Halo: The Story (Extention #1: Characters)

[S1DC]

<embed src="http://www.bungie.net/images/site/halo/gallery/loc/a10_english.mov"> </a>

 

As people emerge into the story, i will add thier info into this area for curious people to look at.

 

I have incorperated the spoiler tags in this as well: Some info may give away the story. so only read what you want to.

 

3 main characters begin the story, 2 races.

 

Humans

 

 

At the time of Halo, humans have founded a modest interstellar empire. There are at least a few dozen, but more likely one or two hundred, colony worlds within human-explored space. Some of them, if not most, are relatively heavily populated, suggesting that these colonies have been around for quite some time.

 

Human technology is not that far advanced from what we have today; the basic technologies are mostly the same, just on a much larger scale, with the exception of the FTL drives of human starships. Weaponry is still projectile-based, and explosives still seem to involve chemical reactions rather than a release of contained plasma, as the Covenant explosives use. While humans seem to possess artificial gravity (as demonstrated by the gravity on the Pillar of Autumn), they do not use it on smaller planet-bound vehicles; the Warthog, for example, still uses wheels and does not hover.

 

The bulk of humanity still does not know about the events which transpired after the Pillar of Autumn jumped away from the Reach system; the Master Chief is the only remaining witness of our race to the Flood and the Forerunner machines left on Halo. All they know is that their last hope, Reach and her military forces, is either completely lost or severely impeded (depending on the number of surviving Spartans), and that the Covenant still loom over them. Earth cannot last long, especially after the fall of Reach.

 

 

 

 

The Covenant

 

 

Despite their position as the main enemy in Halo, we know very little about the Covenant. What we do know is that they are some sort of religious alliance between at least five, but probably six or more, species, and that they hate humans for some unknown religious reason. These races include, but may or may not be limited to, Grunts, Jackals, Elites, Hunters, the "engineers" seen by the Master Chief in The Fall of Reach, and the "priest caste" mentioned in the The Fall of Reach. It is unknown whether or not the Priests are an entirely separate species or just a higher level of another species.

 

The Covenant have a relatively high level of technology; most of their weapons are plasma-based, which means that whatever power sources the Covenant weapons have, they must be incredibly powerful. Their starships are much faster than human vessels, and are capable of pinpoint maneuvering while in FTL travel, as is made explicity clear several times in The Fall of Reach, when Covenant ships materialize right in the middle of a human battlegroup.

 

Halo, according to Capt. Keyes, holds some deep religious power over the Covenant. The ring is extremely important to them; so much so that they would abandon the trail of Earth to follow a single human starship headed in its general direction.

They believe it to be a weapon; why they believe this, and how they intended to use it as a weapon, is unknown.

 

After the destruction of Halo, the Covenant juggernaut still looms large over Earth, and the task is likely to fall upon the Master Chief, and any remaining Spartans, to fight them back while simultaneously discovering the secrets of the other Halos and keeping the Covenant from using them, however they might do so, against Earth.

 

 

The Master Chief (human)

 

 

The Master Chief is the sole Spartan to leave the Reach system aboard the Pillar of Autumn. For all he knows, he is the last Spartan alive. All of humanity depends on him, for the Covenant are still strong, and there are new enemies to contend with, that Earth does not know about-the Flood, and the Forerunner.

 

He has lived most of his life in military camps of some sort; stolen from his family at six, his name changed to just "John-117," his entire upbringing has been centered around making him a mechanism of killing. He displays an odd sort of attitude for a creation of the military: he does not glorify his actions, he merely does what he has to do. He does not hate his enemy; he kills them because he knows it is his duty to kill them. "It wasn't [the Chief's] job to make things suffer - he was just here to win battles. Whatever it took." (FoR, p.6)

 

 

 

 

Cortana (human, AI construct)

 

 

Cortana is one of thousands of AI which populate the computer networks of the human worlds. She is, however, somewhat unique; she is a direct copy of a human being, Dr. Halsey, and lacks behavioral inhibitors of any kind. She is free to do as she pleases, unlike most other military AIs, such as the ONI AI Beowulf, which is strict, sullen, and by-the-book. Cortana, on the other hand, is strong-headed, noisy, and somewhat off-the-wall.

 

She and the Master Chief had been paired together for numerous training excercises, so it was only natural that she be placed aboard the Pillar of Autumn for its covert mission (which was cut short by the invasion of Reach).

 

Cortana knows that most precious peice of information, the location of Earth. When the Pillar of Autumn went down on Halo, her safety was assured in only one place- the helmet of the Master Chief.

 

 

 

 

Captain Keyes (human)

 

 

Keyes has been a member of the UNSC Navy for much of his life, slowly working his way through the ranks until finally becoming a Captain in the Battle of Sigma Octanus and going on to command the Pillar of Autumn.

 

At some point early in his military career, when he was still an Ensign, Keyes was nearly killed when a captain of his decided to try out his new method of FTL transfer and the experiment went horribly awry. Keyes learned during the trial of the captain to keep his mouth shut - something that Dr. Halsey and the Spartan project valued greatly. As such, Keyes has been meeting up with the Spartans, and namely John-117, the Master Chief, often. It was no surprise he was chosen to lead the Pillar of Autumn on its Spartan insertion operation.

 

When the PoA reaches Halo, Keyes is in command of what is possibly the last group of human soldiers, approaching an artifact of great importance. If he fails, Reach will not be the last planet to fall, but rather Earth. In the end, however, Keyes nearly contributes to Earth's downfall. Even the Master Chief is barely able to stop Keyes' mistake.

[Redwing]

*bump*

 

This is actually quite interesting. Have you finished the game or are you still going through it?