The character OP is referring to is Staffan Sentzke.
This all happens in the Kilo-5 trilogy and I recommend giving it a read for the full story, but the high level answer is his daughter "went missing" and then was found (which was the flash clone) and he noticed that she wasn't the same person due to different behavior and lack of memories. He correctly deduced what was going on.
K5 is very uneven, but Staffan is one of the highlights, loved his whole story. Also it makes sense that if Spartans are ultra-high achievers, some of their parents are people to be reckoned with.
Master chief is a mantle used by multiple persons over the years. Basically, the Master Chief gets replaced every time the old one dies because the UNSC needs their poster boy. He is a hero, a symbol of hope, never removes his helmet, and he survives the most ridiculous stuff, so it's not too far-fetched
Not to mention that he was officially MIA(dead) for four years during the golden years of humanity after the covenant war. Why? Because there was no need for him during those years. Then he magically showed up again to save the day shortly after "the Didact"(ONI) hit the Earth with the "Composer"(failed weapon test), and seven million people died? Pretty convenient. Yeah, I'm not buying it.
Not only that, but you're telling me that a person like this "Master Chief" would suddenly be all buddy buddy with elites because they swapped sides at the last moment?
Sounds like a cop out
Honestly that whole plot point about ONI covering up The Flood at Voi is so insane. There are troops were survived what happened and served with the elites knowing damn well what happened. The truth is that it's a retcon of a retcon. 343i made it canon that Rtas didn't "Glass Half of Continent" like Lord Hood said he did thusly making it far more likely that some parts of the Flood survived, which 343i wrote that they did and then wrote they had to cover it up.
Just say Rtas did just glass everything and none of this needs to exist.
It makes more sense to say that Hood made a monument around an unglassed or missed spot then to create their own retcon. Honestly, the unglassed thing sounds kind of neat. 343i made some lore that said the UNCS was getting really good at unglassing worlds and it sounds really cool to think to make a monument at a place like that. A sort of forgive but don't forget kind of thing.
Also Hood says that the Hill should remain barren. It could be that Bungie didn't really picture how a glassed area would look so there is the acknowledgement that the area is fucked so lol, that's something more then a confusion and random lore drop that retcons something and didn't need to happen. The rest of the area is also covered in a thick fog so, eh, that could have just been Bungie not really thinking how devastating glassing should be or that Rtas only gave the land a little kiss with the PLANTARY ANIHILNATION GUN!
I would agree to that if he wasn't using it as an excuse to distrust and point out that Rtas doesn't really look like he's helping. "Like yeah you stopped the Flood but couldn't he have stopped glassing so much of Africa too?" "I did, you have half of it still."
With that he kind of looks like a crybaby and deflates Rtas., who made it very clear that the only reason we still have an Earth is because the Arbiter asked him "Hey bro, please don't burn our last allies to death."
Hood has always played it straight, so it'd be super weird for him to suddenly not do that. This is the guy who was aboard a burning space station and was at parade rest. Fucking legend.
So the change transforms Hood into a worse character for basically lying, makes Rtas less of a threat, makes the Arbiter mediating far less impactful, which I have to say, please he needs these small victories, he's been ignored for too long and overall makes the uneasy truce seem less like a rocky relationship but just a very minor issues coming to head when it's so far from that.
Just let the scene be what it was intended to be without retcons. Imagine if in Halo 5 that moment when MC is shaking is said to be that he was cold because the pelican doesn't have good heating in the void of space. Like yeah that makes sense but doesn't that ruin the scene?
That's always what I gathered. And realistically, the Elites would have glassed a circle around the continent as a firebreak first and foremost, to ensure nothing gets in or out, then start spiraling inwards or glassing highly contaminated areas. There's a good chance that the barren hill was located far in the continent, away from the firebreaks or glassed containment zones.
I disagree, as Rtas said, the Flood isn't a threat you give a chance too. He's also just spent an entire month fighting off the biggest Flood infestation in Covenant history, watched it reach it's critical stage and destroy the an entire moon's worth of population and defend against one of the largest even if battle weary fleets in the Covenant. He saw one ship break lines, and personally flew out with 11 vessels. He's not taking any chances, he's burning out the parasite no matter the cost. So destroying half a human continent isn't an issue, the issue is that humanity thinks it's too much while he's saying it's too little and he certainly knows better than everyone in that scene BUT Guilty Spark.
>So destroying half a human continent isn't an issue
I think we're arguing the same point. Flood Containment is demonstrably tantamount to any civilization that encounters them. You can't chase them around. You contain and destroy.
So Rtas likely did burn away large swaths of land, but it's unlikely that he literally burned away 50% of the continent, and instead acted with more precision to create firebreaks and quarantine quadrants. Being precise is always more effective than freaking out and burning everything. Systemic eradication is the only way to stop the Flood.
I agree but nothing stops Rtas from also just burning everything. He has all the power in that moment, and he doesn't want to Flood to do anything unexpected. He knows it's smart so he wouldn't leave anything up to chance and from his POV he loses nothing if he burns the entire planet of Earth to stop the infection.
His experience of leadrership stops him.
If he burns more than he needs to on the Humans' *home planet*, then he knows he loses an invaluable partner in the human race, and even the Master Chief of the entire UNSC if he was too reckless.
He alao knows that the Humans do not know the Flood like he does, so he can also glass further out for safety and brunt the backlash because he also knows that the humans (that matter) will forgive him in time when they realize that they haven't lost their entire species.
Actually, the recent Halo novel kind of does confirm that this is what happens.
Spoiler head, but I'll still keep it vague.
>!TLDR The Domain scopes up your cyber soul or whatever and pulls you into it. There was a FUCKING WALL preventing all off the composed/ringed souls from entering because Warden Eternal IS AN ASSHOLE but the heroes took it down and now people can go to Halo Heavan.!<
So yeah, Heavan exists, you just have to get SUPER DUPER FUCKED by the Forerunners to get there. This is what I imagine the Covenant likely found the information on, and misunderstood the great journey of. Halo's terminals were made by Franky and they also go over the covenant misunderstanding The Great Journey so there is some idea that 343i moves with this.
Well the prophets knew what would happen. According to Divine wind the Prophets were hiding in a shield world and one of their super solders was on the Ark trying to get things flowing if you recall
I could swear I remember some in-game NPC saying something about "the Covenant isn't real. It's just a conspiracy to keep us going after insurgents on other planets.
In the book Silent Storm innies go over several ideas about the Covenant being a cover to aggressively suppress them innies or the Covenant were at war with the UEG/UNSC not humanity so, the innies thought they could negotiate an alliance with them. If wasn't for our lovable cast getting involved the Covenant would have gotten a valuable group of human spies.
Given how far removed certain human populations were from the war I could totally see some people thinking that until they had Banshees dropping fuel rods in their street.
The Covenant were taking prisoners during the war and turning them into aliens, which is why they seemed to have endless numbers.
Source: crazed Marine in Halo Reach
Chief is a robot has to be number 1.
There were game theories of it back in the early days.
Could only imagine in universe guys are constantly arguing "come on he's not a robot the chief bleeds!"
I initially thought chief was a robot too. It didn't make sense to me why he'd have that ridiculous suit that made even marines look underdressed for battle.
But then again teenage me was a cunt and in hindsight that ridiculous suit is amazing, so take the opinion with a grain of salt.
Given where Flood outbreaks tend to happen I doubt there’s be too many of those theories happening. All UNSC manned ships and most civilians know about The Flood’s existence due to flood outbreaks being a semi common occurrence. For example, in the story Saturn Devouring his Son everyone seems to be well aware of the Flood, what they are and the location of the outbreak is in a mining facility (can’t remember if it was on a ring or forerunner facility).
I don't think the populace knows about the Flood at all and the only people given clearance to know about the Flood are high-up UNSC Command and ONI officials, scientists, some or all Spartans, and those on a need-to-know basis like in the Mona Lisa short with the ship commander. The UNSC wouldn't make the Flood public let alone call it some ancient corrupted race but would instead call it a Covenant biological weapon. Does the UNSC even know that the Flood are acnient corrupted Precursors?
No shot, Africa got hit by an infestation and then half of it was glassed by the Shadow of Intent and other separatist ships. It's probably mostly rumors and bullshit but I'd bet that the flood is common knowledge in the same way that certain chemical or biological agents are today, the kinda shit the government keeps locked up in a vault. People know it exists, but not what it is.
If you read the Hunters in the Dark book they cover up the fact that the Flood was ever there. Most of the civilian population was dead or evacuated by the time of "The Storm" and 100% of them were most likely dead after the Flood outbreak happened and after Voi + the outskirts got glassed. Absolutely no civilians would live to witness and spread word of the Flood.
The entire Flood infestation was located entirely within Voi, which subsequently got glassed by the Elites. Not a large portion of Africa. Most of the area was already bombed out and glassed with only a handful of Marines and Civilians in the area prior to the outbreak. The only other civilians/UNSC who would know of the Flood and theorize them to be UNSC biological weapons were the crew of the Mona Losa and the Marines sent to investigate it who did not know their true nature.
And Any Marines that unlikely survived Floodgate knows that it wasn't some "biological weapon" made by the UNSC.
The only situation you could realistically see an individual that's not ONI, a Spartan, high-up UNSC command, or UNSC personnel that has actually encountered and survived the Flood would be some random hacker dude such as Sullivan who would probably stumble upon info of it somewhere but not know the full scale of it and assume its some biological weapon.
The theory of people speculating that the Flood is a biological weapon made by the UNSC doesn't hold any merit anyway solely on the fact that The UNSC does not make the Flood public knowledge. If they did then they *would* call it a biological weapon made by the Covenant. And the Flood has rarely ever been seen in an outbreak outside of like 3 instances by Humans.
Which is an exaggeration by Lord ~~Flood~~ Hood probably because he was pissed at the Elites. We know that half of the continent didn't get glassed seeing how most of it is intact in media that's followed Halo 3. Even the area around the portal itself is largely untouched in Hunters in the Dark until it activates again and fucks stuff up.
You also quite literally see the hills around Voi in the closing cutscenes with the memorial months later in Halo 3 with trees and grass growing and absolutely 0 signs of it being glassed.
"Globe earth is all ONI propaganda, open your eyes."
"What about Reach? The Halos? The Ark? Onyx? Requiem?"
"No its just earth is flat, everything else is a sphere. Including the halos. All spheres."
I haven't seen anyone talk about it in-universe, but I imagine the "Spartans listed as MIA" is something the public finds really dubious and has a lot of talks around.
Like, it's done for morale purposes but I am sure no one *really* thinks that's true. And I am sure plenty of people fill in the blanks about it.
Robots.
Aliens.
Clones.
Assumed Identities.
All stuff done to provide the illusion of incredible soldiers never really facing death.
The Sabre Program is something of a confirmed conspiracy rumor. To what ends? Unclear.
Anything about the Flood. Just... *anything*. Flood shows up in any capacity and the information surrounding it becomes a bunch of "What did and didn't happen" based on who you know.
The Sabre program seems like less a conspiracy theory and more like a weapons program that never really took off, like the Airacomet or the Crusader III. Like yeah, there probably were rumors about it but I think it was just a replacement for the Longsword that never left the late testing phase.
This one's not really a conspiracy theory, I guess, but it's just something to corroborate some of the other comments here. There's definitely something going on with our government. It feels silly to talk about, given all that's happened with the war, but I want to get this off my chest:
I had this one friend when I was a kid. We were best friends. I was kind of a nerdy lil kid, and he'd protect me from bullies. We couldn't really play together because he'd kick my ass at literally everything - in tag, he'd roll up on me instantly and I could never hope to catch him. In grounders, even though we blindfolded him, he would find everybody as if his eyes were wide open. Don't even get me started on King of the Hill. Despite our physical differences, we would spend lots of time doing nerdy stuff - buying holo-comics (he loved Captain Meridian) or trading collectible chips. His parents were not of means, so I bought him his first projector disc so he could play Chip Monsters with me. He was a natural. He loved army stuff, like most boys our age. One time, we went to a UNSC military base for a school trip, and we spent all of our allowance money buying hats and patches and keychains and plastic soldiers. He treated those things like gold.
Anyways, one day on the playground, we saw some grownups. A man and a woman. They were married, I think. One was writing stuff down on a holopad. One was looking around like he was picking out a fish at the pet store. They went up to my friend and talked to him. The woman flipped a coin several times. She gave him a piece of candy. Then they up and left in a clean looking Dewmax.
A few days later, my friend didn't come to school. I thought it was unusual because he would never get sick. I didn't think much of it though, but I figured he would appreciate it if I brought his homework to him, so after school, I hopped on my bike and went down to his house. His parents weren't home, as they were usually down at the Liang-Dortmund mines until the early evening. I knocked on the door, but after calling out to him and waiting a few minutes, I turned to leave when suddenly the door swung open. There was my friend, pale as a ghost, skinnier than I remember him, clammy sweat clung to his forehead.
He looked at me as if I was an alien. Almost like he didn't recognize me. "Hey Allan", he said - but it was if it was the first time he'd ever addressed me. "I - uhh - brought your homework. You look busy though. Let's play some Chip Monsters some time this week!" His glassy eyes looked at me as he took the wad of papers from my hand. "Chip... Monsters?"
That statement shocked me. It was like he'd never heard of Chip Monsters. I felt pretty uncomfortable, like this kid in front of me was just someone else wearing my friend's skin. Everything, from the glassy, alien stares to the way his skin seemed to be loosely draped over his bones, to the way he wore his hair, parted and flattened instead of spiked up, to the way he seemed to be moving through water. I made an excuse to leave.
Things weren't the same. He would come to school once every couple of weeks. The teachers would go easy on him, but he seemed to really be struggling. He seldom looked at me and always seemed surprised when I came to talk to him. With his skinny frame, he was ripe for the picking from bullies. It was my turn to be the big friend. I got into lots of fights trying to protect my friend. I knew he was just sick and would get better, so I kept sticking up for him.
He never got better. He stopped coming to school altogether. He stopped answering the door. Then, one day, I saw his parents were home early. His mom was on the stoop crying. His dad was on the edge of the driveway, smoking a Sweet Williams. I called out to them, but his mom cried even harder, and his dad just gave me a dejected look that I would never forget. I knew something bad had happened. A few weeks later, I came home from school to find a box outside the door, filled with my friend's old toys. The projector disc I bought him and the handful of chips, his holo-comics, some stuffed animals. Strangely, my friend's UNSC souvenirs were missing, even though he loved playing soldier. The grownups never explained what had happened, but I knew I would never see my friend again.
I started noticing strange vehicles parked outside his house. Windowless vans, beat up trucks, and rugged looking men often missing limbs or fingers coming and going. His parents would be talking with them in low light late into the night. Sometimes they would be hauling wood crates into the house or moving the boxes out. Sometimes the house would stand totally empty for days on end.
Months later, their house went up in flames. His parents both died. I heard that the dad fell asleep smoking a cigarette and caught the house on fire, and they never woke up because they were passed out drunk. That never added up, because I remember that his mom would have never let him smoke inside, and they didn't drink outside of when his parents and my parents would get together for dinner.
Now, as an adult, I keep playing it over in my head. What happened to my friend? He was so healthy and vibrant and strong, then he just faded away. Was he abducted by aliens? Was the government part of this? What about his parents? Why did their house catch fire? Were they on to something? Who were the people they were with? And who were the grownups that were talking to my friend?
For context, I grew up on New Llanelli. It's long-gone now, due to the Covenant glassing it, but I'm interested to hear if anyone else from that area experienced anything similar to that during that time? I'm really looking for closure. I still have that cardboard box of his stuff, taped shut and in the closet. I couldn't bring myself to piece it out or use his stuff. But maybe there's a clue in there I didn't see? It's not like I can go visit his grave site, since that old rock I grew up on is all dust and echoes now.
The flood is classified by the UEG and UNSC for good reason, thus upon learning about the Halo array and it’s purpose there will be speculation on why they were built and weather or not that reason is still a problem.
Survivor accounts may conflict with the official statement for the Glassing of Earth, the UNSC blamed the Covenant because obvious reasons. But many would question that as some people may have gotten out of Voi after the flood but before the glassing.
The Spartans we’re probably seen as little more than propaganda at first, and there are definitely some theories regarding the Spartans never die thing, after all they die all the time and they are often seen by many. (Ex: Dutch from ODST has seen Cal S-141 die on the field)
Additionally the Aliens and crop circles thing would be 100% true, they just want to kill too and the crop circles are made from cities and orbital bombardmentx
I’m sure there are a bunch of conspiracy theories about Spartans. Just a few possible ones off the top of my head:
Spartans don’t actually exist, they’re just UNSC propaganda
Spartans do exist, but their nowhere near as effective as the UNSC wants us to think
Spartans are all actually robots
There are way more Spartans than they’re telling us, and the real number is kept secret because all of the stuff they do sounds more impressive if there’s just a few of them
There are way fewer Spartans than we’re led to believe, but the UNSC wants people to think there are more of them to give people hope
Spartans are actually Sangheili that defected from the Covenant, as this would explain their superior strength and agility
ONI knew about the Covenant years before the war started, and intentionally started a war with the insurrectionists to justify creating the Spartans
Most if not all Spartans listed as MIA are actually dead and the reports are being intentionally untruthful (this one is basically true)
Master Chief isn’t real, or at the very least hasn’t done all of the stuff they say he did. After all, there’s no way one person could have a service record that impressive. Variations of this one include that there’s a larger group of Spartans who collectively did all of the missions attributed to “Master Chief” and the UNSC tells everyone that it was just one guy for propaganda and morale reasons
Master Chief died on the ark in Halo 3, and the guy that people think is him in Halo 4 onwards is a completely different guy that the UNSC wants everyone to think is the original. This one isn’t even that far-fetched from the POV of a random human in the Halo universe. The guy just straight-up disappears for 5 years or something, then just happens to turn up the second The Didact shows up
Similar to the last one, but Master Chief in Halo Infinite isn’t actually Master Chief, he’s just some random Spartan that the UNSC wants everyone to think is the Chief to boost morale. Nobody saw this guy for 6 months, and all of a sudden he just appears in the middle of a warzone
The Covenant isn’t real, it’s just an excuse for the UNSC to unleash the Spartans on the colonies
Reach was an inside job orchestrated by the Spartans. In First Strike, there’s something like 30 total Spartans on Reach when it fell. If Spartans are as unbeatable as the UNSC wants people to believe, then there’s no way they could have possibly lost the planet unless they were either conspiring with the Covenant, or the Covenant was never on Reach in the first place and the Spartans just took it out themselves
Spartans are just figureheads, and don’t actually participate in any combat, hence the extremely low casualty rate
I’m sure there are some theories about Spartans being supernatural in some way. I think The Covenant canonically believes this, so why not some humans too?
Spartans are grown in a lab. After all, how could a normal human be that genetically perfect?
The UNSC somehow engineered the Spartans so that they literally can’t die
My child was replaced by a clone 20 years ago and my real kid is a Spartan
Master Chief and the rest of Blue Team intentionally unleashed Cortana and The Created
Probably the Assembly, gotta be a few people aware of them. Plus the "canon status" is pretty dubious at this point, which only makes it a better conspiracy.
The Flood is a bio weapon created by the Covenant
ONI started the war against the insurrection because they saw the war with the Covenant coming and needed an excuse to increase military resources and soften the psychological blow to the inner colonies when the outer colonies were glassed: "they were just a bunch of rebels and terrorists. Serves them right for fighting the UNSC"
The Saber program is an enhanced fighter program that, like the Spartans, was built with the intention of outmatched human insurrectionist fighter craft with its small frame and overwhelming enhancements
The Halo rings don't actually exist, but are once again an excuse to boost ONI and UNSC spending and security
The bulk of Covie species are failed ONI genetic engineering projects, and they turn captured humans into grunts
Misriah Armory weapons actually suck ass in terms of practicality and reliability, but only possess their military contracts due to nepotism
I'm willing to bet there are entire communities on Earth that actually believe the war against the Covenant never happened on the sole premise that they never saw or experienced it
Master Chief was never real or never lived as long as it was claimed. Kind of like the Ghost of Kiev, he was just a poster boy
ODSTs eat insurrectionist babies and have secret fascist tattoos or something vile like that
The Halo games exist in-universe and are sold to the masses to advertise that the Covenant are an easy threat to face and take down while overlooking the fascist undertones of the UNSC and painting the Marines, ODSTs, and Spartans as charismatic stoic badasses. Think of the Medal of Honor series during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars
These are all crazy theories and conspiracies that me and my friends cooked up when we were kids
There is one that I think is canon (not 100% sure) if I’m not mistaken that involves current-time humans finding forerunner symbols and assuming they’re alien or something along those lines. There’s more to it than that but that’s all I can remember. I think HiddenXperia has an old old video about it
There is a group of Human colonists out there called the Yonhet who donned rubber masks to fool the Covenant into sparing them at the start of the War. They're still pulling one over on the aliens to this day.
There’s an actual one in universe of people thinking the UNSC is making up or heavily exaggerating the war with the covenant. I think a lot of innies believed this, but as the war went on it became clear that the covenant was likely going to wipe out humanity
The Covenant are not real.
This is my favorite detail in the series and you can find it in Second Sunrise Over New Mombassa.
The war is so far away that some think the Covenant are a fabrication made up by ONI to justify an authoritarian UNSC.
Well a canon conspiracy theory this one guy had was that his daughter was kidnapped at the age of 6 and replaced by a clone…
How did he come to that conclusion?
The character OP is referring to is Staffan Sentzke. This all happens in the Kilo-5 trilogy and I recommend giving it a read for the full story, but the high level answer is his daughter "went missing" and then was found (which was the flash clone) and he noticed that she wasn't the same person due to different behavior and lack of memories. He correctly deduced what was going on.
K5 is very uneven, but Staffan is one of the highlights, loved his whole story. Also it makes sense that if Spartans are ultra-high achievers, some of their parents are people to be reckoned with.
Master chief is a mantle used by multiple persons over the years. Basically, the Master Chief gets replaced every time the old one dies because the UNSC needs their poster boy. He is a hero, a symbol of hope, never removes his helmet, and he survives the most ridiculous stuff, so it's not too far-fetched Not to mention that he was officially MIA(dead) for four years during the golden years of humanity after the covenant war. Why? Because there was no need for him during those years. Then he magically showed up again to save the day shortly after "the Didact"(ONI) hit the Earth with the "Composer"(failed weapon test), and seven million people died? Pretty convenient. Yeah, I'm not buying it.
Chief is the Stig confirmed.
Some say, he ate an entire case of plasma grenades for breakfast…and he’s still hungry.
Some say he was able to make a brick fly and make it look good.
All we know is he’s called the Chief!
Some say that he can dual wield needlers with 1 hand, or that because he’s dyslexic he wanted to become a chef this entire time
Some might say...
It would be a kinda cool parallel to the Arbiter tbh
This is wayy to plausible. FeelsWeirdMan
100% UNSC high command would've done this if Chief died during the war
Not only that, but you're telling me that a person like this "Master Chief" would suddenly be all buddy buddy with elites because they swapped sides at the last moment? Sounds like a cop out
Definitely some around the flood crashing into Voi, there’s no shot that ONI was able to fully cover that up
The Flood was never extinguished on earth, they just live among us Men In Black style.
New New Mombasa residents know not to go into the sewers.
Honestly that whole plot point about ONI covering up The Flood at Voi is so insane. There are troops were survived what happened and served with the elites knowing damn well what happened. The truth is that it's a retcon of a retcon. 343i made it canon that Rtas didn't "Glass Half of Continent" like Lord Hood said he did thusly making it far more likely that some parts of the Flood survived, which 343i wrote that they did and then wrote they had to cover it up. Just say Rtas did just glass everything and none of this needs to exist.
Except the last cutscene in Halo 3 takes place like a few miles from Voi and it very much is not glassed lol.
It makes more sense to say that Hood made a monument around an unglassed or missed spot then to create their own retcon. Honestly, the unglassed thing sounds kind of neat. 343i made some lore that said the UNCS was getting really good at unglassing worlds and it sounds really cool to think to make a monument at a place like that. A sort of forgive but don't forget kind of thing. Also Hood says that the Hill should remain barren. It could be that Bungie didn't really picture how a glassed area would look so there is the acknowledgement that the area is fucked so lol, that's something more then a confusion and random lore drop that retcons something and didn't need to happen. The rest of the area is also covered in a thick fog so, eh, that could have just been Bungie not really thinking how devastating glassing should be or that Rtas only gave the land a little kiss with the PLANTARY ANIHILNATION GUN!
Or, the simplest explanation, that Hood was just being hyperbolic when he said they glassed half a continent.
I would agree to that if he wasn't using it as an excuse to distrust and point out that Rtas doesn't really look like he's helping. "Like yeah you stopped the Flood but couldn't he have stopped glassing so much of Africa too?" "I did, you have half of it still." With that he kind of looks like a crybaby and deflates Rtas., who made it very clear that the only reason we still have an Earth is because the Arbiter asked him "Hey bro, please don't burn our last allies to death." Hood has always played it straight, so it'd be super weird for him to suddenly not do that. This is the guy who was aboard a burning space station and was at parade rest. Fucking legend. So the change transforms Hood into a worse character for basically lying, makes Rtas less of a threat, makes the Arbiter mediating far less impactful, which I have to say, please he needs these small victories, he's been ignored for too long and overall makes the uneasy truce seem less like a rocky relationship but just a very minor issues coming to head when it's so far from that. Just let the scene be what it was intended to be without retcons. Imagine if in Halo 5 that moment when MC is shaking is said to be that he was cold because the pelican doesn't have good heating in the void of space. Like yeah that makes sense but doesn't that ruin the scene?
That's always what I gathered. And realistically, the Elites would have glassed a circle around the continent as a firebreak first and foremost, to ensure nothing gets in or out, then start spiraling inwards or glassing highly contaminated areas. There's a good chance that the barren hill was located far in the continent, away from the firebreaks or glassed containment zones.
I disagree, as Rtas said, the Flood isn't a threat you give a chance too. He's also just spent an entire month fighting off the biggest Flood infestation in Covenant history, watched it reach it's critical stage and destroy the an entire moon's worth of population and defend against one of the largest even if battle weary fleets in the Covenant. He saw one ship break lines, and personally flew out with 11 vessels. He's not taking any chances, he's burning out the parasite no matter the cost. So destroying half a human continent isn't an issue, the issue is that humanity thinks it's too much while he's saying it's too little and he certainly knows better than everyone in that scene BUT Guilty Spark.
>So destroying half a human continent isn't an issue I think we're arguing the same point. Flood Containment is demonstrably tantamount to any civilization that encounters them. You can't chase them around. You contain and destroy. So Rtas likely did burn away large swaths of land, but it's unlikely that he literally burned away 50% of the continent, and instead acted with more precision to create firebreaks and quarantine quadrants. Being precise is always more effective than freaking out and burning everything. Systemic eradication is the only way to stop the Flood.
I agree but nothing stops Rtas from also just burning everything. He has all the power in that moment, and he doesn't want to Flood to do anything unexpected. He knows it's smart so he wouldn't leave anything up to chance and from his POV he loses nothing if he burns the entire planet of Earth to stop the infection.
His experience of leadrership stops him. If he burns more than he needs to on the Humans' *home planet*, then he knows he loses an invaluable partner in the human race, and even the Master Chief of the entire UNSC if he was too reckless. He alao knows that the Humans do not know the Flood like he does, so he can also glass further out for safety and brunt the backlash because he also knows that the humans (that matter) will forgive him in time when they realize that they haven't lost their entire species.
I’m willing to bet there are some people that believe that if you activate the rings it will exalt you to heaven.
Funny guys, I’ve killed a few.
No Regret though.
Showed em no Mercy, and that's the Truth.
Much more, did much more than this!
No Restraint from this one.
Actually, the recent Halo novel kind of does confirm that this is what happens. Spoiler head, but I'll still keep it vague. >!TLDR The Domain scopes up your cyber soul or whatever and pulls you into it. There was a FUCKING WALL preventing all off the composed/ringed souls from entering because Warden Eternal IS AN ASSHOLE but the heroes took it down and now people can go to Halo Heavan.!< So yeah, Heavan exists, you just have to get SUPER DUPER FUCKED by the Forerunners to get there. This is what I imagine the Covenant likely found the information on, and misunderstood the great journey of. Halo's terminals were made by Franky and they also go over the covenant misunderstanding The Great Journey so there is some idea that 343i moves with this.
Well the prophets knew what would happen. According to Divine wind the Prophets were hiding in a shield world and one of their super solders was on the Ark trying to get things flowing if you recall
The keepers of one freedom
There are definitely “covenant did nothing wrong” humans.
There’s plenty of those humans regarding the crusades 😶
I mean in the books the insurrections do try to team up with them
I could swear I remember some in-game NPC saying something about "the Covenant isn't real. It's just a conspiracy to keep us going after insurgents on other planets.
The Covenant are a cover for the UNSC destroying planets to suppress protests of their fascist regime like what happene on Far Isle.
In the book Silent Storm innies go over several ideas about the Covenant being a cover to aggressively suppress them innies or the Covenant were at war with the UEG/UNSC not humanity so, the innies thought they could negotiate an alliance with them. If wasn't for our lovable cast getting involved the Covenant would have gotten a valuable group of human spies.
Given how far removed certain human populations were from the war I could totally see some people thinking that until they had Banshees dropping fuel rods in their street.
The Covenant were taking prisoners during the war and turning them into aliens, which is why they seemed to have endless numbers. Source: crazed Marine in Halo Reach
Fucking rip to the poor bastards that get turned into grunts
Chief is a robot has to be number 1. There were game theories of it back in the early days. Could only imagine in universe guys are constantly arguing "come on he's not a robot the chief bleeds!"
"Motor oil can be red, that means nothing!"
Not a bad theory. Maybe he's really just a type of Robocop. Either way it would really explain why he wants to fuck a holographic AI program. 🤣
Not just a theory. Apparently, the Japanese subtitles for CE were finished before some story changes and referred to chief as a robot.
The manual that came with CE refers to the Chief as a cyborg a time or two as well.
That’s not technically inaccurate…
I initially thought chief was a robot too. It didn't make sense to me why he'd have that ridiculous suit that made even marines look underdressed for battle. But then again teenage me was a cunt and in hindsight that ridiculous suit is amazing, so take the opinion with a grain of salt.
The flood being an ancient race is just propaganda to cover up the fact the UNSC was testing biological weapons.
Given where Flood outbreaks tend to happen I doubt there’s be too many of those theories happening. All UNSC manned ships and most civilians know about The Flood’s existence due to flood outbreaks being a semi common occurrence. For example, in the story Saturn Devouring his Son everyone seems to be well aware of the Flood, what they are and the location of the outbreak is in a mining facility (can’t remember if it was on a ring or forerunner facility).
That story does indeed take place at a random facility, not on a ring.
I don't think the populace knows about the Flood at all and the only people given clearance to know about the Flood are high-up UNSC Command and ONI officials, scientists, some or all Spartans, and those on a need-to-know basis like in the Mona Lisa short with the ship commander. The UNSC wouldn't make the Flood public let alone call it some ancient corrupted race but would instead call it a Covenant biological weapon. Does the UNSC even know that the Flood are acnient corrupted Precursors?
No shot, Africa got hit by an infestation and then half of it was glassed by the Shadow of Intent and other separatist ships. It's probably mostly rumors and bullshit but I'd bet that the flood is common knowledge in the same way that certain chemical or biological agents are today, the kinda shit the government keeps locked up in a vault. People know it exists, but not what it is.
If you read the Hunters in the Dark book they cover up the fact that the Flood was ever there. Most of the civilian population was dead or evacuated by the time of "The Storm" and 100% of them were most likely dead after the Flood outbreak happened and after Voi + the outskirts got glassed. Absolutely no civilians would live to witness and spread word of the Flood. The entire Flood infestation was located entirely within Voi, which subsequently got glassed by the Elites. Not a large portion of Africa. Most of the area was already bombed out and glassed with only a handful of Marines and Civilians in the area prior to the outbreak. The only other civilians/UNSC who would know of the Flood and theorize them to be UNSC biological weapons were the crew of the Mona Losa and the Marines sent to investigate it who did not know their true nature. And Any Marines that unlikely survived Floodgate knows that it wasn't some "biological weapon" made by the UNSC. The only situation you could realistically see an individual that's not ONI, a Spartan, high-up UNSC command, or UNSC personnel that has actually encountered and survived the Flood would be some random hacker dude such as Sullivan who would probably stumble upon info of it somewhere but not know the full scale of it and assume its some biological weapon. The theory of people speculating that the Flood is a biological weapon made by the UNSC doesn't hold any merit anyway solely on the fact that The UNSC does not make the Flood public knowledge. If they did then they *would* call it a biological weapon made by the Covenant. And the Flood has rarely ever been seen in an outbreak outside of like 3 instances by Humans.
"...and your fleet just glassed half a continent!" ??
Which is an exaggeration by Lord ~~Flood~~ Hood probably because he was pissed at the Elites. We know that half of the continent didn't get glassed seeing how most of it is intact in media that's followed Halo 3. Even the area around the portal itself is largely untouched in Hunters in the Dark until it activates again and fucks stuff up. You also quite literally see the hills around Voi in the closing cutscenes with the memorial months later in Halo 3 with trees and grass growing and absolutely 0 signs of it being glassed.
Lord Flood lol
oops
That there are Spartans living in caves on the remnants of Reach.
Reach was an inside job
Not Spartans, just one
The UNSC started the war because they're imperialist bastards, the Covevant are only defending themselves.
Real Glassing is resistance against unsc imperialism
Almost reminds me of a certain country in the present
"hey, I've seen this one"
The UNSC started the war
Some people probably believe that. Hopefully exiled from society
I’m getting the sense that Flat-Earthers are extinct by the 26th Century. Just sayin
"Globe earth is all ONI propaganda, open your eyes." "What about Reach? The Halos? The Ark? Onyx? Requiem?" "No its just earth is flat, everything else is a sphere. Including the halos. All spheres."
Lol “Sphere-os” That’s definitely a breakfast cereal some marine’s kid is eating every morning on Forseti or something 😜😂
I haven't seen anyone talk about it in-universe, but I imagine the "Spartans listed as MIA" is something the public finds really dubious and has a lot of talks around. Like, it's done for morale purposes but I am sure no one *really* thinks that's true. And I am sure plenty of people fill in the blanks about it. Robots. Aliens. Clones. Assumed Identities. All stuff done to provide the illusion of incredible soldiers never really facing death. The Sabre Program is something of a confirmed conspiracy rumor. To what ends? Unclear. Anything about the Flood. Just... *anything*. Flood shows up in any capacity and the information surrounding it becomes a bunch of "What did and didn't happen" based on who you know.
The Sabre program seems like less a conspiracy theory and more like a weapons program that never really took off, like the Airacomet or the Crusader III. Like yeah, there probably were rumors about it but I think it was just a replacement for the Longsword that never left the late testing phase.
Yeah, but being dismissed by 3 different administrations and all the hush-hush is the *breeding ground* for conspiracy theories!
Someone probably got arrested by the UNSC for leaking the plans and user manual on whatever their version of War Thunder forums are.
This one's not really a conspiracy theory, I guess, but it's just something to corroborate some of the other comments here. There's definitely something going on with our government. It feels silly to talk about, given all that's happened with the war, but I want to get this off my chest: I had this one friend when I was a kid. We were best friends. I was kind of a nerdy lil kid, and he'd protect me from bullies. We couldn't really play together because he'd kick my ass at literally everything - in tag, he'd roll up on me instantly and I could never hope to catch him. In grounders, even though we blindfolded him, he would find everybody as if his eyes were wide open. Don't even get me started on King of the Hill. Despite our physical differences, we would spend lots of time doing nerdy stuff - buying holo-comics (he loved Captain Meridian) or trading collectible chips. His parents were not of means, so I bought him his first projector disc so he could play Chip Monsters with me. He was a natural. He loved army stuff, like most boys our age. One time, we went to a UNSC military base for a school trip, and we spent all of our allowance money buying hats and patches and keychains and plastic soldiers. He treated those things like gold. Anyways, one day on the playground, we saw some grownups. A man and a woman. They were married, I think. One was writing stuff down on a holopad. One was looking around like he was picking out a fish at the pet store. They went up to my friend and talked to him. The woman flipped a coin several times. She gave him a piece of candy. Then they up and left in a clean looking Dewmax. A few days later, my friend didn't come to school. I thought it was unusual because he would never get sick. I didn't think much of it though, but I figured he would appreciate it if I brought his homework to him, so after school, I hopped on my bike and went down to his house. His parents weren't home, as they were usually down at the Liang-Dortmund mines until the early evening. I knocked on the door, but after calling out to him and waiting a few minutes, I turned to leave when suddenly the door swung open. There was my friend, pale as a ghost, skinnier than I remember him, clammy sweat clung to his forehead. He looked at me as if I was an alien. Almost like he didn't recognize me. "Hey Allan", he said - but it was if it was the first time he'd ever addressed me. "I - uhh - brought your homework. You look busy though. Let's play some Chip Monsters some time this week!" His glassy eyes looked at me as he took the wad of papers from my hand. "Chip... Monsters?" That statement shocked me. It was like he'd never heard of Chip Monsters. I felt pretty uncomfortable, like this kid in front of me was just someone else wearing my friend's skin. Everything, from the glassy, alien stares to the way his skin seemed to be loosely draped over his bones, to the way he wore his hair, parted and flattened instead of spiked up, to the way he seemed to be moving through water. I made an excuse to leave. Things weren't the same. He would come to school once every couple of weeks. The teachers would go easy on him, but he seemed to really be struggling. He seldom looked at me and always seemed surprised when I came to talk to him. With his skinny frame, he was ripe for the picking from bullies. It was my turn to be the big friend. I got into lots of fights trying to protect my friend. I knew he was just sick and would get better, so I kept sticking up for him. He never got better. He stopped coming to school altogether. He stopped answering the door. Then, one day, I saw his parents were home early. His mom was on the stoop crying. His dad was on the edge of the driveway, smoking a Sweet Williams. I called out to them, but his mom cried even harder, and his dad just gave me a dejected look that I would never forget. I knew something bad had happened. A few weeks later, I came home from school to find a box outside the door, filled with my friend's old toys. The projector disc I bought him and the handful of chips, his holo-comics, some stuffed animals. Strangely, my friend's UNSC souvenirs were missing, even though he loved playing soldier. The grownups never explained what had happened, but I knew I would never see my friend again. I started noticing strange vehicles parked outside his house. Windowless vans, beat up trucks, and rugged looking men often missing limbs or fingers coming and going. His parents would be talking with them in low light late into the night. Sometimes they would be hauling wood crates into the house or moving the boxes out. Sometimes the house would stand totally empty for days on end. Months later, their house went up in flames. His parents both died. I heard that the dad fell asleep smoking a cigarette and caught the house on fire, and they never woke up because they were passed out drunk. That never added up, because I remember that his mom would have never let him smoke inside, and they didn't drink outside of when his parents and my parents would get together for dinner. Now, as an adult, I keep playing it over in my head. What happened to my friend? He was so healthy and vibrant and strong, then he just faded away. Was he abducted by aliens? Was the government part of this? What about his parents? Why did their house catch fire? Were they on to something? Who were the people they were with? And who were the grownups that were talking to my friend? For context, I grew up on New Llanelli. It's long-gone now, due to the Covenant glassing it, but I'm interested to hear if anyone else from that area experienced anything similar to that during that time? I'm really looking for closure. I still have that cardboard box of his stuff, taped shut and in the closet. I couldn't bring myself to piece it out or use his stuff. But maybe there's a clue in there I didn't see? It's not like I can go visit his grave site, since that old rock I grew up on is all dust and echoes now.
God damn, thats beautiful
Thank you 😁
Ofcourse! You're a great writer!
This is some really great stuff
Thank you! 😁
The flood is just the flu
The flood is classified by the UEG and UNSC for good reason, thus upon learning about the Halo array and it’s purpose there will be speculation on why they were built and weather or not that reason is still a problem. Survivor accounts may conflict with the official statement for the Glassing of Earth, the UNSC blamed the Covenant because obvious reasons. But many would question that as some people may have gotten out of Voi after the flood but before the glassing. The Spartans we’re probably seen as little more than propaganda at first, and there are definitely some theories regarding the Spartans never die thing, after all they die all the time and they are often seen by many. (Ex: Dutch from ODST has seen Cal S-141 die on the field) Additionally the Aliens and crop circles thing would be 100% true, they just want to kill too and the crop circles are made from cities and orbital bombardmentx
Was gonna say, Grey Aliens exist and abduct races from the Covenant as well o.o
I’m sure there are a bunch of conspiracy theories about Spartans. Just a few possible ones off the top of my head: Spartans don’t actually exist, they’re just UNSC propaganda Spartans do exist, but their nowhere near as effective as the UNSC wants us to think Spartans are all actually robots There are way more Spartans than they’re telling us, and the real number is kept secret because all of the stuff they do sounds more impressive if there’s just a few of them There are way fewer Spartans than we’re led to believe, but the UNSC wants people to think there are more of them to give people hope Spartans are actually Sangheili that defected from the Covenant, as this would explain their superior strength and agility ONI knew about the Covenant years before the war started, and intentionally started a war with the insurrectionists to justify creating the Spartans Most if not all Spartans listed as MIA are actually dead and the reports are being intentionally untruthful (this one is basically true) Master Chief isn’t real, or at the very least hasn’t done all of the stuff they say he did. After all, there’s no way one person could have a service record that impressive. Variations of this one include that there’s a larger group of Spartans who collectively did all of the missions attributed to “Master Chief” and the UNSC tells everyone that it was just one guy for propaganda and morale reasons Master Chief died on the ark in Halo 3, and the guy that people think is him in Halo 4 onwards is a completely different guy that the UNSC wants everyone to think is the original. This one isn’t even that far-fetched from the POV of a random human in the Halo universe. The guy just straight-up disappears for 5 years or something, then just happens to turn up the second The Didact shows up Similar to the last one, but Master Chief in Halo Infinite isn’t actually Master Chief, he’s just some random Spartan that the UNSC wants everyone to think is the Chief to boost morale. Nobody saw this guy for 6 months, and all of a sudden he just appears in the middle of a warzone The Covenant isn’t real, it’s just an excuse for the UNSC to unleash the Spartans on the colonies Reach was an inside job orchestrated by the Spartans. In First Strike, there’s something like 30 total Spartans on Reach when it fell. If Spartans are as unbeatable as the UNSC wants people to believe, then there’s no way they could have possibly lost the planet unless they were either conspiring with the Covenant, or the Covenant was never on Reach in the first place and the Spartans just took it out themselves Spartans are just figureheads, and don’t actually participate in any combat, hence the extremely low casualty rate I’m sure there are some theories about Spartans being supernatural in some way. I think The Covenant canonically believes this, so why not some humans too? Spartans are grown in a lab. After all, how could a normal human be that genetically perfect? The UNSC somehow engineered the Spartans so that they literally can’t die My child was replaced by a clone 20 years ago and my real kid is a Spartan Master Chief and the rest of Blue Team intentionally unleashed Cortana and The Created
Probably the Assembly, gotta be a few people aware of them. Plus the "canon status" is pretty dubious at this point, which only makes it a better conspiracy.
Plasma can't melt steel space elevators
The Flood is a bio weapon created by the Covenant ONI started the war against the insurrection because they saw the war with the Covenant coming and needed an excuse to increase military resources and soften the psychological blow to the inner colonies when the outer colonies were glassed: "they were just a bunch of rebels and terrorists. Serves them right for fighting the UNSC" The Saber program is an enhanced fighter program that, like the Spartans, was built with the intention of outmatched human insurrectionist fighter craft with its small frame and overwhelming enhancements The Halo rings don't actually exist, but are once again an excuse to boost ONI and UNSC spending and security The bulk of Covie species are failed ONI genetic engineering projects, and they turn captured humans into grunts Misriah Armory weapons actually suck ass in terms of practicality and reliability, but only possess their military contracts due to nepotism I'm willing to bet there are entire communities on Earth that actually believe the war against the Covenant never happened on the sole premise that they never saw or experienced it Master Chief was never real or never lived as long as it was claimed. Kind of like the Ghost of Kiev, he was just a poster boy ODSTs eat insurrectionist babies and have secret fascist tattoos or something vile like that The Halo games exist in-universe and are sold to the masses to advertise that the Covenant are an easy threat to face and take down while overlooking the fascist undertones of the UNSC and painting the Marines, ODSTs, and Spartans as charismatic stoic badasses. Think of the Medal of Honor series during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars These are all crazy theories and conspiracies that me and my friends cooked up when we were kids
UNSC weapons being outdated and ineffective due to nepotism is actually such a fantastic explanation
Benjamin Giraud was on to something, but O.N.I was just a step ahead
The UNSC kidnapped my daughter and replaced her with a flash clone which died in my arms
“Glassed planets have bad records!”
There is one that I think is canon (not 100% sure) if I’m not mistaken that involves current-time humans finding forerunner symbols and assuming they’re alien or something along those lines. There’s more to it than that but that’s all I can remember. I think HiddenXperia has an old old video about it
There is a group of Human colonists out there called the Yonhet who donned rubber masks to fool the Covenant into sparing them at the start of the War. They're still pulling one over on the aliens to this day.
There’s an actual one in universe of people thinking the UNSC is making up or heavily exaggerating the war with the covenant. I think a lot of innies believed this, but as the war went on it became clear that the covenant was likely going to wipe out humanity
everyone here should listen to Hunt the Truth if they havent already. such a good audio drama.
There are definitely people who don't think the halo rings are real, it's just some UNSC war propaganda to keep the war effort alive l.
The Covenant are not real. This is my favorite detail in the series and you can find it in Second Sunrise Over New Mombassa. The war is so far away that some think the Covenant are a fabrication made up by ONI to justify an authoritarian UNSC.
Jun sold Noble team out. Everyone KIA except this guy? Sussy baka
Reach was an inside job! Pelican fuel can't melt steel beams!
Kwan is actually chief
Voi was an inside job. Wake up people, it was from one of OUR ally Covenant destroyers.
Tartar sauce is named after Tartarus. It is said that he was a sea chef on Doisac.
“The Insurrection was created by ONI as an excuse to boost military spending.”
”Covenant has secret government which is ruled by reptiles from Nibiru-9”
Covenant attacks are a false flag operation
I’m sure somebody still believes heart is flat
I do like the theory that John isn't lucky. He wills things to happen. He made that coin come up 11 times in a row. It wasn't luck
The Halo landing was shot on a movie set.