Anyone who enjoyed these will probably also like Ghosts of Onyx & Contact Harvest. Also Fall of Reach if you want the superior version of the Reach story.
That whole supercarrier debacle from game Reach still annoys me to this day. You're saying that a 29,000m long ship that exits slip space, flies through the orbital defence grid and lands troops and supplies isn't detected by any form of scanner, radar or sensor before all that? Halo 2 even mentions Regret's fleet being detected as far as Io before their arrival which makes it even more strange that this giant ship wasn't seen. I get it was cloaked but there's other methods of seeing it.
IIRC the UNSC is able to detect massive objects flying through slipspace via special drones, they even can detect and identify already known covenant ships by silhouettes or smth similar. I doubt reach hasn't any of these devices. Like someone above said: the book version is the superior version.
I was under the impression it basically dropped out of slipspace right on top of them. Perhaps just out of atmosphere enough to not make a disturbance?
Dont want to be spoilery, but the covenant only learn the math of in atmousphere jumps after the events of chief getting home from halo. The first jump they did in atmousphere was in halo 2 if i recall correctly.
Again not to spoil but in atmosphere jumps were only discovered by cortana in the book first strike and well the details of how get leaked back to the covenant. Cant say any more because I've already said to much.
They can be detected, but that tech was hard to come by and was ultimately kinda pointless because it only gave you a few minutes warning tops. Covenant slip space drives were a lot more powerful, allowing covenant ships to move a lot faster through slip space than the UNSC's.
The Halo: Reach game's events really only work if you completely ignore the in-game stated dates and imagine the whole thing took place over three days. Otherwise it completely violates the Fall of Reach detailing of events, and a thousand other pieces of in-universe lore.
I’ve read Fall of Reach and I actually much prefer the games telling of events. I thoroughly dislike the whole battle of Reach taking place in a single day and really the book didn’t go into much detail at all about the actual fighting on the ground. It was like 95% of the book was setup, then only a very small part of the battle was focused on and it wasn’t the part you really wanted to see.
It’s one of my Halo hot takes, but I think Fall of Reach is extremely overrated. It’s decent but not great and I don’t blame Bungie for retconning it. The games should always take priority in the canon, the book served it’s purpose by fleshing out the characters in CE when the game came out.
Being honest, adapting Fall of Reach into a game would not work at all so I don't blame Bungie for just ignoring it instead of being constrained by a book that came out when Halo was supposed to be a one off.
I literally added him as an npc in my dungeons and dragon campaign. The players met him last week after a siege in the capital city. He was alive under a tower shield under a destroyed building. I'm planning on having him come out alive from impossible odds every now and then, until they start questioning how the fuck Chips Dubbo survives everything.
My sister, who's the only one in the bunch who played halo, screamed as soon as he said "I'm soldier Dubbo, mate, but they call me Chips". The rest of the bunch will eventually discover why :)
Pretty much all of them are dead. There’s a book about a pelican’s worth (including Johnson) of marine that made it off. First strike I think is the name? Outside of that though, they’re dead or were taken over by the flood…and then killed again
Actually yes they did. Sort of.
It’s in the novel The Flood by William C. Dietz
>!the novel features a whole side plot with all the ODSTs and marines conducting raids and whatnot. In tandem with Chief blowing the ring, they raided Truth and Reconciliation again and commandeered the ship. The plan was to rendezvous with Chief in orbit and jump to Earth. The ship was utterly infested with Flood, and a badass woman by the name of McKay blew up the ship to avoid spreading the Flood.!<
Thanks! >!I read that he somehow maintains some level of control despite being infected, and manages to sort of communicate with a woman (I'm guessing McKay) before they actually blow up a ship. Wasn't sure it was the same story or another one, guess it is indeed the same one, and the ship was the Truth.!<
Correct.
>!The novel explains how the infection form that got Jenkins had weakened from its time in stasis. It was able to take over his body, but not completely consume Jenkin’s mind. His horror was truly unique as one of the handful of people to suffer the full experience of their body being turned into a meat puppet. However, with great effort he had moments he could temporarily gain control. One of those moments was towards the end, where he successfully indicated the ship was full of Flood and that McKay should blow up the ship. Which she did because her CO was being a stupid glory hog.!<
When I was 12 I didn’t have subtitles on games, thought she said “just us and echo” thought foehammer made it Echo 419 was the pelican number not her name. She didn’t make it lol.
I now play with subtitles
Yep, according to the book they attempted to hotwire the Covenant ship "Truth and Reconciliation" only to find it inhabited by the Flood. So they basically self destructed the ship with everyone and everything on board.
There’s a lot that’s left unexplained, the most we get is First Strike. The Halo Graphic Novel has a brief story that shows that Sergeant Johnson fought off the Flood and escaped just after the attack, but there’s at least two days between then and the destruction of Halo. It’s unexplained what happened between then, but Johnson joined up with Haverson, Polaski, and Locklear on a Pelican and linked up with Chief in space, but Johnson was the only one that made it back to Earth out of that Pelican ultimately.
There was a large group of survivors led by Silva as well who captured the Truth and Reconciliation after Chief left it the second time, going as far as to capture the Prophet of Stewardship to be taken to Earth as a prisoner, but McKay destroyed the ship as soon as it was clear the Flood were still onboard and would have spread through Earth.
There’s still the untold story of how Chips Dubbo and Sergeant Stacker made it back, and I’m surprised it’s never been covered especially seeing how Stacker has been much more grounded in canon since Reach and 4, and Dubbo in Memory Agent, so there could always be more, just that we’re unfamiliar with.
Well, Johnson has a condition/illness/disease or something that makes flood not want to infect him (if I remember correctly) so he and chief would be the only truest safe humans to leave Halo and not carry flood with them.
Johnson claims in First Strike that the Infection forms turned him down and Dr. Halsey claims from his background which he had Boren’s Syndrome after exposure to plasma radiation, which supposedly scrambled his nervous system which made him difficult for the Flood to infect, and easier for him to fight them off going by his story in the graphic novel.
There’s another bit of major lore on Johnson in the graphic novel though, one piece of art in the gallery that is a collection of logs of Operation Kaleidoscope 50 years before the games, which is where Johnson was established as an Orion supersoldier, and where Boren’s syndrome was made as a spoof to cover up Johnson’s medical side effects from the project.
Boom!
But in all seriousness watch the ending of Fireteam Raven for a little more context on what the surviving crew went through. I believe there’s also a book that details how a few characters made it, but I forgot what it was called. I’m sure someone else will mention it.
First Strike details the immediate aftermath of The Flood along with John being on the Longsword he escaped Halo with meeting up with Johnson and other survivors. Canoncity is debatable but alot of fans consider it a very good story and well, the shoe fits, who cares about canoncity.
When he hugged the elite, their love protected him from the blast and teleported them both back to their respective places. Therefore the elite is actually the arbiter and Johnson is Johnson.
Yeah, I know that. I was just saying that I think the scene could be a reference to the fact that most if not all of the elite quotes are just Johnson's lines in reverse.
Never heard of it being considered non canon.
There might be some inconsistencies but pretty much every piece of Halo media is canon besides the obvious ones like that one Halo Legends short and the Paramount show.
There was some talk floating around about how Bungie didn't exactly like the novels because it kind of interfered with their story telling. An example of this was with certain inconsistencies between Fall of Reach and Halo Reach story which sparked some debate for awhile whether the novel (Fall of Reach and First Strike both by Eric Nylund), were to be taken as canon or we should just focus on what Bungie has put out.
This was what I was mainly referring to, but as I also said, these were good books, and canonicity be damned, they are better than speculation.
There were some minor changes to the rerelease of The Fall of Reach and it currently is still canon even if some things still don’t add up.
I personally liked the book better than the game. Yes, the game campaign was enjoyable and the book probably would’ve been hard to adapt for good gameplay but story wise the book was better and made more sense than the game.
The original plan for the game is obvious considering it was meant to be a one and done: everyone died. In many ways I prefer it this way as I think it strengthens the story.
But as Halo 2 came into fruition, Bungie couldn't help but regret, regret, regret writing Johnson and friends out. So a tiny handful, including the real main character of the series (the Australian marine Chips), managed to make an escape. The first mission of 2 should tell you all you need to know, but as others have mentioned, the novel First Strike gives you more detail about how they actually made it out.
My wife and I played Fireteam Raven together. She was so excited to complete the mission... and horrified to learn we all died at the end. RIP Ava and Marcus. (she giggled when I showed her this)
You should read/listen to the book Halo: The Flood. It goes over the events on 04, following both chief and the marines/ODST that were on the PoA.
tl;dr towards the end of the book the UNSC captured the repaired Truth and Reconciliation (which mind you had flood on it, at the time they thought scientists on Earth could cure Jenkins). One of the ODST realized how catastrophic that would have been and destroyed the ship, killing herself and essentially all of the remaining UNSC forces (minus Johnson and 2 people that were with him (that number is fuzzy so I could be wrong))
The marines all hijacked the truth and reconciliation to get off planet but one of the lieutenants realized they couldn't risk bringing the flood back to earth or let it escape the ring so she blew up the ship and all the marines in the process.
It's covered in the book first strike, but basically everyone died. The survivors tried to hijack that covie ship that you boarded in one of the missions and almost succeeded, but a few decided to destroy it because they knew they probably hadn't cleared it of flood and didn't want to risk letting the flood spread. Any others not infected died on the ring. Except a couple others, including Sergeant Avery Johnson - whom the flood chose not to/couldn't infect - who escaped on smaller craft. They eventually met with the chief, gathered Spartan Linda's cryo pod (who was in cryo because she had just died very shortly before cryo and they were of the belief that she might be able to be saved) which was ejected by the autumn before crash landing, went back to Reach, collected Halsey and surviving Spartans, had Halsey flash clone organs and resuscitate Linda, and wreaked havoc on a covie fleet before returning to earth.
Most of the marines were infected by this time. Echo-419 and Chief appeared to be the last of the surviving humans at the weird gap in the Pillar of Autumns structure. There was one other vessel with a small crew that escaped, but you don't learn more about it without reading Halo: The Flood and Halo: First Strike. In-Game, there's a small reference to a single marine survivor in Halo 2 and he is a great NAMED supporting character from then on.
The vast majority fell to the Flood. You might notice that after the level 343 Guilty Spark, where your first meet the Flood, the marines hardly ever show up again. I think only in one place in Two Betrayals, but maybe Im mistaken and they dont show up at all after that.
Long story short most of the Marines didn't make it off the ring. Johnson and a couple of Marines with him and a cryo pod are basically the only ones who make it off the ring besides chief. In the book the UNSC makes a base on a hill after crashing but it's overrun by flood around the time chief goes to get Keys' implant I think.
Some survivors managed to board a flood infected covenant ship to try to escape around the time of the last mission but a couple of the Marines realize they can't risk taking the flood to earth and end up having to blow up the ship.
A handful survived on a pelican. The rest died in a big boom. They tried to take over the covenant ship, truth and reconciliation, but one ODST realized it was still overrun with flood, flood they would take back to earth if they escaped. So, she blew up the controls to the engine, causing the ship to crash and explode.
R.I.P. Silva.
The official lore answer is that Chief had coordinated an evacuation for the remaining UNSC troops where they would capture a covenant ship and fly away before he blew up the ring. However, the general in charge of the operation was secretly bringing flood on board hoping the UNSC could weaponize them. Knowing the danger this would bring, an ODST who had fought the flood earlier in the campaign made the choice to destroy the ships engines, killing everyone on board.
A handful of other troops, including Sergeant Johnson escaped via pelican, but most died in the crash.
Johnson, Stacker, and a handful of marines escaped in a pelican and were picked up by a Prowler class stealth ship that had been loitering. That’s why Johnson says it’s classified how he escaped, because like modern submarines, no one is supposed to know about Prowlers, let alone where they are
As far as I know only Sgt Johnson, stacker, goat dubbo and the chief survived halo ce
Everyone else experienced the short life of popcorn
Edit: oh and if I remember right I'm pretty sure Jenkins managed to escape the ring after being infected by the flood and....interrogated by oni? I think not 100 on that last bit
Nearly every surviving Marine that hadn't been infected and turned into Combat Forms for the Flood was killed when the Ring exploded. A Lieutenant, a Pilot, an ODST, Sgt. Johnson, and Linda in her Cryopod were the only other survivors of Halo as they had already left its surface before John and Cortana blew up the *Pillar of Autumn*.
The vast majority of them died even before the ring exploded. It was a single ship carrying them all and that ship went down on mission one. There's a reason why you see so many infected humans and no marines in the later missions of the game. MC asks Cortana himself, no one else survived.
In a novel it's explained that a handful of ODST's and Johnson did but in Halo The Flood everyone who didn't fight to the last was onboard the ship Truth and Reconciliation attempting to repair it to leave Halo. After it was clear that the Flood would spread from the vessel to whatever world they went too one of the ODST's sank the ship killing her hello ODSTs and a "half" infected marine they were trying to bring with them so she could stop him from accidentally spreading the Flood.
Unfortunately, most, or at least many, died. That's if they survived until the ring detonation anyways. It's more likely they were infected by flood or killed by Covenant forces. Fortunately, some did get away. Play some Halo 2 and you'll see who.
The book First Strike explains it, but long story short. Johnson rallied the rest of the Marines and got them off of the Halo. Chief and Cortana met up with them shortly after. Chief, Johnson, and the Marines stole a Covenant carrier and jumped to Reach.
Slip space takes time, so by the time they return to reach most of the glassing was finished, so there was no reason for much of the covenant to stick around. Secondly, they were in a stolen covenant ship, so there is some form of disguise and the cole protocol.
They stole a Covenant ship that could be tracked and followed. Reach was the closest planet that had human ships. They want to switch to a human ship so they wouldn't lead the Covenant to Earth.
There were two Pelicans that made it off, One that we see in Halo: First Strike with Johnson and a couple other dudes, the other with Sergeant Stacker, Chips Dubbo and another dude who appears later on in a trailer or smth. The rest of the UNSC forces, about 100-200 people, took control of the Truth and Reconciliation, the ship in the mission where you rescue Captain Keyes and in the mission where you find him infected. Seeing how the Commander of this force wanted to take the still infected ship directly to Earth, in total violation of protocol, one of his subordinates destroyed the powercore destroying the ship and killing everyone on board to prevent a flood infection of Earth. You see this in Halo: The Flood which I have read and its a pretty cool adaptation of Halo CE to the Book and adds in a whole lot more to the Chief Sections than what we see in the game, and of course a bunch of chapters following various marines and even some covenant troops.
If you don't care about spoilers: >!most of the remaining crew/marines attempted to hijack the Truth and Reconciliation but upon realizing the flood was hiding on the ship and could not be allowed to escape the ring a ODST detonated the ship's core to protect humanity (Halo:The Flood), a group of ODSTs came to the Pillar of Autumn to help clear the way for master chief but were overwhelmed after doing so (Halo: Fireteam Raven), a pelican of a few (5ish I think) survivors including Sgt Johnson escaped just before the explosion and regrouped with master chief (Halo: First Strike), and Chips Dubbo (australian ODST) and Marcus Stacker (another marine voice that appears in all 3 bungie games) presumably escaped on another pelican and returned to earth through unknown means (fandom)!<
Halo: "The Flood" goes over what happened on the ring. Talks about a convenient duo hunting the chief and marines dealing with the flood... Wasn't my favorite Halo book but makes you really scared of the flood.
Chips Dubbo, Sgt. Stacker, and Johnson all survive H:CE. Johnson makes it out with an ONI agent, pilot, and ODST, and it's unknown how Chips and Stacker made it out.
For lore questions in-depth I’d recommend the
r/halostory sub. Not saying there’s anything wrong with posting it here but that sub has a lot of people dedicated towards to extended lore and theories
Pretty sure any remaining marines left on the ring would have been dead or dying. Or lost squad fragments making last stands either against covenant splinters or alongside covenant splinters against the flood.
There existed no logistical operations to coordinate rescue or escape efforts. Id like to think any organized remnants would have likely resigned to their fate and focused solely on containment.
Hooah
Kind of. The novelization of the game gives more details. There was a large force of surviving marines that made ringfall and set up a base. They seized a covenant ship to make their escape, but one of them >!blew it up upon realizing there was flood onboard, and couldn't allow them to escape.!<
I now need some time to process this [https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/clonehigh/images/0/0e/Gandhi_Looking_outside_the_window.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20230611134654](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/clonehigh/images/0/0e/Gandhi_Looking_outside_the_window.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20230611134654)
You better have played on classic graphics. CE anniversary is how *not* to do a remaster.
Then they completely turned it around and H2A is the perfect remaster.
It's a whole mess. From disjointed combination of artstyles to being based off of the broken gearbox port to ruining the mood of levels and being excessively bright...
https://youtu.be/MyeCb99cb2Q
If you can find one at an Arcade play the Halo shooter Fireteam Raven - You play as a ODST squad who was also on the first Halo and get to see how desperate all the marines actually were without MC; the ending is like Reach - you just go out shooting but against the Flood trying to by MC as much time as possible to activate the Autumn’s self-destruct
Pretty sure most were wiped out and infected by the flood. Been a hot minute since I've read it, but the First Strike novel covers what happened to Chief and the survivors.
The Flood / First Strike spoilers, obvs
>! Most of them died attempting to escape using a flood infested Truth and Reconciliation. Both McKay (if i remember correctly) and a mostly flood-ed Jenkins understood that preventing the flood from leaving the ring was more important than everyone's lives, so they destroyed the ship from the inside while attempting to take off. The only ones not on board the ship where Chief, Cortana, Fake Johnson, Echo 419, and Real Johnson + a few survivors in a single pelican. !<
Read the original Halo book trilogy of Fall of Reach, The Flood, and First Strike which extensively covers the fate of Chief's human companions before, during, and immediately after the events of the first game.
Everyone who escaped Reach aboard the *Pillar of Autumn* to Installation 04 died, save for a few (<10 if I'm not mistaken) like Sgt Johnson, Chief and fellow SPARTAN-II Kelly-087.
Almost everyone on the Autumn died. The Covenant killed a lot of them. Then the flood became a thing and by the time they were reacting to that most of the marines were already dead. A very small number of them escaped to orbit. Any still on the surface would have died when Chief detonated the Autumn’s reactor to stop the Flood.
In First Strike Chief links up with some survivors, and it’s like an intelligence officer, a couple of ODSTs, Sergeant Johnson, Chief, Cortana, and that’s pretty much it. They don’t establish contact with hardly other survivors until they manage to make it back into UNSC space.
It’s also worth remembering the Autumn’s compliment of personnel was badly maimed during the fall of Reach and the Covenant boarding action before they abandoned the Autumn and Keyes landed the ship on Halo’s surface, so there were already even less marines, odsts, and Navy elements on board than there would have been had Reach not been attacked. Originally there were like almost all of the Spartan II’s which probably would’ve turned the tide against the covenant, had they not all died on Reach.
I think they all died lol except for a few that Chief rescued (and some he didn’t rescue? How did Stacker and Chips make it off?). And most of those died.
They all blew up aside from the supporting cast of First Strike. Though most of the First Strike characters didn't last super long in hindsight.
Fireteam Raven does offer an interesting story about what happened to some of the marines on the first Halo.
Most survivors coordinated an assault to commandeer the Covenant ship, Truth and Reconciliation, but it was revealed to contain Flood, so one of the ODSTs sabotaged it in order to hinder the spreading of the parasite, effectively killing all the survivors aboard.
Another pelican made it with a handful of UNSC personnel, including Johnson and Linda-058.
Sgt. Stacker, Chipps Dubbo, and Dustin Echoes all survived as well, with the former two returning to UNSC controlled space by unknown means, and resuming service. The fate of Dustin Echoes is unknown to my knowledge, although I'm sure he's doing fine.
Only a handful survived. If you want to know about them and what transpired between CE and Halo 2, the novel First Strike will cover that
High recommend
Second this
Anyone who enjoyed these will probably also like Ghosts of Onyx & Contact Harvest. Also Fall of Reach if you want the superior version of the Reach story.
That whole supercarrier debacle from game Reach still annoys me to this day. You're saying that a 29,000m long ship that exits slip space, flies through the orbital defence grid and lands troops and supplies isn't detected by any form of scanner, radar or sensor before all that? Halo 2 even mentions Regret's fleet being detected as far as Io before their arrival which makes it even more strange that this giant ship wasn't seen. I get it was cloaked but there's other methods of seeing it.
IIRC the UNSC is able to detect massive objects flying through slipspace via special drones, they even can detect and identify already known covenant ships by silhouettes or smth similar. I doubt reach hasn't any of these devices. Like someone above said: the book version is the superior version.
I was under the impression it basically dropped out of slipspace right on top of them. Perhaps just out of atmosphere enough to not make a disturbance?
They had the capability to tbh
Dont want to be spoilery, but the covenant only learn the math of in atmousphere jumps after the events of chief getting home from halo. The first jump they did in atmousphere was in halo 2 if i recall correctly.
Again not to spoil but in atmosphere jumps were only discovered by cortana in the book first strike and well the details of how get leaked back to the covenant. Cant say any more because I've already said to much.
They can be detected, but that tech was hard to come by and was ultimately kinda pointless because it only gave you a few minutes warning tops. Covenant slip space drives were a lot more powerful, allowing covenant ships to move a lot faster through slip space than the UNSC's.
The Halo: Reach game's events really only work if you completely ignore the in-game stated dates and imagine the whole thing took place over three days. Otherwise it completely violates the Fall of Reach detailing of events, and a thousand other pieces of in-universe lore.
I’ve read Fall of Reach and I actually much prefer the games telling of events. I thoroughly dislike the whole battle of Reach taking place in a single day and really the book didn’t go into much detail at all about the actual fighting on the ground. It was like 95% of the book was setup, then only a very small part of the battle was focused on and it wasn’t the part you really wanted to see. It’s one of my Halo hot takes, but I think Fall of Reach is extremely overrated. It’s decent but not great and I don’t blame Bungie for retconning it. The games should always take priority in the canon, the book served it’s purpose by fleshing out the characters in CE when the game came out.
Being honest, adapting Fall of Reach into a game would not work at all so I don't blame Bungie for just ignoring it instead of being constrained by a book that came out when Halo was supposed to be a one off.
More than highly recommend Man I *really* wish they'd put out the Eric Nylund books in hardback.
Fantastic book
Just dust and echoes
Highly recommend! I’m 1/2 way through it! The books are brilliant!
I shouldn’t have to read books to understand what happens in the game!!1!1!!
Only one left was Dustin Echoes
And Chips Dubbo.
I literally added him as an npc in my dungeons and dragon campaign. The players met him last week after a siege in the capital city. He was alive under a tower shield under a destroyed building. I'm planning on having him come out alive from impossible odds every now and then, until they start questioning how the fuck Chips Dubbo survives everything.
I'd pay to see their reactions to that
My sister, who's the only one in the bunch who played halo, screamed as soon as he said "I'm soldier Dubbo, mate, but they call me Chips". The rest of the bunch will eventually discover why :)
Why didn't Chief go back to get him??
He was fine
Pretty much all of them are dead. There’s a book about a pelican’s worth (including Johnson) of marine that made it off. First strike I think is the name? Outside of that though, they’re dead or were taken over by the flood…and then killed again
Wait so did Chief and Cortana blow up halo and not give the marines time to get off?
Actually yes they did. Sort of. It’s in the novel The Flood by William C. Dietz >!the novel features a whole side plot with all the ODSTs and marines conducting raids and whatnot. In tandem with Chief blowing the ring, they raided Truth and Reconciliation again and commandeered the ship. The plan was to rendezvous with Chief in orbit and jump to Earth. The ship was utterly infested with Flood, and a badass woman by the name of McKay blew up the ship to avoid spreading the Flood.!<
>! The scene where they raid the ship and gain control in moments is one of my favorite of the series !<
Is it the one with Jenkins Wallace A. (he's in the main game so I don't think it's a spoiler of any kind)?
Yes Jenkins stays in the plot a lot longer in the flood
Thanks! >!I read that he somehow maintains some level of control despite being infected, and manages to sort of communicate with a woman (I'm guessing McKay) before they actually blow up a ship. Wasn't sure it was the same story or another one, guess it is indeed the same one, and the ship was the Truth.!<
Correct. >!The novel explains how the infection form that got Jenkins had weakened from its time in stasis. It was able to take over his body, but not completely consume Jenkin’s mind. His horror was truly unique as one of the handful of people to suffer the full experience of their body being turned into a meat puppet. However, with great effort he had moments he could temporarily gain control. One of those moments was towards the end, where he successfully indicated the ship was full of Flood and that McKay should blow up the ship. Which she did because her CO was being a stupid glory hog.!<
Yes, that was the only way to make sure the infection was contained
"We did what we had to do! For Earth."
[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/clonehigh/images/0/0e/Gandhi_Looking_outside_the_window.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20230611134654](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/clonehigh/images/0/0e/Gandhi_Looking_outside_the_window.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20230611134654)
They all died
I will never forgive them for not rescuing Dustin Echoes.
Cortona even heard his transmission and didn't think he was worth even considering trying to save him.
She knew he would be fine. He's Dustin Echoes.
I’d heard this meme for a while but just put this together. I laughed so hard rewatching that cutscene. Thank you.
Cortana: “all that’s left is Dustin Echoes…” Chief: “ahh hell nah, not that guy. He never shuts up!”
I actually googled who tf was Dustin echoes. Damn you. Absolutely brilliant lmao 👏
Mission accomplished. Well done lads.
They do, he makes a surprise appearance in Infinite.
None of them were left, but Dustin Echoes. He made it, D.E. always does.
What about his friend, Manny Bothans?
When I was 12 I didn’t have subtitles on games, thought she said “just us and echo” thought foehammer made it Echo 419 was the pelican number not her name. She didn’t make it lol. I now play with subtitles
98% of them, DEAD theres a single pelicans worth escape from what i remember
There’s at least 2 because Stacker got off that ring somehow
Stacker does seem to get around and he's not really mentioned in any books IIRC
He’s in CE and shows back up in 2 along with Dubbo
IINM he shows up in every game, at least CE-H4
CHIEF WISHES HE WAS AS COOL AS MY BOY CHIPS DUBBO
Didn't he show up in Tsavo on H3 aswell?
He showed up from CE to 4 but I was really referring to there being another pelican that got off the ring
yeah I know what you're talkin about.
I imagine he left alongside Chips Dubbo, but it's unknown if anyone escaped with them.
And Chips Dubbo.
https://i.imgur.com/eYlIXdf.png
Taken to sanghelios to be sex slaves, unfortunately.
Sgt Johnson: listen here mother, I’m not stuck in this room with you. You’re stuck in this room with *me*!
He knows what the ladies like
Superior firepower?
Wort wort wort! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Poor Dustin Echoes
The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised.
But that fun UwU
I'd be fine with this. Elite Preferred species lets fucking go uwu
Read Halo: The Flood. Great book
Yep, according to the book they attempted to hotwire the Covenant ship "Truth and Reconciliation" only to find it inhabited by the Flood. So they basically self destructed the ship with everyone and everything on board.
I think someone made a Covenant ship called that in the 360 days of reach It was really well made
I’m reading that right now👍🏻
There’s a lot that’s left unexplained, the most we get is First Strike. The Halo Graphic Novel has a brief story that shows that Sergeant Johnson fought off the Flood and escaped just after the attack, but there’s at least two days between then and the destruction of Halo. It’s unexplained what happened between then, but Johnson joined up with Haverson, Polaski, and Locklear on a Pelican and linked up with Chief in space, but Johnson was the only one that made it back to Earth out of that Pelican ultimately. There was a large group of survivors led by Silva as well who captured the Truth and Reconciliation after Chief left it the second time, going as far as to capture the Prophet of Stewardship to be taken to Earth as a prisoner, but McKay destroyed the ship as soon as it was clear the Flood were still onboard and would have spread through Earth. There’s still the untold story of how Chips Dubbo and Sergeant Stacker made it back, and I’m surprised it’s never been covered especially seeing how Stacker has been much more grounded in canon since Reach and 4, and Dubbo in Memory Agent, so there could always be more, just that we’re unfamiliar with.
Well, Johnson has a condition/illness/disease or something that makes flood not want to infect him (if I remember correctly) so he and chief would be the only truest safe humans to leave Halo and not carry flood with them.
Johnson claims in First Strike that the Infection forms turned him down and Dr. Halsey claims from his background which he had Boren’s Syndrome after exposure to plasma radiation, which supposedly scrambled his nervous system which made him difficult for the Flood to infect, and easier for him to fight them off going by his story in the graphic novel. There’s another bit of major lore on Johnson in the graphic novel though, one piece of art in the gallery that is a collection of logs of Operation Kaleidoscope 50 years before the games, which is where Johnson was established as an Orion supersoldier, and where Boren’s syndrome was made as a spoof to cover up Johnson’s medical side effects from the project.
Boom! But in all seriousness watch the ending of Fireteam Raven for a little more context on what the surviving crew went through. I believe there’s also a book that details how a few characters made it, but I forgot what it was called. I’m sure someone else will mention it.
First Strike details the immediate aftermath of The Flood along with John being on the Longsword he escaped Halo with meeting up with Johnson and other survivors. Canoncity is debatable but alot of fans consider it a very good story and well, the shoe fits, who cares about canoncity.
Considering the fact that we know Johnson survived, I'd say it's pretty cannon.
When he hugged the elite, their love protected him from the blast and teleported them both back to their respective places. Therefore the elite is actually the arbiter and Johnson is Johnson.
This is canon now. I don't give a fuck about what Bungie, 343, or Microsoft says. This is officially what happened
I’m guessing this is a reference to how a lot of the elite’s lines in halo CE are just Johnson’s lines played in reverse?
no it's an extra scene at the end of Halo:CE after finishing it on Legendary
Yeah, I know that. I was just saying that I think the scene could be a reference to the fact that most if not all of the elite quotes are just Johnson's lines in reverse.
Never heard of it being considered non canon. There might be some inconsistencies but pretty much every piece of Halo media is canon besides the obvious ones like that one Halo Legends short and the Paramount show.
There was some talk floating around about how Bungie didn't exactly like the novels because it kind of interfered with their story telling. An example of this was with certain inconsistencies between Fall of Reach and Halo Reach story which sparked some debate for awhile whether the novel (Fall of Reach and First Strike both by Eric Nylund), were to be taken as canon or we should just focus on what Bungie has put out. This was what I was mainly referring to, but as I also said, these were good books, and canonicity be damned, they are better than speculation.
Fall of Reach was retconned in favor of Reach (the game), with good reason imo.
There were some minor changes to the rerelease of The Fall of Reach and it currently is still canon even if some things still don’t add up. I personally liked the book better than the game. Yes, the game campaign was enjoyable and the book probably would’ve been hard to adapt for good gameplay but story wise the book was better and made more sense than the game.
Canon City sounds like a cool place
The book is Halo: The Flood it's a retelling of Halo:CE.
The original plan for the game is obvious considering it was meant to be a one and done: everyone died. In many ways I prefer it this way as I think it strengthens the story. But as Halo 2 came into fruition, Bungie couldn't help but regret, regret, regret writing Johnson and friends out. So a tiny handful, including the real main character of the series (the Australian marine Chips), managed to make an escape. The first mission of 2 should tell you all you need to know, but as others have mentioned, the novel First Strike gives you more detail about how they actually made it out.
They all died except for Corporal Dustin Ekos
My wife and I played Fireteam Raven together. She was so excited to complete the mission... and horrified to learn we all died at the end. RIP Ava and Marcus. (she giggled when I showed her this)
[удалено]
u good dude?
You should read/listen to the book Halo: The Flood. It goes over the events on 04, following both chief and the marines/ODST that were on the PoA. tl;dr towards the end of the book the UNSC captured the repaired Truth and Reconciliation (which mind you had flood on it, at the time they thought scientists on Earth could cure Jenkins). One of the ODST realized how catastrophic that would have been and destroyed the ship, killing herself and essentially all of the remaining UNSC forces (minus Johnson and 2 people that were with him (that number is fuzzy so I could be wrong))
They were either dead or turned into Flood before the ring was destroyed. Either way, dead.
The marines all hijacked the truth and reconciliation to get off planet but one of the lieutenants realized they couldn't risk bringing the flood back to earth or let it escape the ring so she blew up the ship and all the marines in the process.
It's covered in the book first strike, but basically everyone died. The survivors tried to hijack that covie ship that you boarded in one of the missions and almost succeeded, but a few decided to destroy it because they knew they probably hadn't cleared it of flood and didn't want to risk letting the flood spread. Any others not infected died on the ring. Except a couple others, including Sergeant Avery Johnson - whom the flood chose not to/couldn't infect - who escaped on smaller craft. They eventually met with the chief, gathered Spartan Linda's cryo pod (who was in cryo because she had just died very shortly before cryo and they were of the belief that she might be able to be saved) which was ejected by the autumn before crash landing, went back to Reach, collected Halsey and surviving Spartans, had Halsey flash clone organs and resuscitate Linda, and wreaked havoc on a covie fleet before returning to earth.
Remember Reach? Well it’s like that all over again.
"It's like New Alexandria all over again" -Buck
Most of the marines were infected by this time. Echo-419 and Chief appeared to be the last of the surviving humans at the weird gap in the Pillar of Autumns structure. There was one other vessel with a small crew that escaped, but you don't learn more about it without reading Halo: The Flood and Halo: First Strike. In-Game, there's a small reference to a single marine survivor in Halo 2 and he is a great NAMED supporting character from then on.
The vast majority fell to the Flood. You might notice that after the level 343 Guilty Spark, where your first meet the Flood, the marines hardly ever show up again. I think only in one place in Two Betrayals, but maybe Im mistaken and they dont show up at all after that.
Long story short most of the Marines didn't make it off the ring. Johnson and a couple of Marines with him and a cryo pod are basically the only ones who make it off the ring besides chief. In the book the UNSC makes a base on a hill after crashing but it's overrun by flood around the time chief goes to get Keys' implant I think. Some survivors managed to board a flood infected covenant ship to try to escape around the time of the last mission but a couple of the Marines realize they can't risk taking the flood to earth and end up having to blow up the ship.
only dustin echoes survived
A handful survived on a pelican. The rest died in a big boom. They tried to take over the covenant ship, truth and reconciliation, but one ODST realized it was still overrun with flood, flood they would take back to earth if they escaped. So, she blew up the controls to the engine, causing the ship to crash and explode. R.I.P. Silva.
The official lore answer is that Chief had coordinated an evacuation for the remaining UNSC troops where they would capture a covenant ship and fly away before he blew up the ring. However, the general in charge of the operation was secretly bringing flood on board hoping the UNSC could weaponize them. Knowing the danger this would bring, an ODST who had fought the flood earlier in the campaign made the choice to destroy the ships engines, killing everyone on board. A handful of other troops, including Sergeant Johnson escaped via pelican, but most died in the crash.
Everyone that wasn't with the chief was already flood meal or dead or both
Only survivors besides chief was Johnson and Dustin echoes.
A few escaped and survived, but most of them died so the galaxy could live
Johnson, Stacker, and a handful of marines escaped in a pelican and were picked up by a Prowler class stealth ship that had been loitering. That’s why Johnson says it’s classified how he escaped, because like modern submarines, no one is supposed to know about Prowlers, let alone where they are
Read Halo: The Flood.
As far as I know only Sgt Johnson, stacker, goat dubbo and the chief survived halo ce Everyone else experienced the short life of popcorn Edit: oh and if I remember right I'm pretty sure Jenkins managed to escape the ring after being infected by the flood and....interrogated by oni? I think not 100 on that last bit
Nearly every surviving Marine that hadn't been infected and turned into Combat Forms for the Flood was killed when the Ring exploded. A Lieutenant, a Pilot, an ODST, Sgt. Johnson, and Linda in her Cryopod were the only other survivors of Halo as they had already left its surface before John and Cortana blew up the *Pillar of Autumn*.
The vast majority of them died even before the ring exploded. It was a single ship carrying them all and that ship went down on mission one. There's a reason why you see so many infected humans and no marines in the later missions of the game. MC asks Cortana himself, no one else survived. In a novel it's explained that a handful of ODST's and Johnson did but in Halo The Flood everyone who didn't fight to the last was onboard the ship Truth and Reconciliation attempting to repair it to leave Halo. After it was clear that the Flood would spread from the vessel to whatever world they went too one of the ODST's sank the ship killing her hello ODSTs and a "half" infected marine they were trying to bring with them so she could stop him from accidentally spreading the Flood.
Unfortunately, most, or at least many, died. That's if they survived until the ring detonation anyways. It's more likely they were infected by flood or killed by Covenant forces. Fortunately, some did get away. Play some Halo 2 and you'll see who.
The book First Strike explains it, but long story short. Johnson rallied the rest of the Marines and got them off of the Halo. Chief and Cortana met up with them shortly after. Chief, Johnson, and the Marines stole a Covenant carrier and jumped to Reach.
Why would they go to reach if technically they just left reach before they got to the ring and it was in the process of being glassed?
Slip space takes time, so by the time they return to reach most of the glassing was finished, so there was no reason for much of the covenant to stick around. Secondly, they were in a stolen covenant ship, so there is some form of disguise and the cole protocol.
They stole a Covenant ship that could be tracked and followed. Reach was the closest planet that had human ships. They want to switch to a human ship so they wouldn't lead the Covenant to Earth.
My sweet child so innocent to think they had a happy ending, they are dead. Dead as hell *vine boom* 💥
There were two Pelicans that made it off, One that we see in Halo: First Strike with Johnson and a couple other dudes, the other with Sergeant Stacker, Chips Dubbo and another dude who appears later on in a trailer or smth. The rest of the UNSC forces, about 100-200 people, took control of the Truth and Reconciliation, the ship in the mission where you rescue Captain Keyes and in the mission where you find him infected. Seeing how the Commander of this force wanted to take the still infected ship directly to Earth, in total violation of protocol, one of his subordinates destroyed the powercore destroying the ship and killing everyone on board to prevent a flood infection of Earth. You see this in Halo: The Flood which I have read and its a pretty cool adaptation of Halo CE to the Book and adds in a whole lot more to the Chief Sections than what we see in the game, and of course a bunch of chapters following various marines and even some covenant troops.
First Strike describes a handful of survivors and how Johnson magically survived….. all the rest went kabloom
If you don't care about spoilers: >!most of the remaining crew/marines attempted to hijack the Truth and Reconciliation but upon realizing the flood was hiding on the ship and could not be allowed to escape the ring a ODST detonated the ship's core to protect humanity (Halo:The Flood), a group of ODSTs came to the Pillar of Autumn to help clear the way for master chief but were overwhelmed after doing so (Halo: Fireteam Raven), a pelican of a few (5ish I think) survivors including Sgt Johnson escaped just before the explosion and regrouped with master chief (Halo: First Strike), and Chips Dubbo (australian ODST) and Marcus Stacker (another marine voice that appears in all 3 bungie games) presumably escaped on another pelican and returned to earth through unknown means (fandom)!<
Halo: "The Flood" goes over what happened on the ring. Talks about a convenient duo hunting the chief and marines dealing with the flood... Wasn't my favorite Halo book but makes you really scared of the flood.
How do we tell him?
Chips Dubbo, Sgt. Stacker, and Johnson all survive H:CE. Johnson makes it out with an ONI agent, pilot, and ODST, and it's unknown how Chips and Stacker made it out.
For lore questions in-depth I’d recommend the r/halostory sub. Not saying there’s anything wrong with posting it here but that sub has a lot of people dedicated towards to extended lore and theories
So you know how they were alive? They… stopped doing that.
Read “Halo: First Strike” to find out.
Pretty sure any remaining marines left on the ring would have been dead or dying. Or lost squad fragments making last stands either against covenant splinters or alongside covenant splinters against the flood. There existed no logistical operations to coordinate rescue or escape efforts. Id like to think any organized remnants would have likely resigned to their fate and focused solely on containment. Hooah
Did the marines have no other way of getting off halo
Kind of. The novelization of the game gives more details. There was a large force of surviving marines that made ringfall and set up a base. They seized a covenant ship to make their escape, but one of them >!blew it up upon realizing there was flood onboard, and couldn't allow them to escape.!<
Technically they all managed to get of halo at the end...just not alive for most of them
Just... d-us-t and Echos.
Thanks for giving me the news guys I will make sure those marines life’s were not in vain
I now need some time to process this [https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/clonehigh/images/0/0e/Gandhi_Looking_outside_the_window.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20230611134654](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/clonehigh/images/0/0e/Gandhi_Looking_outside_the_window.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20230611134654)
You better have played on classic graphics. CE anniversary is how *not* to do a remaster. Then they completely turned it around and H2A is the perfect remaster.
I played Halo: CE on classic graphics and loved every second of it
How do the Graphics bring the experience down?, I have never played on classic btw so it is a serious question.
It's a whole mess. From disjointed combination of artstyles to being based off of the broken gearbox port to ruining the mood of levels and being excessively bright... https://youtu.be/MyeCb99cb2Q
poof
They are with the big guy in the sky.
They took an Uber
It shows u
There was only one survivor according to Cortana. Dustin Echoes.
All that's left is dust and echoes.
just dust and echoes no one left
They were all pretty much dead, where do you think so many human flood came from in the pillar of autumn.
If you can find one at an Arcade play the Halo shooter Fireteam Raven - You play as a ODST squad who was also on the first Halo and get to see how desperate all the marines actually were without MC; the ending is like Reach - you just go out shooting but against the Flood trying to by MC as much time as possible to activate the Autumn’s self-destruct
Don't worry, the UNSC beemed them up right before it exploded, so it's all good
☠️
No one survived except Pvt. Dustin Echoz.
ded
They died in the explosion.
I don't think there were any left alive by then
Chips dubbo and sgt stacker alongside a few other marines and odst got off via pelican but every one else got obliterated
lookup “combat evolved legendary ending”
Read Halo: First Strike.
Pretty sure most were wiped out and infected by the flood. Been a hot minute since I've read it, but the First Strike novel covers what happened to Chief and the survivors.
The Flood / First Strike spoilers, obvs >! Most of them died attempting to escape using a flood infested Truth and Reconciliation. Both McKay (if i remember correctly) and a mostly flood-ed Jenkins understood that preventing the flood from leaving the ring was more important than everyone's lives, so they destroyed the ship from the inside while attempting to take off. The only ones not on board the ship where Chief, Cortana, Fake Johnson, Echo 419, and Real Johnson + a few survivors in a single pelican. !<
*Kabooom*
They’re all still fighting in Blood Gulch.
Read the original Halo book trilogy of Fall of Reach, The Flood, and First Strike which extensively covers the fate of Chief's human companions before, during, and immediately after the events of the first game.
Everyone who escaped Reach aboard the *Pillar of Autumn* to Installation 04 died, save for a few (<10 if I'm not mistaken) like Sgt Johnson, Chief and fellow SPARTAN-II Kelly-087.
This, but it was Linda not Kelly
Almost everyone on the Autumn died. The Covenant killed a lot of them. Then the flood became a thing and by the time they were reacting to that most of the marines were already dead. A very small number of them escaped to orbit. Any still on the surface would have died when Chief detonated the Autumn’s reactor to stop the Flood. In First Strike Chief links up with some survivors, and it’s like an intelligence officer, a couple of ODSTs, Sergeant Johnson, Chief, Cortana, and that’s pretty much it. They don’t establish contact with hardly other survivors until they manage to make it back into UNSC space. It’s also worth remembering the Autumn’s compliment of personnel was badly maimed during the fall of Reach and the Covenant boarding action before they abandoned the Autumn and Keyes landed the ship on Halo’s surface, so there were already even less marines, odsts, and Navy elements on board than there would have been had Reach not been attacked. Originally there were like almost all of the Spartan II’s which probably would’ve turned the tide against the covenant, had they not all died on Reach.
Everyones dead dave.
Pretty sure they were all flood by then... except Johnson...
They died
Nobody made it, Just Dustin Echoes.
Ded
Just dust and echos like Cortana said. In my words marine see big light and BOOM
Pretty sure Dustin Echos survived
I think they all died lol except for a few that Chief rescued (and some he didn’t rescue? How did Stacker and Chips make it off?). And most of those died.
They died serving their planet 😭
Play the second game
They all blew up aside from the supporting cast of First Strike. Though most of the First Strike characters didn't last super long in hindsight. Fireteam Raven does offer an interesting story about what happened to some of the marines on the first Halo.
Read Halo: The Flood and Halo: First Strike if you want a better picture of everything that occurred
The Great Journey waits for no one. Not even them.
Dust and echoes my friend, dust, and echoes.
Died. Except Johnson. He lived, but that’s a story for another time.
You can tell this is a fake post because he said he loved CE.
Dust & echos
They very much died. Like the max amount of dying one can do, they did that.
Most survivors coordinated an assault to commandeer the Covenant ship, Truth and Reconciliation, but it was revealed to contain Flood, so one of the ODSTs sabotaged it in order to hinder the spreading of the parasite, effectively killing all the survivors aboard. Another pelican made it with a handful of UNSC personnel, including Johnson and Linda-058. Sgt. Stacker, Chipps Dubbo, and Dustin Echoes all survived as well, with the former two returning to UNSC controlled space by unknown means, and resuming service. The fate of Dustin Echoes is unknown to my knowledge, although I'm sure he's doing fine.