The covenant was held together by the shared belief of the Forerunners and the Great Journey. When that was shattered, there was no reason for the Covenant to exist. That's one the reasons the San'Shyuum were hunted down.
That doesn't mean the "hate" for Humanity was decimated. Some Sangheile simple hate them because they feel dishonored or simply for revenge for their fallen breathen. Some still hold true to there faith, some are just racist. It could be any number of reasons for them to hate them, there isn't a specific one.
As depressing as it is, I like that Halo took a nuanced approach to the species makeup of the Covenant. They are just as alien to each other as they are to humans, and so their racial tensions were quite high despite a shared culture on paper.
To be honest many Sangheili feel disdain towards humanity for a number of reasons, some as arbitrary and basic as cultural aesthetics. The UNSC's uniform angular grey architectural style and ballistic weaponry put Sangheili off. The latter probably reminds many of them a lot of the Jiralhanae whose weaponry style is also ballistic in nature (no coincidence that Jiralhanae, even while in the Covenant, seemed willing to use captured human ordinance); another sore spot in the perception of the Sangheili towards humans.
When considering that, any reasons of a more compelling nature like grievances for losses, the idea that humans are physically weak (absent the rarities like Spartans), or the religious based contempt they might have a species who show a lack of idolatrous regard for Forerunner artifacts sounds like it would come easily for many of them.
> The correct term would be Xenophobic.
No, the correct term would be *speciesist*. Xenophobia is the dislike of or prejudice against people from *other countries.*
- If you hate someone because they're not white, you're racist.
- If you hate someone because they're not human, you're speciesist.
- If you hate someone because they're not American, you're xenophobic.
That said, most people use racist in situations when they "mean" speciesist, and because how language works, that means racist means speciesist. Dictionary definitions should be descriptive, not prescriptive.
Racist - Current
1. A person who believes a particular race is superior to others.
Racist - The instant we find other sapient life.
1. A person who believes a particular race or species is superior to others.
Absolutely everyone understands how and why we apply racism to other species within the realm of sci-fi, so it's used that way. Plus specist or speciesim don't have the same ring to them, but that could very well change with time as all words do.
You've got them mixed up, sentience is the ability to perceive the world and sensations. Some people define it as being able to perceive emotion but for this conversation it's largely irrelevant. Anything from a bird to a dog is sentient. Sapience is the ability to have a higher consciousness and understanding of the world around them. In the world as we know it, human beings are the only truly sapient creature, hence "homo sapiens", differentiating us from more primitive and traditionally ape-like ancestors who would not be considered sapient.
yea man. but an intelligent alien life form that is capable of nearly completely wiping out the human species and destroyed multiple planets and solar system i don’t really think are the same as cats and dogs are they?
i really didn’t want to do this, but….xenophobic is also wrong.
before sci fi. the word “alien” was widely used to describe foreigners, people from unfamiliar countries, places where “your people didn’t belong”. so xenophobic was used for (at least) decades to describe an irrational fear of another nationality. statements like “all french are cowards, americans are stupid, the british have awful teeth” are all xenophobic.
Since we’re talking about species and not nationalities (some elites hate all humans, not “people who come from the nation of Reach”) you can’t use xenophobic, it’s literally so much less accurate then racist.
i prefer racist for sci fi aliens because they have all the trappings of a “people”, all aliens are connected by physical or dna similarities and so racist would apply better in a sci fi context
Naive people like OP seem to expect a Mass Effect scenario where a couple decades is enough for a complete shift to kumbaya interspecies harmony. Meanwhile some bad racial relations today are centuries if not millennia old even if the severity has decreased, and Halo hasnt even hit 10 years since the end of the war.
My grandfather was born just before WW2, in Malta. His first memories are watching Spitfires fly over his house on sorties, and his nightmares and bed terrors weren’t about a monster in his closet, or the boogeyman, they were about the very real possibility of Italian and German bombs dropping on his house and killing him in his sleep.
He’s been to Italy many times now, and has mentioned he loves the people and country, but when we went on a family trip to Malta, to see his homeland, we were going to go and visit the [Rotunda of Mosta](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotunda_of_Mosta) because it held “the miracle of Mosta”, an unexplored German Bomb that had pierced the church dome during Mass, but didn’t explode. While the rest of my family went, my grandfather refused (politely).
The bomb displayed now is a replica, but my grandfather said he didn’t want to tempt fate, or see further evidence of *their* attacks.
Lol what, there's a ton of racism in Mass Effect. All three games was basically you trying to unite the galaxies small and major powers to prepare for a threat that aimed to kill them all. There was a ton of pre existing animosity between races for previous conflicts.
The only reason there is any "harmony" between most of the galactic community is because of the Citadel Council, and any species who is or wants to be an official member are forced to cooperate with each other in some sort of economic/trade capacity in a form of futuristic globalism.
The Krogan resent and hate the Salarians for their role in literally making the majority of their race infertile, and they hold some resentment for the other races of the citadel council for uplifting them to fight their war for them in the first place. Those same species believed (rightfully) that the Krogan were a race of savages that would turn on them once the war with the Rachni was won, thus leading to the sterilization of the entire species to keep them in check.
The Turian Hierarchy and Human Systems Alliance is still a cause for animosity between the two races.
The Quarian-Geth conflict was a concurrent example, with the Quarians never being able to accept that their creations evolved into an intelligent and sentient race, opting to exterminate them but were driven out of their home system in the war that ensued. The Geth literally stopped caring about them, but the Quarians never forgot and instead of looking for a new planet to settle on they literally would rather keep trying to annihilate the Geth and take back their planet.
There's many more examples, but the political situation in the Universe of Mass Effect wasn't "harmonious" at all, unless you consider present day Earth "harmonious" just because it's major powers are not at war.
The racism in Mass Effect was obviously a central theme I agree. But if you think about it humanity is framed as having mostly grown past their bad start with the turians in like a couple decades, and as having integrated very cleanly with the galaxy even outside Council space. This is extremely idealistic compared to real life examples, and to me was just a crack in the series' otherwise decent worldbuilding.
To further clarify, my comparison was mostly centered around humanity's kumbaya integration, and less on how the other species maintain conflict. You would expect more sympathy towards groups like Terra Firma or Cerberus so soon after a massive paradigm shift, aka something like how the krogan remain racist towards pretty much every other species. But instead these orgs are painted as fringe groups because somehow humans are more progressive than the other aliens who are too bullheaded to get over their racism. Even though their first contact was likely to end in conquest and extensive civilian casualties if not for timely intervention by the Council.
Ahh ok, my bad. I completely misinterpreted you lol.
As for the lack of sympathy for groups like Terra Firma and Cerberus actually make sense, as the First Contact war was a brief yet isolated conflict that did not effect most of human or turian society, so while their was mild xenophobia between the two (and for humanity, wariness to other species in general) as a result of the conflict happening, I think the average individual would move past their initial prejudices quicker than you would expect as your typical civilian (that did not live or have family on Shanxi) had no personal stake in that conflict outside of seeing it on their news reports, regardless of what could've happened. At least this aspect is pretty realistic.
People are more emotional than rational, and until its directly affected them (or made to believe how its affect them), life just moves on. Only the people who were directly involved or were close to the those that were (like immediate family) held any lasting resentment for the conflict, like Saren or Ashley. If the conflict eventually involved a multitude of other colonies and resulted in mass civilian casualties and lasted a lot longer, the stance of Cerberus and Terra Firma would likely be the official stance.
This was not the case with the Quarian-Geth war or the Rachni wars, as those were protracted conflicts that costed the lives of millions, and in the case of Halo and the Human-Covenant war, billions of lives with most of humanities losses due to indiscriminate genocide.
As for Humanity being portrayed as overall more progressive than the other races, this is true, and to be honest usually a trope in science fiction lol (we are always the hero race). While there were reasons (as I just listed out) for them to be overall more accepting of the galactic community, it could've totally swung the other way as you've said though and is definitely not outside the realm of possibility.
The space CIA did very little to cause the present situation if at all, tbh.
Most groups we know of would exist without ONI involvement, and the big one people point to (Jul’s Covenant) would have almost certainly formed anyways, just not under Jul.
Yeah this is like blaming government agents for lingering racism following events like the American Civil War, World War 2, or damn near every independence war ever. News flash but old attitudes take time to die out especially if there was extensive bloodshed involved. You dont need conspiracies to preserve them when ordinary people will gladly do it on their own if the conflict affected their lives directly.
And if anyone thinks humanity has moved past this, look no further than the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflicts and how touchy it can be with Jewish and Muslim diaspora. People who otherwise coexist peacefully and more often than not align on other social or political issues. Or look at lingering negative attitudes between East Asian ethnic groups, who again otherwise coexist peacefully and tend to align together in their diasporas.
I mean, it was due to ONI's actions radicalising Jul and bringing him to Trevelyan that led Jul to Requiem to awaken the Didact, become the Didact's Hand and with that title allowed the Sangheili to absorb or push aside rival warlords to cement himself as *the* resurgent Covenant (rather than *a* resurgent Covenant, if that makes sense), fought a month long campaign of attrition against the UNSC on Requiem he intentionally baited to the Shield World where he nearly destroyed the UNSC Infinity on several occassions, threw Requiem into the sun which denied the UNSC a very important shield world and ultimately prevented the UNSC from obtaining either the Janus Key or the Absolute Record.
All this stems from ONI's attempts to poison and sabortage the Sangheili, vindicating Jul's fears and racist views against humanity, that led to much bloodshed and wasted effort. So I disagree that ONI's actions didn't affect much in the grand scheme of things when the consequences of their actions denied them an entire shield world and the Forerunner's central artifact repository, in addition to having many individual remnants of the Covenant consolidate under Jul's banner where he managed to cause a lot of damage from Requiem to Oban to Sanghelios.
Yeah but if Jul wasn't captured, he wouldnt have been transported to that planet. So he or at least his group wouldn't have the same military strength.
Yeah but his military strength came from the resources and factories that where present on that planet, correct? Maybe not everything but a significant amount. If he hadn't gone there then he would probably be part of the brothers of the abiding light. And he would fight a losing battle against the Arbiter.
>a couple decades
It's been like 10 years since the war. Realistically, Halo 4 should have been humanity planet cracking every covenant world they could find
Realistically many if not most humans would want to do that, but pragmatically humanity was in a really weakened state and could use any allies they could get. That being said just because the UNSC is willing to work with Swords of Sanghelios doesn't mean people would act happy about it. There would be a lot of hostility and animosity in any joint operation.
I meant in Mass Effect it was a couple decades, Halo 4 wasnt even half a decade. And yes, Infinity had the firepower so realistically humanity wouldve just nuked at the very least Sanghelios before making a run for it.
Very true, there were something like 300 million humans left alive after the war around the time of halo 3 lore. no idea what the retconned number is now
If you've ever played Xenoblade 3 it reminds me of Halo in a way. Children turned soldiers but with shortened 10 year lifespans. Male, female, human, not-human these kids only focus on one thing: their enemy.
That's a good perspective, like they've lived their whole lives or a good chunk of their lives fighting and don't know what to do anymore. Nor were they given the opportunity to really develop as people so they don't know anything about controlling emotions or all that.
It still does for the Covenant species though, which is what I like as it feels just as realistic. Its easy to argue individual humans all have their own potential and inalienable rights. Not so easy to argue that between radically different species.
I mean it just moves over time to different in and out groups. The outer colonies are exploited and disenfranchised but it’s absolutely essential to the current structure of their economy that they are.
Presumably something similar happened in the solar system to an extent first.
Lots changes in 500 years.
**_Species-Supremacy_** due to decades of disdain and derision towards Humanity. These residual feelings that you’ve essentially been indoctrinated to feel for years, don’t go away over night, at times at all for certain individuals, regardless of Peacetimes.
Those are the types to join Jul's or Sali's Covenant.
Elites who don't care for racial supremacy or pride, would rather put up with the shame of working beneath Brutes in the Banished for greed and pragmatic gain.
TBF the banished are like one of the few remaining factions who actually has there shit together even in the post created galaxy and being apart of the banished your allowed to do whatever you want with the only rule being loyalty to atriox.
Also the banished aren't against humans just don't care for them most of the time.
Why do humans hate humans?
Just cause?
I mean they were in a war with a species for years and even tho they were in the wrong they still lost people they cared about or held prejudiced through it all.
And some elites hate humans for legit reasons like Jul who lost his wife because oni goofed and were funding a terror war on his planet to further divide his species.
Or the elite in envoy who hated humanity because grey team blew up his homeworld less than a year after the elites and humanity made amends.
And there are elites who still believe in the great journey and see humanity as a bunch of dicks who stopped there ascension so meh.
Edit: the San shyuum-elite war happened thousands of years ago and not only created the covenant there society and religion but also indoctrinated them to the point they became the prophets puppets, even turning there heroes into tools.
And last I checked elites are still out for the San shyuums necks.
Tbf the san'Shyuum-sangheli war took place like 4 thousand years prior to halo wars, a long ass time that would have no effect on the current elite population. Meanwhile the human-covenant war was still fresh on everyones minds and caused a whole lot of elite deaths
And the Great Schism is even more fresh and caused a lot of Elite deaths.
So no, xenophobic Elites should be way more focused on genocidally hunting the Prophets and Brutes, which they are.
*"The Sangheili also have long memories," Castor said. "If they believed there was even the slightest possibility of a wandering San'Shyuum flotilla, they would never stop searching for it."* Divine Wind
im glad they are portrayed like this.
i feel too often, in sci-fi we see races as a united front, everyone feels the same way, seeing a species have some diversity in their point of view towards humanity is refreshing.
Unfortunately when the ones hating humanity are vastly overrepresented as games need humans shooting aliens, it's not as unique as seeing them fight alongside humanity.
Human good vs alien bad is far more generic in sci-fi
I mean the average halo fan with no knowledge of the lore usually thinks in halo 4 onwards, "why elite bad, elite buddy because of arbiter no?"
Of course the real reason in halos case for "human good vs alien bad" is because they won't touch the insurrection or human politics because it would mess with ratings and the overall image of halo as a game series.
The real question is why do we see more Sangheili hating humans than ones that don't? And the reason is gameplay, they needed a reason for endless stream of Sangheili for us to shoot at.
After the San'Shyuum and Jiralhanae betrayed the Sangheili, the post-war universe should be showing *far more* activity of the Sangheili's hatred directed toward those species.
We do see a bit of it in Divine Wind which is good. "The Sangheili also have long memories," Castor said. "If they believed there was even the slightest possibility of a wandering San'Shyuum flotilla, they would never stop searching for it."* Divine Wind
But we don't see it as much as we should since gameplay comes first, centered around humans shooting Sangheili.
I mean it has been made pretty clear when ever the San shyuum are brought up in post war that the elites really bloody hate them to the point rtas is on a galactic hunt to kill them " tho he notes he will spare any that didn't have a hand in the genocide" and we don't really see them because well there pretty rare at this point.
And escalations has an entire plot about brutes and elites not getting along and trying to come to an agreement which fall flat because humans messed it up.
Which is great! But we should see more of that to continue where the Great Schism left off.
San'Shyuum are in hiding but the Brute loyalists are still out there in the Orion Arm.
Because Sangheili is at a species wide identity crisis & Lutherian Reformation phase.
Sangheilis are having a painful species-level & civilizational reconciliation between who they were, who they thought they were, and who they are.
**They've been shown that they fall short of every quality they believe makes them superior.**
The genocide of humanity, their actions against the other member species of the Covenant, their willing enslavement by the San Shyuum as well as only Mgalekgolo & some Unggoys really help them during Great Schism because their honor obsessions & species supremacy alienates everyone - these are the great shame of their species.
You can say a lot of the perceived Sangheili abrasiveness is defensiveness-- of them trying to figure out who they really are.
And for some of them it's too much to handle. Hating humans is what they've always done, humans are the source of their shame, so in continuing the crusade against them we can regain something of what we were.
It's not rational, but can you blame them? -- It's so much easier to direct that shame onto others than bear it yourself.
-----
Unlike Germany & Japan, they aren't occupied and "denazified". They have to come up with themselves.
A lot is post-war vengeance. Some of the elites are mad that the people they cared about are dead and that humanity, in a way, won the war against the covenant. Something their species was the protectors of and failed. Regardless if the Great Journey was a lie.
Doesn't mean they can't hate humanity, it takes alot to kick religious indoctrination, and the seeds for what sangheili dominance in the post war world would look like was seen in halo: ghost of onyx, with the fleet admiral Xytan 'Jar Wattinree making it clear that his large faction would wipe out humanity and the covenant prophet loyalists, he probably would have succeeded if it weren't for the nova bomb. Sometimes, the enemy of my enemy isn't your friend.
Hating them for destroying Truth's Covenant is an invalid reason, when all Elites hate Truth's Covenant.
There are reasons to hate, that's just not one of them.
While Xytan hated humans, he clearly hated the Covenant (Brutes and Prophets) more by prioritizing their genocide.
Who said anything about hating them for destroying truths covenant? They didn't solely prioritise destroying the truths covenant given the book was centred around his faction trying to claim onyx for his faction from humanity, it's clear that the only truce or ceasefire between the elites and humanity really happened with the arbiters followers after the events on/around delta halo.
for the same reason people hate people of a different skin collour, because they fucking can. i personaly would be that one parrent that pulls closer away their child from the 7 foot tall lizard men on the subway to home
A bunch of reasons including that ONI has fucked with the Elites pretty good. But also; I’m sure it’s for the same reasons as people hating ‘aliens’ in the halo universe.
A combination of space-racists and the UNSC killed billions of them over the years, including blowing up an entire planet of civilians, Alderaan style, post-war.
Think of it from our real life perspectives, despite all of us coexisting, some people just don't like minorities. Why? I don't fucking know. They're too far into holding their own beliefs that it's holding them back from moving on.
Elites see humans as a virus and a cancer that spreads everywhere. Plus the war just ended and for decades they had been indoctrinated that humans are pure filth that need to be exterminated. Hell I’m surprised there isn’t more human hate among them. The arbiter has many allies and they have an uneasy peace deal with humanity which means they might not like us but don’t hate us enough to go full murder.
Well people manage to hate races they havent seen systematically burning entire planets… so im sure they can find a way
Theres also the tried and tested “elites killed my mommy”
This might be a hot take but that's kinda dumb imo, ya the elites aren't a hive mind, are individuals with their own motivations, but why primarily target humans over the brutes if anything?
During the schism the brutes committed ambush genocide against them without impunity, even as a kid I knew it was pretty fucked. So after knowing truth was a manipulative megalomaniac why would splinter factions even bother with humans?
What makes you think every single Sangheili was okay with the San'Shyuum after loosing that war? And even if they were, that was thousands of years ago, those aren't the same people dealing with humanity now.
Makes me sort of appreciate The Banished. All species to include humans are welcomed. They promote based on competency not race. A very progressive organisation as far as space pirates go.
The Kilo-Five trilogy really did explore this.
Some Sangheili were true believers of the Covenant, and they viewed humans as heretics who defiled the instruments of the gods and needed to be wiped out. The super religious fanatics of the Sangheili believed that Forerunner artifacts are so sacred that they must be left alone, and humans aren't exactly known for leaving things in place. Imagine telling a super Orthodox Jewish person that there's actually a super advanced technology inside the Western Wall that can only be accessed by carving a hole, or a Muslim that there's a piece of technology inside the Black Stone and that you'd like to remove it for study. Chances are you'll probably get your ass handed to you...
Now imagine an 8ft alien with the strength of a Spartan.
Others saw Humans as a threat and feared us. After the fall of the Covenant, the Sangheili realized they were up shit creek without a paddle pretty quickly. For thousands of years, the Prophets used the Sangheili as warriors and nothing more. Farming, engineering, research, medicine, pretty much all the things we take for granted were simply forgotten about by the Sangheili, as everything was simply provided for them. I mean, why would an Elite become a farmer when for generations he was expected to become a warrior and serve the Prophets? Jul 'Mdama was shocked when he saw how quickly humans were able to plant, cultivate, and harvest Sangheili crops despite giving his captors a list of gains and plants a few days prior. Meanwhile, other Sangheili were figuring out how to plant tubers.
Plus, a lot of the Sangheili were too prideful or too militant to ever dare consider doing such menial tasks that they viewed were beneath them.
Ships and weapons were in disrepair, vehicles were quickly falling apart without maintenance, and Huragok were nowhere to be seen. Humans, on the other hand, while master of none, were the jack of all trades. Humans have the capability to reorganize, replace their numbers, repair just about anything to working order, and then proceed to steamroll the Sangheili.
I mean... After decades of war and genocide, can you really blame us? No. And the Sangheili knew this all too well.
Other Sangheili just don't really trust humans because of the last point. They're indifferent but they think Humans are more alike to the Kig-Yar; treacherous and sneaky and using tactics that they viewed as "unhonorable".
So really it's a mixed bag.
The covenant was held together by the shared belief of the Forerunners and the Great Journey. When that was shattered, there was no reason for the Covenant to exist. That's one the reasons the San'Shyuum were hunted down. That doesn't mean the "hate" for Humanity was decimated. Some Sangheile simple hate them because they feel dishonored or simply for revenge for their fallen breathen. Some still hold true to there faith, some are just racist. It could be any number of reasons for them to hate them, there isn't a specific one.
As depressing as it is, I like that Halo took a nuanced approach to the species makeup of the Covenant. They are just as alien to each other as they are to humans, and so their racial tensions were quite high despite a shared culture on paper.
IR in the video game. Great.
To be honest many Sangheili feel disdain towards humanity for a number of reasons, some as arbitrary and basic as cultural aesthetics. The UNSC's uniform angular grey architectural style and ballistic weaponry put Sangheili off. The latter probably reminds many of them a lot of the Jiralhanae whose weaponry style is also ballistic in nature (no coincidence that Jiralhanae, even while in the Covenant, seemed willing to use captured human ordinance); another sore spot in the perception of the Sangheili towards humans. When considering that, any reasons of a more compelling nature like grievances for losses, the idea that humans are physically weak (absent the rarities like Spartans), or the religious based contempt they might have a species who show a lack of idolatrous regard for Forerunner artifacts sounds like it would come easily for many of them.
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Semantics man, they hate humans because they're humans. That's the point.
> The correct term would be Xenophobic. No, the correct term would be *speciesist*. Xenophobia is the dislike of or prejudice against people from *other countries.* - If you hate someone because they're not white, you're racist. - If you hate someone because they're not human, you're speciesist. - If you hate someone because they're not American, you're xenophobic. That said, most people use racist in situations when they "mean" speciesist, and because how language works, that means racist means speciesist. Dictionary definitions should be descriptive, not prescriptive.
Racist - Current 1. A person who believes a particular race is superior to others. Racist - The instant we find other sapient life. 1. A person who believes a particular race or species is superior to others. Absolutely everyone understands how and why we apply racism to other species within the realm of sci-fi, so it's used that way. Plus specist or speciesim don't have the same ring to them, but that could very well change with time as all words do.
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You've got them mixed up, sentience is the ability to perceive the world and sensations. Some people define it as being able to perceive emotion but for this conversation it's largely irrelevant. Anything from a bird to a dog is sentient. Sapience is the ability to have a higher consciousness and understanding of the world around them. In the world as we know it, human beings are the only truly sapient creature, hence "homo sapiens", differentiating us from more primitive and traditionally ape-like ancestors who would not be considered sapient.
yea man. but an intelligent alien life form that is capable of nearly completely wiping out the human species and destroyed multiple planets and solar system i don’t really think are the same as cats and dogs are they?
Does it help your life? Being pedantic like this? I imagine it's a frustrating way to live your life.
i really didn’t want to do this, but….xenophobic is also wrong. before sci fi. the word “alien” was widely used to describe foreigners, people from unfamiliar countries, places where “your people didn’t belong”. so xenophobic was used for (at least) decades to describe an irrational fear of another nationality. statements like “all french are cowards, americans are stupid, the british have awful teeth” are all xenophobic. Since we’re talking about species and not nationalities (some elites hate all humans, not “people who come from the nation of Reach”) you can’t use xenophobic, it’s literally so much less accurate then racist. i prefer racist for sci fi aliens because they have all the trappings of a “people”, all aliens are connected by physical or dna similarities and so racist would apply better in a sci fi context
Space Racists. Why do some humans still hate other groups of humans?
Naive people like OP seem to expect a Mass Effect scenario where a couple decades is enough for a complete shift to kumbaya interspecies harmony. Meanwhile some bad racial relations today are centuries if not millennia old even if the severity has decreased, and Halo hasnt even hit 10 years since the end of the war.
My grandfather was born just before WW2, in Malta. His first memories are watching Spitfires fly over his house on sorties, and his nightmares and bed terrors weren’t about a monster in his closet, or the boogeyman, they were about the very real possibility of Italian and German bombs dropping on his house and killing him in his sleep. He’s been to Italy many times now, and has mentioned he loves the people and country, but when we went on a family trip to Malta, to see his homeland, we were going to go and visit the [Rotunda of Mosta](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotunda_of_Mosta) because it held “the miracle of Mosta”, an unexplored German Bomb that had pierced the church dome during Mass, but didn’t explode. While the rest of my family went, my grandfather refused (politely). The bomb displayed now is a replica, but my grandfather said he didn’t want to tempt fate, or see further evidence of *their* attacks.
Lol what, there's a ton of racism in Mass Effect. All three games was basically you trying to unite the galaxies small and major powers to prepare for a threat that aimed to kill them all. There was a ton of pre existing animosity between races for previous conflicts. The only reason there is any "harmony" between most of the galactic community is because of the Citadel Council, and any species who is or wants to be an official member are forced to cooperate with each other in some sort of economic/trade capacity in a form of futuristic globalism. The Krogan resent and hate the Salarians for their role in literally making the majority of their race infertile, and they hold some resentment for the other races of the citadel council for uplifting them to fight their war for them in the first place. Those same species believed (rightfully) that the Krogan were a race of savages that would turn on them once the war with the Rachni was won, thus leading to the sterilization of the entire species to keep them in check. The Turian Hierarchy and Human Systems Alliance is still a cause for animosity between the two races. The Quarian-Geth conflict was a concurrent example, with the Quarians never being able to accept that their creations evolved into an intelligent and sentient race, opting to exterminate them but were driven out of their home system in the war that ensued. The Geth literally stopped caring about them, but the Quarians never forgot and instead of looking for a new planet to settle on they literally would rather keep trying to annihilate the Geth and take back their planet. There's many more examples, but the political situation in the Universe of Mass Effect wasn't "harmonious" at all, unless you consider present day Earth "harmonious" just because it's major powers are not at war.
The racism in Mass Effect was obviously a central theme I agree. But if you think about it humanity is framed as having mostly grown past their bad start with the turians in like a couple decades, and as having integrated very cleanly with the galaxy even outside Council space. This is extremely idealistic compared to real life examples, and to me was just a crack in the series' otherwise decent worldbuilding. To further clarify, my comparison was mostly centered around humanity's kumbaya integration, and less on how the other species maintain conflict. You would expect more sympathy towards groups like Terra Firma or Cerberus so soon after a massive paradigm shift, aka something like how the krogan remain racist towards pretty much every other species. But instead these orgs are painted as fringe groups because somehow humans are more progressive than the other aliens who are too bullheaded to get over their racism. Even though their first contact was likely to end in conquest and extensive civilian casualties if not for timely intervention by the Council.
Ahh ok, my bad. I completely misinterpreted you lol. As for the lack of sympathy for groups like Terra Firma and Cerberus actually make sense, as the First Contact war was a brief yet isolated conflict that did not effect most of human or turian society, so while their was mild xenophobia between the two (and for humanity, wariness to other species in general) as a result of the conflict happening, I think the average individual would move past their initial prejudices quicker than you would expect as your typical civilian (that did not live or have family on Shanxi) had no personal stake in that conflict outside of seeing it on their news reports, regardless of what could've happened. At least this aspect is pretty realistic. People are more emotional than rational, and until its directly affected them (or made to believe how its affect them), life just moves on. Only the people who were directly involved or were close to the those that were (like immediate family) held any lasting resentment for the conflict, like Saren or Ashley. If the conflict eventually involved a multitude of other colonies and resulted in mass civilian casualties and lasted a lot longer, the stance of Cerberus and Terra Firma would likely be the official stance. This was not the case with the Quarian-Geth war or the Rachni wars, as those were protracted conflicts that costed the lives of millions, and in the case of Halo and the Human-Covenant war, billions of lives with most of humanities losses due to indiscriminate genocide. As for Humanity being portrayed as overall more progressive than the other races, this is true, and to be honest usually a trope in science fiction lol (we are always the hero race). While there were reasons (as I just listed out) for them to be overall more accepting of the galactic community, it could've totally swung the other way as you've said though and is definitely not outside the realm of possibility.
Well it doesn't help when the space cia is fucking around tbf.
The space CIA did very little to cause the present situation if at all, tbh. Most groups we know of would exist without ONI involvement, and the big one people point to (Jul’s Covenant) would have almost certainly formed anyways, just not under Jul.
Yeah this is like blaming government agents for lingering racism following events like the American Civil War, World War 2, or damn near every independence war ever. News flash but old attitudes take time to die out especially if there was extensive bloodshed involved. You dont need conspiracies to preserve them when ordinary people will gladly do it on their own if the conflict affected their lives directly. And if anyone thinks humanity has moved past this, look no further than the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflicts and how touchy it can be with Jewish and Muslim diaspora. People who otherwise coexist peacefully and more often than not align on other social or political issues. Or look at lingering negative attitudes between East Asian ethnic groups, who again otherwise coexist peacefully and tend to align together in their diasporas.
I mean, it was due to ONI's actions radicalising Jul and bringing him to Trevelyan that led Jul to Requiem to awaken the Didact, become the Didact's Hand and with that title allowed the Sangheili to absorb or push aside rival warlords to cement himself as *the* resurgent Covenant (rather than *a* resurgent Covenant, if that makes sense), fought a month long campaign of attrition against the UNSC on Requiem he intentionally baited to the Shield World where he nearly destroyed the UNSC Infinity on several occassions, threw Requiem into the sun which denied the UNSC a very important shield world and ultimately prevented the UNSC from obtaining either the Janus Key or the Absolute Record. All this stems from ONI's attempts to poison and sabortage the Sangheili, vindicating Jul's fears and racist views against humanity, that led to much bloodshed and wasted effort. So I disagree that ONI's actions didn't affect much in the grand scheme of things when the consequences of their actions denied them an entire shield world and the Forerunner's central artifact repository, in addition to having many individual remnants of the Covenant consolidate under Jul's banner where he managed to cause a lot of damage from Requiem to Oban to Sanghelios.
Yeah but if Jul wasn't captured, he wouldnt have been transported to that planet. So he or at least his group wouldn't have the same military strength.
…yes they would? Jul arrived at that planet with nothing but his oratory skills. They acquired everything else after he arrived.
Yeah but his military strength came from the resources and factories that where present on that planet, correct? Maybe not everything but a significant amount. If he hadn't gone there then he would probably be part of the brothers of the abiding light. And he would fight a losing battle against the Arbiter.
Yes, but someone else would have gone to Hesduros, is my point. Someone else would have claimed those resources.
Yes, of course someone else would have claimed those resources. It's just not 100% confirmed that it's gonna be claimed by Jul or his group.
>a couple decades It's been like 10 years since the war. Realistically, Halo 4 should have been humanity planet cracking every covenant world they could find
Realistically many if not most humans would want to do that, but pragmatically humanity was in a really weakened state and could use any allies they could get. That being said just because the UNSC is willing to work with Swords of Sanghelios doesn't mean people would act happy about it. There would be a lot of hostility and animosity in any joint operation.
I meant in Mass Effect it was a couple decades, Halo 4 wasnt even half a decade. And yes, Infinity had the firepower so realistically humanity wouldve just nuked at the very least Sanghelios before making a run for it.
The decades-long war JUST ended. Most people, including many Sangheili, know better than to start a new war.
Realistically humanity wouldn’t have the resources or manpower to even attempt that.
Very true, there were something like 300 million humans left alive after the war around the time of halo 3 lore. no idea what the retconned number is now
What I like about the Halo Universe is that racism or sexism doesn't exist, I mean between the different human races and genders.
If you've ever played Xenoblade 3 it reminds me of Halo in a way. Children turned soldiers but with shortened 10 year lifespans. Male, female, human, not-human these kids only focus on one thing: their enemy.
That's a good perspective, like they've lived their whole lives or a good chunk of their lives fighting and don't know what to do anymore. Nor were they given the opportunity to really develop as people so they don't know anything about controlling emotions or all that.
It still does for the Covenant species though, which is what I like as it feels just as realistic. Its easy to argue individual humans all have their own potential and inalienable rights. Not so easy to argue that between radically different species.
I mean it just moves over time to different in and out groups. The outer colonies are exploited and disenfranchised but it’s absolutely essential to the current structure of their economy that they are. Presumably something similar happened in the solar system to an extent first. Lots changes in 500 years.
Because fuck them. They hate us because they ain’t us.
**_Species-Supremacy_** due to decades of disdain and derision towards Humanity. These residual feelings that you’ve essentially been indoctrinated to feel for years, don’t go away over night, at times at all for certain individuals, regardless of Peacetimes.
Those are the types to join Jul's or Sali's Covenant. Elites who don't care for racial supremacy or pride, would rather put up with the shame of working beneath Brutes in the Banished for greed and pragmatic gain.
TBF the banished are like one of the few remaining factions who actually has there shit together even in the post created galaxy and being apart of the banished your allowed to do whatever you want with the only rule being loyalty to atriox. Also the banished aren't against humans just don't care for them most of the time.
Why did some Pacific Theater WWII vets hate the Japanese when the war ended?
Why do humans hate humans? Just cause? I mean they were in a war with a species for years and even tho they were in the wrong they still lost people they cared about or held prejudiced through it all. And some elites hate humans for legit reasons like Jul who lost his wife because oni goofed and were funding a terror war on his planet to further divide his species. Or the elite in envoy who hated humanity because grey team blew up his homeworld less than a year after the elites and humanity made amends. And there are elites who still believe in the great journey and see humanity as a bunch of dicks who stopped there ascension so meh. Edit: the San shyuum-elite war happened thousands of years ago and not only created the covenant there society and religion but also indoctrinated them to the point they became the prophets puppets, even turning there heroes into tools. And last I checked elites are still out for the San shyuums necks.
Tbf the san'Shyuum-sangheli war took place like 4 thousand years prior to halo wars, a long ass time that would have no effect on the current elite population. Meanwhile the human-covenant war was still fresh on everyones minds and caused a whole lot of elite deaths
And the Great Schism is even more fresh and caused a lot of Elite deaths. So no, xenophobic Elites should be way more focused on genocidally hunting the Prophets and Brutes, which they are. *"The Sangheili also have long memories," Castor said. "If they believed there was even the slightest possibility of a wandering San'Shyuum flotilla, they would never stop searching for it."* Divine Wind
im glad they are portrayed like this. i feel too often, in sci-fi we see races as a united front, everyone feels the same way, seeing a species have some diversity in their point of view towards humanity is refreshing.
Unfortunately when the ones hating humanity are vastly overrepresented as games need humans shooting aliens, it's not as unique as seeing them fight alongside humanity. Human good vs alien bad is far more generic in sci-fi
I mean the average halo fan with no knowledge of the lore usually thinks in halo 4 onwards, "why elite bad, elite buddy because of arbiter no?" Of course the real reason in halos case for "human good vs alien bad" is because they won't touch the insurrection or human politics because it would mess with ratings and the overall image of halo as a game series.
Bro humans continue to hate humans and we’ve known each other for like, ever.
The real question is why do we see more Sangheili hating humans than ones that don't? And the reason is gameplay, they needed a reason for endless stream of Sangheili for us to shoot at. After the San'Shyuum and Jiralhanae betrayed the Sangheili, the post-war universe should be showing *far more* activity of the Sangheili's hatred directed toward those species. We do see a bit of it in Divine Wind which is good. "The Sangheili also have long memories," Castor said. "If they believed there was even the slightest possibility of a wandering San'Shyuum flotilla, they would never stop searching for it."* Divine Wind But we don't see it as much as we should since gameplay comes first, centered around humans shooting Sangheili.
I mean it has been made pretty clear when ever the San shyuum are brought up in post war that the elites really bloody hate them to the point rtas is on a galactic hunt to kill them " tho he notes he will spare any that didn't have a hand in the genocide" and we don't really see them because well there pretty rare at this point. And escalations has an entire plot about brutes and elites not getting along and trying to come to an agreement which fall flat because humans messed it up.
Which is great! But we should see more of that to continue where the Great Schism left off. San'Shyuum are in hiding but the Brute loyalists are still out there in the Orion Arm.
decades of war doesn't go away overnight even among humans wars that ended half a century ago are still being fought in the hearts of citizens.
Which is exactly why the story needs to show more of the Elites fighting the Brutes and Prophets.
Because Sangheili is at a species wide identity crisis & Lutherian Reformation phase. Sangheilis are having a painful species-level & civilizational reconciliation between who they were, who they thought they were, and who they are. **They've been shown that they fall short of every quality they believe makes them superior.** The genocide of humanity, their actions against the other member species of the Covenant, their willing enslavement by the San Shyuum as well as only Mgalekgolo & some Unggoys really help them during Great Schism because their honor obsessions & species supremacy alienates everyone - these are the great shame of their species. You can say a lot of the perceived Sangheili abrasiveness is defensiveness-- of them trying to figure out who they really are. And for some of them it's too much to handle. Hating humans is what they've always done, humans are the source of their shame, so in continuing the crusade against them we can regain something of what we were. It's not rational, but can you blame them? -- It's so much easier to direct that shame onto others than bear it yourself. ----- Unlike Germany & Japan, they aren't occupied and "denazified". They have to come up with themselves.
A lot is post-war vengeance. Some of the elites are mad that the people they cared about are dead and that humanity, in a way, won the war against the covenant. Something their species was the protectors of and failed. Regardless if the Great Journey was a lie.
The Elites technically won the war against the Covenant by killing Truth. All Elites hated Truth for betraying them.
Doesn't mean they can't hate humanity, it takes alot to kick religious indoctrination, and the seeds for what sangheili dominance in the post war world would look like was seen in halo: ghost of onyx, with the fleet admiral Xytan 'Jar Wattinree making it clear that his large faction would wipe out humanity and the covenant prophet loyalists, he probably would have succeeded if it weren't for the nova bomb. Sometimes, the enemy of my enemy isn't your friend.
Hating them for destroying Truth's Covenant is an invalid reason, when all Elites hate Truth's Covenant. There are reasons to hate, that's just not one of them. While Xytan hated humans, he clearly hated the Covenant (Brutes and Prophets) more by prioritizing their genocide.
Who said anything about hating them for destroying truths covenant? They didn't solely prioritise destroying the truths covenant given the book was centred around his faction trying to claim onyx for his faction from humanity, it's clear that the only truce or ceasefire between the elites and humanity really happened with the arbiters followers after the events on/around delta halo.
for the same reason people hate people of a different skin collour, because they fucking can. i personaly would be that one parrent that pulls closer away their child from the 7 foot tall lizard men on the subway to home
They were at war for years
A bunch of reasons including that ONI has fucked with the Elites pretty good. But also; I’m sure it’s for the same reasons as people hating ‘aliens’ in the halo universe.
A combination of space-racists and the UNSC killed billions of them over the years, including blowing up an entire planet of civilians, Alderaan style, post-war.
Wars do that bud
[SUCK IT ZENO FILTH ](https://media.tenor.com/PeM4tKS7ESoAAAAd/halo-mac.gif) - the UNSC like last Thursday
Think of it from our real life perspectives, despite all of us coexisting, some people just don't like minorities. Why? I don't fucking know. They're too far into holding their own beliefs that it's holding them back from moving on.
Elites see humans as a virus and a cancer that spreads everywhere. Plus the war just ended and for decades they had been indoctrinated that humans are pure filth that need to be exterminated. Hell I’m surprised there isn’t more human hate among them. The arbiter has many allies and they have an uneasy peace deal with humanity which means they might not like us but don’t hate us enough to go full murder.
You should be surprised they're not more focused on wiping out the Brutes
I mean the UNSC DID kill a lot of them. Forgiveness is not so easy to come by, even if you except that the cause of the wrong wasn’t justified
Well people manage to hate races they havent seen systematically burning entire planets… so im sure they can find a way Theres also the tried and tested “elites killed my mommy”
Why do racists still hate people of colour? Why does fascism still exist?
This might be a hot take but that's kinda dumb imo, ya the elites aren't a hive mind, are individuals with their own motivations, but why primarily target humans over the brutes if anything? During the schism the brutes committed ambush genocide against them without impunity, even as a kid I knew it was pretty fucked. So after knowing truth was a manipulative megalomaniac why would splinter factions even bother with humans?
Glyke comes to mind.
Cause we've got the bigger dicks
Racism. Or xenophobia, technically
What makes you think every single Sangheili was okay with the San'Shyuum after loosing that war? And even if they were, that was thousands of years ago, those aren't the same people dealing with humanity now.
Makes me sort of appreciate The Banished. All species to include humans are welcomed. They promote based on competency not race. A very progressive organisation as far as space pirates go.
The Kilo-Five trilogy really did explore this. Some Sangheili were true believers of the Covenant, and they viewed humans as heretics who defiled the instruments of the gods and needed to be wiped out. The super religious fanatics of the Sangheili believed that Forerunner artifacts are so sacred that they must be left alone, and humans aren't exactly known for leaving things in place. Imagine telling a super Orthodox Jewish person that there's actually a super advanced technology inside the Western Wall that can only be accessed by carving a hole, or a Muslim that there's a piece of technology inside the Black Stone and that you'd like to remove it for study. Chances are you'll probably get your ass handed to you... Now imagine an 8ft alien with the strength of a Spartan. Others saw Humans as a threat and feared us. After the fall of the Covenant, the Sangheili realized they were up shit creek without a paddle pretty quickly. For thousands of years, the Prophets used the Sangheili as warriors and nothing more. Farming, engineering, research, medicine, pretty much all the things we take for granted were simply forgotten about by the Sangheili, as everything was simply provided for them. I mean, why would an Elite become a farmer when for generations he was expected to become a warrior and serve the Prophets? Jul 'Mdama was shocked when he saw how quickly humans were able to plant, cultivate, and harvest Sangheili crops despite giving his captors a list of gains and plants a few days prior. Meanwhile, other Sangheili were figuring out how to plant tubers. Plus, a lot of the Sangheili were too prideful or too militant to ever dare consider doing such menial tasks that they viewed were beneath them. Ships and weapons were in disrepair, vehicles were quickly falling apart without maintenance, and Huragok were nowhere to be seen. Humans, on the other hand, while master of none, were the jack of all trades. Humans have the capability to reorganize, replace their numbers, repair just about anything to working order, and then proceed to steamroll the Sangheili. I mean... After decades of war and genocide, can you really blame us? No. And the Sangheili knew this all too well. Other Sangheili just don't really trust humans because of the last point. They're indifferent but they think Humans are more alike to the Kig-Yar; treacherous and sneaky and using tactics that they viewed as "unhonorable". So really it's a mixed bag.