A History Lesson

Alright Emo dawg, this is for you. Ted says to give a brief summery so here goes.

Ok so you have a the Covenant. They're a conglomeration of alien races with a strict hierarchical theocratic society, with each race holding some level of power over the others (or at least being roughly equal to them in some instances) and with (of the known races) the Prophets at the top and the Grunts at the bottom.

The Prophets evolved into sentience on a world which was a former outpost of the Forerunners and on which much of the Forerunners technology survived intact. They considered the Forerunners to be gods and their technology to be divine gifts by these gods and so developed a religion based on them. The first other species they ran into were the Sangheli (Elites) who evolved on another former outpost world but saw the Forerunner relics as sacred things left by the gods that should not be meddled with. This difference in ideology led to war between the two species and after almost being wiped out by the prophets with their advanced Forerunner technology, they finally submitted and thus was born the Covenant.

The Covenant then proceed for the next 3300 years to expand their borders, encountering new races, and in almost all cases, making them submit and join the Covenant on their Great Journey (the search for the Halo artifacts in the hopes of triggering them and wiping out all sentient life in the galaxy...again...because this would take them to heaven). And then they came upon us.

Humanity developed Slipspace technology late in the 23rd century and for the next 230 years rapidly spread out from Earth, establishing hundreds of colonies. But by the start of the Human-Covenant War many of Earths colonies were feeling a longing for a bit of self rule, giving way to a pretty sizable insurrectionist movement. And so were the various SPARTAN programs conceived. Designed to be special forces groups that could quickly quell rebellions by taking out their leaderships. First genetically modifying and augmenting adult special forces volunteers for the SPARTAN-I program. Then kidnapping children with excellent genetic profiles and rigorously training them from age 6 to 14 and then genetically and physically augmenting them. And finally, sometime after the start of the Human-Covenant war in 2525 (the same year the SPARTAN-II's graduated), probably a decade or two, the SPARTAN-III program was started, mostly using orphans from the various destroyed outer colonies.

Ok, so why exactly did the Human-Covenant War begin? Mainly because the High Prophet Truth (essentially the leader of the Covenant) thought that Humanity were in fact Forerunners, or at least the descendants of the Forerunners, and that if knowledge of this were to spread among the rest of the Covenant it would tear their ideology apart. After all, we would be like unto gods to them, and would seemingly have to have been given dominion over them, and the Prophets weren't all about that. So, instead of offering us a place in the Covenant as they did with all other species, they embarked on a course of genocide, in the hope of wiping out humanity and any evidence of a connection between us and the Forerunners.

How we really are related to the Forerunners is a matter of some debate. There is evidence scattered throughout the various media for and against us being directly related to them. At the very least though, they saw us as their inheritors as guardians of the galaxy, the role they had formerly occupied. This alone would really be enough to make us have a place of honor in the Covenant, above an beyond that of the Prophets, and so whether we were directly related to the Forerunners or not is a moot point, as we were still a danger to the leadership of the Covenant.

As to how and why the Covenant were able to make it to Reach, the UNSC's most important world besides Earth itself, they were able to attach a small tracking device to one of the ships which survived a previous large-scale battle with the Covenant (one of the few we ever won, since the beginning of the war Humanity was always at a severe disadvantage, tactically we were superior, but in every other way the Covenant had the edge, technology, weapons, numbers, etc..) which, despite the random slipspace jumps required by the Cole Protocol, allowed the Covenant to find Reach.

Audio Evolved

"HALO: REACH" Game Audio Profile from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

An in-depth look at the audio design in Reach? Yes please! In this video we get to see and hear some of the masterful Marty O'Donnell's compositions being recorded, as well as other more mundane but no less important aspects of Reach's overall sound design.

Even if you don't know his name, you know his work. He's the man who, for the last decade, has given Halo its iconic sound. Apparently this will be the last Halo game his music will be on and as far as I'm concerned, no matter who they get to replace him for the future games, no matter how closely they imitate his style, they will never stand up to what he laid down before the. Just one more reason why I consider this to be the last true Halo game that will ever be made. If you've got 8 minutes to spare check it out, its worth the watch, and the listen.

A New Day Dawns!

With seven days left until the launch of one of the most anticipated games of the year, if not decade, I've decided to star a new blog dedicated not only to Reach and Team Noble, but to all things Halo in general! And so I give you, Reach for Halo. I know I know, campy name, but its a blog so what do you expect?

I think it would only be fitting to kick things off by showcasing one of the amazing promotional videos that the Microsoft marketing division has popped out in preparation for the launch of this monumental game. "Deliver Hope".

















Call me a geek but that vid gives me chills. It's almost on par with that amazing ODST video they released during that campaign. It's odd, not to mention a shame, when a live action trailer for a game ends up being far better than the game itself. Thankfully that won't be the case with Reach. Bungie really seem to have outdone themselves this time. Not hard to understand as this will be the final Halo game that Bungie will be working on, if not the final Halo game that will ever be made. We all know Microsoft is gonna milk that cow as long as they possibly can...

Anyway, check out this vid if, by some miracle, you haven't already seen it. And for god sakes buy the game next week when it drops!

Edit: This is the extended version released sometime last night, even better than the original. Why is there not a movie yet?! More on that later...