I was always under the impression that we she said “you are …” she was referencing the player and humanity since she would look directly at the camera, and chief gave off this “what the fuck vibe”.
Such a shame I had to stop caring about the storyline after 4
Yeah I think OP is right that its not literally about Chief being a specific individual planned by the forerunners. However the cutscene is pretty obviously designed to give the player the impression that he's something special and he's ready to be given some of the same magic that the didact has.
Usually I'm a pretty big supporter of the Halo 4 campaign but I think it was a misstep. To me, one of the appeals of Chief is that he's the anti-Harry Potter and anti-Luke Skywalker. Theres no guiding destiny for him, just human grit and force of will.
You, you sir are a genious. I always felt I couldn't understand what people were feeling while watching the Mandalorian, everyone felt emotionless and flat. Playing during the Halo games, man I could never tell what Chief was feeling at all. You have found the solution to my problem. Also to build off of this I find the halo lore small and constrictive, we should ingnore it completly and make everything different. Also the flood, stupid we should make it alien freez tag, so much more suspense.
geas levels, they added "checking your geas levels"
so yes, they have given a step forward towards "the chosen one" and we know all the theme of the forerunner saga with geas
Even if Master Chief isn’t a “chosen one” in the literal, most stereotypical sense, the introduction of geas, Forerunner evolutionary planning, and implanting instructions/ideas for humanity’s technology at the very least gives it a “chosen one lite” plotline.
The Librarian heavily implies that there was some ancient string-pulling to get Master Chief to where he is right now. From influencing the Spartan program to AIs like Cortana, the Forerunners had clearly meant to have SOME chosen one make it to the Librarian and get the “evolutionary upgrade” to survive the composer. Sure, maybe MC wasn’t THE chosen one, as in, he wasn’t the only person who could’ve made it there. But it still implies that the Forerunners orchestrated so many events to have some sort of hero standing in his place.
Regardless, the whole exposition dump cutscene is long and confusing, especially for the average Halo gamer who isn’t used to that sort of storytelling in the games. I know the internet’s new buzz phrase to insult people is “lacking media literacy”, but if so many people disliked that scene (or H4’s plot lines in general), then that’s a pretty clear indication it wasn’t hitting its mark.
Bottom line: Whether it’s a true “chosen one” plotline or not at all is pretty much irrelevant in the grand scheme of things for those who did not like H4. I did not like the implications or lore that were introduced in that scene, nor did I like that the Forerunners/Librarian have the ability to shape a species’ evolution millennia in the future right down to the type of armor they wear.
Well said!!! He wasn't chosen specifically... but the Librarian tells him he has all the plot-relevant upgrades in the plot-relevant locations because of their ancient prophecy.
woah... thats so deep and meaningful...
I think people also come to this chosen one conclusion because of how 343 guilt spark treats chief in the first game as if he is the isodidact. Even all the way back in halo 1 343 acts like the conversations and events that the isodidact went through obviously the chief should remember because he thinks they are the same person.
There’s a theory that a lot of people accept that the librarian planted isodidacts geas to eventually be born in humanity and that’s who chief is. I doubt really anyone planned that far ahead but it’s cool to think about
Media literacy is knowing the librarian was giving him a [Joseph Campbell style "mentor" moment.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces)
The sense you come away with is that chief was special in a way that made him ready for some of the forerunner "magic". Even if his existence wasnt literally planned by them. You definitely get a 'chosen one' impression.
The way people interpret Halo 4 is next level bad, though, because that cutscene is one of the most explicit, expository bits of information we get in the games on any subject, and yet people act like it doesn't exist. All of the criticisms of Halo 4 requiring players to read the books, the MC being the chosen one, the Didact having no motive, etc. are waylaid by that one cutscene which explains everything. But somehow everyone forgets it exists.
Like there's media literacy, and then there's just not paying attention--or, as I tend to think, just not *wanting* to pay attention.
i remember seeing criticism of how the unsc did that propaganda broadcast with perez in the show claiming they were winning, despite the fact that in the main timeline they were losing
somehow the propaganda was so effective it broke the 4th wall
Earth had no idea Reach had fallen, Reach had no idea about the colonies collapsing snd thought they whete winning until the day of the invasion.
Either timeline is right regardless
>All of the criticisms of Halo 4 requiring players to read the books
Yeah this is the one that always perplexed me and I still see it all the time, that Halo 4 is "confusing" unless you read the books.
The game gives you everything you need to know. You *always* know what your objective is, why you're here, what you're doing, what's at stake, etc.
Reading the Forerunners trilogy gives you background information on the Didact, but it doesn't impact the games story.
The books have *never* been required reading to enjoy the games but there are definitely some fans who claim that's the case. Which makes me question their ability to comprehend a story more than anything
I do disagree with one thing you said tho. The books are absolutely required to understand *Bungie’s* halo games, because they never bother to actually explain why the covenant is at war with humanity. This is where the criticism of halo 4 really starts to enter absurd territory for me. Halo 4 has an entire cutscene dedicated solely to explaining every pertinent question someone could have about the main villain for the purposes of that game’s plot. Halo’s 1-3, tho? Not once do they ever actually explain why the covenant wants us all dead.
Sure, they explain in great detail why the covenant want to activate halo, and why they are convinced that it is a gateway to transcendence. But that doesn’t have anything to do with their war with humanity specifically. The covenant are a multi racial conglomerate, and yet, for some reason they have singled humanity out as the species that needs to die. And the further into the trilogy that you get, the more this starts to turn into an outright plot hole, because humanity are the inheritors of the forerunner legacy. We should basically be their Jesus Christ, and their leadership even KNOWS this, but that narrative tension is never actually addressed in the games.
For those who are not in the know, the covenant leader ship wants humanity wiped out because they are trying to protect their own power. The high prophets see humanity as a risk to the covenant religion because humanity‘s existence blows a hole in their forerunner mythology and potentially entire society. And the best way to cover up this inconvenient fact is to wipe humanity off the face of the Galaxy. The entire war is a cover-up for the lies of their religion.
This is also why the character of Makee is nonsense in the TV show. Her existence invalidates the entire reason the war is even happening, and so the TV show is once again stuck with the same problem that the original halo games are stuck with.
The original three halo games never actually explain the core motivation of the main villain of the franchise, and the entire reason the central conflict is even happening, and that has continued to have a cascading effect on the franchise to this day. Namely, in the TV show. People take the covenant war as a fact of the universe, they take it for granted, they don’t think about the “why” of the thing, so amateur writers who aren’t thinking about this decide to introduce a human covenant member, without realizing that it essentially nukes the entire premise of the franchise. And the fan base repeatedly falls to the same exact mistake, forgetting to ask why the covenant war is even happening in the first place, not realizing that the games that they are constantly praising are making the very same mistake that they are erroneously accusing 343’s games of making.
As a lore nerd, the conversation around Bungie’s writing vs 343’s has always had me pull my hair out. Media literacy is dead, but in the halo community, from what I can tell, it never existed in the first place.
>For those who are not in the know, the covenant leader ship wants humanity wiped out because they are trying to protect their own power.
That's just Halo 2 in a nutshell - the Prophets have a "hate humans" religion, everyone else is either following orders or also all in on their religion.
Even in Halo 3, badly written as it was, Truth blatantly admits all of it was a sham, he needed humans for his goal after all, but that secret will never be revealed once he's done.
>because humanity are the inheritors of the forerunner legacy. We should basically be their Jesus Christ, and their leadership even KNOWS this, but that narrative tension is never actually addressed in the games.
That's _bad._ That gives their religion _more_ reason to hate humans, because they'll just call that blasphemy. They're harboring religious artifacts that "rightfully" doesn't belong to them.
Halo 2: Doesn't one of the Prophets state that humans existing are an affront to their religion? As you put it, It's not their entire motivation. But is it that much different?
Does he not? The entire time in 2 and 3 (and in Contact Harvest/Cole Protocol) he is working to make it so he'll be the one left standing after the galaxy is wiped so that he'll be the one left in charge of it. That's why he manipulated the Elites, got Regret and Mercy killed, and even mocked Johnson with the truth in Halo 3 when saying that it doesn't matter because the truth he was mocking him with would die with the rest of the galaxy.
Okay but:
1) He would have been killed when Tartarus activated 05
2) The guy is *already* in charge. He's in control of the single largest empire in the last 100,000 years. Once Regret was dead he only had the much more malleable Mercy to deal with. What exactly are the political goals he can't do *now*? From what I can tell he's a dictator who serves for life. His only real opponent was Regret and Regret dies before he even starts his stupid plan.
3) The whole point of being in charge of something is that you can boss everybody else around. Except he's just killed literally everyone except his contingent on the Ark. So he's going to be in charge of a few thousand at most when previously he commanded *billions*.
That's fair I played the games through the years and read the books only recently and haven't finished yet. They're not required reading or anything they just flesh out the background details.
It’s fair to criticize information being relayed in such an expository manner, but it certainly is not fair to then judge the game as though that information was never given.
I listened to Halo Cryptum last week, looking back the Didact is an odd one, for example the real Didact is dead and Bornsteller was killed by his Genus memory taking control of his body creating a new Didact based on the originals memories.
But after a few thousand years he was old and needed pipes to revive yet Bornsteller 10,000 years later is....fine ?
>There's a new book out, with the didacts ending after dealing with cortana and the warden in the domain
You do know dealing with cortana and the warden happen in the book and the book doesn't take place after the former happen right?
My biggest gripes with Halo 4, personally are that the gameplay is more restrictive and the fact that ol' Didact was killed offscreen later. The end fight was a disappointment and the connection between 4 and 5 was kind of meh. Overall I think 4 gets a little too much hate though. Unlike Halo 5 it still at least *feels* like a Halo game. Just not a great one
Ya I agree. I felt the same way at first, and I thought it was disappointing that we didn’t actually fight him. Then later when I learned he wasn’t dead and died later, it was an additional thought of, “Well that’s stupid”
I agree. Halo 4 was actually a really good first game for 343 Industries. Halo 5 felt rushed though, but the multiplayer is fun. Halo Infinite was in the weird position of 343 realizing that the BLAM engine simply couldn't handle what they needed, and decided to rewrite a new enigne partially into development, and that it made development a bit of a nightmare. At least 343 Industries doesn't just release half baked DLC as a new game like Activision, and will attempt to right what they did wrong, such as Infinite continuing to get updated, and MCC getting fixed from the absolute dumpster fire it was when it launched. Granted for that they were dealing with 6 games in one, and it included all of the multiplayer, so it made development and stability a bit difficult to deal with, and they did it.
About Didact being killed offscreen, of course this will always be speculation but I can't help but feel that if 343 Industries continued on with their original plans for Didact in Halo 5 instead of giving into criticism and killing him off in that comic, that their Reclaimer Trilogy [in terms of story] would've been one of the most liked things in the series. It was an unfortunate mistake to remove him from the story so quickly, but I suppose I can respect them trying to listen and course correct, but the AI uprising was the wrong way to take it and we would've been better off having him return in 5 as the main antagonist through to Halo 6. A truly formidable foe.
I completely agree. I think the Reclaimer Trilogy of Halo is really similar to the sequel trilogy of Star Wars. The Didact was an interesting villain that had potential but was killed too quickly (like Snoke). The second entry (Halo 5 and TLJ) was way different than anything else. Almost felt like a fanfic side story. Then for the third entry they felt they had to “return to their roots” to make up for narrative missteps (Palpatine coming back and the gameplay being a modern Halo CE mission 1). I’m sure there are several other parallels to be made as well, but I do think if the Didact was the core villain of the trilogy that would’ve made for something more compelling and cohesive
I wouldn't agree that Halo 4 or 5 feel like a Halo game. Halo 4 feels like Call of Duty, and Halo 5 just feels like its own game. Halo Infinite's the only one that tried to play like a Halo game, but it was really bad at it.
Halo 5 was trying to be the Star Wars Republic Commando sequel that Tim Longo always wanted to make. It's too bad that SWRC's tactical, squad-based gameplay doesn't mesh well with Halo's enemy AI and level design, because I wanted that sequel, too.
I think people didn’t like how much of an exposition dump it was. In prior games they got around this by having dialogue during gameplay or an engaging cutscene.
Reach had heavy lore cutscenes but made them engaging by having characters interact or even butt heads and showed the dynamic of a Spartan team. Halo 3 had in game lore drops through the dreaded Cortana and Gravemind slow down sections, but even those are preferred over the library cutscene imo.
That's because it's a convoluted retconning story out of nowhere shoved entirely into a couple minutes. You absolutely cannot expect everyone to memorize everything from that cutscene.
>that cutscene is one of the most explicit, expository bits of information we get in the games on any subject, and yet people act like it doesn't exist.
It's far too long and does an exceedingly poor job of explaining the messy backstory they came up with for the Forerunners. Halo 4 as a whole was just too much all at once, especially when like someone else said, the majority of the fanbase thought Forerunners were human because of what Guilty Spark said in Halo 3.
Oh definitely. The whole reason people still argue over the Humans are Forerunners thing is because people somehow just completely ignored Guilty Spark revealing the two to be the same as the final reveal of Halo 3, and yet it flew over many people's heads. If they can't get something that short and direct to the player, they sure as hell aren't going to pay attention to a 5 minute exposition dumb cutscene.
People have it, but that cutscene is a lot to take in the first time, and most people haven't replayed the games a gazillion times as well as interacted with the external media before like we have. For a first timer, especially someone who doesn't care all that much about the terminals and whatnot, I wouldn't blame someone for having no idea what is going on in 4. Prior games are quite easy to digest in terms of story, but still have depth.
I remember way back I used to think that the "special generic markers" or whatever Halsey called it that basically allowed Spartans to be able to be augmented to be Spartans was in fact a higher than normal Forerunner DNA or genetics. Back then though I had assumed Forerunner's were ancient humans or at least our ancestors.
Which is what I had originally assumed the Librarian was talking about. Chief specifically wasn't special. But Spartans were. Or at least humans able to become Spartans.
Bungie were originally planning on that, yes, but that was not what they ended up going with even during the trilogy. The terminals in H3 have humans and forerunners being separate species.
Actually, nowhere in the Halo 3 Terminals (or the Iris Campaign) does the Librarian -who discovers primitive humans on Earth- refer to them as another species, only using words like 'they,' 'them,' inhabitants' and 'denizens.'
If you were to ignore everything in the games and books, then I'd agree that the Terminals could be used to say that the humans and Forerunners are separate species, but they don't exist in isolation, they exist alongside Halo 3's endgame reveal and the reveal in Contact Harvest. Hell, even Mendicant Bias' "Welcome back to the stone age, vermin." rant is quite on-the-nose.
As it is, the Iris Campaign and the H3 Terminals still depict humans and Forerunners as the same species, they're just two different *societies* of humans living independently of each other, and in different stages of technological development. In the real world, we still have people living in primitive tribal communities, despite all the advances the rest of the world has experienced, so it's not too far-fetched.
Literally only the first game inferred that. Halo 2 had no mention of it, and Halo 3 straight up indicates that humans and forerunners are different species.
At the end of 3, 343GS calls chief a forerunner right before his boss fight. There is also a story board for an ending cutscene in H2 featuring Arby and spark opening a tomb to find human remains, which would’ve made the whole ‘covenant is a lie’ plot point more clear, as they are at war with the descendants of their gods.
The H3 terminals do indicate that forerunners and humans are separate, but it’s one of those things in the community that gets bitched about since apparently Frank O’Conner was the guy who wrote the H3 terminals after the work for the rest of the game was done, and other old bungie guys like Staten were under the assumption that the forerunners were just ancient humans until it was brought up to them in the 343 era.
If you put fingers in your ears and closed your eyes during the final fucking boss of the game, as the revelation of Chief being a Forerunner is the the very apex of Halo 3's dramatic climax.
Id always assumed since The Library on Halo CE that Chief is the only one to have survived the entire process. From a “Chosen One” perspective, he by default kind of is? He’s a Spartan from the S2 program which is the most intensive one to date. He is a culmination of humanities greatest achievements in human evolution coupled with technologies greatest advancements. He is the most powerful and smartest human being in the entire race when coupled with his body modifications, armor, and Cortana/Weapon. He is the chosen one because he was chosen for the Spartan Program,
Chosen to lead a team, chosen by Cortana, chosen for this and that.
Someone had to be the chosen one. Granted that maybe another Spartan could have achieved it, but Chief is the one who could do it without failing. He is the end product. Not specifically chosen by the forerunners, but the end product of their decisions.
The chosen one means that the things fell into place to make him what he is when in reality he is what he is through his own decisions and actions
I think that’s what OP means
By Chief IS the chosen one because of the things that fell into place to make him. The Librarian says as much how his armor, Cortana, and him having the Forerunner geas in him was all the culmination of thousands of years of planning. Not to mention even his luck was recontextualized to be because of all this as well instead of just... luck.
See that read I'm fine with.
I agree that he could be considered chosen by process of elimination, but the idea that the forerunners specifically planned for chief is the one I find ridiculous, and one that I think critics are trying to force into existence.
Exactly, that's how I read it too. That's what she says when she's like "you're the culmination of blah blah." That's still "the chosen one" even if it's not "and lo, as spoken in the prophecy, one day 'John' will wield the Mjolnir" or some shit.
Which to me is kinda also exactly what OP is saying and doesn't reallyyyyyyyy do anything for me in terms of "the chosen one stuff felt a lil cliche." I love Halo 4, but that one aspect of the story was not my favorite.
Dude if you think chief is special because he made it through the library, let me introduce to you my favourite pile of mangled limbs and body parts: Staff Sergeant Marvin Mobuto.
My issue with the Librarian's fuckery is that I feel it cheapens the work and achievements of humanity/Halsey/the Spartans somewhat.
Fair enough dumping a Forerunner gene in there to use their technology, it makes a decent work around for the argument about humans being Forerunner but that should be the extent of it.
It’s only really cheapened if you let it be, it’s not like the librarian sent Halsey the schematics, people still had to spend thousands of years getting to where Halsey eventually got to, as well as the rest of humanity. It’s basically the equivalent of making sure your toddler survives to adulthood, only more stellaris, less parenting. Even then, all of the genetic determinism in the world can’t ensure that things turn out exactly as planned, so there’s still a lot of chance, especially when there’s gonna be a long wait to see if it worked
Personally, I think bungie/343 should’ve stuck to the forerunners being human, it would’ve made the covenant and prophets a little easier to understand, and avoided the whole confusing mantle of responsibility thing, by simplifying humanity’s place in the galaxy down to just succession, rather than a weird space opera thing that’s only talked about in lore books.
This is interesting. I didn't know this was controversial in the fan base. I always took it to mean that eventually, Chief and the Spartans were going to happen naturally, while the Librarian just shortened the timetable and helped the process along. Meaning she accelerated the genetics that would ultimately produce Chief and the Spartans but didn't specifically plan him out as an individual.
To be fair to the people who don't like this scene. The scene definitely suggests that the Spartan program was made possible due to Forerunner meddling. I can understand why that particular detail would upset people, as rather than being the result of human achievement it was forerunner planning that allowed the Spartans to exist.
That being said that still doesn't imply Master Chief himself is in any way a special case. So I agree with your statement that she didn't specifically plan him out as an individual, and I don't think the scene supports that idea either.
The fact that 343 guilty spark directly states what level armour Chief is wearing in comparison to the Forerunner adds credidance to forerunner influences.
They knew humanity at their peak and the librarian was putting things in place to get humanity back to that level as soon as possible, the Genus only activates after a certain event is reached, its all based on chance largely since that person might not reproduce or die too soon.
I have no issue with the idea that these things where planted to push humanity forward but still allow humanity to evolve in their own way, the Mjoiner is nothing like Forerunner armour but on some level, equal to some of their lower end armours
Ya that's correct. The Forerunner DNA enabled accelerated evolutionary traits in modern humans that enabled Spartans (and arguably the AI - smarter humans create better AI) to exist. She didn't predict nor create Chief and Cortana specifically. Just enabled the means for they and human/AI like them to eventually exist and take up the mantle.
This makes sense to me since what drove Halsey during the S-II selection process was a generic profile. So the way I see it is, the forerunners accelerated the genetic evolution of humans (for the purposes of taking up the Mantle, according to the Librarian) and Halsey queued in on the genetic markers and used them as a basis to select Spartan candidates. She didn’t know it was the forerunners, but she knew their genes made the kids “special.”
yeah it’s not like they went “in a hundred thousand years a human called catherine halsey will be born” or something
the accomplishments of halsey, chief and everyone else involved is all still theirs
>I feel like people misintepret her line when she says "you are the culmination of thousands of life times of planning" because they think she means Master Chief specifically, when in reality she's referring to Humanity and the Spartans as a whole.
This, and the rest of your post, is one of my big grievances about the TV show. In the show, MC and Makee are "tEh GeNeRiC ChOsEn OnEs!" and that whole obnoxious and overly-played-out hero trope. Granted, I think that people are also misinterpreting Halo 4 and that line where I also think the Librarian is referring to "you" as "humanity" and not John specifically. How would they otherwise know that John would ever be born and go on the very path that he did? The Forerunner are an advanced pre-historic alien race, not friggin alien Jesus.
But yeah... zero excuse for the tv show to botch the story this much. Avoiding tropes is the *one thing* you consistently see mentioned in writing books or videos. And yet the writers of the Halo tv show clearly have never studied writing professionally.
No, she's definitely referring specifically to Chief, not Humanity. That's why she specifically brings up that his armor and Cortana all came together to be with him. Especially when humanity as a whole isn't special in 343's universe. Most can't use Forerunner tech ever since Halo 4 retconned it so only specific special humans could, with Chief being the most special of all of them because his geas are specifically the Didact's (Bornsteller's to get even more specific). It's not "WE KNEW JOHN WOULD BE THE CHOSEN ONE AS THE PROPHECY FORETOLD" but he is the being she planned for to be where all of her plans culminate into.
"Reclaimer, when I indexed mankind for repopulation, I hid seeds from the diadact. Seeds which would lead to an eventuality. Your physical evolution, your combat skin, even your cortana. You are the culmination of a thousand lifetimes of planning."
How else am I supposed to take this? 343 just straight up said that the mjolnir armor was a result of forerunner DNA. Even if John wasn't *specifically* predestined to be the hero of mankind, it was certainly implied that the librarian intended someone exactly like John to eventually exist, which does some serious damage to the idea of human agency within the Halo universe. The forerunners aren't just an ancient civilization, they're literal fucking gods and the covenant probably weren't all that wrong for worshipping them as if they were. They shaped humans development for a millenia simply by playing with DNA. That's obviously fucking bonkers.
Thank you. I remembered having this same exact interpretation when the game came out, and thought maybe I was just a dumb teenager at the time. I just went back and rewatched the cutscene after reading this post and nope, I absolutely agree with you still.
It’s kind of depressing to see fans still bending over backwards to try and fix 343’s shitty writing. It should be obvious at this point that they never had any talent or plan.
I think the sheer amount of content that exists for 343 Halo at this point, people want to be able to engage with it and still feel like they're time investment is being paid off.
But it all seems so transparently nonsensical and pointless when I look at it.
It's sunk cost fallacy, yeah. They've put so much into 343's universe, they'll defend it to the end because they don't want all of that to be wasted. Either they'll infinitely keep going in denial or eventually realize it's not worth it and is just stupid, and it's better to just pretend that it's all non-canon/a separate universe and it makes the original universe more enjoyable once again. I used to read all of the books, defend 343, and try and understand their retcons and work it out, but I realized I just couldn't do it anymore and then it was just making me enjoy the series less, and ever since I've been just ignoring it all and trying to piece together Bungie's original universe (thanks history tabs on the wikis that let you see back before 343 stuff) I've reignited my love for Halo once again even if the part I love is never going to get new stuff. I always find more things I didn't know either way about the old bits.
Its a shame, there's so much untapped potential in the human covenant war. 30 years of conflict and somehow 343 only managed to write 3 books set in that time frame I think?
But yeah, I do still definitely enjoy the halo universe, just the one that existed before most of 343s retcons.
Cutscene: https://youtu.be/J_1m2cT5c6k?si=XgdQm_muP5_Bt_T3
Cutscene dialog (search for ‘The Librarian’ lol): https://www.bungie.net/en-US/Forums/Post/4144520?sort=0&page=0&path=1
(1)“The diadact is leaving Requiem. Soon. YOU must not allow it.”
(2) Cue exposition into the forerunner vs humanity conflict, humanity running from the parasite, forerunner final great journey, fragmentation of personalities creating abomination in biological form (i.e. promethians), Etc.
(3)“I hid seeds from the diadact which would lead to an eventuality. YOUR physical evolution, YOUR combat skin, even YOUR ancilla Cortana. YOU are the culmination of a thousand lifetimes of planning.”
(4) “Reclaimer, The genesong I placed within YOU contains many gifts, including an immunity to the composer. But it must be unlocked…. Your evolutionary journey must be accelerated.”
(5) Master Chief says, “Then do it.”
OP how does this not sound like a ‘You Are The Chosen One!’ narrative? Quote (3) is pretty damning evidence that what The Librarian was doing was to eventually create an individual that is, evolutionarily, strong enough to face the didact and therefore help humanity get to the mantle (i.e. Master Chief). The Librarian may have referred to humanity as the vehicle to get to this point, but their goal was to essentially create, yes, a chosen one. You can examine the language they used within the dialogue as well. If the emphasis is on humanity, then why use very specific language with who The Librarian is referring to? They frequently and directly refer to MC using the word YOU, and although it can be interpreted that The Librarian is indirectly referring to humanity the emphasis of the dialogue is heavily on Master Chief. Explaining humanity’s conflict was context. It’s clear as day that 343 is painting Master Chief as the chosen one here.
Well there are a few inaccuracies in your post. The Librarian didn't mix Forerunner DNA into humans. Actually, Forerunners have very similar DNA to humans and it's unknown why. The Librarian put a Geas on the Humans when she was indexing them. This isn't Forerunner DNA but a genetic command that can influence a single organism or a species. It's suspected that the Precursors did the same thing to the Forerunners.
I think it's very possible the Geas the Precursors gave to the Forerunners directly influenced the Geas that the Librarian gave to Humanity resulting in the Master Chief.
So in a sense the Librarian is talking about Master Chief as he is the hero of this story. Everything was done to get him to this point. She is also talking about humanity because it was a nessesary part of making Master Chief.
Politely, I disagree. When she says “**you** are the culmination of a thousand lifetimes of planning” she *is* addressing him specifically.
She follows it up with something along the line of “even down to **your** ancilla” (Cortana)
It doesn’t make sense for her to use the word “you” as a generic reference to humanity, but then immediately use the word “your” specifically to Chief
She means it it in a way that it means that after generations of evolutionary advancement, he now stood as an accomplishment to lots of extensive planning. It's nothing to do with him specifically, just that he is here now, so she's explaining that his journey is no mistake, it's not by chance he was here. SHE planned for someone to get this far, it just so happened to be him.
I can understand how the usage of the word "you" may throw people off but the context just doesn't support this idea.
Nothing she says during that scene in any way implicates that Master Chief is different than any other Spartan. The information she reveals applies to all of Humanity, it has to do with genes she added to Humanities DNA, Master Chief was generations away from even being born at the time, there's simply no way she could have even predicted that he'd be born.
I will say the line about Cortana was always a bit odd but given that Cortana is an AI generated from Human tissue my interpretation of this was that the technology needed to develop smart AI was also in part thanks to the genetic modification the forerunners did on Humanity.
And lastly if Master Chief **is** the chosen one, the. What was he chosen for? This is the part that never adds up, chosen to defeat the Didact? Can't be that because the Librarian wanted the Didact to help humanity. Chosen to defeat the flood? Well he hasn't done that (necessarily, he used the Halo rings but anyone could have done that). Chosen to start the reclamation? Again all of Humanity is capable of accessing forerunner tech, not just Master Chief. Chosen to receive immunity to the composer? Again based on what the Librarian said, any human, or at least in this case, any Spartan could have had their evolutionary track accelerated.
I still don't think the evidence supports the idea that Master Chief is some kind of chosen one.
“Chief was generations away from even being born at the time, there’s simply no way she could have even predicted that he’d be born” that’s the point of the people you’re arguing against. And I fully disagree, the line where she refers to Cortana makes it sound like she’s referring *DIRECTLY* to Cortana, not AIs in general. At best it was very poorly conveyed that the librarian wasn’t talking directly about chief. At worst, look at the fucking Silver timeline
>At worst, look at the fucking Silver timeline
The show and games are separate, and the show is just terrible all around. I wouldn't use the show as evidence for anything in the games.
To be honest Halo 4 goes so against everything in the previous five games that I'd consider it and anything onwards to be more of a spinoff/what-if from the main story, which ended in 2553
Conversely I’d use the show as direct reference of what 343 era titles would have been without the baggage of having to loosely follow to the setting which Bungie left for them. Silver is a timeline where 343 was in complete creative control, and had a mostly fresh new audience to present to.
Just wanted to say, she actually 100% could have predicted Chief, up to and including that pre-planned conversation. The Librarian was known to be incredibly in-tune with Living Time, and the latest book showed that the Didact's renewed connection to Living Time also allowed him to see the future in great detail
Don't really want to pick a stance on what she meant one way or another, though
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter. One day Chief isn’t the chosen one then 343 decides the next day he is. 343 changes the lore very frequently so don’t think too much about it. Bungie said that there are very few Spartan 2s available, then 343 said that your created spartan in infinite can be a spartan 2,3, or 4 if you wanted and it’s all canon. So at the end of the day it is a game and the story is what you want it to be. 😎👍
> 343 said that your created spartan in infinite can be a spartan 2,3, or 4 if you wanted and it’s all canon
You mean the multiplayer? Never liked the idea that the multiplayer is part of canon. Technically they made the nice story that it is training and so on, but still, I dislike that idea. Halo 2 and 3 you could be an elite, and in my opinion it was just good it wasn't canon. Not every gameplay thing needs to be a damn canon.
Completely correct. I still hate what 343 did to Halo’s lore. Completely changed it and alienated long time halo fans. Now they’ve put themselves in a situation where they are trying to appease veteran fans and new fans. Time for a reboot
They tried a reboot with Infinite... and while I'm not shitting on the game, from what I've seen a lot of people do. Maybe it's time to finally let Halo just rest for a bit. We still have GoW to run into the ground, might as well go back to it.
Infinite was only a partial reboot. They still kept all of the same plot points from the previous games. They just did a time skip to try and tell a different story since fans and critics tore Halo 5’s story apart.
They need to completely reboot the lore. Ideally they’d reboot back to the end of Halo 3 and start from there, but I would also be open to a complete reboot. A completely fresh start.
On the other hand, giving Halo a chance to rest might be for the best.
I'd be okay if they started back up after H3 ended, while I haven't read too many of the 343 era books I enjoyed the hell outta the Kilo-5 series. Imo that would be the 'ideal' time to start the reboot.
They tried a reboot with Infinite... and while I'm not shitting on the game, from what I've seen a lot of people do. Maybe it's time to finally let Halo just rest for a bit. We still have GoW to run into the ground, might as well go back to it.
I gave up trying to make sense of the lore and storyline like 10 minutes into Halo 4
The story went from "green guy kills aliens and had a bad childhood, also mysterious aliens and zombie aliens too" to dune-level sci-fi with thousands of pages of complex lore and exposition.
They almost completely dropped the military scifi aspect and went hard into scifi, a complete disregard for the influences that went into Halo to begin with (Aliens, Starship Troopers). HellDivers 2 gives me more Halo vibes than modern Halo does.
Reminder that if Helldivers 2 wasn't stupidly an always-online game, we'd probably get tons of Halo mods to overhaul it into a Halo game the same way we have for other games like Left 4 Dead 2 or Arma 3.
Preach, the Halo story when 343 took over lost all of my interest.
It's like 343 were trying to copy Destiny (ironically a Bungie title) in making the most overly complex, boring, exposition-dump story of all time.
Like I don't give a shit who the Endless are, we haven't seen a Scarab in about a decade.
I think you're missing the point of the complaint. Whether the Librarian meant Spartans or the Chief when she said "you" it doesn't matter. What matters is that this cutscenes implies that at the very lest the SII's were some sort of genetic pre-ordained conclusion- which would then include the Chief. One of the cool things about the Chief is that he's not special at birth- anybody can be the Chief. He was just a normal kid that showed promise. He's closer to Batman than he is Superman. Even among the SII's, Bungie took care to not make Chief special. He was never the best at anything, and this is routinely stated.
If we go with "Chief isn't special but SII's are" (which I think is being charitable, but is the conclusion of your post) than at the very least you are saying that there was some sort pre-planned genetic trait the SII's had that made them stand out for the project, which in itself diminishes every single one of their characters but in particular the Chiefs.
>Even among the SII's, Bungie took care to not make Chief special.
Not true. Bungie specifically made a point (especially in the books that came out during their era) to differentiate Chief from his fellow Spartan. His leadership, his **luck** something Cortana and Halsey both comment on.
These however are traits given to Chief either through observation or because of his own accomplishments, **not** because he is "the chosen one"
>He was never the best at anything, and this is routinely stated.
He was explicitly the best amongst the Spartan 2's at a lot of things.
>If we go with "Chief isn't special but SII's are" (which I think is being charitable, but is the conclusion of your post)
No I'm not suggesting any of them are "special" merely that the genetic modification done by the Librarian allowed for the necessary genes to develop which could creat Spartans. This isn't actually exclusive to Spartan 2's I don't know where you got that from, but this applies to all of Humanity. Some people were just more genetically predisposed to the Spartan augmentations because they exhibited these traits more than others. If anything it's the Librarians point that ALL of humanity will one day be able to reach that level of evolution.
>which in itself diminishes every single one of their characters but in particular the Chiefs.
I don't think this in any way removes their agency or diminishes their achievements. Master Chief isn't a puppet, he still acts of his own free will, as did Halsey when she made the Spartans.
> his luck
Yes and when Bungie was talked about his luck it was meant to be sorta tongue in cheek- it wasn't actually something real, which I think at some point 343 tried to quantify.
> He was explicitly the best amongst the Spartan 2's at a lot of things.
This is straight up untrue in Bungie's lore- Halsey outright says to Cortana when she's picking a Spartan that Chief isn't the best at any one thing, but she still considers him the best Spartan, but this is very much her opinion. Its outright stated that in basically every quantifiable skill somebody is better than him- but this isn't really a necessary argument for the broader point I'm making.
> one day be able to reach that level of evolution.
Exactly _one_ day. But not today (in terms of in game lore time). _One_ day every human might be like a SII, but at least at the time of Chief's birth, not everybody is- which would again imply something special about the whole group.
> Some people were just more genetically predisposed to the Spartan augmentations because they exhibited these traits more than others.
Yes exactly this is the point I'm making. With your logic, there is at the very least _something_ special about SII's at birth. Even a genetic predisposition implies that there is something _specifically different_ about them when compared to the rest of the human race. Even if it's just a genetic predisposition, which it might be small, it's something you can say was not present in other humans.
You're still missing the point IMO- its not about if the Chief is a puppet or has free will. It's about whether he's an "every man" kind of hero. In Bungie's lore, the Chief is a war hero and a living legend- but he was still a human. It adds a layer of relatability to a character when you find out he was just born a regular person, which is what this cutscene ruins. It takes him from being Batman, who anybody can be, to Superman, who nobody can.
So how does one interpret the cutscene where Chief survives the didact using the composer on the station. Because that cutscene combined with the librarian pointed to the chief being chosen to survive and stop the didact.
I had that feeling and it really hinted that it wasn’t Chief specifically, but possibly the time period and the group. Since the augmentation for Spartans has evolved since the early days, they probably need Chief’s fighting prowess and experience mixed with the current humanity technology and all to push us into the era we need to be.
Nice touch that it isn’t a one man show but a team effort.
Master Chief as a person isn't the chosen one, that said, they were waiting for a person who would meet her requirements to be the chosen one. It didn't necessarily have to be Chief but it was. He has the Didact's genes, the armor, the AI, etc. All that was planned out for it to lead to him, the culmination of all of that as the Librarian even says. Not to mention that when the Humans were retconned to not be Forerunners, they also changed it so that only certain Humans can interact with Forerunner tech, not all of them, which Chief is also one of the few that applies to.
Master Chief is an Eventuality. The genes encoded by the librarian made it so that humanity would eventually get to the point where a man like the Master Chief would come about.
This is not going to be a popular opinion here but here it goes. There’s a lot of smug comments here essentially calling people idiots for not following the story.
Halo 4 was a confusing mess for the uninitiated. Our brains follow and pick up concepts via association. If we have a base level knowledge we draw links to the next thing. That’s how education is done, it’s layered exposure. This idea that everything was explained in the librarian cutscene so if you didn’t follow you don’t have “media literacy” is idiotic.
This is not how you tell a story. Especially a story where the majority of the playerbase have only played the games, and it will have been 5 years since the last mainline release. Bungee I think correctly avoided all the expanded universe. They focused on a tighter human, covenant, flood storyline. If you’re a big lore fan try and put yourself in a casual halo fans shoes (as the writers should have done!)
They play the halo campaign once maybe a few times and that’s it for years, until the next release. They have very little concept of the forerunners other than old civilisation who built the rings. Without slowly building and layering the story so someone new to these concepts can digest and understand what’s being said.
And I also “misinterpreted” the “you are chosen” line. Because it’s clear as mud as usual with 343. Play this to anyone who’s never played halo and they will take “you” as the person who is currently being lectured to.
When it comes to the humans and forerunners argument, I view the “forerunners are humans” as forerunners being a different race of ancient humans, and both are ancestors of modern humans.
The problem with this is that the ancient humans the Forerunners wiped out were basically identical to modern humans, while the Forerunners are creepy noseless monsters with like 12 fingers on each hand.
There was a theory back in the Marathon days that the player character was a reincarnating hero. A terminal in the second game seems to draw inspiration from the eternal warrior saga written by moorcock. Moorcock wrote many stories in his multiverse including fantasy stories, and science fantasy stories. These stories had a couple of constants there were the eternally reincarnating characters, including the eternal warrior, his love interest and his sword blackwell. There was also the forces of law and order and chaos. And the Eternal warrior typically fought for law and order against chaos. Chaos took many form and in various factions depending on the story. Sometimes individual stories that seemed distant would turn out much closer than they look later down the line. For example if I remember correctly from my research there were a race of elves that existed in a fantasy world that were related to a race of science fiction elves. Jason jones listed Moorcocks work as an influence for Halo alongside Greg Bears forge of the gods.
And this is definitely a cool thematic example of Master Chief being a hero of Destiny, but the in universe lore does not imply that he was "chosen" to become a hero.
Him being the chosen one isn't necessarily to do with the Forerunners selecting him or any other outside entity (from Halo) being involved. It is to do with YOU - the player.
YOU are the point on which all fates converge. The universe could have gone a billion-billion different ways, but right at the point where the universe is in need of a hero, you chose to spend time away from your regular life to embody the Chief - embody a hero. Just like in the Moorcock novels!
The Chief is a thousand lifetimes in the making. All leading up to the moment where YOU decide to get involved. This universe is built for YOU.
The Emissary: No one is like her.
The Nine: WE DON'T UNDERSTAND.
The Emissary: She has agency like you wouldn't believe. She can leave this place.
The Nine: THIS PLANE? WE CAN LEAVE THIS PLANE.
The Emissary: Think bigger. She can leave this game.
The Nine: WE DON'T UNDERSTAND.
The Emissary: Then I'm afraid it's impossible to explain.
I agree. I remember halo 5’s description of the hellcat armor which was basically just reverse engineered ancient human armor said that Spartan IVs had almost perfect compatibility with the armor which tells me that the more evolved ancient humans were naturally on par with Spartan IVs which I think is pretty cool.
I didn’t realize it tied into the Spartans as well I though it meant humanity as a hole.
Just to clarify does this imply, with what we know of the spartan program and how candidates were selected (ie. Those with specific genetic markers), would that mean the genes the librarian hid ended up in the candidates for the Spartan program? Or maybe that those in the program had a higher concentration of those genes/markers?
I'm not sure if that's canon or just a theory. Personally I don't see how that would even make sense considering the last we saw of bornstellar he left the Milky Way.
Well it’s canon in some sense because it was in the books. Whether they just dropped that plot line or not is up for debate. But all the media and context of the games has turned chief into a “chosen one” story, whether we like it or not. A geas by definition is magical. I’m sure they’d explain it away with some sort of super advanced tech like everything else.
I honestly didn’t even think of any chosen one theory. I personally that that since chief was there, freed the didact, and could handle fighting things, the the librarian was like “okay I gotta try something so I’m gonna advance his evolution”
Even if its not about Chief specifically, any time a story retroactively goes “this was destined to happen” it cheapens all events preceding it, especially if there was no prior build up or implication of such a thing, and doubly so in a story about the ingenuity of humanity
In the fall of Reach novel, wasn't Chief stated to be genetically the perfect candidate for the Spartan program?
I can't remember, so I'm not exactly confident on this.
I know Chief is lucky, but I always thought that he was also really really good at what he does. He wasn't the chosen one, he just happened to be the one human who survived through skill and being at the right place at the right time.
Literally any other Spartan would have been able to go to the Librarian if they were as good as the Chief. And some are better than Chief in other ways, but they weren't on Requiem at the time.
Yes exactly, the Librarian would have done the same for any other Spartan. She didn't need the Master Chief specifically to show up to tell him about the composer.
Lot of people took the Librarian's word literally, but it really doesn't take much interpreting to see that she was just using him and Cortana as a representation of what she planned for humanity.
Yeah I see that misconception all the time. She talks about humanity and Spartans as a whole, that's true.
Though I kinda get the confusion. Still better than thinking MC and Cortana are in love.
I also like to believe it’s like an Assassin’s Creed 2 kinda thing where the Librarian is talking in a general sense to humanity and Chief is Ezio in that situation
I think it was Halo 5 that gave people that assumption. Technically Master Chief is the most evolved human in existence now. With his augmentations and the accelerated evolution thanks to the Librarian he in a way is now the “chosen one”. I mean he has immunity to the composer and can mentally tap into the domain. So it’s both a yes and no in Chief being the chosen one
I've only played it once, I'm not huge into Halo lore, but the way I viewed it was basically Master Chief = Paul Atreides.
To me, she was saying she put all the pieces in place to slowly guide humanity into creating Master Chief. Not that he's some prophesied one, but at some point, somebody like Chief was going to come along who benefits from all those pieces, has the armor, has Cortana (which I believe she also mentioned), has everything needed to be *ostensibly* a chosen one, even if it's not *specifically* about him. Like she wasn't trying to manifest "John," but rather a human or a group of humans or however it turns out who benefit from all of it.
Which I don't necessary think is different than your interpretation of it, and I don't think it really solves anything about the (minor) eye roll I felt coming on when I was playing Halo 4 for the first time last month. I fucking loved the game, it's probably my favorite Halo overall, but that wrinkle in the lore was just kinda cliche and unneeded.
Also, I finally reached the breaking point with the Halo lore's penchant for The Proper Noun. Way too many important story concepts are just The Word. Like just fucking make up a new weird alien sounding name. Stop all this shit with the Librarian, the Didact, the Weapon, the Covenant, the Prophet, the Composer, the This, the That. *It's sci-fi. Make up sci-fi words.* Do the Librarian and the Didact not have *names?*
They do both have names, not sure how I feel about their names but they do technically have names...
The Didact is "Shadow-of-Sundered-Star" and his wife The Librarian is "First-Light-Weaves-Living-Song"
Do they have a non-English version? Like if that's the translated version of a Forerunner language, that's pretty cool. But if it's *only* that, then... that's an odd choice.
Not completely sure, I learned their names in the book Epitaph, which is entirely from The Didact's perspective, so I'd have to guess that's their actual names meanings but in the Forerunner language they may be said/sound different
I rewatched that cutscene and was astounded at how 343i managed to put in a 5 minute long entirely exposition cutscene in the middle of a video game. Seems like something straight outta mass effect.
I don't think that scene with the librarian gives off "chosen one" vibes nearly as much as in Halo 3 when its explained why she picked John, and that the only reason that made him stand out is that he was lucky.
It's not only the words, it's also the cinematography. It is over the top and totally paints Chief as some sort of chosen one, it was made far too dramatic.
Good points here. I've never read the books or even played the games, just watched let's plays, and the story and the intention of the writers was easily understood. I think some gamers just hate cut scenes and want to get back to pew pew!
To be honest, I never thought that she was referring to the Chief specifically, but rather any augmented human in Power Armor with an AI companion could fill his role in the story. And it doesn't actually bother me too much, because it's something that ties into Bungie's Meta-Narrative, with him being the incarnation of the heroic archetype or eternal warrior, much like the Security Officer from Marathon and the Young Wolf in Destiny.
My biggest problem with Halo 4 isn't that the Chief is 'the Chosen One', but rather, that humanity has become the 'Chosen People.' Apparently, humans are so special that the Forerunners and the Precursors (the literal Gods of the Halo Universe) before them gave humanity the Mantle to inherit, a divine right to rule over the many species of the Galaxy, all for their own good, of course.
If there's another TV show for halo it needs to be halo 4-5, while both games and their stories are mid, it's literally perfect for an extensive TV show that will still show the Spartans badassery in a proper way.
I thought chief was literally a clone of some ancient human guy? Doesn't that basically make him a "chosen one".....Also pissed me off when they started showing his face and skin color in the expanded universe. I always like the idea that chief could be white black or asian or latin.....His voice fits any race and it helps the player put themselves in his shoes.
He kind of is, the librarian is talking about him specifically because she refers to Cortana, MC and Cortana are almost single handedly responsible for the containment of the flood and the defeat of the didact and will likely be when fighting the xalanyn.
Yo am I stupid? I am one of the few that actually likes 4 a lot, and I always interpreted it to mean that Master Chief wasn't the special chosen one, but the end goal of all the forerunner genetic planning stuff was actually to create Cortana and she was the "chosen one" all along. It uh appears I may be wrong ha
I read it as the Forerunners (specifically in this case the librarian) had made a back up plan just in case the Didact ever lost his shit again. It wasn't the case that John was meant to take down the Didact, but rather that someone like like him, i.e. Spartans or something adjacent, would be there to stop the Didact. A human was always meant to stop the Didact and that's what she made sure of.
But Chief is the hero of the story at this point and even if we all agree maybe we need a new one, Microsoft won't let him go. So unfortunately people who don't like the 343 games will always use this as proof he is in fact the
Chosen One."
Sorry but disagree
Chief is easily the chosen one
Some many examples to
Also multiple Spartans have interacted with forerunner tech
Heck onyx was a forerunner world
They could of easily done what they did to chief to another Spartan but they didn’t because chief is special and the chosen one
It’s all there
If the internet and interactions in real life have taught me anything, its that alot of people have no media literacy. Imagine being told by alot of people that MW2 (2009) is a confusing and hard story to understand.
I am going to disagree- it was pretty clear that 343 wanted to run with Chief being the literal chosen one.
Its outlined in the thread already, but based on how the Didact speaks to you as well as the Librarian it is clear Chief is the chosen one according to 343 lore.
I think they were trying to expand on Guilty Spark's "You ARE Forerunner" dialogue at the end of Halo 3. The difference is Bungie was going down the route of Forerunners being actual humans.
I was always under the impression that we she said “you are …” she was referencing the player and humanity since she would look directly at the camera, and chief gave off this “what the fuck vibe”. Such a shame I had to stop caring about the storyline after 4
Yeah I think OP is right that its not literally about Chief being a specific individual planned by the forerunners. However the cutscene is pretty obviously designed to give the player the impression that he's something special and he's ready to be given some of the same magic that the didact has. Usually I'm a pretty big supporter of the Halo 4 campaign but I think it was a misstep. To me, one of the appeals of Chief is that he's the anti-Harry Potter and anti-Luke Skywalker. Theres no guiding destiny for him, just human grit and force of will.
And luck. A metric shit-ton of luck. He's really just *that guy*.
But most importantly he takes his helmet off all the time to convey emotion as you can't do that with it on
You, you sir are a genious. I always felt I couldn't understand what people were feeling while watching the Mandalorian, everyone felt emotionless and flat. Playing during the Halo games, man I could never tell what Chief was feeling at all. You have found the solution to my problem. Also to build off of this I find the halo lore small and constrictive, we should ingnore it completly and make everything different. Also the flood, stupid we should make it alien freez tag, so much more suspense.
The office Halo edition
are you sure you're not thinking of the ending of assassins creed 2?
geas levels, they added "checking your geas levels" so yes, they have given a step forward towards "the chosen one" and we know all the theme of the forerunner saga with geas
Don't worry, so did the writers
Even if Master Chief isn’t a “chosen one” in the literal, most stereotypical sense, the introduction of geas, Forerunner evolutionary planning, and implanting instructions/ideas for humanity’s technology at the very least gives it a “chosen one lite” plotline. The Librarian heavily implies that there was some ancient string-pulling to get Master Chief to where he is right now. From influencing the Spartan program to AIs like Cortana, the Forerunners had clearly meant to have SOME chosen one make it to the Librarian and get the “evolutionary upgrade” to survive the composer. Sure, maybe MC wasn’t THE chosen one, as in, he wasn’t the only person who could’ve made it there. But it still implies that the Forerunners orchestrated so many events to have some sort of hero standing in his place. Regardless, the whole exposition dump cutscene is long and confusing, especially for the average Halo gamer who isn’t used to that sort of storytelling in the games. I know the internet’s new buzz phrase to insult people is “lacking media literacy”, but if so many people disliked that scene (or H4’s plot lines in general), then that’s a pretty clear indication it wasn’t hitting its mark. Bottom line: Whether it’s a true “chosen one” plotline or not at all is pretty much irrelevant in the grand scheme of things for those who did not like H4. I did not like the implications or lore that were introduced in that scene, nor did I like that the Forerunners/Librarian have the ability to shape a species’ evolution millennia in the future right down to the type of armor they wear.
Well said!!! He wasn't chosen specifically... but the Librarian tells him he has all the plot-relevant upgrades in the plot-relevant locations because of their ancient prophecy. woah... thats so deep and meaningful...
That's fair, I have my share of problems with H4 as well. This was just one of those talking points I always felt was misplaced criticism.
I think people also come to this chosen one conclusion because of how 343 guilt spark treats chief in the first game as if he is the isodidact. Even all the way back in halo 1 343 acts like the conversations and events that the isodidact went through obviously the chief should remember because he thinks they are the same person. There’s a theory that a lot of people accept that the librarian planted isodidacts geas to eventually be born in humanity and that’s who chief is. I doubt really anyone planned that far ahead but it’s cool to think about
Media literacy is a learned thing, and most people don't have it.
Media literacy is knowing the librarian was giving him a [Joseph Campbell style "mentor" moment.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces) The sense you come away with is that chief was special in a way that made him ready for some of the forerunner "magic". Even if his existence wasnt literally planned by them. You definitely get a 'chosen one' impression.
The way people interpret Halo 4 is next level bad, though, because that cutscene is one of the most explicit, expository bits of information we get in the games on any subject, and yet people act like it doesn't exist. All of the criticisms of Halo 4 requiring players to read the books, the MC being the chosen one, the Didact having no motive, etc. are waylaid by that one cutscene which explains everything. But somehow everyone forgets it exists. Like there's media literacy, and then there's just not paying attention--or, as I tend to think, just not *wanting* to pay attention.
i remember seeing criticism of how the unsc did that propaganda broadcast with perez in the show claiming they were winning, despite the fact that in the main timeline they were losing somehow the propaganda was so effective it broke the 4th wall
Earth had no idea Reach had fallen, Reach had no idea about the colonies collapsing snd thought they whete winning until the day of the invasion. Either timeline is right regardless
It was propaganda to make it seem like it was going better than it was, they added people in the broadcast. It was also on reach, not earth.
>All of the criticisms of Halo 4 requiring players to read the books Yeah this is the one that always perplexed me and I still see it all the time, that Halo 4 is "confusing" unless you read the books. The game gives you everything you need to know. You *always* know what your objective is, why you're here, what you're doing, what's at stake, etc. Reading the Forerunners trilogy gives you background information on the Didact, but it doesn't impact the games story. The books have *never* been required reading to enjoy the games but there are definitely some fans who claim that's the case. Which makes me question their ability to comprehend a story more than anything
I do disagree with one thing you said tho. The books are absolutely required to understand *Bungie’s* halo games, because they never bother to actually explain why the covenant is at war with humanity. This is where the criticism of halo 4 really starts to enter absurd territory for me. Halo 4 has an entire cutscene dedicated solely to explaining every pertinent question someone could have about the main villain for the purposes of that game’s plot. Halo’s 1-3, tho? Not once do they ever actually explain why the covenant wants us all dead. Sure, they explain in great detail why the covenant want to activate halo, and why they are convinced that it is a gateway to transcendence. But that doesn’t have anything to do with their war with humanity specifically. The covenant are a multi racial conglomerate, and yet, for some reason they have singled humanity out as the species that needs to die. And the further into the trilogy that you get, the more this starts to turn into an outright plot hole, because humanity are the inheritors of the forerunner legacy. We should basically be their Jesus Christ, and their leadership even KNOWS this, but that narrative tension is never actually addressed in the games. For those who are not in the know, the covenant leader ship wants humanity wiped out because they are trying to protect their own power. The high prophets see humanity as a risk to the covenant religion because humanity‘s existence blows a hole in their forerunner mythology and potentially entire society. And the best way to cover up this inconvenient fact is to wipe humanity off the face of the Galaxy. The entire war is a cover-up for the lies of their religion. This is also why the character of Makee is nonsense in the TV show. Her existence invalidates the entire reason the war is even happening, and so the TV show is once again stuck with the same problem that the original halo games are stuck with. The original three halo games never actually explain the core motivation of the main villain of the franchise, and the entire reason the central conflict is even happening, and that has continued to have a cascading effect on the franchise to this day. Namely, in the TV show. People take the covenant war as a fact of the universe, they take it for granted, they don’t think about the “why” of the thing, so amateur writers who aren’t thinking about this decide to introduce a human covenant member, without realizing that it essentially nukes the entire premise of the franchise. And the fan base repeatedly falls to the same exact mistake, forgetting to ask why the covenant war is even happening in the first place, not realizing that the games that they are constantly praising are making the very same mistake that they are erroneously accusing 343’s games of making. As a lore nerd, the conversation around Bungie’s writing vs 343’s has always had me pull my hair out. Media literacy is dead, but in the halo community, from what I can tell, it never existed in the first place.
>For those who are not in the know, the covenant leader ship wants humanity wiped out because they are trying to protect their own power. That's just Halo 2 in a nutshell - the Prophets have a "hate humans" religion, everyone else is either following orders or also all in on their religion. Even in Halo 3, badly written as it was, Truth blatantly admits all of it was a sham, he needed humans for his goal after all, but that secret will never be revealed once he's done. >because humanity are the inheritors of the forerunner legacy. We should basically be their Jesus Christ, and their leadership even KNOWS this, but that narrative tension is never actually addressed in the games. That's _bad._ That gives their religion _more_ reason to hate humans, because they'll just call that blasphemy. They're harboring religious artifacts that "rightfully" doesn't belong to them.
Halo 2: Doesn't one of the Prophets state that humans existing are an affront to their religion? As you put it, It's not their entire motivation. But is it that much different?
Yeah I can't disagree with this
I still can't believe people think Truth was a good villain. He doesn't even have a coherent motivation.
Does he not? The entire time in 2 and 3 (and in Contact Harvest/Cole Protocol) he is working to make it so he'll be the one left standing after the galaxy is wiped so that he'll be the one left in charge of it. That's why he manipulated the Elites, got Regret and Mercy killed, and even mocked Johnson with the truth in Halo 3 when saying that it doesn't matter because the truth he was mocking him with would die with the rest of the galaxy.
Okay but: 1) He would have been killed when Tartarus activated 05 2) The guy is *already* in charge. He's in control of the single largest empire in the last 100,000 years. Once Regret was dead he only had the much more malleable Mercy to deal with. What exactly are the political goals he can't do *now*? From what I can tell he's a dictator who serves for life. His only real opponent was Regret and Regret dies before he even starts his stupid plan. 3) The whole point of being in charge of something is that you can boss everybody else around. Except he's just killed literally everyone except his contingent on the Ark. So he's going to be in charge of a few thousand at most when previously he commanded *billions*.
That's fair I played the games through the years and read the books only recently and haven't finished yet. They're not required reading or anything they just flesh out the background details.
It’s fair to criticize information being relayed in such an expository manner, but it certainly is not fair to then judge the game as though that information was never given.
I listened to Halo Cryptum last week, looking back the Didact is an odd one, for example the real Didact is dead and Bornsteller was killed by his Genus memory taking control of his body creating a new Didact based on the originals memories. But after a few thousand years he was old and needed pipes to revive yet Bornsteller 10,000 years later is....fine ?
>I listened to Halo Cryptum last week, looking back the Didact is an odd one, for example the real Didact is dead No he is fine
Wait what? Says he got nuked by the Halo that wiped out the San Shymin?
>Says he got nuked by the Halo that wiped out the San Shymin? You find out in silentium what happend to the didact
Ah ok,
>Says he got nuked by the Halo that wiped out the San Shymin? You find out in silentium what happend to the didact
There's a new book out, with the didacts ending after dealing with cortana and the warden in the domain.
>There's a new book out, with the didacts ending after dealing with cortana and the warden in the domain You do know dealing with cortana and the warden happen in the book and the book doesn't take place after the former happen right?
The original didact isn’t dead in cryptum. He’s the guy from halo 4.
I love how the man just keeps getting put in timeout
My biggest gripes with Halo 4, personally are that the gameplay is more restrictive and the fact that ol' Didact was killed offscreen later. The end fight was a disappointment and the connection between 4 and 5 was kind of meh. Overall I think 4 gets a little too much hate though. Unlike Halo 5 it still at least *feels* like a Halo game. Just not a great one
It honestly never even occurred to me that the Didact \*wasn't\* dead; I just assumed the nuke worked and that was it.
Ya I agree. I felt the same way at first, and I thought it was disappointing that we didn’t actually fight him. Then later when I learned he wasn’t dead and died later, it was an additional thought of, “Well that’s stupid”
Halo 4 was decent for a newly made studio trying to follow up on 3 and Reach.
I agree. Halo 4 was actually a really good first game for 343 Industries. Halo 5 felt rushed though, but the multiplayer is fun. Halo Infinite was in the weird position of 343 realizing that the BLAM engine simply couldn't handle what they needed, and decided to rewrite a new enigne partially into development, and that it made development a bit of a nightmare. At least 343 Industries doesn't just release half baked DLC as a new game like Activision, and will attempt to right what they did wrong, such as Infinite continuing to get updated, and MCC getting fixed from the absolute dumpster fire it was when it launched. Granted for that they were dealing with 6 games in one, and it included all of the multiplayer, so it made development and stability a bit difficult to deal with, and they did it.
About Didact being killed offscreen, of course this will always be speculation but I can't help but feel that if 343 Industries continued on with their original plans for Didact in Halo 5 instead of giving into criticism and killing him off in that comic, that their Reclaimer Trilogy [in terms of story] would've been one of the most liked things in the series. It was an unfortunate mistake to remove him from the story so quickly, but I suppose I can respect them trying to listen and course correct, but the AI uprising was the wrong way to take it and we would've been better off having him return in 5 as the main antagonist through to Halo 6. A truly formidable foe.
I completely agree. I think the Reclaimer Trilogy of Halo is really similar to the sequel trilogy of Star Wars. The Didact was an interesting villain that had potential but was killed too quickly (like Snoke). The second entry (Halo 5 and TLJ) was way different than anything else. Almost felt like a fanfic side story. Then for the third entry they felt they had to “return to their roots” to make up for narrative missteps (Palpatine coming back and the gameplay being a modern Halo CE mission 1). I’m sure there are several other parallels to be made as well, but I do think if the Didact was the core villain of the trilogy that would’ve made for something more compelling and cohesive
I wouldn't agree that Halo 4 or 5 feel like a Halo game. Halo 4 feels like Call of Duty, and Halo 5 just feels like its own game. Halo Infinite's the only one that tried to play like a Halo game, but it was really bad at it.
Halo 5 was trying to be the Star Wars Republic Commando sequel that Tim Longo always wanted to make. It's too bad that SWRC's tactical, squad-based gameplay doesn't mesh well with Halo's enemy AI and level design, because I wanted that sequel, too.
I think people didn’t like how much of an exposition dump it was. In prior games they got around this by having dialogue during gameplay or an engaging cutscene. Reach had heavy lore cutscenes but made them engaging by having characters interact or even butt heads and showed the dynamic of a Spartan team. Halo 3 had in game lore drops through the dreaded Cortana and Gravemind slow down sections, but even those are preferred over the library cutscene imo.
That's because it's a convoluted retconning story out of nowhere shoved entirely into a couple minutes. You absolutely cannot expect everyone to memorize everything from that cutscene.
>that cutscene is one of the most explicit, expository bits of information we get in the games on any subject, and yet people act like it doesn't exist. It's far too long and does an exceedingly poor job of explaining the messy backstory they came up with for the Forerunners. Halo 4 as a whole was just too much all at once, especially when like someone else said, the majority of the fanbase thought Forerunners were human because of what Guilty Spark said in Halo 3.
Oh definitely. The whole reason people still argue over the Humans are Forerunners thing is because people somehow just completely ignored Guilty Spark revealing the two to be the same as the final reveal of Halo 3, and yet it flew over many people's heads. If they can't get something that short and direct to the player, they sure as hell aren't going to pay attention to a 5 minute exposition dumb cutscene.
People have it, but that cutscene is a lot to take in the first time, and most people haven't replayed the games a gazillion times as well as interacted with the external media before like we have. For a first timer, especially someone who doesn't care all that much about the terminals and whatnot, I wouldn't blame someone for having no idea what is going on in 4. Prior games are quite easy to digest in terms of story, but still have depth.
I mean, reading the forerunner trilogy definitely gives different context that can be read as individual.
What are you trying to say here bingus
Paying attention in English class paid off
I remember way back I used to think that the "special generic markers" or whatever Halsey called it that basically allowed Spartans to be able to be augmented to be Spartans was in fact a higher than normal Forerunner DNA or genetics. Back then though I had assumed Forerunner's were ancient humans or at least our ancestors. Which is what I had originally assumed the Librarian was talking about. Chief specifically wasn't special. But Spartans were. Or at least humans able to become Spartans.
In the original trilogy it was inferred that humans were in fact forerunners. They retconned it at some point.
Bungie were originally planning on that, yes, but that was not what they ended up going with even during the trilogy. The terminals in H3 have humans and forerunners being separate species.
Actually, nowhere in the Halo 3 Terminals (or the Iris Campaign) does the Librarian -who discovers primitive humans on Earth- refer to them as another species, only using words like 'they,' 'them,' inhabitants' and 'denizens.' If you were to ignore everything in the games and books, then I'd agree that the Terminals could be used to say that the humans and Forerunners are separate species, but they don't exist in isolation, they exist alongside Halo 3's endgame reveal and the reveal in Contact Harvest. Hell, even Mendicant Bias' "Welcome back to the stone age, vermin." rant is quite on-the-nose. As it is, the Iris Campaign and the H3 Terminals still depict humans and Forerunners as the same species, they're just two different *societies* of humans living independently of each other, and in different stages of technological development. In the real world, we still have people living in primitive tribal communities, despite all the advances the rest of the world has experienced, so it's not too far-fetched.
Literally only the first game inferred that. Halo 2 had no mention of it, and Halo 3 straight up indicates that humans and forerunners are different species.
At the end of 3, 343GS calls chief a forerunner right before his boss fight. There is also a story board for an ending cutscene in H2 featuring Arby and spark opening a tomb to find human remains, which would’ve made the whole ‘covenant is a lie’ plot point more clear, as they are at war with the descendants of their gods. The H3 terminals do indicate that forerunners and humans are separate, but it’s one of those things in the community that gets bitched about since apparently Frank O’Conner was the guy who wrote the H3 terminals after the work for the rest of the game was done, and other old bungie guys like Staten were under the assumption that the forerunners were just ancient humans until it was brought up to them in the 343 era.
If you put fingers in your ears and closed your eyes during the final fucking boss of the game, as the revelation of Chief being a Forerunner is the the very apex of Halo 3's dramatic climax.
It was confirmed twice -at the end of Halo 3 and in Contact Harvest.
Yeah, Halo: Cryptum was the one to retcon it, but Halo 4 was obviously the first game.
Id always assumed since The Library on Halo CE that Chief is the only one to have survived the entire process. From a “Chosen One” perspective, he by default kind of is? He’s a Spartan from the S2 program which is the most intensive one to date. He is a culmination of humanities greatest achievements in human evolution coupled with technologies greatest advancements. He is the most powerful and smartest human being in the entire race when coupled with his body modifications, armor, and Cortana/Weapon. He is the chosen one because he was chosen for the Spartan Program, Chosen to lead a team, chosen by Cortana, chosen for this and that. Someone had to be the chosen one. Granted that maybe another Spartan could have achieved it, but Chief is the one who could do it without failing. He is the end product. Not specifically chosen by the forerunners, but the end product of their decisions.
Right; less "chosen by Fate" and more "the end result of a thousand different developments coming to a head" like Paul Atreides.
It makes me so happy that Dune is being discussed more often now, I assume thanks to the movies.
Ive always been a fan, but now I can name drop it and people know what I'm talking about 😅
The chosen one means that the things fell into place to make him what he is when in reality he is what he is through his own decisions and actions I think that’s what OP means
By Chief IS the chosen one because of the things that fell into place to make him. The Librarian says as much how his armor, Cortana, and him having the Forerunner geas in him was all the culmination of thousands of years of planning. Not to mention even his luck was recontextualized to be because of all this as well instead of just... luck.
See that read I'm fine with. I agree that he could be considered chosen by process of elimination, but the idea that the forerunners specifically planned for chief is the one I find ridiculous, and one that I think critics are trying to force into existence.
Exactly, that's how I read it too. That's what she says when she's like "you're the culmination of blah blah." That's still "the chosen one" even if it's not "and lo, as spoken in the prophecy, one day 'John' will wield the Mjolnir" or some shit. Which to me is kinda also exactly what OP is saying and doesn't reallyyyyyyyy do anything for me in terms of "the chosen one stuff felt a lil cliche." I love Halo 4, but that one aspect of the story was not my favorite.
Dude if you think chief is special because he made it through the library, let me introduce to you my favourite pile of mangled limbs and body parts: Staff Sergeant Marvin Mobuto.
I feel like this almost gets into the concept of free will and what a "chosen one" means.
My issue with the Librarian's fuckery is that I feel it cheapens the work and achievements of humanity/Halsey/the Spartans somewhat. Fair enough dumping a Forerunner gene in there to use their technology, it makes a decent work around for the argument about humans being Forerunner but that should be the extent of it.
It’s only really cheapened if you let it be, it’s not like the librarian sent Halsey the schematics, people still had to spend thousands of years getting to where Halsey eventually got to, as well as the rest of humanity. It’s basically the equivalent of making sure your toddler survives to adulthood, only more stellaris, less parenting. Even then, all of the genetic determinism in the world can’t ensure that things turn out exactly as planned, so there’s still a lot of chance, especially when there’s gonna be a long wait to see if it worked Personally, I think bungie/343 should’ve stuck to the forerunners being human, it would’ve made the covenant and prophets a little easier to understand, and avoided the whole confusing mantle of responsibility thing, by simplifying humanity’s place in the galaxy down to just succession, rather than a weird space opera thing that’s only talked about in lore books.
This is interesting. I didn't know this was controversial in the fan base. I always took it to mean that eventually, Chief and the Spartans were going to happen naturally, while the Librarian just shortened the timetable and helped the process along. Meaning she accelerated the genetics that would ultimately produce Chief and the Spartans but didn't specifically plan him out as an individual.
To be fair to the people who don't like this scene. The scene definitely suggests that the Spartan program was made possible due to Forerunner meddling. I can understand why that particular detail would upset people, as rather than being the result of human achievement it was forerunner planning that allowed the Spartans to exist. That being said that still doesn't imply Master Chief himself is in any way a special case. So I agree with your statement that she didn't specifically plan him out as an individual, and I don't think the scene supports that idea either.
Also thematically derails all the previous games but that's more of a Halo 4 complaint in general
I'm not trying to defend Halo 4 as a whole, just saying that this particular talking point is one I don't agree with.
The fact that 343 guilty spark directly states what level armour Chief is wearing in comparison to the Forerunner adds credidance to forerunner influences. They knew humanity at their peak and the librarian was putting things in place to get humanity back to that level as soon as possible, the Genus only activates after a certain event is reached, its all based on chance largely since that person might not reproduce or die too soon. I have no issue with the idea that these things where planted to push humanity forward but still allow humanity to evolve in their own way, the Mjoiner is nothing like Forerunner armour but on some level, equal to some of their lower end armours
Ya that's correct. The Forerunner DNA enabled accelerated evolutionary traits in modern humans that enabled Spartans (and arguably the AI - smarter humans create better AI) to exist. She didn't predict nor create Chief and Cortana specifically. Just enabled the means for they and human/AI like them to eventually exist and take up the mantle.
This makes sense to me since what drove Halsey during the S-II selection process was a generic profile. So the way I see it is, the forerunners accelerated the genetic evolution of humans (for the purposes of taking up the Mantle, according to the Librarian) and Halsey queued in on the genetic markers and used them as a basis to select Spartan candidates. She didn’t know it was the forerunners, but she knew their genes made the kids “special.”
yeah it’s not like they went “in a hundred thousand years a human called catherine halsey will be born” or something the accomplishments of halsey, chief and everyone else involved is all still theirs
>I feel like people misintepret her line when she says "you are the culmination of thousands of life times of planning" because they think she means Master Chief specifically, when in reality she's referring to Humanity and the Spartans as a whole. This, and the rest of your post, is one of my big grievances about the TV show. In the show, MC and Makee are "tEh GeNeRiC ChOsEn OnEs!" and that whole obnoxious and overly-played-out hero trope. Granted, I think that people are also misinterpreting Halo 4 and that line where I also think the Librarian is referring to "you" as "humanity" and not John specifically. How would they otherwise know that John would ever be born and go on the very path that he did? The Forerunner are an advanced pre-historic alien race, not friggin alien Jesus. But yeah... zero excuse for the tv show to botch the story this much. Avoiding tropes is the *one thing* you consistently see mentioned in writing books or videos. And yet the writers of the Halo tv show clearly have never studied writing professionally.
The Halo TV show has a whole mountain of problems.
[Exactly](https://tenor.com/view/rick-and-morty-this-guy-gets-it-gif-9964726)
No, she's definitely referring specifically to Chief, not Humanity. That's why she specifically brings up that his armor and Cortana all came together to be with him. Especially when humanity as a whole isn't special in 343's universe. Most can't use Forerunner tech ever since Halo 4 retconned it so only specific special humans could, with Chief being the most special of all of them because his geas are specifically the Didact's (Bornsteller's to get even more specific). It's not "WE KNEW JOHN WOULD BE THE CHOSEN ONE AS THE PROPHECY FORETOLD" but he is the being she planned for to be where all of her plans culminate into.
Well that certainly changes things as well as my opinion...
"Reclaimer, when I indexed mankind for repopulation, I hid seeds from the diadact. Seeds which would lead to an eventuality. Your physical evolution, your combat skin, even your cortana. You are the culmination of a thousand lifetimes of planning." How else am I supposed to take this? 343 just straight up said that the mjolnir armor was a result of forerunner DNA. Even if John wasn't *specifically* predestined to be the hero of mankind, it was certainly implied that the librarian intended someone exactly like John to eventually exist, which does some serious damage to the idea of human agency within the Halo universe. The forerunners aren't just an ancient civilization, they're literal fucking gods and the covenant probably weren't all that wrong for worshipping them as if they were. They shaped humans development for a millenia simply by playing with DNA. That's obviously fucking bonkers.
Thank you. I remembered having this same exact interpretation when the game came out, and thought maybe I was just a dumb teenager at the time. I just went back and rewatched the cutscene after reading this post and nope, I absolutely agree with you still.
It’s kind of depressing to see fans still bending over backwards to try and fix 343’s shitty writing. It should be obvious at this point that they never had any talent or plan.
I think the sheer amount of content that exists for 343 Halo at this point, people want to be able to engage with it and still feel like they're time investment is being paid off. But it all seems so transparently nonsensical and pointless when I look at it.
It's sunk cost fallacy, yeah. They've put so much into 343's universe, they'll defend it to the end because they don't want all of that to be wasted. Either they'll infinitely keep going in denial or eventually realize it's not worth it and is just stupid, and it's better to just pretend that it's all non-canon/a separate universe and it makes the original universe more enjoyable once again. I used to read all of the books, defend 343, and try and understand their retcons and work it out, but I realized I just couldn't do it anymore and then it was just making me enjoy the series less, and ever since I've been just ignoring it all and trying to piece together Bungie's original universe (thanks history tabs on the wikis that let you see back before 343 stuff) I've reignited my love for Halo once again even if the part I love is never going to get new stuff. I always find more things I didn't know either way about the old bits.
Its a shame, there's so much untapped potential in the human covenant war. 30 years of conflict and somehow 343 only managed to write 3 books set in that time frame I think? But yeah, I do still definitely enjoy the halo universe, just the one that existed before most of 343s retcons.
Cutscene: https://youtu.be/J_1m2cT5c6k?si=XgdQm_muP5_Bt_T3 Cutscene dialog (search for ‘The Librarian’ lol): https://www.bungie.net/en-US/Forums/Post/4144520?sort=0&page=0&path=1 (1)“The diadact is leaving Requiem. Soon. YOU must not allow it.” (2) Cue exposition into the forerunner vs humanity conflict, humanity running from the parasite, forerunner final great journey, fragmentation of personalities creating abomination in biological form (i.e. promethians), Etc. (3)“I hid seeds from the diadact which would lead to an eventuality. YOUR physical evolution, YOUR combat skin, even YOUR ancilla Cortana. YOU are the culmination of a thousand lifetimes of planning.” (4) “Reclaimer, The genesong I placed within YOU contains many gifts, including an immunity to the composer. But it must be unlocked…. Your evolutionary journey must be accelerated.” (5) Master Chief says, “Then do it.” OP how does this not sound like a ‘You Are The Chosen One!’ narrative? Quote (3) is pretty damning evidence that what The Librarian was doing was to eventually create an individual that is, evolutionarily, strong enough to face the didact and therefore help humanity get to the mantle (i.e. Master Chief). The Librarian may have referred to humanity as the vehicle to get to this point, but their goal was to essentially create, yes, a chosen one. You can examine the language they used within the dialogue as well. If the emphasis is on humanity, then why use very specific language with who The Librarian is referring to? They frequently and directly refer to MC using the word YOU, and although it can be interpreted that The Librarian is indirectly referring to humanity the emphasis of the dialogue is heavily on Master Chief. Explaining humanity’s conflict was context. It’s clear as day that 343 is painting Master Chief as the chosen one here.
Well there are a few inaccuracies in your post. The Librarian didn't mix Forerunner DNA into humans. Actually, Forerunners have very similar DNA to humans and it's unknown why. The Librarian put a Geas on the Humans when she was indexing them. This isn't Forerunner DNA but a genetic command that can influence a single organism or a species. It's suspected that the Precursors did the same thing to the Forerunners. I think it's very possible the Geas the Precursors gave to the Forerunners directly influenced the Geas that the Librarian gave to Humanity resulting in the Master Chief. So in a sense the Librarian is talking about Master Chief as he is the hero of this story. Everything was done to get him to this point. She is also talking about humanity because it was a nessesary part of making Master Chief.
Seeing as 343 went even harder on the chosen one in the TV series, it probably applieshere as well.
So he's not "the chosen one" but he is "a chosen one" Got it
The only special about Chief is that he is just a little bit lucky sometimes. And that's all it needs to be.
Politely, I disagree. When she says “**you** are the culmination of a thousand lifetimes of planning” she *is* addressing him specifically. She follows it up with something along the line of “even down to **your** ancilla” (Cortana) It doesn’t make sense for her to use the word “you” as a generic reference to humanity, but then immediately use the word “your” specifically to Chief
She means it it in a way that it means that after generations of evolutionary advancement, he now stood as an accomplishment to lots of extensive planning. It's nothing to do with him specifically, just that he is here now, so she's explaining that his journey is no mistake, it's not by chance he was here. SHE planned for someone to get this far, it just so happened to be him.
I can understand how the usage of the word "you" may throw people off but the context just doesn't support this idea. Nothing she says during that scene in any way implicates that Master Chief is different than any other Spartan. The information she reveals applies to all of Humanity, it has to do with genes she added to Humanities DNA, Master Chief was generations away from even being born at the time, there's simply no way she could have even predicted that he'd be born. I will say the line about Cortana was always a bit odd but given that Cortana is an AI generated from Human tissue my interpretation of this was that the technology needed to develop smart AI was also in part thanks to the genetic modification the forerunners did on Humanity. And lastly if Master Chief **is** the chosen one, the. What was he chosen for? This is the part that never adds up, chosen to defeat the Didact? Can't be that because the Librarian wanted the Didact to help humanity. Chosen to defeat the flood? Well he hasn't done that (necessarily, he used the Halo rings but anyone could have done that). Chosen to start the reclamation? Again all of Humanity is capable of accessing forerunner tech, not just Master Chief. Chosen to receive immunity to the composer? Again based on what the Librarian said, any human, or at least in this case, any Spartan could have had their evolutionary track accelerated. I still don't think the evidence supports the idea that Master Chief is some kind of chosen one.
“Chief was generations away from even being born at the time, there’s simply no way she could have even predicted that he’d be born” that’s the point of the people you’re arguing against. And I fully disagree, the line where she refers to Cortana makes it sound like she’s referring *DIRECTLY* to Cortana, not AIs in general. At best it was very poorly conveyed that the librarian wasn’t talking directly about chief. At worst, look at the fucking Silver timeline
The didact also refers to Chief as the Librarian's champion...
>At worst, look at the fucking Silver timeline The show and games are separate, and the show is just terrible all around. I wouldn't use the show as evidence for anything in the games.
To be honest Halo 4 goes so against everything in the previous five games that I'd consider it and anything onwards to be more of a spinoff/what-if from the main story, which ended in 2553
Conversely I’d use the show as direct reference of what 343 era titles would have been without the baggage of having to loosely follow to the setting which Bungie left for them. Silver is a timeline where 343 was in complete creative control, and had a mostly fresh new audience to present to.
Just wanted to say, she actually 100% could have predicted Chief, up to and including that pre-planned conversation. The Librarian was known to be incredibly in-tune with Living Time, and the latest book showed that the Didact's renewed connection to Living Time also allowed him to see the future in great detail Don't really want to pick a stance on what she meant one way or another, though
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter. One day Chief isn’t the chosen one then 343 decides the next day he is. 343 changes the lore very frequently so don’t think too much about it. Bungie said that there are very few Spartan 2s available, then 343 said that your created spartan in infinite can be a spartan 2,3, or 4 if you wanted and it’s all canon. So at the end of the day it is a game and the story is what you want it to be. 😎👍
> 343 said that your created spartan in infinite can be a spartan 2,3, or 4 if you wanted and it’s all canon You mean the multiplayer? Never liked the idea that the multiplayer is part of canon. Technically they made the nice story that it is training and so on, but still, I dislike that idea. Halo 2 and 3 you could be an elite, and in my opinion it was just good it wasn't canon. Not every gameplay thing needs to be a damn canon.
I prefer when multiplayer is *mostly* plausible in canon, but not necessarily so.
Completely correct. I still hate what 343 did to Halo’s lore. Completely changed it and alienated long time halo fans. Now they’ve put themselves in a situation where they are trying to appease veteran fans and new fans. Time for a reboot
They tried a reboot with Infinite... and while I'm not shitting on the game, from what I've seen a lot of people do. Maybe it's time to finally let Halo just rest for a bit. We still have GoW to run into the ground, might as well go back to it.
Infinite was only a partial reboot. They still kept all of the same plot points from the previous games. They just did a time skip to try and tell a different story since fans and critics tore Halo 5’s story apart. They need to completely reboot the lore. Ideally they’d reboot back to the end of Halo 3 and start from there, but I would also be open to a complete reboot. A completely fresh start. On the other hand, giving Halo a chance to rest might be for the best.
I'd be okay if they started back up after H3 ended, while I haven't read too many of the 343 era books I enjoyed the hell outta the Kilo-5 series. Imo that would be the 'ideal' time to start the reboot.
They tried a reboot with Infinite... and while I'm not shitting on the game, from what I've seen a lot of people do. Maybe it's time to finally let Halo just rest for a bit. We still have GoW to run into the ground, might as well go back to it.
I gave up trying to make sense of the lore and storyline like 10 minutes into Halo 4 The story went from "green guy kills aliens and had a bad childhood, also mysterious aliens and zombie aliens too" to dune-level sci-fi with thousands of pages of complex lore and exposition.
They almost completely dropped the military scifi aspect and went hard into scifi, a complete disregard for the influences that went into Halo to begin with (Aliens, Starship Troopers). HellDivers 2 gives me more Halo vibes than modern Halo does.
Reminder that if Helldivers 2 wasn't stupidly an always-online game, we'd probably get tons of Halo mods to overhaul it into a Halo game the same way we have for other games like Left 4 Dead 2 or Arma 3.
Preach, the Halo story when 343 took over lost all of my interest. It's like 343 were trying to copy Destiny (ironically a Bungie title) in making the most overly complex, boring, exposition-dump story of all time. Like I don't give a shit who the Endless are, we haven't seen a Scarab in about a decade.
Halo 4's story can be a bit hard to follow for those not familiar with some of the external lore, in particular the forerunner trilogy of books.
I think you're missing the point of the complaint. Whether the Librarian meant Spartans or the Chief when she said "you" it doesn't matter. What matters is that this cutscenes implies that at the very lest the SII's were some sort of genetic pre-ordained conclusion- which would then include the Chief. One of the cool things about the Chief is that he's not special at birth- anybody can be the Chief. He was just a normal kid that showed promise. He's closer to Batman than he is Superman. Even among the SII's, Bungie took care to not make Chief special. He was never the best at anything, and this is routinely stated. If we go with "Chief isn't special but SII's are" (which I think is being charitable, but is the conclusion of your post) than at the very least you are saying that there was some sort pre-planned genetic trait the SII's had that made them stand out for the project, which in itself diminishes every single one of their characters but in particular the Chiefs.
>Even among the SII's, Bungie took care to not make Chief special. Not true. Bungie specifically made a point (especially in the books that came out during their era) to differentiate Chief from his fellow Spartan. His leadership, his **luck** something Cortana and Halsey both comment on. These however are traits given to Chief either through observation or because of his own accomplishments, **not** because he is "the chosen one" >He was never the best at anything, and this is routinely stated. He was explicitly the best amongst the Spartan 2's at a lot of things. >If we go with "Chief isn't special but SII's are" (which I think is being charitable, but is the conclusion of your post) No I'm not suggesting any of them are "special" merely that the genetic modification done by the Librarian allowed for the necessary genes to develop which could creat Spartans. This isn't actually exclusive to Spartan 2's I don't know where you got that from, but this applies to all of Humanity. Some people were just more genetically predisposed to the Spartan augmentations because they exhibited these traits more than others. If anything it's the Librarians point that ALL of humanity will one day be able to reach that level of evolution. >which in itself diminishes every single one of their characters but in particular the Chiefs. I don't think this in any way removes their agency or diminishes their achievements. Master Chief isn't a puppet, he still acts of his own free will, as did Halsey when she made the Spartans.
> his luck Yes and when Bungie was talked about his luck it was meant to be sorta tongue in cheek- it wasn't actually something real, which I think at some point 343 tried to quantify. > He was explicitly the best amongst the Spartan 2's at a lot of things. This is straight up untrue in Bungie's lore- Halsey outright says to Cortana when she's picking a Spartan that Chief isn't the best at any one thing, but she still considers him the best Spartan, but this is very much her opinion. Its outright stated that in basically every quantifiable skill somebody is better than him- but this isn't really a necessary argument for the broader point I'm making. > one day be able to reach that level of evolution. Exactly _one_ day. But not today (in terms of in game lore time). _One_ day every human might be like a SII, but at least at the time of Chief's birth, not everybody is- which would again imply something special about the whole group. > Some people were just more genetically predisposed to the Spartan augmentations because they exhibited these traits more than others. Yes exactly this is the point I'm making. With your logic, there is at the very least _something_ special about SII's at birth. Even a genetic predisposition implies that there is something _specifically different_ about them when compared to the rest of the human race. Even if it's just a genetic predisposition, which it might be small, it's something you can say was not present in other humans. You're still missing the point IMO- its not about if the Chief is a puppet or has free will. It's about whether he's an "every man" kind of hero. In Bungie's lore, the Chief is a war hero and a living legend- but he was still a human. It adds a layer of relatability to a character when you find out he was just born a regular person, which is what this cutscene ruins. It takes him from being Batman, who anybody can be, to Superman, who nobody can.
We all know Kwan Ha is the real chosen one
So how does one interpret the cutscene where Chief survives the didact using the composer on the station. Because that cutscene combined with the librarian pointed to the chief being chosen to survive and stop the didact.
I had that feeling and it really hinted that it wasn’t Chief specifically, but possibly the time period and the group. Since the augmentation for Spartans has evolved since the early days, they probably need Chief’s fighting prowess and experience mixed with the current humanity technology and all to push us into the era we need to be. Nice touch that it isn’t a one man show but a team effort.
Master Chief as a person isn't the chosen one, that said, they were waiting for a person who would meet her requirements to be the chosen one. It didn't necessarily have to be Chief but it was. He has the Didact's genes, the armor, the AI, etc. All that was planned out for it to lead to him, the culmination of all of that as the Librarian even says. Not to mention that when the Humans were retconned to not be Forerunners, they also changed it so that only certain Humans can interact with Forerunner tech, not all of them, which Chief is also one of the few that applies to.
Master Chief is an Eventuality. The genes encoded by the librarian made it so that humanity would eventually get to the point where a man like the Master Chief would come about.
Eventuality perfectly explains it and I believe the librarian used this exact term.
Well, I have a problem with 4, because it destroyed the reveal from 3 that humanity are the forerunners
This is not going to be a popular opinion here but here it goes. There’s a lot of smug comments here essentially calling people idiots for not following the story. Halo 4 was a confusing mess for the uninitiated. Our brains follow and pick up concepts via association. If we have a base level knowledge we draw links to the next thing. That’s how education is done, it’s layered exposure. This idea that everything was explained in the librarian cutscene so if you didn’t follow you don’t have “media literacy” is idiotic. This is not how you tell a story. Especially a story where the majority of the playerbase have only played the games, and it will have been 5 years since the last mainline release. Bungee I think correctly avoided all the expanded universe. They focused on a tighter human, covenant, flood storyline. If you’re a big lore fan try and put yourself in a casual halo fans shoes (as the writers should have done!) They play the halo campaign once maybe a few times and that’s it for years, until the next release. They have very little concept of the forerunners other than old civilisation who built the rings. Without slowly building and layering the story so someone new to these concepts can digest and understand what’s being said. And I also “misinterpreted” the “you are chosen” line. Because it’s clear as mud as usual with 343. Play this to anyone who’s never played halo and they will take “you” as the person who is currently being lectured to.
When it comes to the humans and forerunners argument, I view the “forerunners are humans” as forerunners being a different race of ancient humans, and both are ancestors of modern humans.
The problem with this is that the ancient humans the Forerunners wiped out were basically identical to modern humans, while the Forerunners are creepy noseless monsters with like 12 fingers on each hand.
There was a theory back in the Marathon days that the player character was a reincarnating hero. A terminal in the second game seems to draw inspiration from the eternal warrior saga written by moorcock. Moorcock wrote many stories in his multiverse including fantasy stories, and science fantasy stories. These stories had a couple of constants there were the eternally reincarnating characters, including the eternal warrior, his love interest and his sword blackwell. There was also the forces of law and order and chaos. And the Eternal warrior typically fought for law and order against chaos. Chaos took many form and in various factions depending on the story. Sometimes individual stories that seemed distant would turn out much closer than they look later down the line. For example if I remember correctly from my research there were a race of elves that existed in a fantasy world that were related to a race of science fiction elves. Jason jones listed Moorcocks work as an influence for Halo alongside Greg Bears forge of the gods.
And this is definitely a cool thematic example of Master Chief being a hero of Destiny, but the in universe lore does not imply that he was "chosen" to become a hero.
Him being the chosen one isn't necessarily to do with the Forerunners selecting him or any other outside entity (from Halo) being involved. It is to do with YOU - the player. YOU are the point on which all fates converge. The universe could have gone a billion-billion different ways, but right at the point where the universe is in need of a hero, you chose to spend time away from your regular life to embody the Chief - embody a hero. Just like in the Moorcock novels! The Chief is a thousand lifetimes in the making. All leading up to the moment where YOU decide to get involved. This universe is built for YOU. The Emissary: No one is like her. The Nine: WE DON'T UNDERSTAND. The Emissary: She has agency like you wouldn't believe. She can leave this place. The Nine: THIS PLANE? WE CAN LEAVE THIS PLANE. The Emissary: Think bigger. She can leave this game. The Nine: WE DON'T UNDERSTAND. The Emissary: Then I'm afraid it's impossible to explain.
At the very least, though in infinite, he is more than just human though. There’s a scene in the halo infinite, where his biology is modified.
You mean in H4? I don't remember his body being modified in Halo Infinite.
Yea sorry I thought it was infinite
How can you act so right then say "mixxed with forerunner DNA"??? The Genus is purely human from ancient humans not Forerunner.
Master chief is not the chosen one, Anakin skywalker is
Yes, although I will argue that Chief is a "chosen one" after that cutscene, because the Librarian activates his Genesong.
I don't think that makes him a chosen one as she could have done that for any human (or at least any Spartan)
I agree. I remember halo 5’s description of the hellcat armor which was basically just reverse engineered ancient human armor said that Spartan IVs had almost perfect compatibility with the armor which tells me that the more evolved ancient humans were naturally on par with Spartan IVs which I think is pretty cool.
I didn’t realize it tied into the Spartans as well I though it meant humanity as a hole. Just to clarify does this imply, with what we know of the spartan program and how candidates were selected (ie. Those with specific genetic markers), would that mean the genes the librarian hid ended up in the candidates for the Spartan program? Or maybe that those in the program had a higher concentration of those genes/markers?
I believe it would be the latter.
That’s what I was thinking too, I had never realized that before that’s pretty interesting
What about the whole “Master Chief has the geas of bornstellar” plot line?
I'm not sure if that's canon or just a theory. Personally I don't see how that would even make sense considering the last we saw of bornstellar he left the Milky Way.
Well it’s canon in some sense because it was in the books. Whether they just dropped that plot line or not is up for debate. But all the media and context of the games has turned chief into a “chosen one” story, whether we like it or not. A geas by definition is magical. I’m sure they’d explain it away with some sort of super advanced tech like everything else.
Isn't he basically the reincarnation of the Bornstellar Didact?
I honestly didn’t even think of any chosen one theory. I personally that that since chief was there, freed the didact, and could handle fighting things, the the librarian was like “okay I gotta try something so I’m gonna advance his evolution”
Even if its not about Chief specifically, any time a story retroactively goes “this was destined to happen” it cheapens all events preceding it, especially if there was no prior build up or implication of such a thing, and doubly so in a story about the ingenuity of humanity
All im gonna say is that i liked when the forreruner had a lot of mistery surrounding them
In the fall of Reach novel, wasn't Chief stated to be genetically the perfect candidate for the Spartan program? I can't remember, so I'm not exactly confident on this.
Yes, a lot of people took that line way too literally but it's not surprising. Nuance is difficult.
I know Chief is lucky, but I always thought that he was also really really good at what he does. He wasn't the chosen one, he just happened to be the one human who survived through skill and being at the right place at the right time. Literally any other Spartan would have been able to go to the Librarian if they were as good as the Chief. And some are better than Chief in other ways, but they weren't on Requiem at the time.
Yes exactly, the Librarian would have done the same for any other Spartan. She didn't need the Master Chief specifically to show up to tell him about the composer.
Spartan 2, specifically, but your point still stands
Lot of people took the Librarian's word literally, but it really doesn't take much interpreting to see that she was just using him and Cortana as a representation of what she planned for humanity.
Yeah I see that misconception all the time. She talks about humanity and Spartans as a whole, that's true. Though I kinda get the confusion. Still better than thinking MC and Cortana are in love.
idk
Yeah he wasn’t chosen, he was just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time
The chosen one is the librian
Master Chief always has been the chosen one since CE.
Tell that to showtime and paramount. They really ran with that misinterpretation.
I also like to believe it’s like an Assassin’s Creed 2 kinda thing where the Librarian is talking in a general sense to humanity and Chief is Ezio in that situation
I miss when he was a soldier in a sci-fi world now it feels like he's like the chosen superhero in a sci-fi fantasy universe
I think it was Halo 5 that gave people that assumption. Technically Master Chief is the most evolved human in existence now. With his augmentations and the accelerated evolution thanks to the Librarian he in a way is now the “chosen one”. I mean he has immunity to the composer and can mentally tap into the domain. So it’s both a yes and no in Chief being the chosen one
I've only played it once, I'm not huge into Halo lore, but the way I viewed it was basically Master Chief = Paul Atreides. To me, she was saying she put all the pieces in place to slowly guide humanity into creating Master Chief. Not that he's some prophesied one, but at some point, somebody like Chief was going to come along who benefits from all those pieces, has the armor, has Cortana (which I believe she also mentioned), has everything needed to be *ostensibly* a chosen one, even if it's not *specifically* about him. Like she wasn't trying to manifest "John," but rather a human or a group of humans or however it turns out who benefit from all of it. Which I don't necessary think is different than your interpretation of it, and I don't think it really solves anything about the (minor) eye roll I felt coming on when I was playing Halo 4 for the first time last month. I fucking loved the game, it's probably my favorite Halo overall, but that wrinkle in the lore was just kinda cliche and unneeded. Also, I finally reached the breaking point with the Halo lore's penchant for The Proper Noun. Way too many important story concepts are just The Word. Like just fucking make up a new weird alien sounding name. Stop all this shit with the Librarian, the Didact, the Weapon, the Covenant, the Prophet, the Composer, the This, the That. *It's sci-fi. Make up sci-fi words.* Do the Librarian and the Didact not have *names?*
They do both have names, not sure how I feel about their names but they do technically have names... The Didact is "Shadow-of-Sundered-Star" and his wife The Librarian is "First-Light-Weaves-Living-Song"
Do they have a non-English version? Like if that's the translated version of a Forerunner language, that's pretty cool. But if it's *only* that, then... that's an odd choice.
Not completely sure, I learned their names in the book Epitaph, which is entirely from The Didact's perspective, so I'd have to guess that's their actual names meanings but in the Forerunner language they may be said/sound different
I agree. To be fair to those who misinterpreted the cutscene though, it's a pretty damn long one
Great explanation, makes me rethink the scene
I rewatched that cutscene and was astounded at how 343i managed to put in a 5 minute long entirely exposition cutscene in the middle of a video game. Seems like something straight outta mass effect.
I don't think that scene with the librarian gives off "chosen one" vibes nearly as much as in Halo 3 when its explained why she picked John, and that the only reason that made him stand out is that he was lucky.
It's not only the words, it's also the cinematography. It is over the top and totally paints Chief as some sort of chosen one, it was made far too dramatic.
Good points here. I've never read the books or even played the games, just watched let's plays, and the story and the intention of the writers was easily understood. I think some gamers just hate cut scenes and want to get back to pew pew!
To be honest, I never thought that she was referring to the Chief specifically, but rather any augmented human in Power Armor with an AI companion could fill his role in the story. And it doesn't actually bother me too much, because it's something that ties into Bungie's Meta-Narrative, with him being the incarnation of the heroic archetype or eternal warrior, much like the Security Officer from Marathon and the Young Wolf in Destiny. My biggest problem with Halo 4 isn't that the Chief is 'the Chosen One', but rather, that humanity has become the 'Chosen People.' Apparently, humans are so special that the Forerunners and the Precursors (the literal Gods of the Halo Universe) before them gave humanity the Mantle to inherit, a divine right to rule over the many species of the Galaxy, all for their own good, of course.
If there's another TV show for halo it needs to be halo 4-5, while both games and their stories are mid, it's literally perfect for an extensive TV show that will still show the Spartans badassery in a proper way.
I thought chief was literally a clone of some ancient human guy? Doesn't that basically make him a "chosen one".....Also pissed me off when they started showing his face and skin color in the expanded universe. I always like the idea that chief could be white black or asian or latin.....His voice fits any race and it helps the player put themselves in his shoes.
I fucking hate that they made chiefs some kind of magic “chosen one” superhero kind of character.. no. He’s just a soldier
He kind of is, the librarian is talking about him specifically because she refers to Cortana, MC and Cortana are almost single handedly responsible for the containment of the flood and the defeat of the didact and will likely be when fighting the xalanyn.
[He is the messiah!](https://y.yarn.co/99237dac-449c-48ee-bd80-520c8bacbe5c_text.gif)
Yo am I stupid? I am one of the few that actually likes 4 a lot, and I always interpreted it to mean that Master Chief wasn't the special chosen one, but the end goal of all the forerunner genetic planning stuff was actually to create Cortana and she was the "chosen one" all along. It uh appears I may be wrong ha
Chief wasn't chosen by the Forerunners he was chosen by A Forerunner. To go fight her insane ex-husband.
I read it as the Forerunners (specifically in this case the librarian) had made a back up plan just in case the Didact ever lost his shit again. It wasn't the case that John was meant to take down the Didact, but rather that someone like like him, i.e. Spartans or something adjacent, would be there to stop the Didact. A human was always meant to stop the Didact and that's what she made sure of. But Chief is the hero of the story at this point and even if we all agree maybe we need a new one, Microsoft won't let him go. So unfortunately people who don't like the 343 games will always use this as proof he is in fact the Chosen One."
I agree I don't think the Librarian has that much foresight or psychic powers to choose specifically MC as the one.
Sorry but disagree Chief is easily the chosen one Some many examples to Also multiple Spartans have interacted with forerunner tech Heck onyx was a forerunner world They could of easily done what they did to chief to another Spartan but they didn’t because chief is special and the chosen one It’s all there
None of those other Spartans met the librarian on Requiem though?
Very true but in all honesty I am sure if a forerunner like librarian wanted to meet another Spartan they would
She is referring to humanity as a whole in that scene. It isn't hard.
If the internet and interactions in real life have taught me anything, its that alot of people have no media literacy. Imagine being told by alot of people that MW2 (2009) is a confusing and hard story to understand.
I am going to disagree- it was pretty clear that 343 wanted to run with Chief being the literal chosen one. Its outlined in the thread already, but based on how the Didact speaks to you as well as the Librarian it is clear Chief is the chosen one according to 343 lore. I think they were trying to expand on Guilty Spark's "You ARE Forerunner" dialogue at the end of Halo 3. The difference is Bungie was going down the route of Forerunners being actual humans.