Halo Universe

The Community's new book club where you can recommend and discuss your favourite novels to keep one busy during those boring hours of waiting to bank.
Post Reply
User avatar
Noobert
Sedin Triplet
Posts: 12750
Joined: Fri Apr 21, 2006 8:39 pm
Alliance: Mayhem
Race: A Canuck
ID: 57572
Location: Canada, British Columbia

Halo Universe

In light of a new Halo book coming out in January, I wanted to know.

Does anyone read or have read the Halo books?

I believe them to be better then the games. By far.
Image
Image
Image
User avatar
KnowLedge
Forum Elite
Posts: 1831
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 5:06 pm
Race: Lord of all Daimon
ID: 0

Re: Halo Universe

what exactly is the Halo storyline? can any one summarize?

Ive only played 2 thus far..

humans find halo, baddies find halo. both look for maproom.. the flood is found.. in game 2, there is actually more than one halo
THAT IS ALL I KNOW.., anyone feel like summarizing the games after that part?
ask me anything, i shell provide you free knowledge


Untrained Units Sold : 1245 Million UU

Am I a Good trader??
http://stargatewars.herebegames.com/vie ... 8&t=114491
HellGirl is my **Filtered**!
noone
Forum Elite
Posts: 1916
Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2007 5:49 am
Alliance: none
Race: gone
ID: 0
Alternate name(s): Nostradamus,Nostra,NanoBite,Drought,Darkwing Duck,Duck Dodgers,Medusa,Star Nova,System Mistress,*The Exile,ingolfúr,Belle,Lagertha.
Location: gone

Re: Halo Universe

[spoiler]The halo rings are parts of a super weapon used in a distant past to kill all organic life in the universe in a hope to eliminate the flood.

It was build by a race whom where highyl evolved etc, but anticipated the dangers of the flood too late.
Believing they will succeed with their weapon they preserved lots of DNA to restore life in a later stage.

They failed, the flood returned, **Filtered** happens again.

Now baddies know of the halo weapon and some idiots want to push the button.

L337 soldier comes to save the day :D[/spoiler]

that about sums up halo universe :)
User avatar
Juliette
Verified
The Queen
Posts: 31802
Joined: Sun Feb 06, 2005 6:57 pm
Race: Royalty
ID: 4323
Alternate name(s): Cersei Lannister
Location: Ultima Thule

Re: Halo Universe

Basically, throughout the whole series of books; it's the story of the 'Mantle' and a series of über-high tech religious wars (i.e. the responsibility and protectorship of a galaxy, in order to help them reach fruition and a perfect state, at which point the Precursors leave).

Starting at the beginning; The Precursors are the highest, most advanced civillisation 'ever' in the universe. (Not sure if you're familiar with the Kardashev scale; they'd rank somewhere between class III and a hypothetical IV.) Precursors find that they are the most gifted mind wherever they go. Their intellectual and technological superiority, along with a healthy dose of a Messiah complex bring them to create the 'Mantle'-doctrine. They use their technological superiority to advance a galaxy, create life, populate the galaxy with 'indigenous beings', increase the speed of evolution, things like that. They put a galaxy on a path to 'perfection', and when the galaxy is self-sufficient, they attempt to leave it alone.
That supposedly worked for quite a few galaxies.

In the Milky Way, though, things went awry.
The Forerunners, the creation of the Precursors meant to 'rule' the Milky Way galaxy, think highly of themselves and rise up against their Precursor creators. The general idea is that they actually succeeded in eradicating many, if not all Precursors except one (The Timeless One, ask Psi Kiya Trist about him). Given the presumed technological difference between a transsentient species (Precursors) and a galactic civilisation (Forerunners) it is far more likely the Precursors said "**Filtered** it, we're out of here" instead. Regardless. This presumably happened so long ago that even to the Forerunners it is considered mythic.

Skip ahead a few million years. The Forerunners have 'successfully' taken up the Mantle of the Milky Way galaxy, and have built gigantic structures in space. Among them various Dyson spheres and other structures. Assuming they are superior to everything around them, they have become complacent and naive, but still very ideological.
Enter the Humans.
Humanity was a species inhabiting various worlds, rapidly gaining technology and making other advances. They believed they were the true inheritors of the Mantle. Putting them at odds with the Forerunners who believe them heretics, their relationship is strained. Then, a few human worlds are infected by the Flood. Big problem. Flood infect sentient life (they CAUSE cannibalism which helps them infect others), and hey, there's plenty of that to go around when we're dealing with a huge galactic civilisation.
Humans 'defeat' the Flood. Defeat here actually means 'cure' as the Flood exhibits itself as a disease at first. Flood is eradicated and flees the galaxy for a while.

Humans and Forerunners fight a war, because the majority of Forerunners do not believe in the existence of the Flood and think the Humans are just being obnoxious aggressors. What else is new. This all presumably happens 100,000 years before the Common Era.
The Forerunners being their technologically superior selves all but destroy humanity and scatter the remaining few into de-civilised worlds. Ironically, or perhaps intentionally, the destruction of the Humans heralds the return of the Flood as a viable threat to the Forerunners. This is where the Forerunners first apply their 'mass suicide' defence mechanism.. rather effective in stopping Flood infestations, but at the same time quite damaging to yourself. No civilisation can keep up losing entire worlds to an enemy for a long time, so another solution is required.
By now, the Flood are large enough in number to create their most powerful form yet, the Gravemind, a super-controlling hivemind directing ALL Flood activity in a Galaxy. How do you counter a hivemind? Exactly. You create one of your own. Mendicant Bias, a controlling AI designed with the sole purpose of engaging in discourse with the parasite’s central intellect, the Gravemind, and then gathering information from it. When instructed by the Forerunners, the AI would use the information gathered about the parasite's weaknesses to unrelentingly attack the Mind until the Flood withdrew from the galaxy or perished.
Fun times, never going to happen with super-powerful AIs. After a few chats with Gravemind, Mendicant Bias decides that the force of the Flood is actually good for the galaxy, and is in fact an unstoppable force. What would you do when you are a sensible AI and are confronted with an enemy who is unstoppable, convinces you of their moral superiority, and offers you a chance to join them? Right! You join them. Mendicant Bias does exactly that, and a whole new can of whoop-ass is opened up.

During or directly after the Forerunner-Human wars, after a few consults with the Forerunner bigwigs, a very arrogant and aggressive Master Builder Faber builds the Halo Rings -last resort weapons that could purge all sentient life from a star system, and if need be the whole galaxy- and co-creates Mendicant Bias. Faber uses the Halo to violate the 'Mantle' doctrine when he fires it on a planet to put down a rebellion, leading to a process against him, which is interrupted when Mendicant Bias goes nuts and attacks the Forerunner Capital.

When I say "goes nuts" I mean that in a very controlled and dissociated way; we saw how the Gravemind had convinced Mendicant Bias to join the Flood's cause. Ideal weapon of choice to 'restart' the Galaxy (as Gravemind and Mendicant Bias intended) is a weapon which eradicates all life in the Galaxy. Shocker. Forerunners had a couple of those parked outside the Capital, thus explaining the 'need' for Mendicant Bias to attack the Capital. Interestingly coinciding with the tribunal against his maker, Mendicant Bias quite effectively takes 5 Halo rings, loses track of 1 other, and accidentally destroys the remaining 6.

Now, the Forerunners had a nice little defence 'wall' (in space!), known as the Maginot Sphere. This was basically a 'line no enemy will set foot beyond', but dear Mendicant Bias uses a stunning 5 million ships to attack said Sphere. Boom. No more sphere. Forerunners hurry the construction of the Halo Array, which should enable the Rings to exterminate all life in the galaxy instead of just being separate, targeted weapons.

Long story short, massive battles, Forerunners create another AI, Offensive Bias, who outsmarts and effectively defeats Mendicant Bias. In the process, the Halo Array is fired and all life in the galaxy is exterminated, except for those who were saved in the 'Ark installation'. That would be 'most of the original species'. They are re-seeded on their planets after Offensive Bias destroys Mendicant Bias, forming themselves a new galactic order.

Big power in this new galactic order is the Covenant, led by the San'Shyuum (Prophets). Mendicant Bias pops up again, tells the Covenant that their religion is based on a mistranslation, starting the Covenant-Human wars. These are fought throughout the conventional Halo series.




Books add SO much more.

Games are limited to the Covenant-Human war, where knowledge of the actual history is very limited. References to the above are found throughout the entire series of games, and are explored more in depth in the books detailing various events surrounding the entire backstory. ;)
Oh yeah, I wrote the above. Any errors are due to my style of writing and my messing up of some specifics. :)

tl;dr: NanoBite summarised.
Image
User avatar
Thel
Forum Irregular
Posts: 390
Joined: Mon Sep 06, 2010 12:53 pm
Alliance: ~Cloud Village~
ID: 1946016
Location: Ireland ;)

Re: Halo Universe

Noobert wrote:In light of a new Halo book coming out in January, I wanted to know.

Does anyone read or have read the Halo books?

I believe them to be better then the games. By far.


I haz all the books and i agree they are awesome, the storyline is so big :smt050
Image
Image
Image
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
Nothing is true, Everything is permitted.
War....war never changes.
Post Reply

Return to “The Book Club”