Shadow-Hedgehog

Yeah, one more thing I have forgot to add about the Flood. I have never been convinced that the Flood was destroyed.<br /> The whole story about how it was destroyed,... Master Chief and Cortana were really really lucky. Cortana sent a message to Master Chief that the Ark can somehow destroy the Flood without firing all the HALO rings. Which was not true. The Ark destroys the Flood BY firing all the HALO rings. So in fact, Cortana did send this massage to Master Chief knowing, that Flood will pursue them to the Ark, because the Flood was listening. The problem is, that this plan always seemed so frail to me. So many things could have gone wrong. And nothing bad miraculously happened. The Flood was owning Installation 5. It conquered nearly whole Covenant Fleet. What I don't understand, why did it leave the Installation 5. The Gravemind was located there, surly it wanted to move with High Charity in pursuit of the Ark. But why did it no leave behind even a single flood spore? And how do they know that it really did not? A single Flood spore can destroy species. How hard would for the Flood be to leave few Carrier forms behind on HALO? Why did they not leave a single ship to infect some unsuspecting planet? Why would they have that ALL IN strategy, when the Flood certainly does not work like that. It would gain nothing by risking so much. It would lose nothing by sparing very few infection forms and send them somewhere, where is a lot of biomass and no defense. That's what I do not get. Installation 4 was destroyed, but still, very HUGE parts of the ring are floating in the space. Why do you think that the Flood is not there? Why would the Flood leave Installation 5? What happened with the Flood on the Gas mine? The Ark did not Fire. Only the new Installation 4 fired. But it did not fire the disassembling wave like it was supposed to. It only exploded. The explosion was what destroyed the Flood. Flood, which was ALL conveniently located in the Blast radius. But was it really all destroyed? If a single flood spore got with Chief on the ship, it would have survived. The blast was just a regular explosion. If it was the true power of the HALO ring, Master Chief would have died. If there was a small ship, or even a part of ship not caught in the Blast, the flood could have survived here. The way I see it that there is still PLENTY of flood creatures out there. The only thing that happened is that they are contained. They are trapped where they currently are and can't get anywhere to infect the rest of the galaxy. And even if you believe, that all Flood on the Installation 4 died, all Flood left the Installation 5 and the Gas mine and all this Flood conveniently flown into the big blast, there is still Flood on the other Rings. I think it would be very strange that only those two rings we had encountered contained the Flood and that one Foreruner facility. I don't think the Flood will appear in HALO 5. My guess is, that it will appear in HALO 6, probably to revealed as the weapon of the Precursors. It would make sense if it was fought in one or two levels and then we would fight the Precursors themselves, which would prove to be an even greater threat than the Flood. If the Flood was really made to test us, I think that the Precursors has in some way a complete control over it. It would be rather stupid if they were using this kind of weapon which is potentially dangerous even for them. Edit: I will have to reevaluate my previous statement about Precursors. I have recently discovered that they did not create the Flood per se... they are the Flood. Flood is, to my understanding, a devolved state of the Precursors. Given enough time, the Flood would probably eventually evolve to its Precursor state. They say that the reason why we never see any Precursor artifact and we only see Forerunners artifacts is because Precursors technology was biologic (wiki says something like "neural") and so it was wiped out along with all the sentient life when the Rings have fired. <p>Since I read this and the Precursors will probably be the bad guys, it is highly possible that Flood or them will appear in HALO 5. It was said to be darker, so what else would there appear? Forerunners decided to grant the mantle to humanity, Didact and his Prometheans were the only ones who were against that. Didact was already been defeated. Even if we do not know whether he is really dead, or if the second Didact is dead as well, I think that it'd be weird if Didact was the main villain again. How can you make a "darker" story about defeating somebody, you have already defeated. Especially since the Composer is already destroyed. That's why I also think it's unlikely that Elites will be the main villains now. My version of what might happen: Master Chief will be sent to kill Halsey. Arbiter will go to kill Jul'Mdama. They will meet somewhere along the way. Arbiter will somehow learn that ONI has been fueling the rebellion on Sangheilos the whole time. Master Chief will at one point decide if he really wants to listen to his orders to kill Halsy or do what he thinks is right. He may even turn against his superiors after learning that ONI has been behind the Elite civil war (if he didn't turn against them, he'd have to go against Arbiter and I somehow doubt it,... it'd make him somehow a dull character who always does what they tell him, that is hardly a "hero", that's a puppet). And when it will be in the middle of the most heated conflict, Mdama will somehow unleash a great power he was looking for. All the protagonists will barely save themselves and the hopeless situation will have to be solved in HALO 6.

I will say that much: I think it is logical for Arbiter to show again. And kind of logical for flood too, while not really in the HALO 5, but rather HALO 6. Some people even said, that Arbiter's story is done and whatnot. That's something you should never say in fiction stories, especially about major characters in sequels. If they really intended the good elites to never show up again, why would they write novels about them? Why would there be mentions about Arbiter and his homeworld at all? If all that mattered were the new Spartans and Forerunnes, why just let elites go to their homeworld and forget about them. Or do you think that their whole story will now be only in books? I highly doubt it. Also, from the point I see it, I say that there must be the GOOD elites. The HALO 4 set up a new theme that was not there before,... like never. It has shown some backstage immoral things that humans were doing, it has shown the humanity from the bad site. It has shown that it is not entirely black and white even from the human side of the conflict. Even the players who didn't read the books now know how questionable the Spartan project was and that Halsy was really creating Spartans only because she was curious, rather that she wanted to help humanity. She was creating them by kidnapping children from their parents, most of them were killed in the process of augmentation and the rest of them were sent to kill the separatists. Imagine if a thing such as this would come to light in our real world. Now, the leadership wants to get rid of Halsy, but they fail. At this moment, I have no idea what to think about her? Is it better to kill her? To let her live? Does she really work for the evil elites now? I think not, but she might really want revenge. And Master Chief, probably out of Stockholm syndrome, could still have some positive feelings for her. Especially now, since she is (at least I think) the only one from those he knew who is still alive. So, players were presented with the darker side of the humanity. And now, we discover that ONI is fueling the elite civil war. I kind of don't understand them at all. They want this war to continue. Wouldn't be better if they tried to negotiate with Arbiter, make alliance with him and his followers and crush his opposition? Why do they need another conflict? I think that some people at ONI are so full of hatred towards the elites that they are doing this just as the revenge for Reach and other human worlds which fell during the war. You know what is the problem with an eye for eye philosophy? That everyone ends up blind. I have also read that Arbiter is an ally of UNSC. Now that does not make so much sense to me. ONI is trying to make elites kill one another while UNSC is trying to help them? Are those two organizations completely separate entities? Do they know what the other one is doing? If if they do, are they trying to have some common strategy? Or is THIS their strategy? Pretending that they are helping the elites but in the end silently eliminating them? My theory is, that the UNSC is the "good guys" and the ONI is the "bad guys", since ONI was always kind of secretive organization, where almost all information is classified. The people who run ONI have a power to do pretty much anything they want. While the UNSC can have some spoiled people, but most of them probably have no idea what are their superiors doing. Also, if there are no good elites, it would in my humble opinion make NO sense at all. That would mean that we are supposed to kill all elites in sight since they are evil. The developers would make is believe that all creatures that look alien are indeed alien and we should treat them as such. At the same time, we are presented with information about questionable practices in the human military, but we as the players are going to still be listening to all orders in this military? Are we after this supposed to feel like a good guys? Are we supposed to feel that out of revenge, we have The Right to exterminate the whole Sangheili species no matter what cost? Do the means justify the ends? It just doesn't make sense to me. First, we are shown Master Chief disobey his orders, then we see Lasky disobeying his in Spartan ops. Both of them did that because they felt it was right thing to do. If the game developers keep this feel of "making a right thing even if working in a military organization with questionable morals" AND make us kill all the elites... it just feels wrong. It feels like the actions of Arbiter did not matter. It is like we used elites to crush the Covenant and Flood just to kill them all later and feel good for doing that. It feels like we are told that this was the right thing to do. We are presented with the dark side of human military leaders, but yet when it comes to elites, it should be fine to hate them? Are we really forced to think about the things humanity is doing only as long as it only are our inner problems - and when it touches the other races in the Universe, we should remain ignorant? Is this the way good guys are introduced? That would be just very, very... very bad. And because I believe, that HALO 5 is not that bad, Arbiter will return and will lead the elites to aid humanity once again. Should he fall in combat, there should be someone else to replace him. There were also other elite who supported the alliance with humanity - notably those two you could play in HALO 3 in coop if you got 4 players. It's not like the Arbiter is the only one and the rest of them are fanatics. Look at our own world. How different we humans are - all of us inhabit only one planet, yet we differer so drastically from one another. If the elites will be reduced in those games to the faction of religious fanatics like in HALO 4 campaign and spartan ops, it will be just sad. It is like that they tried to make the world richer and more complex by showing us the good side of elites, but in the end they said - nah, it's more fun to be a human and shoot aliens - it has that patriot feel to it. For me, all other sci-fi games with space marines do that. HALO was original in the sense that they made us understand the other side too.

Well, if they think it is illogical for the story to have elites playable even in Multi-player, how is it logical to use Covenant and Promethean weapons and vehicles? They say that in the multi player the story is that the Spartans are in some kind of training program. Well, if those who train Spartans go on missions to ambush covenant forces only to steal their weapons or vehicles for only that (resskilling, insta respawn) purpose, I think they have lost their minds! If you are supposed to be owned by some retarded jumpy guy in multi player for the sake of story - that means that developers have lost their minds. And because I believe that they have NOT lost their minds, I also believe that "the story" is not the reason for elites not being playable. There is no reason in that at all. It has to be some technical difficulties, like balancing game-play, designing armors and customizations, maybe recording voices, etc... And since those things were scrapped in the development process, it is very unlikely that they might make elites playable at all now, since there is not enough time to make all those changes possible, even if they changed their minds. Well, it is all about time and money. Will we lose many players by removing elites from multiplayer? - Not many... How much money and time will we spare? - Plenty! It will always work like that. It is natural reasoning of any company. It is not an evil reasoning, it is just practical reasoning.

I don't understand the reasoning that story-wise, there cannot be Elites in multi-player. I mean, what the heck? I have never heard before that multilayer has story. How can it? You run with bunch of people you have never met shooting at each other with instant respawn. How does that fit story at all? Not mentioning the stupid names players will have. I find it more reasonable to see Elite on the battlefield than some Spartan jerk named I110WNYOMAMA. And I am concerned for elites not being in the multi-player since there is even smaller chance for them to be in campaign (playable). If what you say is true and the elites and humans really hate each other despite everything I know, that I am just disappointed and really sad. I said it. I will not play this game unless I can play as an elite. That is my choice and I know, I am fully aware, that my reasoning is poor for you (whoever is this applying to). I can understand you. But you are not me so you cannot understand how I feel about it... I mean, why would you care, its not like I am hurting your feelings by it. And its not like you would achieve anything by changing my personality. There is just enough first person shooters or other games for that matter... why would I panic by not being able to play the way I was so looked forward to. I will just play some other game I still enjoy, not a big deal. Hey, do you know that one of my friends refused to play Halo with me because he didn't like the sound the guns make? He gave me quite a long explanation how those guns should sound like and how it is annoying that they do not. So I think that my reasons are quite sane. And for that guy who counterargued my thought that Spartan program is immoral by the fact how elite society works: I knew that and that why I like elites much, much better - mainly because of this. They at least have rules. Rules that are reasonable for them and they all accept them. Humans live in disinformation from propaganda and that is for ME much worse. If you watch the current situation in the World, you can say how are people disgusted by those practices. But I will rather not discuss that. I don't think that this belongs to this discussion. Yeah, and that doubting the humanity power... what power? Humans were merely lucky to survive. The reason they were not butchered the instant Covenant started war with them was because Covenant didn't know where their planets were (and also their main focus was not to kill all humans, they needed to lose some time finding artifacts). Am I wrong? Well, if I am then sorry, I haven't got my hand on any book but I have read anything I could find on the Internet... from Halo wiki mostly. More powerful allies somewhere else? Well, if humans want to find new allies to fight elites, than they can serve themselves. It will be not my problem anymore. Maybe it is too soon to tell whether are elites playable or not. But I believe that purpose of this forum is somehow influence that. It is a place where they can make further decisions depending on the feedback. Unless this forum is just for us to loose time and start flame, and I am not a big fan of that. Well, it sure is starting to look like that. PS... Maybe they want to make elites playable in the next two games in the trilogy. That might be interesting. That could make me watch Halo a bit longer.

So, when elites will not be playable, I will need to "accept and adapt to it"? Well, I will accept it, by not playing the game! Without them its just kind of regular game with space marines in it. They were the reason I ever became HALO fan. HALO CE did not have a value for me until the story became to be less about: exterminate all alien scum, since they are all evil life sucking freaky and ugly monsters. Elites prove to be something very interesting and story changing on so many levels. All alien life stopped being just one big evil cliché and humans stopped being one big good "we will show you what we are made of" cliché (well, if you note, that the whole Spartan program is kind of immoral, it is one big manipulation and few leaders attempt to control all human worlds with - kind of absolute - power). If they want to make humans on their own again, I can barely understand why would I personally be interested in the story. If they want to make elites enemies with humans again, I would feel like this is kind of worldofwarcraftish idea, where you try to explain the gameplay by poor reasoning and creating one needless everlasting conflict. Humans maybe hate elites, but they hate covenant as the whole. I don't see a reason, they would turn against only elites just like that because of vengeance. Well, since they lost almost everything in the past conflict and they just don't have so many resources. As for elites, they never really hated humans. At least the hatred for humanity did not come from their reasoning. They learned respect towards humans and they felt ashamed by letting the prophets lead the to slaughter the humans. If I recall correctly, I think that elites even tried to convince prophets to let humans join the covenant. So, the thing is (I think), they have keep no animosity towards humans at all. AND, if developers claim, that Master Chief will face a threat even worse than before (worse than the flood), I can hardly think of any way he could defeat it without Elites help. Neither humanity or the rest of the covenant have resources to stand against anything, which is more powerful than Flood. Not on their own. I personally would hate if humans and elites turned against each other again just because they are aliens to each other. Thats just kind of lame and it will not help anyone. It will help only the gameplay, since you will have more things to shoot at. But then again, HALO was never just about shooting things, I think that one of the developers said exactly something like that. So, to make some summary - I think that it is only reasonable and logical for elites to be in the game AND to be on the same side as humans. For that, I can hardly see any reason, why would no multi-player map had the option for players to play as an elite. In HALO Reach you had some maps, where you could only play as Spartans, some maps, where you could play on Spartans side or on Elites side. I think that in Slayer mode, you could choose if you wanted to be human or elite. So whats the catch about not permitting this choice as well? I understand that they want to make some story multi-player modes (even though I can hardly understand, how this will work, I have never heard of anything like that before). But what prevents anybody from making them viable in the stupid slayer mode for example? I think that bunch of people (including me) play their favorite games not for the gameplay, not for the mechanics, not for the special abilities, but for the overall feel from it, the atmosphere, the story. If they feel more for proud warriors then for genetically enhanced super-soldiers, it will kind of ruin that feel for them. So if I must play Spartan instead of elite, I will buy the game, I will complete the campaign, but thats it. I think that there will be nothing more in it for me. We will see if I am mistaken or not, but that is MY point of view. Thank you very much for your patience while reading all this.