seen in his life.
  • You point it at something, you press a button, and shoot. Not very hard. Same way he learned to use Covenant weapons.
    • Humans, as Reclaimers, have a genetic predisposition to be capable of using Forerunner technology instinctively. It's been Halo canon since Halo: The Flood.
    • The first time you pick up each Forerunner weapon, it takes much longer to assemble and does so in a rather clunky way, signifying that Chief is trying to figure out how it works.

Why is the Didact now such a jerk?

• Why is the Didact now such a jerk? As far back as the Terminals in Halo 3, it was established he refused to use weapons like the Halos because it would be murder. He was also far more loving towards his wife. Why then does he have no problem with using a similarly xenocidal weapon like the Composer?
  • Because he learned to hate humans because they killed his sons. It's not like he's going to kill the entire galaxy, just the humans, because he believes that only the Forerunners deserve to hold the Mantle of Responsibility over sapient life. He believes that humans would become a xenocidal, tyrannical race. Note that in the early terminals, he's the one against destruction of the humans, while the Librarian is for xenocide.
  • Also, (and this part gets a little convoluted,) there are two of them. Additionally, while the Librarian is the one in favor of firing the rings, Didact is by no means a humanitarian. Didact upholds the Mantle for the Forerunners, and refrains from using the Rings in order to preserve the illusion of Forerunner omnipotence. The Librarian sees the inevitable, saves the humans so they can reclaim the galaxy, and concedes that Forerunner hubris has doomed the majority of the galaxy. Meanwhile, Didact is insanely hostile against humans and his hatred is likely amplified by the whole "reincarnate through memory implant in Bornstellar" debacle. In short, Didact never liked humans, unlike his wife, so his being a dick now isn't that much of a leap.
  • The Composer doesn't actually kill, it converts the flesh and blood into data, kind of like a AI's, That is how they made the monitors and such. The Flood only assimilates organics, so therefore the Flood would no longer be a problem. The main reason the Forerunners didn't consider using it on a entire race was that there is currently no way to reverse it.
  • I think the problem here is that in the original terminals, which recorded the very end of the war, the Didact showed a completely different personality than what he did in Halo 4. Also, considering that the Librarian died to save humanity, why wouldn't he want to respect that, considering their history? (BTW, I'm trying not to get into all of the canonicity issues with Iris/the Halo 3 terminals and the Forerunner Trilogy. Just a heads-up.)
    • Might have something to do with being imprisoned in deafening silence by the Librarian for millenia.
  • Indeed. I can't imagine the Halo 4 Didact saying "Activation is murder. A genocide larger than this galaxy has ever known. We are sworn to protect life not destroy it!" When he did oppose Librarian's mission, it was because she was putting herself in danger from being in the Halos' firing range, not because he hated humans. As worst, he was apathetic about them. Is that really the same person the Librarian could say that "such moral concerns faded from the Didact's attention"?
  • The Terminals reveal that he underwent one (or several) mutations specifically designed to create Flood immunity (which is why he has those fangs, head-growths, orange eyes, etc.). It's at this point he begins to act somewhat unstable, culminating in attempting to harvest humanity, which leads me to believe these mutations are what maddened him.
    • Mutated or otherwise, since when could Forerunners become immune to the Flood? (Unless you mean mutations that were intended to combat infection but turned out to be impractical/not work properly, which would certainly make more sense.)
    • They were intended, but didn't work. We see in the first cutscene with the mutated Didact that he runs a simulation of Flood infection, only to find that his new form is susceptible anyway.
    • Ah, that's what that was. Thankee. :) But back to the discussion- if memory and the Halo wikis serve, the conversations in the Halo 3 terminals apparently take place very shortly before the Halo array was fired. Even dismissing the fairly heavy implications (even heavier in Iris) that the Didact pulled the trigger himself, said conversations are contradicted by the timeline and events detailed in the Halo 4 terminals. Anyone got any ideas on what to make of it? I've seen the possibility of original-Didact's ressurection thrown around, but it sounds a bit iffy to me.
    • On that particular subject, we know there are two Didacts and we know the Ur-Didact was exiled by the Master Builder rather executed. So I suppose some time between these Terminals he returned then was sealed away while the other, Bornstellar-Didact, fired the Halos.
    • It should also be noted that the Didact and the Librarian shown to be on completely different sides of the debate as to how to deal with the Humans in the first terminal then they are later after the Humans began their attacks and the Flood threat was revealed, which might be 343's way of reminding the player that the Librarian and the Didact are not static characters.
    • Also, the Didact didn't wish to set off the Halo rings because he thought that his army of Composed Prometheans would be able to handle the Flood once the human population was added to their ranks, eliminating the need to wipe out Forerunner civilization and maintaining his successful record.
    • Silentium establishes that the Ur-Didact's behavior in Halo 4 is due to Gravemind subjecting him to a Mind Rape that made him adopt the Precursors "kill or enslave all life so that there will never be a threat to our species' dominance" mentality.
  • If you don't want to trudge through the above discussion, the short-and-simple canon explanation is that there were two Didacts; the original became evil and is the one we see in Halo 4, while his copy stayed good and is the one we see in the Halo 3 terminals.

Composition

• The Composer disintegrated the scientists' bodies and their clothes. Shouldn't it have thus disintegrated John's armor?
  • Armor's a wee bit more resilient than fabric.
  • Then how would it have penetrated his armor if the ray intended to kill him?
  • The armor surviving by virtue of it's toughness is probably justified, considering none of the other metal in the room is disintegrated either. It could possibly be that it does not incinerate your clothes, but the heat coming from the wearers' bodies are what is causing them to be incinerated with them.
    • Makes sense as there is quite a bit of mass being converted into energy...E=MC 2. That would be enough to burn clothing for sure...perhaps, had the Chief not been immunised to it's effects by the Libarian, the underarmor of his armor would have melted.
  • The Composer works be deconstructing organic matter, particularly biochemistry. The armor is a Titanium-A and tungsten carbide suit, so it wouldn't have been destroyed.

Finding Halsey

• John and Cortana went in search of Halsey in hopes that she could cure Cortana's rampancy. According to The Thursday War, Halsey was aboard the Infinity. Then once they got aboard the Infinity, why did they make no effort to contact her?
  • She's not on the Infinity at the time?
  • Then where would she be? A scientist like her would be in danger in such a hostile environment, and hearing her John and Cortana had returned would have her high-tail it back to the starship.
    • Back on Earth?
    • How could she be there? The book's last mention of her is being on the Infinity. Parangosky had orders to transfer her to Ivanoff Station, but we visit that too and she's clearly not there either. If she had been, she would have been killed, except she shows up in Spartan Ops.
    • There's still one last book in the Kilo-Five Trilogy to be released, so chances are Halsey's ultimate destination will be explained there. If not, then damned if I know.
    • Halsey's fate isn't touched on at all in Mortal Dictata (despite most of the book being a screed against her). That said, Halsey's Spartan Ops introduction makes it quite obvious that Halsey was not on the Infinity during the events of 4's main campaign, as the relevant cutscene makes clear that she was only (re)transferred to the ship after Glassman goes missing.
    • Also, Halo 4 take place over four fricking years after The Thursday War, which is plenty of time for Halsey to have been assigned to multiple secure facilities/ships (of which the UNSC has a lot more than just Ivanoff Station and Infinity).
    • Well, audio log Easter Eggs are starting to be found and a lot of them suggest that Halsey was transferred to Ivanoff Station to study the Composer. Then presumably she was transferred off again before the Didact's arrival. Good timing.
    • It seems likely from the attitude of the entire Infinity crew in Episode 3 of Spartan Ops that the UNSC does not trust Halsey anywhere near technology that she could potentially use against them unless they absolutely need her expertise. Thus, it is entirely possible that Halsey spent the entirety of Halo 4 in prison.
    • Makes sense, considering that a close examination of the first cutscene reveals she's wearing handcuffs.
  • Again, to sum everything up, the canon explanation is that Halsey was not on Infinity during the events of Halo 4's main campaign; there's even a letter implied to date around the time of Spartan Ops in Halo 4's Limited Edition which is basically Parangosky telling Halsey to go back to the Infinity (meaning that the latter clearly spent time away from the ship).

Del Rio

• Who the the hell decided it was a good idea to put Andrew Del Rio in charge of the most powerful human ship in history? The man has no grasp of tactics, can't take advice, and no one on the crew is loyal to him in any manner.
  • From what I can make out from his bio on Halopedia, Del Rio was put in charge because he was a non-essential officer who could attend to the then-prototype Infinity project and manage rather than lead. I'd be willing to bet that since the building started in 2537, near the beginning of the war, that it was initially a useless project because the UNSC made so little progress on Covenant and Forerunner technology until 2552. That might mean they were trying to get rid of him, until the project actually produced results.
    • On top of that, judging from the live action trailers, the Infinity wasn't -meant- to be a strict military operation, but a peaceful vessel meant to be traveling towards the Halo rings and for research purposes. Most of the military personnel happened to be security.
  • I'm sorry but I see a man whose first priority is the safety of his ship, which is more then appropriate. The Infinity is facing a technologically and numerically superior threat who already can be said to have beat it. Worse still because its out there alone if the ship goes down, then Earth will be left with zero warning against the new threat. As for no sense of tactics, we only have some implied statements by Chief/Cortana, if it had worked we'd have called sending Lasky out to locate the gravity well clever. While "not sending in Force Recon" he in effect was correct since the operation did work. Del Rio's only "failing" is not having faith in the idea that a small force can prevail just because a Spartan-II is on hand to do the impossible. I'd not be suprised if Del Rio was removed more for "letting Chief/Cortana escape" since they were valuable assets FLEETCOM probably wanted to debrief not get killed in a suicidal offensive. I say Jerkass Has a Point as only with an action hero would his actions be considered wrong, as a real officer I call him right on the money
  • Look at the circumstances of the campaign mission Shutdown. Cortana answered that the communication towers holding up the shield of the Didact's Cryptum could have been remotely dropped by the Infinity, sparing them 45 minutes of fighting through enemy hordes. Then Covenant cruisers only started showing up after the first tower was disabled, say, twenty minutes later. Del Rio could have had the ship drop the shield, then missiled and railgunned that Cryptum to death. The stakes were very low, and we saw earlier that the Cryptum was vulnerable to MACs and missiles, getting literally smoked and driven off by the secondary defensive weapons of the grounded, shieldless Infinity just two missions ago. As of the beginning of Shutdown, Infinity is flying again, has full power and shields, and could bring any and all of its forces to bear. Del Rio could have easily ended the conflict, but chose to run instead. Thus all on Ivanoff Station and all of New Phoenix died.
  • Also, Earth wouldn't be left with zero warning. As pointed out on the main page, Infinity has FTL comms. They could have easily attacked while simultaneously sending a warning to Earth about the Didact coming should their assault fail.
    • To both of the above, the gravity well on Requiem not only keeps the infinity trapped but also jams any outbound communications as long as the ship is on the planet. To warn Earth Del Rio would have to get Infinity off the planet and he states he is going to warn Earth and does. From his point of view, he crashed landed on an alien planet after answering a distress call, has discovered that the Forerunners are not quite dead and their military technology is hostile, plus a major Covenant splinter faction has aligned with the Abusive Precursors, and he cannot be sure engaging the enemy would not fatally cripple the ship and the battle would be successful. While he should listen to the Master Chief and Cortana more, it is a perfectly sound command decision to decide the best thing to do is ensure the safety of his ship, its crew, to alert command and come back with reinforcements.
  • Why does Del Rio automatically assume that Chief's encounter with the Didact was a hallucination? Chief has a Helmet Cam, or could the Didact / Librarian construct mask their presence to sensors?
    • Revealed in cut dialogue, the Librarian and Chief had a much longer exchange where the Librarian explains she took Cortana from him so she cut access him through his neural interface, thus the time he was talking to the librarian, it wouldn't be recorded because it was something he was experiencing in his mind not with his eyes. This also explains why in gameplay there is a wall where the Librarian appeared to have been before.
  • We've never seen John use a helmet cam, so it's possible he doesn't have one. Then again, he did have one in Forward Unto Dawn... likely the developers just didn't remember it. Maybe Del Rio would have thought Cortana messed with the images, thanks to her rampancy. Or the Forerunners did indeed jam the sensors. Or Del Rio's just being a jerk.
    • The EU has mentioned him having a helmet cam.
    • Where in the EU, specifically?
    • The Fall of Reach during the Chief's debriefing after the battle of Sigma Octanus IV.
  • I'm guessing that Del Rio, despite apparently being a competent administrator, was was put into command mostly because ONI and the regular Navy couldn't agree on which superior battlefield leader should take his place.
    • Del Rio is technically competent but inexperienced and it shows. This also fuels his sensitivity and inferiority complex but it is entirely normal for The Captain and indeed any commanding officer to be a jerk.

Didact's copy?

• The Didact quite clearly died from his fall. But what has happened to his copy, and does his end narration imply anything about him or other Forerunners?
  • Actually, by the narration it can be assumed that he lived. The guy was able to take a grenade to the chest. And his wife shot him several times with a large rifle with little effect. One fall from orbit is probably no biggie for him. As for his copy (presumably Bornstellar-Didact), it's implied he was the one who fired the Halos, therefore he is either dead or in stasis.
    • How can we assume he survived? His narration only makes sense in context of him justifying himself to other Forerunners and makes no mention of the Events of Halo 4. I just saw it and interpretted it as him giving his last words of defiance before being sealed away.
    • Depends. Some lines "I stand before you" sound like words said to other Forerunners before his imprisonment, other lines like "We squander eons in the darkness, while they seize our triumphs for their own" sound like he's escaped and is witnessing humanity's current attempts to reverse-engineer Forerunner technology. It's also not clear when the Didact would have had such a trial. Judging by the last Terminal, he was unconscious from the entire time Librarian began the efforts to seal him away. It also appears to be a lone effort, not something ordered by council. So overall, it's rather vague as to when this speech takes place.
  • Maybe it's because my memory's getting rusty, but I distinctly recall the Didact falling into a huge mass of energy below the bridge he and the Chief were on- probably the Composer beam, now that I think of it. I doubt he would've escaped that.
    • Actually, there is a Terminal line that reveals the Didact was immune to the Composer. When his attending Promethean tells him it's the only possibility left, Didact responds "It will not work on my new form." Therefore the Composer's beam wouldn't have affected him.
    • Even if immune to the Composer, he was caught in a nuke blast. Take some guesses below...
    • Didn't Cortana say that there was significant slipspace activity beneath the Composer? Maybe he got teleported as he fell.
    • It was a slipspace rupture, the same one his ship arrived through. Given that unshielded object tend to stop existing in slipspace, it's possible he's gone for good. That said, it's also possible that his combat skin's shields had already recharged.
  • As there are two more games planned and a few more books related to happen, it would be foolhardy to assume anything I think.
  • Issue 8 of Halo: Escalation confirms the Didact survived the fall (which was into a slipspace portal) and subsequent slipspace travel.
  • As far as what happened to his copy, Silentium confirms that he was the one who fired the Halos, and that he, along with the other surviving Forerunners, left the Milky Way after dealing with the Flood.
  • With regard to the speech, 343 itself has been very vague on when it takes place, with the current explanation being that the speech was more something along the lines of a rhetorical exercise.
• Just want discuss this one before it might be changed on the main page: I don't think this Didact is Bornstellar-Didact. It's been noted many of the events depicted are ones that occurred in the original Didact's lifetime. His mention of "this new form" may not mean when his consciousness was copied, but in fact him undergoing a new mutation. At any point between the Terminals, Cryptum and Primordium may have happened.
  • There are were two of them, and it's been partially confirmed that the first one (the Ur-Didact) is still alive...
  • Silentium confirms that it's the Ur-Didact.

Why was Del Rio relieved of command?

• Why was Del Rio relieved of command just because he left Master Chief on Requiem? It seems a bit strange to pull somebody off what was presumably the UNSC's most advanced ship for what would have been a reasonable decision at the time. They were outgunned, a new threat was possibly on its way to Earth with no other ships capable of heading back to warn them, half the crew was probably dead. It's not like he couldn't take care of himself (and did). Not to mention the Infinity likely wouldn't have been in position to open the way for the Chief during the attack on Earth if it had been destroyed on Requiem still. Jerkass Has a Point indeed.
  • He not only failed to recover the single greatest repository of de-encrypted forerunner knowledge available to humanity in the form of Cortana but also the last remaining member of an elite covert/overt human augmentation project which served as the predecessor to the special forces operating aboard his ship but then he allowed them to escape. Couple that with the fact that his leaving of requiem led to humanity losing their foothold on installation 03 and the loss of all personel and a rare forerunner artifact from Ivanov Station and it's not hard to see why he was fired.
  • One, their mission was to retrieve Master Chief. Leaving him behind would be forfeiting the mission. Second. it's debatable that they were outgunned. The Didact's Cryptum showed itself to be vulnerable to MACs and missiles, of which the Infinity had plenty, and Cortana pointed out that had the Infinity stayed, it could have remotely dropped the field around the Cryptum that took the duo half an hour of fighting through towers to achieve. What's more, Del Rio's crew was displeased with their Captain because they could see he was running. Note that none come to his side when he orders John to be arrested. Given he had made such terrible decisions like order scouting missions during an attack or ordering attacks without field info, they probably were glad to testify to get him gone.
  • But they weren't sent to find the Chief were they? It was just a happy coincidence that they stumbled upon the Forward Unto Dawn whilst looking for Halo rings.
    • There were also the poor tactical decisions he made, no recon and nearly getting Infinity overrun because he split his forces just after crash landing.
  • The ending of Forward Unto Dawn confirms that they had discovered the Dawn's distress signal and made the jump to Requiem specifically to find him.
    • The game says other wise, maybe it was all the more urgent for them to get to Requim once the Dawns distress beacon was sent out?
    • The game just says their previous mission had been to find the remaining Halo rings. It didn't say their only reason for coming into the system was solely for Requiem.
    • Forward Unto Dawn probably doesn't have FTL comms. So the Infinity would've had to be in range. So, the Infinity probably got to the whereabouts using coordinates from Installation 03, and upon picking up the distress call, went slightly off course to pick up Master Chief. There's also the fact that his report would've basically read "Oh yeah, that guy who saved Earth and stuff. Yeah, I kinda yelled at him, and then lost him." It's no wonder FLEETCOM hated him for doing that.
  • Also, the Master Chief is, at this point, probably a legendary figure in military circles. Going against him and leaving him behind is probably by itself reason enough to assume the officer is unfit for duty.
    • Exactly. Master Chief and Cortana are the two greatest military assets that the UNSC ever produced. Collectively, they're basically the equivalent of Captain America. Even if he is 'Just a captain' he's still the greatest soldier ever and you should probably do what he says, regardless of rank.
  • I'd speculate that FLEETCOM actually agreed with Del Rio on retreating, but that he "failed" to secure two highly valuable assets in not bringing back Chief/Cortana. Which he would have done if not for Lasky's mutiny of course, but presumably the high command doesn't know about. Of course if they DO know and reward/agree-with Lasky then clearly Del Rio got screwed over rather ridiculously. I'm totally sympathetic with Del Rio's call in either case, guy should totally have kept his job.
    • In the Navy, ultimate responsibility for the mission falls on the commanding officer of the vessel. Even if he had done everything right, Del Rio would have been responsible. That his crew mutinied wouldn't have given him a pass, it would have told his superiors that he is incapable of maintaining trust and discipline in his crew.
  • Even if his actions hadn't placed the Earth in serve jeopardy, which they did, the moment said actions resulted in millions of deaths he was DONE. There was no way his career could possibly survive after his inaction pretty much directly led to the deaths of millions. Yes Chief's intelligence was somewhat hearsay, but his record is spotless and he's had more experience then anyone living with forerunner artifacts. Dismissing his assessment that there was an imminent and dire threat, but that quick action might be able to cut it off at the head was foolishness, but it's also hardly outside the realm of possibility. The Chief is ultimately an NCO and officers, particularly one in prestigious posts, can all to easily grow big heads. It's kind of interesting that allot of people seem to assume that a uniform somehow magically fixes character flaws, or that with connections and judicious ass kissing idiots or assholes don't end up with important jobs in the military like anywhere else. That said ideally I would have held off on his removal until the final cut scene have Lasky toss out a remark there about being promoted to captain. We can then quite reasonably say Del Rio was punished for his decisions allowing New Phoenix to happen while Lasky's actions were silently condone as having ultimately set in motion the chain of events that stopped it from being far, far worse.

Why isn't Lasky angry at the Chief?

• Am I the only one who thought that Lasky would be angry against the Chief for what happened at CAMS because of the ending of Forward Unto Dawn? I mean, when we last see him he's glaring and going into cryo, then we see him the first time in game and he's happy and upbeat and jazzed. When did this happen?
  • His expression looked angry because he was determined to find John. Why would he be angry at the Chief? John saved his life. He didn't cause the attack at Corbulo.

What happened to the Infinity's escort?

• What happened to that fleet that was accompanying Infinity? At the end of Forward Unto Dawn we see UNSC cruisers and frigates jump in slipspace with it. But none of them are there at Requiem. Where did they go?
  • Perhaps the escort fleet was dispersed around the Requiem shield world for.. reasons... and only the Infinity was pulled directly into it. Alternately, they're all docked in the Infinity's bays. Infinity's big enough to dock them. For some reason.
  • Maybe they never followed Infinity to Requiem?
    • Confirmed; Thursday War mentions that Infinity can have "Frigates underslung". And the Spartan Ops opening intro shows several being deployed to fight Covenant ships...
  • Considering there are still enemies out there, it would make sense to keep most of the fleet around Earth. They never did explain what happened to all those Covenant forces that were on / over Earth in Halo 3 (only a small force went to the Ark). My question is where were was that fleet accompanying the Infinity in Halo 3?
  • Most of the Covenant ships that went to Earth were destroyed in the space battles, since Earth had so many Super MA Cs. It also cost heavily on the UNSC fleet too, since Lord Hood could only spare two frigates for the trip to the Ark. But Infinity wasn't in Halo 3. I don't think it was even finished by the time of the Battle of Earth.
    • She was almost finished. Her shakedown cruise was literally months later.
  • The rest of the fleet, or at least that flock of Halcyon cruisers escorting Infinity, didn't come to Requiem. Infinity is the only warship with uber-tech Forerunner engines, so it can be assumed that it's the only ship capable of making the trip to Requiem in a reasonable amount of time. That's probably also the reason it carries frigates, so that it can project force over a larger area despite the fact that the rest of the UNSC fleet can't match its FTL abilities. At least one ONI Prowler (Port Stanley) had been upgraded with these engines by the time of Halo 4, and probably several by the time of Spartan Ops, given that another one (Aladdin) is seen transporting Halsey to the Infinity above Requiem, but the run-of-the-mill cruisers and frigates probably have not. It's not even known for sure if the regular cruisers and frigates that aren't part of Infinity's carry-along flotilla even have shields, and the fact that Halcyons (probably with Pillar of Autumn style upgrades) are now the fleet mainstay while Marathons are nowhere to be seen means that the Navy still has not really recovered from the severe losses of the Covenant war.

The Librarian's beauty

• Primordium claims the Librarian's genetic work with humanity caused her to become their subconscious ideal of the World's Most Beautiful Woman, retroactively. It's mentioned specifically that both humans and Forerunners found her attractive, and that she looked very young. If so, why does she look like she came out of Delgo? What's more, she also looks and sounds rather old.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation? Or maybe her beauty was originally meant to be a "Take Our Word for It" thing, only for her to be later thrown into Halo 4's plot later on? Or maybe she fits what 343 Industries thinks a beautiful woman is, but what they think does not equal what every human on (our) Earth thinks?
  • Maybe she did look young and beautiful...100,000 years ago.
  • We saw her in the Terminals 100,000 years ago, and she looked exactly the same.
  • Silentium contains an Author's Saving Throw clarifying that it's her spiritual beauty that's so prominent.

Convenant faction?

• I'm rather confused by the "Covenant" in this game. In Halo 2, the Elites were kicked out of the Covenant. And in the events of Halo 3 they clearly seemed to have come to terms with the true nature of the titular halos, and the Forerunners. So… what gives? Even the characters in the game seemed puzzled (and then they never mentioned it again).
  • In the Kilo-Five trilogy there's a splinter-group of Elites who still believe in the Forerunners and believe that humans should be exterminated. There's a civil war going on between them and the Arbiter's more peaceful faction. The terminals in Halo 4 show that the leader of the splinter group (called the Storm Covenant) is in command of the covenant fleet found in Halo 4, so therefore the Storm Covenant are the ones you're fighting in the game.
    • Why didn't they just say that in the game, or call them something else (e.g. Neo Covenant)? It did bother me when Master Chief said (and I'm probably paraphrasing) "don't we have a truce with the Covenant?" They made this needlessly confusing. They should have just used Brutes, then there would be no confusion.
    • They're actually not called the Storm, that was a misreading by OXM. Would be nice if they had a separate name, though.

Just use lasers?

• The Forerunner weapons fire hard light bullets. Wouldn't it be cheaper and more powerful to use lasers? (And before you say "but the Spartan Laser takes so long to charge and has so little ammo", that's a HUMAN laser weapon, not a technologically advanced Forerunner one.)
  • These are the Forerunners you're talking about. It's likely they did have lasers at one point. But their technological capacity made them fairly sub-optimal compared to other systems, such as hard light weapons. Compare the Sentinel Beam to that of the Suppressor. The Suppressor would mow through the Flood. The Sentinels had to focus at least two or three on a single form at a time.
  • The Sentinel Beam isn't the only Forerunner laser. Why didn't they have a portable version of the one 343 Guilty Spark uses, which is able to take down the Chief's shields in a single hit?
  • Maybe they did, but didn't give them to the mooks. We don't know the technical limitations of Forerunner tech; Monitors might have had uniquely powerful weaponry that would have been impractical to mass produce or be used by anyone/anything other than its intended wielders. Alternatively, perhaps the Forerunners just didn't trust Composer-created "abominations" to be able to use that kind of weaponry reliably.
    • Though Primordium reveals Guilty Spark was also made though the Composer.
  • The mechanical Prometheons are anti flood weapons and bullets work very well on the flood. That's probably why.
  • So do lasers. Remember the Sentinel beam?
    • Greater ammo capacity perhaps?
    • Sentinel lasers were good against the Infection forms, but bad against everything else (there's a reason they're one of the most hated Halo weapons). All the Halo games have Human weapons (ballistic damage, shock, tears tissue) be superior to Covenant weapons (causes flesh burns) against the Flood. Therefore hardlight weapons, essentially energy bullets, would do far more damage than just lasers, with the added bonus that they can incinerate bodies and thus starve the Flood of soldiers. Plus they're reloadable with Human-style clips making them easier to manufacture and produce vs energy weapons.
  • This conversation is now Hilarious in Hindsight given that Halo 5's version of the Binary Rifle actually fires a sustained beam.

Why mechanical Prometheans?

• From the terminals: why would the Didact consider his mechanical Prometheans an improvement over his warrior ones? The mechanical Prometheans can get shredded by the hundreds by bullets, while the Didact, himself a Promethean, managed to take two binary rifle shots to the chest, unarmored and was only knocked out. Sure, the mechanical ones are immune to infection, but preventing the body from being used is as easy as putting a "melt this armor as soon as the wearer dies" switch.
  • Because mechanical troops can be repaired. If you damage them enough then yes, they will be knocked out and phased out of existence. However, they can be repaired easily. Quickly. Forerunners took a bit more time to heal, especially in terms of psychology and physiology. Also, mechanical troops can function even if they're missing part of a leg and don't have their blade arm and they can react quicker to things occurring. They don't require life support and can do a teleporting stab. And you have to remember, this is the DIDACT. The Didact was the most powerful Warrior-Servant.
  • So if they could be repaired so easily, why was the Didact then so concerned about how quickly they were losing them? They don't strike me as very repairable if every time we defeat one it disintegrates into ash. I assume the Warrior-Servants still would have received similar armor and augmentations. Why wouldn't they?
    • What, the same Knights that can be resurrected instantly if a Watcher is nearby? The Didact complained less about attrition and more about not having enough, since they aren't exactly mass-producible without a population to harvest.
    • Said Watchers are also not very durable. With their great technology the Forerunners could have spared them a stronger shield.
    • Eh, maybe not. We don't know how Forerunner tech works.
  • Mechanical troops have the advantage of Flood immunity.
  • My point was that's not enough of a tradeoff in exchange for loss of durability. It'd be like trading five Mammoths for five Warthogs just because these Warthogs are immune to being hijacked. A simple self-destruct would amend being infected.
  • Normal Promethians don't have shields in their armour and the mechanical ones do.
    • Of course, you are assuming that the Librarian wanted to kill the Didact rather than just stun and imprison him. For all we know, the two rifle shots he took could have been non-lethal.
    • If that were the case, the cutscene would have shown her using a different weapon built for stunning, not a weapon we know from experience to be lethal.
    • That is also assuming that that particular weapon only has one firing mode. If the Librarian wanted the Didact truly dead, and the gun wasn't capable of killing him, then why did she imprison him into his Cryptum at the center of Requiem, safe from the effects of the Halo Rings?
    • I didn't think she wanted him dead. Rather, I figured she knew he was too durable to die from such a shot and so knew she could shoot him with that gun without killing him. If the weapon had a stun function, then why would the Chief be not able to access it, when as a Reclaimer he's able to unlock those weapons?
    • I think you're overlooking just how quickly and easily Flood infection happens. And how the infected bodies gain speed and strength, and then get turned against the rest of your troops. And besides, Gameplay and Story Segregation.
  • The Chief has nothing to gain by accessing a stun mode on the Binary Rifle even if you could. He's trying to kill his enemies, not preserve them in a stunned state. That said, a standard issue Knight on Heroic (canon difficulty) or above can eat a full power Binary shot and live, and the Didact being super even by Promethean standards could very well do the same. As for why he roboticized his Promethean forces, he clearly states that it's a sacrifice to obtain Flood immunity; biological mutations didn't work, and self-destructing in the middle of battle right next to your buddies (the Forerunner troops being shown fighting in close formations as standard) with enough force to prevent the Flood from being able to use you would... probably not be a good idea. And the Promethean Knight forces were fairly limited in number, which is why the Watcher-based Hardlight-shielding and resurrection capabilities were built in, and eventually, the Didact decided to Compose humans into additional Knights. If you notice, each Knight carries a Watcher in the carapace on his back - the Watcher is merely an extension of the Knight's combat equipment, not really an independent unit. And as seen in Spartan Ops, they're one of the reasons that clearing the Prometheans out of any part of Requiem is very hard - Watchers routinely warp in from portals after a battle and resurrect dead Prometheans all over the battlefield (there's no reason they can't continue to do this after your Spartan squad has flown off in a Pelican and is no longer present to shoot them down). So it's not as if the mechanical transition lost durability - just that, instead of very high durability warriors who have the drawback of getting killed once and lost to the Flood, you have less durable constructs that can be destroyed, and then brought back, destroyed again, and brought back again, and cannot become part of the Flood and thereby turned against you to lethal effect.
  • I did a bit more research and saw the Librarian shot him with a binary rifle, aka the Forerunner sniper rifle. The manual info for it claims it uses particle accelerators to speed its projectiles to superspeed. So essentially it's a Forerunner railgun. I highly doubt you could set a railgun on stun.
    • Ha. "Research". Also, is turning down the power so hard?
    • Then the speed of the projectile would be visibly slower. But it looked exactly the same.
    • As it turns out, Word of God is that Forerunner weapons do have multiple settings that can be unlocked through means unknown to both the Covenant and UNSC; it's actually the official explanation for why several Forerunner weapons in 5 work differently than they did in 4; for example, 5's Splinter Grenade is stated to be nothing more than an alternate setting for 4's Pulse Grenade, while the Suppressor's hardlight rounds now actually track their targets.
  • Word of God is that the Promethean Knights were nerfed for the sake of gameplay balance. Halo 5 bears this out, as now the Promethean Knights are essentially the Forerunner equivalent of Hunters. Could you imagine how difficult the Promethean sections would've been if the Elite analogs had the offensive and defensive capabilities of Hunters?

Cross-media story

• Why is so much of this series plot only in the books? I've never encountered another game series where so many key plot points weren't in the actual games. It's becoming increasingly annoying. I can understand expanding on certain things, giving backstory, etc, but key plot points should be covered in the actual games, or at least be sufficiently explained. Going by the games, the last time we saw Halsey she was on Reach, as it was being decimated (she presumably died). Yet somehow circa 4, she's alive and well and on Earth. Where's she been this whole time? I know there's a whole series of books covering this, but the games, well, they don't tell you anything. Which raises the question of how John and Cortana know she's on Earth in 4... Very annoying.
  • I think 343 are creating something new here, threading one single story through multiple media. Halo has a wide expanded universe which the games never really delved into and was a major source of complaint, and this one does exactly that, referencing events in the books (the books themselves mentioning that they'd tie into the Reclaimer trilogy). It'll make some gamers unhappy with this type of complaint exactly, but I think it's a good move. You gotta start somewhere.
  • The reason is that most of the Halo books were published before the games. Up until Halo: Reach, the books and the games stayed largely separate. Now they're choosing to tie them in closer together. I know a lot of fans have read them, seeing how I keep finding complains about how "Reach got X part of the canon wrong!" As for Halsey, she didn't die even in Reach. NOBLE Team briefly thought she was dead, only for her to turn up later and say "Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated." Then she gave you Cortana and flew away with Jun. No indication of death. And what's more, John was wrong when he said Halsey must be on Earth. If The Thursday War can be trusted, Halsey was aboard the Infinity, which again returns to that question I asked earlier...
    • Actually, John and Cortana had no evidence that Halsey was even on Earth or not. They just assumed she was, considering she's a very important scientist and Earth is pretty much the center of the UNSC. If she's not there, then they'll find somebody who knows where she is.
    • The third Spartan Ops episode is titled "Catherine". Hopefully it'll explain some of the Halsey issues.
    • It does, kind of. Basically, Halsey built the Infinity, but then was taken off of the incredibly powerful, advanced ship that she knew inside and out so that she couldn't wreck serious havoc with it.
    • Like I said before, one really should remember that The Thursday War and Halo 4 take place over four years apart, which is plenty of time for Halsey to be transferred to various other secure facilities/ships (of which Infinity and Ivanoff Station are only two out of several).
  • All that aside, though, that's a serious storytelling problem. I agree—if you need to read a dozen tie-ins to understand the main story, you're telling it wrong. I don't know a single person IRL who reads the Halo books, and I loathe the fact that I have to use a wiki to understand something that should be clear to the people who forked over $60 for a new game.
    • What parts were confusing? From friends I know who hadn't read the books but had played the other games, they could get the gist of it as "John and Cortana fight more Covenant, awake a Forerunner, they try to stop him from firing his lazor."
    • Yeah, the game still has a self sufficient story. Some of the background material is missing, but this has pretty much been the case since Halo 1. I mean, you didn't know Chief and Cortana's backstory, knew next to nothing about the flood or the inner workings of the Covenant, etc. The game still has plenty of story to tell on its own.

The Lich

• Did the Chief and Cortana name the Lich themselves? In "Reclaimer" it's "an unidentified ship" but at the end of the very next level Chief's calling them Liches.
  • The UNSC likely designated them that shortly after that first encounter, and the Chief and Cortana used the name afterwards.
  • The Lich is listed as a T-56 aircraft, which means it was discovered by the UNSC in 2556. Halo 4 takes place in 2557. So likely it was called "unidentified" at first because the Mammoth's sensors couldn't make out what it was, only to later recognize it as a Lich.
  • Or maybe Cortana just didn't recognize the designation?

Storm Covenant and the Didact

• Why are the Storm Covenant still around when they see the Didact? The reason the Prophets declared war on humanity is because Humans were "Reclaimers" which debunks the The Great Journey's promise to ascend believers to the Divine Beyond. Shouldn't seeing a live Forerunner "left behind" by the Great Journey shatter their faith?
  • After the war many of the Elites reverted back to their pre-Prophets religion, which said that the Forerunners were still gods but said nothing about the Great Journey. They've learned from the Halos that there was no Great Journey. But some have taken that to mean that the Forerunners were already divine and didn't need a journey.
  • The book Halo: The Thursday War also says that the Elites in the Storm Covenant were from a colony that had been out of contact for a long time, and as such did not know the war had ended or that the Great Journey was false. Their leader Jul 'Mdama does, however, but pretends to be religious so they that will assist him in freeing the Didact.
    • However, Jul does quickly tell them about the end of the war and the falseness of the Prophets; in fact, both Word of God and Halo 5 indicate that Jul's faction consists of recruits hailing from all over ex-Covenant space, with a significant percentage hailing from the Elite homeworld itself; those from Hesduros (the out-of-contact colony mentioned above) itself are only a (disproportionately influential) minority of his followers . Basically, Jul's faction is still among those who worship the Forerunners but don't believe in the Great Journey.

John and the nuke

• After John dropped the Composer's shield, why did he bother with carrying the nuke right next to the Composer itself? Why not just set it off at that moment?
  • For massive damage. The only way to make sure it is hit.
  • It was still just 200 feet away. Nukes are made for blowing entire cities.
    • It's the size of a football... so position matters. He didn't want to set it off and not completely destroy the thing/have it still working.
  • But it's a nuke in the future, so naturally it's smaller. In fact, a previous book, First Strike, had a nuke directly noted to have a blast radius similar to that of the nuke dropped on Hiroshima, which actually becomes a problem for its carriers. That nuke too was the size of a football.
    • Wasn't John's original plan to throw the nuke right into the Composer (or next to the beam) so that it would do the most damage when it went off? (Like in every video game/tv show/movie where explosives are involved.) Then he got caught up in the whole Didact thing, was about to die without finishing the mission and decided to set it off then and hoped it worked.
  • Even nuclear detonations can be shaped for maximum effectiveness, and let's be honest here, this was a Forerunner ship that managed to shield a person from the point-blank detonation of said nuke. Any non-local detonation might not have worked. Actually, if Cortana hadn't taken control of the vessel's field systems, it still might not have worked.

What won the war

• Halsey says that the SPARTAN program "saved the human race". While the Chief played a major role in defeating the Covenant, ultimately it was the UNSC's alliance with the Sangheili that saved them. Why wasn't this brought up?
  • True, but the destabilization of the Covenant that led to the Elites allying with humanity was caused by Master Chief singlehandedly destroying Alpha Halo. There was also Operation: FIRST STRIKE, a Spartan-led operation just before Halo 2 that stopped a larger Covenant fleet from attacking Earth. Kinda the same reason why, say, America venerates George Washington for bringing down the British in the Revolutionary War when most of the progress against them was made after France allied with the colonies. Washington's still a hero because he inspired the people, and impressed Britain's rivals. It's the same with Master Chief.
  • Also, Halsey was arguing for the necessity of her unethical project. It wouldn't have helped her case at all to say: "The Spartans ended the war. No wait, it was actually the Sangheili aliens that we allied with. Never mind." She was trying to get herself out of jail, and she had already been noted to be twisting history in her favor.
  • Halsey did not create the Spartan program. ONI did, and frequently made mention of how they would replace her when she tried to slow down the project for the benefit of the Spartans and eventually quit after deciding there were no more suitable candidates for the program. This did not stop ONI from trying to have a second class of Spartan I Is on their own several years later, however without Halsey not many candidates survived.

Override code

• How exactly was Halsey able to acquire Roland's override code? For that matter, isn't an override code a bit of a security problem (since a terrorist could easily hack the Infinity with two words)?
  • She built Infinity and has been one of the most prominent advancers of AI technology in the UNSC. In First Strike, she deleted two third-generation A.I.s by termination commands they didn't recognize, but had been hidden in them because she had planned for 3rd gen A.I.s to have them. She's also included similar vocal overrides like "whatever it takes" to make Kalmiya ignore her ethics subroutines. Therefore it's likely she either implanted Roland's override secretly when working on Infinity or when personally designing whatever generation of AI he is. As for the security problem, note that Halsey made the override be two words that would likely never be used together, to guarantee only she could trigger it.

Episode 6

• Many about Episode 6:
  • Why did Jul hold Gek back? He sent all the other Elites to chase down Glassman, then held back Gek to tell him "Glassman's escape is unacceptable." Then he sent Gek to chase him, but that did was slow Gek down.
  • Why did the two Elites drop dead from a single storm rifle shot? It's not wise to lower your shields when you're taking a Spartan prisoner.
    • I'd chalk that up to Cutscene Power to the Max, like how Hoya's shotgun and Palmer's magnums are far more powerful than in game.
  • Why would they put so many explosives into Glassman's bomb harness? They only needed to put one or two to kill him.
    • Insurance, I suppose, in case a few of them fail (the EU establishes that the Elites have become incredibly incompetent at science and engineering after roughly 3 millennia of Covenant rule). On the other hand, it could well have originally been an Insurrectionist suicide vest made with stolen Covie tech that 'Mdama's folk merely managed to pilfer (given that they had to resort to using stolen UNSC nukes instead of their own mega-bombs like the ones seen in Halo 2).
    • Somewhat possible, given it had a yellow explosion like human explosives, not a blue plasma explosion. But the individual bombs appeared to be in pockets on the harness so they look like they could have been easily removed.
  • Why would Gek blow Glassman's harness if he knew the other Elites were already after him? For all he knew, they had already caught Glassman and were bringing him back.
    • Simple hot-bloodedness; Elites may not be as bad as Brutes about it, but they've been shown to be quite prone to idiocy whenever their personal honor is at stake; Gek was the one who let Glassman escape, after all.
  • When escaping, why did Glassman take off his collar but not his bomb harness?
    • Maybe it's a tracker?
    • Yes, but he still could have taken off the harness immediately after. Because that part explodes.
    • I thought that was obvious; Glassman's not strong enough to do it himself. If you take a close look at how Thorne takes it off, he literally rips off half the straps simply by pulling them through Glassman's body (one on the shoulder, one on the side); something I'm not sure even an ODST could have pulled off. True, Glassman ripped off the collar, but diversity in equipment quality has not been uncommon even in professional armies (much less 'Mdama's somewhat rag-tag remnant).
    • It didn't look that heavy to me. Glassman was running relatively quick with that harness.
    • Weight isn't necessarily synonymous with durability, you know. Besides, weight has nothing to do with the fact that the vest was strapped on to Glassman; hand-cuffs aren't very heavy, but you certainly can't rip them apart with your bare hands.
    • I took a closer look at those straps when rewatching Episode 6, and they appears to be just thin cloth straps on the side of his body. Straps like those could be easily torn by him and the latch connecting them to the vest was also within reach. If he could force open a metal collar, then cloth shouldn't be any problem for him.
    • Yeah, well what they appeared to be wasn't what they actually were. He failed to tear through whatever material was holding the thing together.
  • Why would they make the bombs on Glassman's harness bright and glowing when primed? That would only be a huge warning that they were about to go off.
    • Possible Fridge Brilliance: that may be the answer to the fourth point.
    • That would still be incredibly risky of him, and he'd only risk Jul and the others' wrath for killing their recaptured prisoner.
    • Actually, the glow function might just be a result of in-universe poor engineering (as in the designers had no idea how to avert it).
    • An easy way to avert it would have been to just take the lightbulb out of the bomb. And if it was once an Innie suicide vest, they wouldn't want it to be glowing either.
    • I more meant that maybe the glow itself is an unavoidable by-product of the explosive material. Well, either that or 'Mdama's minions are just that dumb (which isn't that far off from how recent EU has been treating the Elites in general).

Compose the Flood

• Why didn't the Didact use the Composer on the Flood?
  • It wouldn't have worked. Lasers are better.
  • To be more specific, Primordium seems to indicate that the Flood have a certain degree of immunity to it.
  • Mind if I ask for the citation? Just curious.
  • Primordium. If you're so curious, go read it yourself. The Halo lore up to and including the Halo 4 cutscenes also imply that the Flood isn't truly "alive" or "dead" and can't be digitized with the Composer.
  • To clarify; the Forerunners did try to use the Composer on the Flood, but apparently decided that it was more efficient (maybe energy-wise?) just to use regular Forerunner weaponry against them (given the Flood's ability to utilize and potentially even improve upon captured technology, they could have very plausibly figured out how to render the Composer relatively ineffective, given that the Librarian was able to give Chief immunity just by fiddling with his genes a bit). And of course, the Composer is rather less useful against purely mechanical logic-plagued ancillas.

Lasky's green spine

• I noticed during Episode 8 that Lasky has a series of green lights going down his spine. What are they? Some kind of neural interface? Power sources? Glowing bombs? Is he a Cylon?
  • Neural jacks. Standard for all UNSC personnel.
  • But we've seen neural interfaces on UNSC personnel before and they're just a single unimpressive dot on the back of their head. These are bigger, go down his spine, and are visible through his uniform.
  • Maybe they're a Personal Energy Shield projector?
  • Well, the canon's said the shields are projected from large lights, like those visible on Spartan armor. It's also hinted that the shield doesn't work without metal armor to serve as a conduit. But that's just been implied up 'til now, and shields don't seem to appear in the cutscenes anyway. Maybe Lasky suffered a spinal injury once.
  • Actually, the spine support-looking thing seems to be standard on all duty uniforms in the post-war UNSC Navy, though the reason is still unknown (some kind of more advanced ship interface system?). It's probably not for a spinal injury, given that Lasky lacks the green lights when out of uniform.

War Games

• How are the War Games supposed to train Spartans in real-world tactics when they promote unnecessary recklessness through the respawn mechanic? Just look at the way Majestic fights in the Spartan Ops cutscenes and compare them to practically any War Games gameplay video.
  • I have two theories, which are halfway between Fan Wank and Wild Mass Guessing: either the respawn mechanic is non-canon, or dying within the simulation actually hurts (psychologically convincing Spartans to not run out like a Leeroy).
    • On one of the campaign levels (I think it's Shutdown, but I can't quite remember) you can find a terminal that announces the War Games matches as if they're watched by the rest of Infinity's crew, implying that not only are they meant to teach tactics, but also that they're meant to have a sort of entertainment value.
  • The expanded universe actually indicates that War Games canonically function much more like realistic training simulations than what the multiplayer would have you believe; basically just a classic case of Gameplay and Story Segregation.
  • Just like in real War Games, when you 'die' you don't stay out the entire exercise, because then you're not actually training. 'Dying' in a simulated war also serves a good lesson: It teaches you what NOT to do in a combat situation.

GEN 2 Warrior armor

• If the Warrior variant of the GEN2 armor is supposedly the most common one, then how come not a single Spartan has been seen wearing one, instead using Recruit armor?

Promethean Death Machines

• Why would the Forerunners make the Prometheans or any of their weapons for that matter not Death Machines? I am puzzled as to why such an advanced race would have so many different types of weapons if with their technology could make them strong as the Binary Rifle yet still small mobile and light, or have the weapons capable of assembling themselves into many forms to fit any tactical role? Or have different war machines what are not to packed to the brim with firepower? The Prometheans could have done better being made like a Japanese Hornet. Several size varients (Car sized to dog sized) but all have,
  • Strong Front Jaws for grabbing, ripping and crushing anything (additional weapon located between mandibles).
  • Anti-Gravity "Wings" and thrusters for high speed flight.
  • Legs capable of grasping large objects (vehicles to infantry and crushing them) Or pick up objects to drop on foes.
  • An Immense array of Weaponry, firepower and astonishing accuracy.
  • Sturdily Built and close to unstoppable, sort of like the actual Japanese Hornet.
    • Those actually sound a lot to me like Sentinel forms, of which the story has implied we've only seen a few variants of. We know of Enforcers, the incredibly powerful Onyx Sentinel, and other forms hinted at in Origins. My best guess for why the Prometheans are so basic in form is that since they were created from humanoids (and humans) , they would thus manifest into a bipedal form. Sentinels, however, indeed used what you described above.
  • If that is the case, then shouldn't they all be equipped with the most powerful weapons and shields available? Why Boltshots, and suppressors vs Binary Rifles and Incineration cannons? Or quite frankly, a multipurpose all in one weapon and the toughest shields for all?
  • A Promethean's size is going to restrict the strength of its shields, since there's only so large batteries that can be fit in them. Likewise guns have many moving parts and having a multipurpose weapon would result in probably a very huge weapon that's unwieldy and with lots of obstructive bits.
    • The higher ranked Promethean Knights have extremely strong shields and weapons compared to the lower ranked which leads to my question of. Why have many different ranks and variations if all could be given the best equipment possible? As for the weapons, the weapons could configure themselves between a Automatic Drum feed Binary Rifle, Scatter-shot or Grenade Launcher due to the Forerunner weapons ability to assemble themselves into any form.
    • This is the point where not much can be said except "it wouldn't make for a very fun game" then. Imagine having to fight hundreds of super powerful Prometheans with nigh unbreakable shields who could switch to any weapon in an instant. Even the Nigh-Invulnerable Onyx Sentinel had to be given the arbitrary weakness of "their shields won't activate toward slow moving objects", so that the Spartans could defeat some with rocks.
  • True but there are always ways that they can be defeated because everything has a downside (I mean you are the Master Chief after all). Little Achilles Heels like that of the Onyx Sentinel, but they can combine and Learn. It just does not make sense how they could be effective against hordes of Flood with such pitiful weapons.
  • They're effective through their burning effects. Promethean weapons make bodies disintegrate upon death, which directly limits the Flood by preventing them from using more corpses. Guns like the Incineration Cannon would be great against Carrier forms because the secondary explosion would wipe out the Infection forms inside. They are indeed effective.
  • Light Rifle and Suppressor are definitely not effective weapons for such an advanced race.
  • Someone on the Fridge page opined that the Prommies were nerfed by the Forerunner so they'd be able to repel invaders, but wouldn't be a big help to Didact if he escaped and took control of them. I've seen another theory that the Prommies were actually intended as the equivalent of robotic drones mopping up after much more powerful Forerunner.
  • Silentium reveals that the Promethean Knights were essentially a non-factor in the Flood War. No one had even noticed their existence or contribution to the conflict until the Didact composed the humans on Halo and the Librarian followed him to Requiem. As for their strength and such: Word of God is that the Promethean Knights were nerfed for the sake of gameplay balance. Halo 5: Guardians demonstrates this, as all the Knights are now the Forerunner equivalent of Hunters.
  • Word of God also indicates that each Forerunner weapon has multiple settings which activate through unknown means (it's even the official explanation for why the Forerunner weapons in 5 work rather differently than they did in 4), possibly implying that most of the Forerunner technology we've seen in the games have been set to nerf mode so far; presumably, we've only seen the tip of the iceberg regarding just how powerful the games' Forerunner weapons can become.

Master Chief blasé about the Forerunners?

• Is anybody else bugged by the fact that the Master Chief doesn't seem to question any of the new Forerunner stuff? The only Forerunner artifact he's encountered were the halo rings, yet he seems apathetic about an artificial forerunner planet (even if he does sound confused as to the planet being hollow). He also doesn't seem to care at all that apparently the humans were nearly on the level of the forerunners before the activation of the Halos.
  • Chief is in general a guy who takes big revelations in stride. Recall that after the firing of the Composer he's not stuck in shock, but rather still determined to try and get to the Didact's ship and destroy the Composer. It's pretty rare that he reacts strongly to anything. I wouldn't say it's apathy, though, more "Okay, cool. Now what do I do with this?"
    • Eh, he had a reaction when he found out the halos kill indiscriminately and can't be used against the Covenant. However, you have a point. I guess I didn't notice before since there's always side characters around who do most of the reacting for Master Chief, something this game's story was lacking (only real side characters were people that didn't even believe Master Chief).

Why not disable the Infinity?

• When the Prometheans boarded the Infinity and abducted Dr. Halsey, why didn't they also disable or destroy the Inifinity? This becomes more confusing to me when they could have kept attacking 24/7 even when the Infinity was being dragged toward the star. (Take into account that they can take down flood controlled ships, but not the Infinity?)
  • Maybe they were trying to make a point. Like, yeah, we can do this. You aren't safe any where. Psychological warfare seems the best reason, but it could just be a case of Hollywood Tactics.

Why do Promethean Knights have four arms?

• Why do the Promethean Knights have a second set of arms? What do they even need them for?
  • So they can grapple or manipulate objects while still wielding weapons. Their two primary arms are the right sword arm and left gun arm, both of which lack hands and thus can't perform fine operations. Giving them a second pair with hands allows them to multitask and not have to put down their weapons.
  • Going by the concept art, the smaller arms are their original arms from when they were organic, and the weapon arms are part of their armor.

Why are New Phoenix Knights not allies?

• Why are the Promethean Knights that were made from those in New Phoenix that were composed fighting against the Spartans? Wouldn't they recognize the Spartans as fellow members of humanity and stand down, or even help them? What is preventing them from not attacking or not allying with other humans?
  • The Prometheans are just robots that happen to have been made from humans. They're completely under the Ur-Didact's command and have no free will. That's why all the previous Prometheans made from ancient humans didn't turn on him the moment after they were made, because they don't remember who they were anymore. This is why the Librarian tells the Chief that the Composer was cast aside as a potential cure for the Flood, because it couldn't replicate the user's original mind properly.

Chief knows that other Halos exist

• Why does Chief question Del Rio when he mentions "other installations"? He knows that other Halo rings exist besides the two that he previously visited, because he saw their holograms in the Ark's Citadel in Halo 3? Is he referring to Shield Worlds?
  • It could be Chief was just trying to make sure he knew exactly what Del Rio was talking about. A lot has changed during his nap, and I'm sure he'd realise that it would be far better to get solid intel than make assumptions.

Why do the Forerunners call themselves the Forerunners?

• I'm not even questioning the fact that they speak English and call themselves by a human word- that's already the case with the Covenant, after all. But the only reason for humans to call them the "Forerunners" is because it's another word for "ancestor." Why would the Forerunners use it themselves, unless they already know their only reason for existence is to be characters in a video game created by humans?
  • The Forerunners were given their names from their creators, the Precursors. This is discussed, fittingly enough, in the Forerunner trilogy of books.