medcsu

Simply stated, this is a mirror image of the Promethean Crawler.....there is nothing special or original about this.

Exactly. Their original (and thus far only intent) intent was purely to eradicate the Forerunners who were deemed unworthy by the Precursors of carrying the Mantle. Mankind, on the other hand will eventually be tested by the full fury of the Flood and that fury, in my opinion, will be ravenous in estimation to what we have previously seen by the parasite. All we have seen, thus far, is small pockets of the Flood. If we are to truly face them in totality (at this current stage in Humanity - H4) we would be crushed with utterly no issue. Halo - Silentium claims it will bridge the gap between what the Flood are truly created for, their inevitable plan, and how Humanity fits into that plan.

The next AI for MC will be the remnants of Guilty Spark as he speeds toward his destination of "finding the Librarian" (Halo - Primordium) which we now know will play a role in H5 from Spartan Ops. Merely opinion of course but there are several factors which point to this IF in fact MC gains a new AI. I, for one, still believe Cortana will be back eventually but for H5, I believe it will be the flash of Guilty Spark which would undoubtedly help the MC: 1) Find the Librarian 2) Enlighten him on a load of Ancient Humanity/Forerunner/Flood information/Sites 3) I believe it would be enjoyable to listen to that banter 4) At his core, Guilty Spark is, in fact, a human and contains the Lord of Admirals geas, the "greatest enemy ever to face the Didact". This is all, of course, debatable but this is just what I feel it will go toward.

This is exactly correct.

I respect your imagination and trying to throw something new out there, but as 117 said this is way too similar to the Promethean crawler and it doesn't really serve a purpose in the Cove military structure. For example, they would have a fast/elusive type unit if they brought back the fast moving jackals from Reach or the Drones. What the Covenant do need is a non mortar type seige vehicle capable of projecting plasma out in a line rather than a lob. As cool as the Wraith is, it is severely outgunned by the Scorpion in terms of pinpoint shots. You can easily move out of a Wraiths mortar range where as a Scorpion can bracket and decimate a target area in an instant. They could/should (Covenant) add some type of direct plasma Wraith to stand toe to toe with the Scorpion. Don't get me wrong, I hope they don't do that as I really enjoy the difference. However, speaking from a military mind, their mobile armor just doesn't match the Scorpion. Of course the Covenant are known for being imitative rather than innovative and with the Prophets all but gone they may enter into a dark age of military prowess advancement. One thing is for sure, after the Covenant war, Humanity should have reverse engineered many of the Covenant plasma weaponry and created their own line of destruction from it. Regardless (long story short), good thinking on your part but the unit you mention is rather redundant to the existing Crawler.

It is amazing how the plasma pistol has remained, to this day after a decade, one of the most devastating weapons to an enemy.

So wait, they plan on taking down the first 5 episodes until they "roll" around? That would be bad....

I have never been impressed by "speed runs" as all these players do is run past most enemies. Now if you were to do an entire Legendary run, with Mythic on, with no deaths I'd be impressed.

The only S2 in the game was Jorge.

On Legendary mode automatic weapons such as the supressor, machine gun, etc are practically worthless against them (especially battle wagons). You want to always take out the watchers first then just hammer away at them with the DMR, Lightrifle, etc. The best option is the scattershot but they aren't exactly easy to get close to.

Arbiter is back on his homeworld attempting to unify the Sanghelli. During this process the Storm Faction attempted to assassinate him and failed so he is more than likely still there. However, many elites still want to extinguish the humans so it wouldn't surprise me if we see the Arbiter in H5 trying to prevent such an uprising and then see the MC/Arbiter back together in H6 with MC taking care of the Didact and the Arbiter taking care of Jul'Mdama.

I just started my H2 campaign again because it has been too long for me to give an honest assessment. I also play my Legendary with Mythic so at the time I posted this, Reach was ghastly. I still think Reach trumps 2 because of the raw number of zealots you encounter over and over. All the games have hicup areas on Legendary but as a whole, I still think Reach is the roughest Legendary campaign.

Erde Tyrene is Earth.....You sure you are not thinking of Charum Hakkar? (originally the Ancient Human capital world) I agree with Flood in Firefight though, been wanting that since Reach. They could unleash some crazy flood forms in this mode that were cut from the games such as the Juggernaut, etc. Can you imagine 6 Juggernauts coming with 20 pure forms and a bunch of other crap?

Bad connection I assume by one of you guys. In War Games, one bad connected player can slow everyone else down so I'm sure this is the issue.

Exactly what I meant and I should have been more specific. Further, I think 117 could also potentially have the Didacts mutation, as well (as some of you have said). Several events point to this, as well. For example, the fact he "hears the thoughts" of the Didact and asked Cortana if she did too (she didn't). This may be a form of brevete mutation similar to Bornstellar but without the physical change. I'm sure we learn all we need to know about this in Silentium.

Reach was the hardest Legendary campaign in my opinion.

Exactly. The Promethean weapons boss any other faction weapon (of it's type) by far. If you want to get technical (OP), one could easily argue that balastic based weapons trump the plasma line anyhow due to the overheating issue that comes standard on the Covenant plasma based weapons. You can fire 32 shots your machine gun (Human) which is pretty accurate if you tap it or fire about 20 shots from the plasma rifle that simply sprays all over the place even if you tap it. In regards to vehicles, a Warthog Turret > Ghost and a Human Tank > Wraith. Wraiths are solid and I love using them but the tank fires a direct (very difficult to evade) round where as the lumping Wraith mortar can be evaded, advantage Tank. The Aerial vehicles follow a similar trend too. The only Covenant weapons that I believe are super powered over their human types would be the Needler and the Fuel Rod Cannon. Those two weapons can utterly wreck. The plasma gun is good for bringing down shields if charged but it is nowhere close to the power of the human handgun. Other than that, the human weapons trump most of the Covie weapons and the Forerunner weapons are a step up from even that.

I really like Spartan Op's save one thing. The goofiness. Miller and that other Spartan team are just not Spartans.....they are goofy to the point of sounding totally incompetant. The Irish sounding butch Spartan is just atrocious with her comments and just downplays the training of what Spartans really go through. They need to make them more serious, these are Spartans for christs sake.....

Its utterly simple to solo.....

She may not have personally known the S3s but she certainly had a hand in them becoming Spartans, of that there is little doubt. Cortana herself made the choice to be handed of to 6 based on his file and her observations. She simply felt he was the best choice of guardian until she could be passed to the Master Chief (which she had already decided as her carrier anyhow). I do agree though that the story from the book to the game is not consistent at points but, like you, I loved that game.

It has been thrown around for years that Dr. Halsey contains the geas for the Librarian. I found some interesting things in Spartan Op's & the campaign that may actually infer it as being accurate. I wanted to see your opinions: 1) Didact (and later the Librarian - I will explain) makes comment in one of the H4 missions that "the ancilla" (Cortana) was advanced. The fact that the Didact, a T2 military leader makes this statement about a T3 ancilla must be mentioned in this preface. 2) The Librarian states that she "planted the seeds" (geas) for Cortana. Considering that Halsey created Cortana from a flash brain we can now confirm that the Librarian did, in fact, plant a geas into her for said outcome. Now the Spartan Op's: 3) During the cutscene (Episode 5) if you freeze it right around 1:50 when the artifact opens the image is clearly the Librarian. This would mean nothing by itself but... 4) The Covenant leader (Jul 'Mdama) is actively communicating with Halsey. This would mean nothing but.... 5) Jul'Mdama made comment to Dr. Glassman that inside the device he was (Glassman) was working to repair was the Librarian. During cutscene 4 we did not know what the device was, but after viewing cutscene 5 it is clearly a portal as seen from Halo 4/Spartan Ops. Further, the Storm faction has used similar portals to transport. In other words, Glassman opened a portal while at the same time Jul'Mdama was communicating with Halsey about the Librarian. Now we get into some factors: 6) The Librarian states to the Master Chief that (her spirit he spoke with) is "all that remains of the Forerunner known as the Librarian". Thus by her own admission, she is dead. 7) In Halo Primordium, the remnants of Chakas/Spark make claim (at the end) that he knows the location of the Librarian, took over the ship to get to her, and was convinced she was alive. So what do we have? a) The Librarian herself claims she is dead. Jul'Mdama (Who works directly with the Didact) & Guilty Spark/Chakas (Who has before - end of H3 - stated that humans ARE Forerunners so he may be inferring that again) are convinced she is very much alive. c) Dr. Halsey is now confirmed to have a geas through Halo 4 and what the Librarian stated about Cortana. After all this (there is more I just feel I have typed enough) what do you guys think? I now think that Halsey is the living embodiment of the Librarian.

He is the "Didacts Hand" so it can be inferred they have.

According to the Primordium, the Flood will be back and eventually test Humanity of being worthy of the mantle. This is important because one of the main desires of the Didact/Forerunner society was to attempt to garner the information on how to combat the Flood through Ancient Humanities memories. They sought this because Ancient Humanity was able to fight back the Flood during their two front war against the Forerunners/Flood in sacrificing 1/3 their population to counter infect the already virulant Flood threat. In essence, Ancient Humanity used 1/3 of their population as sort of an anti-Flood to prevent the flow of it's spread. That being said, until the revelation from the Primordium that the flood "can choose who it infects" we (the reader/player) had no idea on the intent of the Flood and more over the Precursors. In fact, the Flood's only function (this will undoubtedly be explained in detail in Silentium) was to "extinguish" the Forerunners and carve a path for humanity to take over as caretakers of the galaxy and inevitably be tested by the Flood. That being said, there is zero doubt the Flood will return. Further, the Flood is unique in that one spore can house the genetic memories of the entire history of the Flood. In other words, one spore by itself can eventually become a Gravemind and Flood colony and that new Gravemind will not only house the memories of all the bio matter it consumed, but also the previous memories of the past Graveminds. For example, the Gravemind we encounter in H2/H3 explains issues that took place during the Forerunner/Flood conflict and its intimate knowledge of the Halo Array when it was in fact the Primordium that was the active Gravemind during that time. So, in essence, if what Primordium states that humanity will be tested eventually will be a fate already programmed into the Flood itself and thus it will eventually emerge and test them. That being said, Humanities path to the mantle has not been direct by any means. It was forced to fight a two front war against two super powers during Ancient Humanities struggles, it was devolved after being defeated, it then rose again to a T3 civilization only to encounter the Covenant and thus again fight a two front war against both the Cov/Flood. Now it is being attacked by the last remnants of the Forerunners. In other words, humanity has damn sure been tested pretty hard core but I'm sure the Flood still will remain dormant until a time it deems it should test humanity of being worthy of the mantle. Lastly, from the words of the Primordium, some Precursors did survive and "fled beyond the reach" of the Forerunners so I'm sure they pop up eventually too. This is crucial because they (Precursors) are the programmers of the Flood and may actually be the Flood's initial form. Both points are expected to be gone over in Silentium. A very long story short, the Flood will be back.

You are either a solo ninja or not a ninja at all....

Exactly.