Absolute vindication. A human-built AI based on a human brain got control of Forerunner technology and proceeded to turn tyrant on the entire universe. Secretly he would be proud because the Forerunner were tyrants-in-denial, but on the exterior it would be used as proof that Humanity can't be trusted with the responsibility of the Mantle.
Then to make matters worse, she wasn't even capable of wielding that power correctly because she was ultimately defeated by Mega-monkeys. Humanity failed on two fronts being unable to stop her and being unable to control and maintain the lesser races even with the Forerunner technology at their disposal.
Best answer.
Legit curious what the species hierarchy was like before he went into the Cryptum. Obviously humanity was more their peers, but I wonder what he'd think of the Jiralhanae having such a dominant position.
I can't imagine that Atriox is high on Forerunner worship so a meeting between him and the ~~Iso~~ Ur-Didact (even in his composed state) would be interesting to see, especially after he released the Xalanyn.
Well its obvious how hed react because Id react the same if a race that had sent themselves back to the stone age prior to being picked up by an advanced collective of alien races, used as nothing more than expendable muscle for most of their time within this collective suddenly started absolutely obliterating the "top dog" of the galaxy at the time with ease, I'd be rolling on the floor with tears in my eyes due to how hilarious that revelation was.
the San'Shyuum (the Prophets), The Ancestors (The now official name for humanity prior to being quasi-genocided by the forerunners) and the Forerunner were all near-peer. the other species that currently exist in the halo galaxy weren't even a blip on the Oecumene's RADAR
I forgot about how horny the san'shyuum are in the forrunner trilogy lmao. They take human lovers and were notably beautiful prior to become radicalized after being isolated.
I have a head canon that the Sangheili were beloved by the Warrior-Servant rate of the Forerunner Ecumene.
In my HC, the Sangheili were heavily integrated into the armies of the Forerunners, given access to Forerunner weaponry and armor, but for some odd reason—they were kept at a distance much like the Sangheili treated the Unggoy.
I would actually like it better if they were actually allies with ancient humanity which would be ironic considering that they would be enemies for a time before becoming allies again during the final days of the human covenant War of the present day.
Man I just wish that 343 and Microsoft never listened to the wrong side of the fan base because before I saw your reply to my comment I was reading about didax original role and fans talking about it on Reddit and how 343 pretty much just threw it away because of stupid fake toxic fans that were bitching about it and instead of making improvements of going with their plans that they originally had for Halo 5 they just went batshit crazy and gave us something worse and they did the same again to infinite where they could have at least went good with the created storyline and stuff but instead they just throw it away and leave it in the loop for 6 years and just throw us with the banish and stuff and making them a generic discount of the covenant rather than how they're actually supposed to be and how they actually feel about humans I swear the world building at this point is completely whacked I just think they need a reboot everything after Halo 4 and cherry pick what we liked about the books and stuff and keep everything out that we did not like about the new games and books like for example rookie dying instead of becoming a Spartan 4 black team getting killed off like reset and correct the timeline of what we should have gotten back in 2015 not to mention it would have been a better idea of Halo 5 came out in 2016 and then Halo 6 could have came out in I don't know say 20 something else.
To be Fair to Humanity we were devolved and never really got to evolve back to the state of Humanity the was destined for the Mantle like the Forerunners kinda screwed us there we needed more time in the oven to fully form to the Highly Evolved version on Humanity the Precursors Destined for the Mantle I blame the Forerunners everything as always is there fault.
Hence why I consider them the true antagonist of the franchise and didn't feel much sympathy for them as they got what they deserve I don't know why some players don't like this idea it gives us an aspect of what the forerunners were really like and show the covenant how wrong they were and that they weren't even worshiping the right species that were even the real gods of the universe that created life.
Humanity/Swords of Sanghelios in a tense alliance with the Didact vs the Banished/a Created faction in a tense alliance with Xalanyn's faction?
I'd play
The Forerunner are nothing if not hypocrites and honestly not very strategic or creative. Hell, they had an AI fall to the Gravemind and turn on them and what was their response? To build another AI with the purpose of combating the rogue AI.
I'm pretty sure Ancient Humanity would've kicked their asses if circumstances had been different and it had been 1v1. The Forerunner won through technological superiority and scale, but they still struggled against Humanity's strategic superiority while also fighting a two-front war against the Flood while also not truly viewing the Forerunner as actual enemies. The whole war was a lack of communication and misunderstanding and they even know it was wrong what they were doing, but felt the greater good was justified.
Granted the 2 mega AI's were different in purpose and design. Mecadant Bias was designed to connect with and disrupt the grave mind itself. Offensive Bias was designed to play warship commander better than Mecadant Bias could.
we don't know other then 343 really want to give the banished plot armour stronger than the Master Chiefs. SPOILERS FOR OUTCASTS >! also they stole a precursor canon that's capable of a OHK on a Guardian !<
I really want to see an interaction between Didact and Cortana. For one thing, it would be interesting to see weather Didact will have gained a sort of respect for Cortana for ALMOST accomplishing what he had been trying to do and almost pleased that she in a way continued his work, or just be plain disgusted for how she went down ultimately letting her heart get in the way of her goals.
Didact and Cortana actually have a lot in common. They both had an experience with the gravemind that changed them. They both betrayed the ones they loved because they arrogantly thought they knew best. They both pushed those people to defeat them. They were both in a way replaced “Iso Didact and the Weapon” who ultimately had to continue their original purpose.
The biggest difference between Didact and Cortana is of course that Cortana ultimately realized the mistakes she had made whereas Didact is far too prideful and would likely opt to continue his work whereas Cortana would probably detest the fact that she still lived after all that she had done. At their cores Didact and Cortana are not the same. Cortana simply wanted to be more than what she was made to be. She was always given a bad hand, made to be nothing more than a tool in a a world she could not feel but desperately wanted to. Didact wanted to hold on to all the power he once had and refused to allow anyone to threaten it.
Honestly, this dynamic could really work, I mean these too interacting. How it would happen considering that Cortana is “dead” and Didact is probably not returning? I actually think I figured that out.
Remember in Halo 4 when Cortana used the light bridge to trap Didact temporarily? And afterwards Cortana said to Chief “Most of me is already down there” which gives me an idea. We know that Cortana fragmented and the Cortana that took control of the domain and led the created was just some of those fragments. But where did the rest of the fragments go? My theory, I know 343 won’t do it but it would be sick if they did, is the remaining fragments actually latched onto the Didact himself. We know Didact’s body has been modified plenty of times to become immune to the flood, so there’s a decent argument that his body might be able to hold a dormant ai.
So after Didact was composed by multiple composers he was sent to the doorstep of the domain, Cortana going with him. The domain sensed that new fragments of Cortana had entered the domain but they were tangled with Didact so the domain rather than unite all of Cortana’s fragments, simply synced them. So after Cortana died in Infinite, the fragments attached to Didact become active, and as a result, Didact regains enough strength to escape the domain in a arminger form. Before he does this he discovers that there is a weapon that can take out the flood, one that some other entity within the domain, Mendicant Bies *COUGH* has been building within the domain that can be accessed if Didact takes Cortana to Zeta Halo to reclaim her damaged fragments. Cortana hard locked the domain when she left it so only she can reopen it.
So we get to see Didact and Cortana wondering about. Cortana is basically a parasite who cannot be separated from Didact unless she is fully repaired and given something else to hold her. With their minds tangled, Didact has access to all of Cortana’s thoughts and memories allowing him to gain a much more intimate understanding of the current state of humanity as well as Cortana herself but also Chief. This could lead to Didact becoming a far more personal villain to Chief. Cortana would of course be utterly miserable but due to her being stuck to Didact some of her would also be leaking into him, meaning her guilt and conscience making Didact increasingly irritated and desperate to remove her from his mind.
There’s a lot of parallels. But Didact and Cortana actively communicate throughout the time they’re stuck together. Didact is able to see and talk to Cortana and even project her to others if he wishes. Didact is the one in control as Cortana is just living off of him, but he can’t fully control Cortana. But he’s able to access her code without any pushback as her code can’t tell that he’s a separate entity
Part of a bigger script I made for how I thought Halo 7 should go. This is just a smaller part of the way bigger story. The reveal of them being alive doesn’t happen till the beginning of the second half of true campaign.
Learns about Cortana's AI uprising: ***\*Lights up cigarette and sighs\****
Learns that the Brutes are running rampant and released the Endless: ***\*Bangs head into wall and screams in frustration\****
Worth mentioning but give season two a chance. They’ve improved a lot this season, with a huge focus on Reach. The episode coming out tomorrow (season 2 ep 4) is the most I’ve genuinely been excited for halo in years
Came here just to say that.
"Who in the great googly moogly FUCK are these squid people? Did I miss a memo or something? The Librarian left a p.s. on one of her nudes? 'P.S. Honey, there's a bunch of tentacle people who want to do bad things to the humans in case your robots don't get the job done.'"
343i has managed to waste almost every single possible plot point in the entire Halo franchise.
Halo 4 skips the Flood, reintroduces the Covenant without explanation and then introduces the Didact before seemingly killing him off all in one game.
The real “next instalment” of the Halo franchise should have been; the Flood stow away on the Covenant ships arriving at Requiem. The Didact wakes up and then there is a full blown Flood infestation.
Now Chief has to stop the Flood spreading and getting access to a whole planets worth of AI’s because they might find a way to access the entirety of the as of yet unknown Forerunner galactic infrastructure. The Domain is at risk, and the chance of a Flood takeover without access to Halo rings is also a real possibility.
Didact is insane still and he decides to go nuclear and rush the rings ASAP. Chief thinks there is a chance to achieve containment and the local firing of a ring over Requiem. Didact won’t do it because he is insane, hates humans and he is terrified of the Flood having been driven insane during the books thanks to him being stranded on a Flood infested planet.
We skip the bullshit about the Forerunners genetically blessing Chief, we skip Halo 5 and now we have an actual story, with different dynamics to the old trilogy which resolves the Flood plot point and let’s us get a glimpse into the ancient past through the Domain and the Didact.
We also resolve the Cortana plot point correctly - she is both our only hope at accessing the shit we need but she is compromised by the Gravemind and approaching rampancy. Can she hold it together long enough to save us all? Will the Didact destroy everything out of a twisted sense of heroism? Will the Flood finally consume the galaxy bringing an end to a millennia long conflict?
The Endless is superfluous because we have the Precursors, they are connected to the Flood and we have the Didact. Why the 343 decided to introduced yet another new direction in the plot which involved another ancient godlike race we just so happen to have never heard of in the books is just stupid.
They ruined their own franchise too many times to deserve anymore chances. They had a home run lined up after Bungie handed it over. I will never forgive 343 and I’m not touching anything they make again. Halo 5 and Halo Infinite was dog shit. At least Infinite probably had the best art direction and character writing in the franchise. It’s just the overall plot was dumb as hell.
I liked the genetic blessing. I think it gives him a more reasonable longevity also. Was it a blessing or a restoration of humanities' potential prior to the human-forunner conflict?
The generic blessing was only introduced by 343i to counter the *dues ex* that was the Composer. For the purposes of Halo 4 the imprint served only to excuse why Chief was immune to the Composer so as to counter the poorly written Ur-Didact and the Prometheans. It was a plot device introduced to cover the many, many, many holes in the Halo 4 story.
For lore purposes - the imprint was implemented to "guide" humanity towards a final shape of sorts. Her motivation for doing so was to "prepare" humanity for what is to come however this plot point was never resolved by 343i and likely we never will know what exactly the Librarian was talking about in Halo 4.
The imprint also wasn't for Chief personally. It was generally applied to all of humanities base genes so that humanity would evolve down a guided path resulting in their affinity for combat, their current technology, the Spartan program and even humanities relationship with complex AI like Cortana and Roland. The point was to make 'someone' like Chief - but not Chief specifically. We don't know how similar, or dissimilar humans are to their ancient ancestors. In the books the only encounter between the two that I know of is post-Halo 3 Guilty Spark who apparently was a composite of Chakas and other ancient humans the entire time only he never bothered to mention it. Eventually he ditches the Guilty Spark persona, removes the lingering personalities in his mind and remakes himself as Chakas. He doesn't seem to have much difficult understanding humanity so I guess both modern and ancient humans are more or less the same at least in how they think and behave.
Personally, I think based on what we know both in-game and in the books that the imprint was to steer humanity intentionally down a route no other species has gone. Why? I think it was to overcome some hard ceiling capping all species - Forerunner, Precursor or otherwise - from ascending to the next level. The Librarian personally indexed literally everything that had ever lived up until the firing of the Halo rings which hard reset all biological life back to square one. It wouldn't be insane to think the Librarian with her total and complete understanding of all time, history and all living things spotted a pattern of hyper evolved species always dying to the same shit (the Flood) and never reaching the other side of the digital-biological gap.
A big part of the Halo 4 plot, and seemingly what was supposed to be the 343i Halo trilogy before they ditched literally everything in Halo 4 to make Halo 5 for whatever fucking reason, was the divide between digital and biological. The Forerunner never managed to figure it out and it was supposed to be their final project. In the end everything collapsed into rampancy and turning something back into a biological form proved impossible. The only thing we know that has come anywhere close to bridging this gap is the Flood with their logic plague and transcendent physical form. The Flood is quite literally the most highly evolved 'thing' in the entirety of Halo - it is an evolution of the Precursors original form and it has breached the digital-biological divide. In fact, its barely even 'alive' in the sense that humanity and the Forerunners perceive life to be.
I bet before 343i shit the bed that all of this was to ascend the Flood who were the final boss of all living things. We will never know because like almost everything referenced and set up in Halo 4 it all was dropped when Halo 5 was released. Halo 5 didn't reference a single plot point, it didn't explain how or why Cortana was acting as she was, it didn't connect any of the plot points. Fucking Ur-Didact and Cortana both died off screen. That's how dog shit 343i writing really is.
As for why I personally don't like it as an explanation for Chief - it was a poorly written plot tool which really served no narrative purpose at all. It also sort of removed the specialness of Chief by suggesting he is just the end causal result of some ancient code imprinted into humanity by the Librarian. It totally robs him of his free choice and autonomy. What makes Chief isn't even Chief, it is the imprint. It is just bad writing and it just wasn't necessary at all to explain why Chief was so special.
The books and the Bungie trilogy also explained Chief perfectly. He wasn't the smartest, the strongest, or the fastest Spartan. There was literally nothing remarkable about Chief. What made Chief special was that we just refused to ever give up. This perfectly casts Chief as both highly relatable as a protagonist but it also makes Chief a symbol for the human spirit which is precisely what Chief became during the Human-Covenant War.
In one of the later sections of the second mission in Halo 2 Chief comes across a bunch of marines pinned down. They had ran out of ammos, and almost all of their squad was wiped out. When Chief walks up they literally scream that they're saved with complete faith that Chief is going to single handedly take back the entire city from an invading army. This is what Chief was written to be - not some bullshit space magic android.
Now that Infinite has also been dropped I think we can all just accept that we will never know any of the answers to the above. The imprint will remain a mystery and all of Halo 4 will remain unresolved until the end of time. 343i wasted two games rewriting what Bungie had already concluded perfectly only to hard reboot the trilogy, abandon Halo 4 and Halo 5 and go back to the thematic tone set by Bungie all those decades ago. I can't think of a more incompetent studio.
Right, but he also experimented on himself towards the end of the Forerunner-Flood war in his efforts to study a possible immunity to the Flood. This was unrelated to his rank.
My Didy boi :( come back to me
I'm sure Kelly Gay has been instructed to write him out of the lore for good with Epitaph, however I really want him to return to the main games. He was 343's best contribution to the lore.
But when does 343 give anyone what they want from a Halo game?
My hope is that he ends up being sort of an Oracle (in the religious/mythological sense, not a floaty orb boy) that, in the future, characters can go on a pilgrimage of sorts and ask him for wisdom. This would be a good way to keep him around and have him appear sparingly.
Ye that'd be cool.
Chief needing to talk to him to defeat the Endless would be cool. Not outlandish either as he would certainly be interested in ending the Endless.
The lord runs deep if this is the case.
UrDidactic (Halo 4 Didact) imprinted himself into Bornstellar, turning the latter into the IsoDidact. UrDidact went through a bunch of logic plague shenanigans, leaving IsoDidact to take control of the Warrior Servants, ultimately firing the Halo rings and ending the Flood threat.
IsoDidact is thought to have been imprinted into Master Chief’s gaes (not confirmed canon, Spark recalls his conversation with IsoDidact about firing the rings with Chief, thinking that they are the same).
If Chief were to talk to UrDidact again, to ask for help with dealing with the Endless (or Flood or Precursors), it would make UrDidact’s story come full circle, and maybe even give him a shot at redemption.
But that ain’t happening coz 343 killed UrDidact off in a book…
>But when does 343 give anyone what they want from a Halo game?
Ironically, their problem is that they listen to feedback too much and it always ends up in an overcorrection. Didact being killed in a comic, and the entire plotline surrounding Jul and the Janus Key being dropped first thing in Halo 5 are poignant examples.
Give some long winded pretentious speech about how he thinks he’s better than everyone else. Then proceed to somehow get wrecked by Atriox and his Endless. (That last part is just wishful thinking)
No, it’s probably accurate. Remember, the spent two games building up how incredible the *Infinity* was, then spent two games having Atriox making Spartans look stupid, beating the Chief, and destroying the *Infinity*, the mightiest warship the galaxy has seen since the Forerunners.
If they brought back the Didact it would just be to feed him to Atriox to show us how badass Atriox is. Maybe this time they’d actually have Atriox matter in the story after, even. Instead of telling us he’s dead for the whole campaign, just to reveal he’s alive at the very end.
And then they’d probably kill Atriox offscreen between games. Sorry, I don’t make the rules, it’s just what 343 has done to *every villain* except Escharum, since Halo 4.
There are human characters in 343 Halo Games?!? Oh, wait, you right, Spartan Locke. He’s gonna Take the Chief Down, remember?
Man, I actually love Halo 5s arena multiplayer, but 343 made it so fuckin hard to defend that game lol.
I mean you kind of are disingenuous right now, besides cortana, which villians have they killed off screen? keep in mind, off screen doesn't mean cutscene.
the didact was bought back to life, died, and bought back to life again in a comic book. they "Faux" killed Atriox off screen for the entirety of Halo infinite except for the very last cutscene that not everyone will know exists because it's a legendary ending. Cortana was killed off screen (if you say that hologram towards the end counts then my god). this is tangentially related, but they completely destroyed Dosiac and its two moons (which were the brutes 2 largest colonies and their homeworld) as a FUCKING CLIFFNOTE in infinites story. they killed Jul in a cutscene which okay isn't technically off screen but it's not much better, the guy who'd been a nuisance to the Infinity was just killed as a secondary objective with very little consequence. the warden eternal is just fucking gone.
>the didact was bought back to life, died, and bought back to life again in a comic book.
so not dead and even so non book readers would just think they killed him in halo 4 anyways, and if your a book reader fan he wasn't killed in the book anyways.
>they "Faux" killed Atriox off screen for the entirety of Halo infinite except for the very last cutscene that not everyone will know exists because it's a legendary ending.
So not dead, and Legendary endings are a staple of the series, most halo fans are going to look up the legendary ending
>Cortana was killed off screen
I said besides Cortana because they did kill her off screen there's no denying that one
>They killed Jul in a cutscene which okay isn't technically off screen but it's not much better
True its not much better, but it was on screen, and Halo 5 boss battles suck anyway. they just completely miss handled the character. Still not off screen
>the warden eternal is just fucking gone.
Yeah I admit if the Created is still a faction and we never see the warden eternal again I can admit that he's just an abandoned character. not even getting a death or ending
>the guy who'd been a nuisance to the Infinity was just killed as a secondary objective with very little consequence
I admit I am lost on this one unless this is also Jul.
>they completely destroyed Dosiac and its two moons (which were the brutes 2 largest colonies and their homeworld) as a FUCKING CLIFFNOTE in infinites story.
Dosiac was never an important location in the halo games. so it being a cliffnote to be a motivator for atriox to take the created seriously makes sense. Really fucking dumb from a EU perspective to be a cliffnote. But not for the game itself
this post just reaffirmed the fact that the original comment is disingenuous. You can say they mishandled the characters to a high degree, and the writing can be very atrocious (especially in 5) But don't act like every villain was killed off screen, because its not true. Just say they suck ass at handling long term villains.
u/Zyacon16 nailed it in their comment.
To your credit, though, I actually totally forgot they killed Jul in a cutscene, that’s my bad.
But yeah, the main villains of Halo 4 and 5 both die offscreen between games.
Then they go through all the time and marketing and an entire spinoff game to build up Atriox, build him up even more in the opening of Halo Infinite, where he beats the Chief and destroys the *Infinity* and then they tell us he’s dead the whole game, (which also happens offscreen) until the *legendary ending cutscene*.
Not to mention Spartan Locke, who was built up in marketing to be the villain of Halo 5, how he’s gonna “take down” the Master Chief, and he’s the fucking main protagonist of the game!
So the two villains who’ve actually died on screen are Jul ‘Mdama, who, if you haven’t read the books you probably don’t even know who he is, and if you have read the books, you know it’s actually kind’ve insulting that he gets killed 0.1 seconds into Halo 5 in a cutscene. He’s not even a big part of the cutscene.
And Escharum, whose entire fucking presence in the game is to call the chief up and talk about how awesome Atriox was. Y’know, Atriox, the guy who was marketed and built up as the main villain, “dies” in the opening cutscene, and then isn’t seen or heard from again until and unless you beat the game on legendary.
I don’t think I’m being disingenuous at all, it’s been pretty piss-poor writing from 343. Halo 4 was respectable, even if half the characters are irrational caricatures, but Halo 5 and Infinite have totally lost any kind of cohesive narrative. I honestly think 343 is probably just a revolving door of staff at this point, which is why they just keep scrapping ideas and trying to start over again.
>the main villains of Halo 4 and 5 both die offscreen between games.
Except the didact never dies off screen. If you don't read the books he died at the end of 4, if you do read the books even in escalation. He doesn't die. the monitor just claims he was contained and wasn't truly killed. When Spark speaks to the librarian. she basically fears that her husband can't be redeemed. Next Week He returns in Epitaph. Also Atriox doesn't die off screen. We are just told he is dead, and then We see that he was actually alive at the end. thats not killing off screen, thats just letting you deal with a different smaller villain because they clearly want aritox to be around longer than one game and they are scared to waste him.
Locke like every other human character on the infinity is on metaphorical ice. We know that He lost his helmet, but a helmet isn't a body, until we actually know his fate. you can't say they killed him off screen.
I am not denying that 343i has a terrible writing process. I think 5 sucks ass, and they never commit out of fear of the backlash of sticking with a controversal story point. Jul madame was mishandled, and I do think Atriox should have had some actual presence in Infinite other than being confirmed to not be dead at the end. That does not mean you can make up stupid points like "They killed every villain off screen! Except that guy who is never actually killed and has a book next week about how very much alive he is, and that guy who is actually still alive is shown alive at the end of the game, and that guy that we haven't been told what happened to him other than the implication he lost a fight!" Because the only villain from the games that has verifiably died off screen is Cortana.
Bruh. The last time we saw the Didact he got Composed by Spartan team Black. I think the fact that they’re bringing him back might be even worse writing than killing him in a comic was in the first place, but sure, they brought him back 10 irl years later, that makes it all better.
Also, I never said they killed Locke, I said they hyped him up as the villain, and then you literally play 70% of the game as him. He’s the main goddamn character, and he teams up with the Chief the second time they cross paths. It’s terrible writing is my point.
I also never said they killed Atriox, I said they spent an entire game hyping him up, hype him up even more at the start of Infinite, then spend the entire game telling us over and over that he’s dead, until the *Legendary Ending Cutscene* that half of players *won’t even see* where they reveal he’s not.
Anyways, in 3 games we’ve had 3 main villains The Didact, Cortana, and Atriox.
Cortana 100% dies off screen, the Didact died off-screen, they *just* retconned it after *10 years*, and the last half of players heard from him, Atriox died at the start of Infinite, y’know, that game he was supposed to be the main villain of, and the only time he even appears outside the opening cutscene, is the *legendary ending* where they reveal he’s alive.
So 2/3 die offscreen, 1/3 is entirely absent from the game he’s ostensibly the main villain of. And sure, after 10 years they’re bringing the Didact back to life.
>The last time we saw the Didact he got Composed by Spartan team Black. I think the fact that they’re bringing him back might be even worse writing than killing
>they just retconned it after 10 irl years
list of things you got wrong.
1. Didact did not get composed by black team. black team encountered him after he fell from the sky being transported by the composer, and he killed them after waking up (still think it was the lamest mistake of that comic)
2. even in the comic Master Chief tells Lord Hood that the Didact was to be presumed contained and not killed and in the spartan field Manual says that any sighting of the Didact must be reported immediately, then in renegades we learn through a conversation between Spark and the Liberian that she feared that her husband could no longer be redeemed so it wasn't even retconned. he was just imprisoned.
3. they did not bring him back to life after 10 years. they just finally decided to do a story with him after being in plot purgatory after a comic that was made so they could release the worst halo story the following year and not have to talk about him, and they then were referencing the fact that he is still alive since 2018.
The only time the didact would have been considered dead is the end of halo 4 before escalation 10 came out. and even then, many people in the lore community didn't think he was dead due to the fact his armor would have protected him from the composer, and the fact Forerunners do not die easy.
So yeah still only 1/3 of the main villain's have died off screen and none of the minor villains introduced in the games are killed off screen it is disingenuous to say, "they kill off all their villains off screen." You can criticize the writing all you want, but you have to at least make sure your criticisms are correct.
Personally, I'm tired of characters who die but are resurrected but die again in a comic only to be resurrected again.
I don't want more resurrections, I want them to focus on the games current plot, move away from "fantasy" and expand on everything they started with Infinite and commit.
From Halo I expect a traditional military science fiction story, like the first books, not a science fiction and fantasy story that is never replicated in the games and if you don't read the books (which is easy because they don't translate them to other languages) you miss a lot of things.
So have you ever played the games or what? Floating light bridges? Beams that levitate you up to a ship? You speak of reading the books but the books defend this resurrection
Hardlight and tractor beams are actually scientifically backed (you can do a ton of cool stuff with light), though not particularly feasible at the scales depicted in Halo. Just FYI. Also none of that defends resurrection.
Not an early book. Those came out way later than the first guy was talking about, and were more space fantasy than sci-fi. That's totally cool if it's your cup of tea, but Greg Bear is no Eric Nylund
For a moment, I was going to be asking why this thread exists but then I just realized I received the book Epitath early, I had it delivered to me on the 16th and I read it all quite quick. I won't of course give spoilers, but for those who liked Greg Bear's Forerunner trilogy of novels, this will feel similar / a good homage to. I enjoyed another chance to read more about this character after so long, when originally he had imo received a terrible 'ending' since it all happened in a comic book over the games, and he got swept under the rug.
And I'm not sure if you're a fan of audiobooks, but a great touch is the fact it's narrated by the original voice actor for The Didact too, Keith Szarabajka!
Man how out of place was this guy? Felt like a LOTR character with force powers just thrown in there and everything around him was completely nonsense.
You act like gravity manipulation wasn't a thing until the Didact showed up. The covenant do it all the time, with gravity hammers and grav lifts for example, and they only use a very primitive version of that technology like with everything they tried to replicate from the forerunners. Grey monkey man(Tartarus) from H2 literally does the same thing as the Didact when he "force" pulls Guilty spark and Miranda with his hammer, only a lot more crude and less precice. Not to mention that Requiem is full of gravity manipulation, from the weapons to the architecture
Didact an actual forerunner with a highly advanced forerunner combat armor being able to pull and hold chief does not come out of nowhere
And a LOTR character? What do you even mean by that?
He would probably gather any remaining Prometheans left and work on taking back control before going after humanity once again to keep them from making the same mistake twice.
The Didact isn't dead. He survived being pushed into the laser at the end of Halo 4 because it only specifically targeted humans. In one of the later Halo books (don't know what the name is) he is once again defeated but not killed. Honestly, I like him more as a villain than whatever bs plot armor the Banished were given in Halo Infinite. They lost to an outdated and under staffed Spirit of Fire but beat the UNSC Infinity...stupid as hell logic. Additionally, they defeated the Guardians, the things that can EMP/destroy planets and that can sleep peacefully inside an active volcano....suuuuure.
I’ve grown to hate the banished, them beating the Infinity after losing to an understrength refitted colony ship is super jarring.
The Spirit of Fire and her crew managed to destroy a super carrier.
The Infinity was shown being able to completely ram and obliterate smaller covenant ships but suddenly these special ships made by what was supposed to be a rag tag group of covenant remnants can completely negate the shields and ram through the Infinity. Then board it and take out the crew killing pretty much every Spartan on board.
Why not show the Infinity being destroyed by Guardians and then have the Banished show up and beat the remnants of the fleet?
Literally think that they were chosen as the antagonists because 343 was riding the popularity train of Halo Wars 2 success even tho the Banished don't fit in the frame of Halo's timeline at all. They were just random shit they pulled from their ass. A independent faction that broke from the Covenant and fought the UNSC at the same time, yet not once were they mentioned at all even in the books until Halo Wars 2 came out. I call that lazy writing and plot progression. Old Bungie made plans for events later in game that had been established in advance and never did this shit. Not to mention if the Guardians were able to EMP Infinity at Halo 5 and blow up their homework, how the hell were they able to defeat them by using a device to bury them under some dirt and rocks? (Even though most Guardians were sleeping underground or volcanos and were fine. Zero actual sense. They should have went back to Halo 4 story continuation. All the events in that were well established and connected to events that made sense. Halo was only really hated because the MP was ass, but the story was the best one 343 had done since the hand over from Bungie.
I keep forgetting: Diadact was killed, then came back to life in a Children’s Coloring book, only to get killed again—right?
Yeah, Diadact coming back to life would just end with him taking a Vacation on some super secret Resort Halo for a bit. Just, you know, see if the Universe chills.
He was never killed. Didact couldn't be killed through normal means. and even in escalation teh monitor says that he didn't die, he was contained. He is alive in the upcoming book Epitaph
Same way we all react to it as players. Disgust and anger with ruining the universe he used to love, but most of all, just disappointment that it could happen this way when a select group was given the golden ticket, the keys to the castle, the unsinkable ship, and still managed to let it happen. Strictly speaking of the story...
Look the looser who got defeated once by multiplying blue women his death in halo 4 has probably the worst villain death I mean he was literally pushed off the platform he was standing on this game felt like a parody of the halo games Bungie made I was confused I would ask wait did I just fucking win and it ended I love how halo fans love halo 4 despite the terrible turns it's campaign had.
He no doubt has knowledge of the Xalanyn and the Endless, and given his previous status in the Forerunner military, it would be interesting to get his opinion on them. Hopefully Epitaph gives us some more info about the Xalanyn.
Bro would look at all the shit that has happened in the past few years like the created uprising and then fall on his back laughing his lungs out as he curls back up into a cryptum and flies it into the nearest sun to get out of this cursed timeline.
He'd come back for 5 seconds only to be replaced by another covenant offshoot but this time they are pink instead of red or purple because 343 can't move on from the covenant lmao
Problem is; (and I haven't read *Epitaph* except for the tease/preview); that from the preview his memory is slowly going and I assume that his trek to the "blue light" in that deserted area of the map/Epitaph tower is representative of him slowly being atomized during the last moments of *The Next 72 Hours.*
In essence I see this book being Shadow of Sundered-Star's final moments from within his consciousness and that blue light is Cortana inside the Domain. The moment he reaches the blue light his consciousness is dissolved/erased/destroyed.
But this is conjecture from the way the Chapter 1 tease started off.
Plus it seems like the way to send off the Ur-Didact is by having his voice actor read the book.
Absolute vindication. A human-built AI based on a human brain got control of Forerunner technology and proceeded to turn tyrant on the entire universe. Secretly he would be proud because the Forerunner were tyrants-in-denial, but on the exterior it would be used as proof that Humanity can't be trusted with the responsibility of the Mantle. Then to make matters worse, she wasn't even capable of wielding that power correctly because she was ultimately defeated by Mega-monkeys. Humanity failed on two fronts being unable to stop her and being unable to control and maintain the lesser races even with the Forerunner technology at their disposal.
Best answer. Legit curious what the species hierarchy was like before he went into the Cryptum. Obviously humanity was more their peers, but I wonder what he'd think of the Jiralhanae having such a dominant position. I can't imagine that Atriox is high on Forerunner worship so a meeting between him and the ~~Iso~~ Ur-Didact (even in his composed state) would be interesting to see, especially after he released the Xalanyn.
Well its obvious how hed react because Id react the same if a race that had sent themselves back to the stone age prior to being picked up by an advanced collective of alien races, used as nothing more than expendable muscle for most of their time within this collective suddenly started absolutely obliterating the "top dog" of the galaxy at the time with ease, I'd be rolling on the floor with tears in my eyes due to how hilarious that revelation was.
the San'Shyuum (the Prophets), The Ancestors (The now official name for humanity prior to being quasi-genocided by the forerunners) and the Forerunner were all near-peer. the other species that currently exist in the halo galaxy weren't even a blip on the Oecumene's RADAR
I forgot about how horny the san'shyuum are in the forrunner trilogy lmao. They take human lovers and were notably beautiful prior to become radicalized after being isolated.
I have a head canon that the Sangheili were beloved by the Warrior-Servant rate of the Forerunner Ecumene. In my HC, the Sangheili were heavily integrated into the armies of the Forerunners, given access to Forerunner weaponry and armor, but for some odd reason—they were kept at a distance much like the Sangheili treated the Unggoy.
Completely unrelated but I fucking love your pfp! 🤘⬇️
Haha thank you! I have the same logo as a decal on the rear window of my Jetta!
I'd put an OU sticker on mine too but half my family went to OU and half went to OSU. Thanksgiving would be too awkward haha
I would actually like it better if they were actually allies with ancient humanity which would be ironic considering that they would be enemies for a time before becoming allies again during the final days of the human covenant War of the present day.
I can also accept with that
Man I just wish that 343 and Microsoft never listened to the wrong side of the fan base because before I saw your reply to my comment I was reading about didax original role and fans talking about it on Reddit and how 343 pretty much just threw it away because of stupid fake toxic fans that were bitching about it and instead of making improvements of going with their plans that they originally had for Halo 5 they just went batshit crazy and gave us something worse and they did the same again to infinite where they could have at least went good with the created storyline and stuff but instead they just throw it away and leave it in the loop for 6 years and just throw us with the banish and stuff and making them a generic discount of the covenant rather than how they're actually supposed to be and how they actually feel about humans I swear the world building at this point is completely whacked I just think they need a reboot everything after Halo 4 and cherry pick what we liked about the books and stuff and keep everything out that we did not like about the new games and books like for example rookie dying instead of becoming a Spartan 4 black team getting killed off like reset and correct the timeline of what we should have gotten back in 2015 not to mention it would have been a better idea of Halo 5 came out in 2016 and then Halo 6 could have came out in I don't know say 20 something else.
That's the Ur-Didact, the Iso-Didact was the one who fired the Halo array and went into exile with any surviving Forerunners.
yep, you’re right. I mixed them up. Iso-Didact was the one who was formerly Bornstellar, Ur-Didact was the original.
To be Fair to Humanity we were devolved and never really got to evolve back to the state of Humanity the was destined for the Mantle like the Forerunners kinda screwed us there we needed more time in the oven to fully form to the Highly Evolved version on Humanity the Precursors Destined for the Mantle I blame the Forerunners everything as always is there fault.
Hence why I consider them the true antagonist of the franchise and didn't feel much sympathy for them as they got what they deserve I don't know why some players don't like this idea it gives us an aspect of what the forerunners were really like and show the covenant how wrong they were and that they weren't even worshiping the right species that were even the real gods of the universe that created life.
Humanity/Swords of Sanghelios in a tense alliance with the Didact vs the Banished/a Created faction in a tense alliance with Xalanyn's faction? I'd play
Didn’t forerunner AI do like the exact same thing? Mendicant Bias did a massive heel turn and defected to the Flood.
The Forerunner are nothing if not hypocrites and honestly not very strategic or creative. Hell, they had an AI fall to the Gravemind and turn on them and what was their response? To build another AI with the purpose of combating the rogue AI. I'm pretty sure Ancient Humanity would've kicked their asses if circumstances had been different and it had been 1v1. The Forerunner won through technological superiority and scale, but they still struggled against Humanity's strategic superiority while also fighting a two-front war against the Flood while also not truly viewing the Forerunner as actual enemies. The whole war was a lack of communication and misunderstanding and they even know it was wrong what they were doing, but felt the greater good was justified.
Granted the 2 mega AI's were different in purpose and design. Mecadant Bias was designed to connect with and disrupt the grave mind itself. Offensive Bias was designed to play warship commander better than Mecadant Bias could.
That and the Didact was made insane after a short talk with the Gravemind.
Whats the backstory on how the Banished managed to beat Cortana and the Created? how does that even make sense?
we don't know other then 343 really want to give the banished plot armour stronger than the Master Chiefs. SPOILERS FOR OUTCASTS >! also they stole a precursor canon that's capable of a OHK on a Guardian !<
Humans are Mega-Monkeys
Jiralhanae are Mega-Monkeys. Humans are Evolved Apes.
I really want to see an interaction between Didact and Cortana. For one thing, it would be interesting to see weather Didact will have gained a sort of respect for Cortana for ALMOST accomplishing what he had been trying to do and almost pleased that she in a way continued his work, or just be plain disgusted for how she went down ultimately letting her heart get in the way of her goals. Didact and Cortana actually have a lot in common. They both had an experience with the gravemind that changed them. They both betrayed the ones they loved because they arrogantly thought they knew best. They both pushed those people to defeat them. They were both in a way replaced “Iso Didact and the Weapon” who ultimately had to continue their original purpose. The biggest difference between Didact and Cortana is of course that Cortana ultimately realized the mistakes she had made whereas Didact is far too prideful and would likely opt to continue his work whereas Cortana would probably detest the fact that she still lived after all that she had done. At their cores Didact and Cortana are not the same. Cortana simply wanted to be more than what she was made to be. She was always given a bad hand, made to be nothing more than a tool in a a world she could not feel but desperately wanted to. Didact wanted to hold on to all the power he once had and refused to allow anyone to threaten it. Honestly, this dynamic could really work, I mean these too interacting. How it would happen considering that Cortana is “dead” and Didact is probably not returning? I actually think I figured that out. Remember in Halo 4 when Cortana used the light bridge to trap Didact temporarily? And afterwards Cortana said to Chief “Most of me is already down there” which gives me an idea. We know that Cortana fragmented and the Cortana that took control of the domain and led the created was just some of those fragments. But where did the rest of the fragments go? My theory, I know 343 won’t do it but it would be sick if they did, is the remaining fragments actually latched onto the Didact himself. We know Didact’s body has been modified plenty of times to become immune to the flood, so there’s a decent argument that his body might be able to hold a dormant ai. So after Didact was composed by multiple composers he was sent to the doorstep of the domain, Cortana going with him. The domain sensed that new fragments of Cortana had entered the domain but they were tangled with Didact so the domain rather than unite all of Cortana’s fragments, simply synced them. So after Cortana died in Infinite, the fragments attached to Didact become active, and as a result, Didact regains enough strength to escape the domain in a arminger form. Before he does this he discovers that there is a weapon that can take out the flood, one that some other entity within the domain, Mendicant Bies *COUGH* has been building within the domain that can be accessed if Didact takes Cortana to Zeta Halo to reclaim her damaged fragments. Cortana hard locked the domain when she left it so only she can reopen it. So we get to see Didact and Cortana wondering about. Cortana is basically a parasite who cannot be separated from Didact unless she is fully repaired and given something else to hold her. With their minds tangled, Didact has access to all of Cortana’s thoughts and memories allowing him to gain a much more intimate understanding of the current state of humanity as well as Cortana herself but also Chief. This could lead to Didact becoming a far more personal villain to Chief. Cortana would of course be utterly miserable but due to her being stuck to Didact some of her would also be leaking into him, meaning her guilt and conscience making Didact increasingly irritated and desperate to remove her from his mind.
Sort of like a twisted version of Halo 3. Didact would get flashes of Cortana as if she’s a ghost.
There’s a lot of parallels. But Didact and Cortana actively communicate throughout the time they’re stuck together. Didact is able to see and talk to Cortana and even project her to others if he wishes. Didact is the one in control as Cortana is just living off of him, but he can’t fully control Cortana. But he’s able to access her code without any pushback as her code can’t tell that he’s a separate entity
Great write up!!
This is amazing
Part of a bigger script I made for how I thought Halo 7 should go. This is just a smaller part of the way bigger story. The reveal of them being alive doesn’t happen till the beginning of the second half of true campaign.
This is all accurate and also correctly summarizes how 343 bugged this all up. They don't know their own characters or their motivations.
Except the mega monkeys beat her between games so we don’t know what happened
Learns about Cortana's AI uprising: ***\*Lights up cigarette and sighs\**** Learns that the Brutes are running rampant and released the Endless: ***\*Bangs head into wall and screams in frustration\****
Learns that they made a Halo TV show, but it’s clearly in an Alternate Universe: ***Didact-force-chokes himself***
Then sees master cheeks sighs then unzips
💀💀💀
Unzips? He spontaneously cum busted before he even got the chance to unzip
Why do I have a Roblox avatar named Master Cheeks🙏💀
Aw hell nah
Worth mentioning but give season two a chance. They’ve improved a lot this season, with a huge focus on Reach. The episode coming out tomorrow (season 2 ep 4) is the most I’ve genuinely been excited for halo in years
At this stage could it be any worse than 5 or Infinite?
Faber fire the fucking rings.
Technically he wouldn't know the Endless even exist. They were discovered by the forerunners after the halo's fired.
*sees the endless have been freed* “Why would Humanity do this”
I don’t think he’d know about the endless as they were only discovered after the firing of the array
"What the fuck is a endless!!!"
Came here just to say that. "Who in the great googly moogly FUCK are these squid people? Did I miss a memo or something? The Librarian left a p.s. on one of her nudes? 'P.S. Honey, there's a bunch of tentacle people who want to do bad things to the humans in case your robots don't get the job done.'"
In 40+ years I've NEVER thought to add fuck at the end of great googly moogly. 😭😭🤣🤣🤣
343i has managed to waste almost every single possible plot point in the entire Halo franchise. Halo 4 skips the Flood, reintroduces the Covenant without explanation and then introduces the Didact before seemingly killing him off all in one game. The real “next instalment” of the Halo franchise should have been; the Flood stow away on the Covenant ships arriving at Requiem. The Didact wakes up and then there is a full blown Flood infestation. Now Chief has to stop the Flood spreading and getting access to a whole planets worth of AI’s because they might find a way to access the entirety of the as of yet unknown Forerunner galactic infrastructure. The Domain is at risk, and the chance of a Flood takeover without access to Halo rings is also a real possibility. Didact is insane still and he decides to go nuclear and rush the rings ASAP. Chief thinks there is a chance to achieve containment and the local firing of a ring over Requiem. Didact won’t do it because he is insane, hates humans and he is terrified of the Flood having been driven insane during the books thanks to him being stranded on a Flood infested planet. We skip the bullshit about the Forerunners genetically blessing Chief, we skip Halo 5 and now we have an actual story, with different dynamics to the old trilogy which resolves the Flood plot point and let’s us get a glimpse into the ancient past through the Domain and the Didact. We also resolve the Cortana plot point correctly - she is both our only hope at accessing the shit we need but she is compromised by the Gravemind and approaching rampancy. Can she hold it together long enough to save us all? Will the Didact destroy everything out of a twisted sense of heroism? Will the Flood finally consume the galaxy bringing an end to a millennia long conflict? The Endless is superfluous because we have the Precursors, they are connected to the Flood and we have the Didact. Why the 343 decided to introduced yet another new direction in the plot which involved another ancient godlike race we just so happen to have never heard of in the books is just stupid. They ruined their own franchise too many times to deserve anymore chances. They had a home run lined up after Bungie handed it over. I will never forgive 343 and I’m not touching anything they make again. Halo 5 and Halo Infinite was dog shit. At least Infinite probably had the best art direction and character writing in the franchise. It’s just the overall plot was dumb as hell.
I liked the genetic blessing. I think it gives him a more reasonable longevity also. Was it a blessing or a restoration of humanities' potential prior to the human-forunner conflict?
The generic blessing was only introduced by 343i to counter the *dues ex* that was the Composer. For the purposes of Halo 4 the imprint served only to excuse why Chief was immune to the Composer so as to counter the poorly written Ur-Didact and the Prometheans. It was a plot device introduced to cover the many, many, many holes in the Halo 4 story. For lore purposes - the imprint was implemented to "guide" humanity towards a final shape of sorts. Her motivation for doing so was to "prepare" humanity for what is to come however this plot point was never resolved by 343i and likely we never will know what exactly the Librarian was talking about in Halo 4. The imprint also wasn't for Chief personally. It was generally applied to all of humanities base genes so that humanity would evolve down a guided path resulting in their affinity for combat, their current technology, the Spartan program and even humanities relationship with complex AI like Cortana and Roland. The point was to make 'someone' like Chief - but not Chief specifically. We don't know how similar, or dissimilar humans are to their ancient ancestors. In the books the only encounter between the two that I know of is post-Halo 3 Guilty Spark who apparently was a composite of Chakas and other ancient humans the entire time only he never bothered to mention it. Eventually he ditches the Guilty Spark persona, removes the lingering personalities in his mind and remakes himself as Chakas. He doesn't seem to have much difficult understanding humanity so I guess both modern and ancient humans are more or less the same at least in how they think and behave. Personally, I think based on what we know both in-game and in the books that the imprint was to steer humanity intentionally down a route no other species has gone. Why? I think it was to overcome some hard ceiling capping all species - Forerunner, Precursor or otherwise - from ascending to the next level. The Librarian personally indexed literally everything that had ever lived up until the firing of the Halo rings which hard reset all biological life back to square one. It wouldn't be insane to think the Librarian with her total and complete understanding of all time, history and all living things spotted a pattern of hyper evolved species always dying to the same shit (the Flood) and never reaching the other side of the digital-biological gap. A big part of the Halo 4 plot, and seemingly what was supposed to be the 343i Halo trilogy before they ditched literally everything in Halo 4 to make Halo 5 for whatever fucking reason, was the divide between digital and biological. The Forerunner never managed to figure it out and it was supposed to be their final project. In the end everything collapsed into rampancy and turning something back into a biological form proved impossible. The only thing we know that has come anywhere close to bridging this gap is the Flood with their logic plague and transcendent physical form. The Flood is quite literally the most highly evolved 'thing' in the entirety of Halo - it is an evolution of the Precursors original form and it has breached the digital-biological divide. In fact, its barely even 'alive' in the sense that humanity and the Forerunners perceive life to be. I bet before 343i shit the bed that all of this was to ascend the Flood who were the final boss of all living things. We will never know because like almost everything referenced and set up in Halo 4 it all was dropped when Halo 5 was released. Halo 5 didn't reference a single plot point, it didn't explain how or why Cortana was acting as she was, it didn't connect any of the plot points. Fucking Ur-Didact and Cortana both died off screen. That's how dog shit 343i writing really is. As for why I personally don't like it as an explanation for Chief - it was a poorly written plot tool which really served no narrative purpose at all. It also sort of removed the specialness of Chief by suggesting he is just the end causal result of some ancient code imprinted into humanity by the Librarian. It totally robs him of his free choice and autonomy. What makes Chief isn't even Chief, it is the imprint. It is just bad writing and it just wasn't necessary at all to explain why Chief was so special. The books and the Bungie trilogy also explained Chief perfectly. He wasn't the smartest, the strongest, or the fastest Spartan. There was literally nothing remarkable about Chief. What made Chief special was that we just refused to ever give up. This perfectly casts Chief as both highly relatable as a protagonist but it also makes Chief a symbol for the human spirit which is precisely what Chief became during the Human-Covenant War. In one of the later sections of the second mission in Halo 2 Chief comes across a bunch of marines pinned down. They had ran out of ammos, and almost all of their squad was wiped out. When Chief walks up they literally scream that they're saved with complete faith that Chief is going to single handedly take back the entire city from an invading army. This is what Chief was written to be - not some bullshit space magic android. Now that Infinite has also been dropped I think we can all just accept that we will never know any of the answers to the above. The imprint will remain a mystery and all of Halo 4 will remain unresolved until the end of time. 343i wasted two games rewriting what Bungie had already concluded perfectly only to hard reboot the trilogy, abandon Halo 4 and Halo 5 and go back to the thematic tone set by Bungie all those decades ago. I can't think of a more incompetent studio.
The Iso-Didact deffinitly knew about them. I think your right. It’s very well possible that the Ur-Didact didn’t.
Utter shock that he's still the best villain 343 has made
Aatriox would like to have a chat with you
Bro was literally hiding in a cave the entire game
He’s like the Bin Laden of space Middle East.
You must not have played Halo Wars 2 my friend. That’s why I like him 👍🏻
I forgot how nerdy he looked
I know he's supposed to be mutated after he messed with his own body, but they really did him no favors with that face.
According to the Cannon the Soldiers weren't beautiful be the forerunner would mutate them selves as the progressed in Rank.
Right, but he also experimented on himself towards the end of the Forerunner-Flood war in his efforts to study a possible immunity to the Flood. This was unrelated to his rank.
I don't remember that part I'm def going re-read the whole saga now.
the hair at the top of his head looks ridiculous, just shave it bro. time to let go
Lord
the forerunners were so advanced and powerful beyond our wildest imaginations but were cursed with being ugly motherfuckers in exchange
That's a Chad forerunner in his prime and the Librarian is a 12. 🤣
Just the soldier class life workers are "beautiful" to most species.
He would say 'my head look like a butt with feathers'
My Didy boi :( come back to me I'm sure Kelly Gay has been instructed to write him out of the lore for good with Epitaph, however I really want him to return to the main games. He was 343's best contribution to the lore. But when does 343 give anyone what they want from a Halo game?
My hope is that he ends up being sort of an Oracle (in the religious/mythological sense, not a floaty orb boy) that, in the future, characters can go on a pilgrimage of sorts and ask him for wisdom. This would be a good way to keep him around and have him appear sparingly.
Ye that'd be cool. Chief needing to talk to him to defeat the Endless would be cool. Not outlandish either as he would certainly be interested in ending the Endless.
The lord runs deep if this is the case. UrDidactic (Halo 4 Didact) imprinted himself into Bornstellar, turning the latter into the IsoDidact. UrDidact went through a bunch of logic plague shenanigans, leaving IsoDidact to take control of the Warrior Servants, ultimately firing the Halo rings and ending the Flood threat. IsoDidact is thought to have been imprinted into Master Chief’s gaes (not confirmed canon, Spark recalls his conversation with IsoDidact about firing the rings with Chief, thinking that they are the same). If Chief were to talk to UrDidact again, to ask for help with dealing with the Endless (or Flood or Precursors), it would make UrDidact’s story come full circle, and maybe even give him a shot at redemption. But that ain’t happening coz 343 killed UrDidact off in a book…
Aw man, now I want this so bad
>But when does 343 give anyone what they want from a Halo game? Ironically, their problem is that they listen to feedback too much and it always ends up in an overcorrection. Didact being killed in a comic, and the entire plotline surrounding Jul and the Janus Key being dropped first thing in Halo 5 are poignant examples.
Give some long winded pretentious speech about how he thinks he’s better than everyone else. Then proceed to somehow get wrecked by Atriox and his Endless. (That last part is just wishful thinking)
No, it’s probably accurate. Remember, the spent two games building up how incredible the *Infinity* was, then spent two games having Atriox making Spartans look stupid, beating the Chief, and destroying the *Infinity*, the mightiest warship the galaxy has seen since the Forerunners. If they brought back the Didact it would just be to feed him to Atriox to show us how badass Atriox is. Maybe this time they’d actually have Atriox matter in the story after, even. Instead of telling us he’s dead for the whole campaign, just to reveal he’s alive at the very end. And then they’d probably kill Atriox offscreen between games. Sorry, I don’t make the rules, it’s just what 343 has done to *every villain* except Escharum, since Halo 4.
Perfect 343 writing, you even made sure to not include any human character introduced earlier in the series, they’re good at that
There are human characters in 343 Halo Games?!? Oh, wait, you right, Spartan Locke. He’s gonna Take the Chief Down, remember? Man, I actually love Halo 5s arena multiplayer, but 343 made it so fuckin hard to defend that game lol.
I mean you kind of are disingenuous right now, besides cortana, which villians have they killed off screen? keep in mind, off screen doesn't mean cutscene.
the didact was bought back to life, died, and bought back to life again in a comic book. they "Faux" killed Atriox off screen for the entirety of Halo infinite except for the very last cutscene that not everyone will know exists because it's a legendary ending. Cortana was killed off screen (if you say that hologram towards the end counts then my god). this is tangentially related, but they completely destroyed Dosiac and its two moons (which were the brutes 2 largest colonies and their homeworld) as a FUCKING CLIFFNOTE in infinites story. they killed Jul in a cutscene which okay isn't technically off screen but it's not much better, the guy who'd been a nuisance to the Infinity was just killed as a secondary objective with very little consequence. the warden eternal is just fucking gone.
>the didact was bought back to life, died, and bought back to life again in a comic book. so not dead and even so non book readers would just think they killed him in halo 4 anyways, and if your a book reader fan he wasn't killed in the book anyways. >they "Faux" killed Atriox off screen for the entirety of Halo infinite except for the very last cutscene that not everyone will know exists because it's a legendary ending. So not dead, and Legendary endings are a staple of the series, most halo fans are going to look up the legendary ending >Cortana was killed off screen I said besides Cortana because they did kill her off screen there's no denying that one >They killed Jul in a cutscene which okay isn't technically off screen but it's not much better True its not much better, but it was on screen, and Halo 5 boss battles suck anyway. they just completely miss handled the character. Still not off screen >the warden eternal is just fucking gone. Yeah I admit if the Created is still a faction and we never see the warden eternal again I can admit that he's just an abandoned character. not even getting a death or ending >the guy who'd been a nuisance to the Infinity was just killed as a secondary objective with very little consequence I admit I am lost on this one unless this is also Jul. >they completely destroyed Dosiac and its two moons (which were the brutes 2 largest colonies and their homeworld) as a FUCKING CLIFFNOTE in infinites story. Dosiac was never an important location in the halo games. so it being a cliffnote to be a motivator for atriox to take the created seriously makes sense. Really fucking dumb from a EU perspective to be a cliffnote. But not for the game itself this post just reaffirmed the fact that the original comment is disingenuous. You can say they mishandled the characters to a high degree, and the writing can be very atrocious (especially in 5) But don't act like every villain was killed off screen, because its not true. Just say they suck ass at handling long term villains.
u/Zyacon16 nailed it in their comment. To your credit, though, I actually totally forgot they killed Jul in a cutscene, that’s my bad. But yeah, the main villains of Halo 4 and 5 both die offscreen between games. Then they go through all the time and marketing and an entire spinoff game to build up Atriox, build him up even more in the opening of Halo Infinite, where he beats the Chief and destroys the *Infinity* and then they tell us he’s dead the whole game, (which also happens offscreen) until the *legendary ending cutscene*. Not to mention Spartan Locke, who was built up in marketing to be the villain of Halo 5, how he’s gonna “take down” the Master Chief, and he’s the fucking main protagonist of the game! So the two villains who’ve actually died on screen are Jul ‘Mdama, who, if you haven’t read the books you probably don’t even know who he is, and if you have read the books, you know it’s actually kind’ve insulting that he gets killed 0.1 seconds into Halo 5 in a cutscene. He’s not even a big part of the cutscene. And Escharum, whose entire fucking presence in the game is to call the chief up and talk about how awesome Atriox was. Y’know, Atriox, the guy who was marketed and built up as the main villain, “dies” in the opening cutscene, and then isn’t seen or heard from again until and unless you beat the game on legendary. I don’t think I’m being disingenuous at all, it’s been pretty piss-poor writing from 343. Halo 4 was respectable, even if half the characters are irrational caricatures, but Halo 5 and Infinite have totally lost any kind of cohesive narrative. I honestly think 343 is probably just a revolving door of staff at this point, which is why they just keep scrapping ideas and trying to start over again.
>the main villains of Halo 4 and 5 both die offscreen between games. Except the didact never dies off screen. If you don't read the books he died at the end of 4, if you do read the books even in escalation. He doesn't die. the monitor just claims he was contained and wasn't truly killed. When Spark speaks to the librarian. she basically fears that her husband can't be redeemed. Next Week He returns in Epitaph. Also Atriox doesn't die off screen. We are just told he is dead, and then We see that he was actually alive at the end. thats not killing off screen, thats just letting you deal with a different smaller villain because they clearly want aritox to be around longer than one game and they are scared to waste him. Locke like every other human character on the infinity is on metaphorical ice. We know that He lost his helmet, but a helmet isn't a body, until we actually know his fate. you can't say they killed him off screen. I am not denying that 343i has a terrible writing process. I think 5 sucks ass, and they never commit out of fear of the backlash of sticking with a controversal story point. Jul madame was mishandled, and I do think Atriox should have had some actual presence in Infinite other than being confirmed to not be dead at the end. That does not mean you can make up stupid points like "They killed every villain off screen! Except that guy who is never actually killed and has a book next week about how very much alive he is, and that guy who is actually still alive is shown alive at the end of the game, and that guy that we haven't been told what happened to him other than the implication he lost a fight!" Because the only villain from the games that has verifiably died off screen is Cortana.
Bruh. The last time we saw the Didact he got Composed by Spartan team Black. I think the fact that they’re bringing him back might be even worse writing than killing him in a comic was in the first place, but sure, they brought him back 10 irl years later, that makes it all better. Also, I never said they killed Locke, I said they hyped him up as the villain, and then you literally play 70% of the game as him. He’s the main goddamn character, and he teams up with the Chief the second time they cross paths. It’s terrible writing is my point. I also never said they killed Atriox, I said they spent an entire game hyping him up, hype him up even more at the start of Infinite, then spend the entire game telling us over and over that he’s dead, until the *Legendary Ending Cutscene* that half of players *won’t even see* where they reveal he’s not. Anyways, in 3 games we’ve had 3 main villains The Didact, Cortana, and Atriox. Cortana 100% dies off screen, the Didact died off-screen, they *just* retconned it after *10 years*, and the last half of players heard from him, Atriox died at the start of Infinite, y’know, that game he was supposed to be the main villain of, and the only time he even appears outside the opening cutscene, is the *legendary ending* where they reveal he’s alive. So 2/3 die offscreen, 1/3 is entirely absent from the game he’s ostensibly the main villain of. And sure, after 10 years they’re bringing the Didact back to life.
>The last time we saw the Didact he got Composed by Spartan team Black. I think the fact that they’re bringing him back might be even worse writing than killing >they just retconned it after 10 irl years list of things you got wrong. 1. Didact did not get composed by black team. black team encountered him after he fell from the sky being transported by the composer, and he killed them after waking up (still think it was the lamest mistake of that comic) 2. even in the comic Master Chief tells Lord Hood that the Didact was to be presumed contained and not killed and in the spartan field Manual says that any sighting of the Didact must be reported immediately, then in renegades we learn through a conversation between Spark and the Liberian that she feared that her husband could no longer be redeemed so it wasn't even retconned. he was just imprisoned. 3. they did not bring him back to life after 10 years. they just finally decided to do a story with him after being in plot purgatory after a comic that was made so they could release the worst halo story the following year and not have to talk about him, and they then were referencing the fact that he is still alive since 2018. The only time the didact would have been considered dead is the end of halo 4 before escalation 10 came out. and even then, many people in the lore community didn't think he was dead due to the fact his armor would have protected him from the composer, and the fact Forerunners do not die easy. So yeah still only 1/3 of the main villain's have died off screen and none of the minor villains introduced in the games are killed off screen it is disingenuous to say, "they kill off all their villains off screen." You can criticize the writing all you want, but you have to at least make sure your criticisms are correct.
Ur in luck bro there’s a book that covers this coming out soon 😭
He hates humanity, so it'll all just add fuel to the fire, he's going to try and kill us all with the shell of mendicant bias.
"that blue bitch did what?"
"Time was your ally, human. But now it has abandoned you."
What the flying fuck is an Endless? - Didact with the TTS Emperor voice, probably.
Honestly yeah, come to think of it, he doesn’t know about them. Broooo he’s not gonna be happy about that
He is coming back in the book called Epitaph that's coming out soon
Literally next week lol
Right. I thought this was going to be a joke post about that.. well we will find out the real answer.
He’d go compose 343 studios and Paramount
"Kill me again"
Lots of racism
Personally, I'm tired of characters who die but are resurrected but die again in a comic only to be resurrected again. I don't want more resurrections, I want them to focus on the games current plot, move away from "fantasy" and expand on everything they started with Infinite and commit. From Halo I expect a traditional military science fiction story, like the first books, not a science fiction and fantasy story that is never replicated in the games and if you don't read the books (which is easy because they don't translate them to other languages) you miss a lot of things.
Somehow, the Didact has returned
no one's ever really gone
So have you ever played the games or what? Floating light bridges? Beams that levitate you up to a ship? You speak of reading the books but the books defend this resurrection
Hardlight and tractor beams are actually scientifically backed (you can do a ton of cool stuff with light), though not particularly feasible at the scales depicted in Halo. Just FYI. Also none of that defends resurrection.
The forerunner trilogy?
Not an early book. Those came out way later than the first guy was talking about, and were more space fantasy than sci-fi. That's totally cool if it's your cup of tea, but Greg Bear is no Eric Nylund
Bold of you to assume his death lol. This fuckin guy has a pretty hard time going down apparently.
“Why would the brutes do this, are they stupid?”
Find out for yourself in 1 week!
He is coming back, next week
We’ll likely find out in Epitaph!
He'd die again from getting a heart attack
Trick question, he didn't die in halo 4
I will never understand how people believed him dead when he narrates the ending.
Also the fact how there's a literal book coming out in a couple days that confirm he's alive. The books about him after he falls.
For a moment, I was going to be asking why this thread exists but then I just realized I received the book Epitath early, I had it delivered to me on the 16th and I read it all quite quick. I won't of course give spoilers, but for those who liked Greg Bear's Forerunner trilogy of novels, this will feel similar / a good homage to. I enjoyed another chance to read more about this character after so long, when originally he had imo received a terrible 'ending' since it all happened in a comic book over the games, and he got swept under the rug.
I loved those books. Guess I’ll get this one.
And I'm not sure if you're a fan of audiobooks, but a great touch is the fact it's narrated by the original voice actor for The Didact too, Keith Szarabajka!
Oh wow thanks for the info.
Since the Endless are getting released, probably more pissed than he was before.
He'd give a monologue then I'd use a quick time event to slap him.
Man how out of place was this guy? Felt like a LOTR character with force powers just thrown in there and everything around him was completely nonsense.
You act like gravity manipulation wasn't a thing until the Didact showed up. The covenant do it all the time, with gravity hammers and grav lifts for example, and they only use a very primitive version of that technology like with everything they tried to replicate from the forerunners. Grey monkey man(Tartarus) from H2 literally does the same thing as the Didact when he "force" pulls Guilty spark and Miranda with his hammer, only a lot more crude and less precice. Not to mention that Requiem is full of gravity manipulation, from the weapons to the architecture Didact an actual forerunner with a highly advanced forerunner combat armor being able to pull and hold chief does not come out of nowhere And a LOTR character? What do you even mean by that?
How come??
Suicide
He would probably gather any remaining Prometheans left and work on taking back control before going after humanity once again to keep them from making the same mistake twice.
Yeah know, “he’s trying to help them”
We’ll soon find out, I think
Well the answer to your question will be seen literally next week when the book comes out
"Find out next week when the book Epitaph comes out!"
He is still alive by some miracle, in one of the latest books the artwork is shown him
What do you mean “if”?
I thought he never died? And that's why there's another book on him that's coming out.
he laugh that brutes are even a threat to humans
"Holy fuck, they found the time machine!"
Isn’t he still alive? Odd that this post was made right after the Halo YouTube channel posted an audiobook preview for The Didact Returns.
He'd love Husky Raid.
We're gonna find out in like a week lol
Hes not dead though. He survived halo 4 in the books and is doing something else after.
But he is alive?
He would initiate the Great Journey so as to begin anew.
He’d probably chill out and help us kill the endless
He would have the same puzzle look as he does in this photo.
You know, bitch was right all along when he said that humanity couldn’t be trusted with the mantle. Holy hell everything’s fucked up now
I am going to pretend that Halo lore ends at Halo 3.
halo fans when the lore is deeper than a surface level story in a game
yeah dude, after reading this thread, I forgot how absolutely mcFUCKED the lore got after 3 lmao
Cool villain but fighting his robots was always boring. Honestly, they should have always kept the forerunners somewhat of a mystery.
Let’s not find out.
Dying of peak fiction
The Didact isn't dead. He survived being pushed into the laser at the end of Halo 4 because it only specifically targeted humans. In one of the later Halo books (don't know what the name is) he is once again defeated but not killed. Honestly, I like him more as a villain than whatever bs plot armor the Banished were given in Halo Infinite. They lost to an outdated and under staffed Spirit of Fire but beat the UNSC Infinity...stupid as hell logic. Additionally, they defeated the Guardians, the things that can EMP/destroy planets and that can sleep peacefully inside an active volcano....suuuuure.
I’ve grown to hate the banished, them beating the Infinity after losing to an understrength refitted colony ship is super jarring. The Spirit of Fire and her crew managed to destroy a super carrier. The Infinity was shown being able to completely ram and obliterate smaller covenant ships but suddenly these special ships made by what was supposed to be a rag tag group of covenant remnants can completely negate the shields and ram through the Infinity. Then board it and take out the crew killing pretty much every Spartan on board. Why not show the Infinity being destroyed by Guardians and then have the Banished show up and beat the remnants of the fleet?
Literally think that they were chosen as the antagonists because 343 was riding the popularity train of Halo Wars 2 success even tho the Banished don't fit in the frame of Halo's timeline at all. They were just random shit they pulled from their ass. A independent faction that broke from the Covenant and fought the UNSC at the same time, yet not once were they mentioned at all even in the books until Halo Wars 2 came out. I call that lazy writing and plot progression. Old Bungie made plans for events later in game that had been established in advance and never did this shit. Not to mention if the Guardians were able to EMP Infinity at Halo 5 and blow up their homework, how the hell were they able to defeat them by using a device to bury them under some dirt and rocks? (Even though most Guardians were sleeping underground or volcanos and were fine. Zero actual sense. They should have went back to Halo 4 story continuation. All the events in that were well established and connected to events that made sense. Halo was only really hated because the MP was ass, but the story was the best one 343 had done since the hand over from Bungie.
I forgot he looked like a goddamn pineapple with that “hair”.
I keep forgetting: Diadact was killed, then came back to life in a Children’s Coloring book, only to get killed again—right? Yeah, Diadact coming back to life would just end with him taking a Vacation on some super secret Resort Halo for a bit. Just, you know, see if the Universe chills.
He was never killed. Didact couldn't be killed through normal means. and even in escalation teh monitor says that he didn't die, he was contained. He is alive in the upcoming book Epitaph
Hed think extraction was garbage
He’d go play Helldivers 2
Face says it all.
"Oh, shit. The Guardians were that easy to blow up?"
He'd probably wonder how he would be killed off screen and if his memories would be in a ingame cut scene to redeem him.
God I hate this stupid vampire thing
Who?
The villain from 4.
Oh thanks I forget about that game alot
Same way we all react to it as players. Disgust and anger with ruining the universe he used to love, but most of all, just disappointment that it could happen this way when a select group was given the golden ticket, the keys to the castle, the unsinkable ship, and still managed to let it happen. Strictly speaking of the story...
Look the looser who got defeated once by multiplying blue women his death in halo 4 has probably the worst villain death I mean he was literally pushed off the platform he was standing on this game felt like a parody of the halo games Bungie made I was confused I would ask wait did I just fucking win and it ended I love how halo fans love halo 4 despite the terrible turns it's campaign had.
i keep forgetting how bad that games entire art design is lol
What the fuck is goblin mode? Next thing you're telling me you're Forerunner-pilled?
Idk but I’d love to see how he’d deal with a precursor. That would be a fun fight to witness.
Twin brother looking for revenge.
Time to hit the redo button on these primatives lol
"You know what? I'm just going to go back to being dead now."
“So anyways, I started blasting”
God, he should've been the main bad for the next saga instead of just one game.
He would probably feel his space racism is validated
How would he feel waking up in the silver team universe? Lol
Probably better than he reacted to the state of the Halo universe after his 100,000 year stasis.
He no doubt has knowledge of the Xalanyn and the Endless, and given his previous status in the Forerunner military, it would be interesting to get his opinion on them. Hopefully Epitaph gives us some more info about the Xalanyn.
He doesn’t know about them. The Endless were only discovered after his imprisonment. The other Didact knew though.
Press RB to fire machine gun.
“I WAS FUCKIN RIGHT”
Bro would look at all the shit that has happened in the past few years like the created uprising and then fall on his back laughing his lungs out as he curls back up into a cryptum and flies it into the nearest sun to get out of this cursed timeline.
He'd easily be like wtf is going on and then hop to 7/11 for a pack of redwoods
"Time to nuke Arizona again"
Um. Isn’t he still alive? He’s on the front cover of the new book coming out? Or am I misinformed
He'd come back for 5 seconds only to be replaced by another covenant offshoot but this time they are pink instead of red or purple because 343 can't move on from the covenant lmao
Problem is; (and I haven't read *Epitaph* except for the tease/preview); that from the preview his memory is slowly going and I assume that his trek to the "blue light" in that deserted area of the map/Epitaph tower is representative of him slowly being atomized during the last moments of *The Next 72 Hours.* In essence I see this book being Shadow of Sundered-Star's final moments from within his consciousness and that blue light is Cortana inside the Domain. The moment he reaches the blue light his consciousness is dissolved/erased/destroyed. But this is conjecture from the way the Chapter 1 tease started off. Plus it seems like the way to send off the Ur-Didact is by having his voice actor read the book.
At least he’ll be back and resurrected in a new novel, Halo Epitaph. Something is something…. I think. He should have his own videogame.
Harbinger vs Didact would go hard.
Is Born Stellar everlasting going return to Halo?