|
Halo 3: The Flood Gate is Open |
|
|
|
|
|
|
It's been three years since the Master Chief vowed to finish the fight and Halo 2 drew to its abrupt close. And while you certainly remember the basics about the series -- dude in armor, aliens who hate us, those zombie guys, a curiously nubile computer program -- it's been a while. And you've probably just been focusing on multiplayer, right?
It's cool. We understand. I mean, that cliffhanger was like a punch to the gut, and if you really wanna catch up on the series' story, you'll have to slog through that Library level again. But now Halo 3's on its way, soon, and it suddenly occurs to you that you've kinda forgotten all the important parts. We've got your back. Save yourself 20 hours and catch up on all the key Halo story tidbits with our refresher. Who knows? We might even drop a few hints about the third game's plot straight from developer Bungie.
Halo: A Primer
Halo:
The thing for which the series is named is nothing less than a massive ring-shaped structure in outer space featuring a remarkably Earth-like habitat on its inner surface. The first Halo mankind ever encountered -- just one of seven total -- was destroyed soon after, which would seem like your typical "man destroys everything he touches" parable...except that it's not. It was self-defense against a chain of events beyond mankind's control, honest!
While the alien Covenant see the Halos as holy objects destined to guide them on a spiritual awakening, the truth is that the space installations aren't nearly so benevolent. On the contrary, Halos are more like weapons, and they're capable of wiping out every sentient being in the galaxy. The only spiritual revelation they offer is a chance to finally find out whose idea of the afterlife is correct. Unsurprisingly, pretty much no one is eager to put the Halos to the test. (Except the Covenant leadership, who clearly have their own ambitions.)
But who would create such an awful thing? That would be...
The Forerunners:
A mysterious, ancient, and very much vanished race whose hyper-advanced technological relics can be found sprinkled across the galaxy. Pretty impressive, considering they seem to have died out 100,000 years ago -- right about the time the Halos were last fired, in fact. Probably not a coincidence!
So why build a galactic suicide machine, you ask? There's a very good reason, and that reason is...
The Flood:
Somewhere between Aliens and Resident Evil lies the Flood. A parasitic life form that propagates by sending out tiny little monsters that eat people's faces, the Flood infection transforms most sentient creatures into ravenous, violent zombies.
Although the individual monsters are seemingly mindless and uncoordinated, the Flood as a whole is actually pretty canny. A creature subsumed by the Flood retains its original knowledge and skills, which is why they're pretty good shots, and why certain Flood can use vehicles and machines. The Flood were seemingly such a threat to the Forerunners that the Halos were constructed to starve them out of existence. Not by destroying them directly, but rather by annihilating all life capable of hosting a Flood infection. Meanwhile, the Halos also serve as laboratories for further study of the Flood, with a series of autonomous systems serving to keep the parasite contained to quarantine areas.
Of course, one might ask the logical question: If the Forerunners could build devices capable of killing everything the Flood could absorb, why not just kill the Flood instead? Why kill off the Flood's food but then keep a handful of Flood alive? Clearly, there are shenanigans afoot -- maybe the Flood serve a valuable purpose? Maybe the Flood were created intentionally? Or maybe it's just that the Forerunners were a bunch of dumb bastards. We're banking on that last one. In any case, the burden of cleaning up their mess falls to...
The Master Chief:
If the fate of the entire galaxy seems a bit much for one man's shoulders to bear alone, keep in mind that the Master Chief is no regular man. He's a genetically enhanced, surgically upgraded supersoldier. Lightning reflexes, keen tactical mind, cool armor with self-repairing shields, and so on. It stands to reason, then, that his shoulders are pretty sturdy. He's the pinnacle of the Spartan-II program, a warrior capable of repelling all threats to the safety of Earth and its colonies.
So far, he's done a bang-up job. In addition to a long and distinguished career that involves many, many enemy casualties, the Master Chief also single-handedly put a stop to the threat posed by the first Halo, prevented the Cairo orbital Earth defense station from being nuked, assassinated one of the Covenant's three hierarchs, and was last seen in a massive invasion craft in high Earth orbit -- a stowaway hoping to prevent the planet's conquest.
In short, he's a hell of a guy. If he has a weakness, it's that he's a little too good at taking orders...even when those orders are playing him for a patsy. He was nearly duped into activating the first Halo (which would have made him responsible for the death of, well, pretty much everything), and while his current mission of protecting Earth from the Covenant falls into line with his own imperatives -- i.e., prevent the genocide of his species -- he was only allowed to go because it served the purposes of...
Gravemind:
This alien mind doesn't just do a canny Shakespeare impression (often speaking in poetic iambic heptameter, sometimes even with rhyming couplets). No, it also plots the galactic triumph of the Flood. In fact, Gravemind is the Flood, seemingly the ultimate evolution of the parasitic species.
Gravemind came into existence on Delta Halo (aka Installation 05), where it seems the automated systems weren't terribly effective at containing the Flood. While the parasites on the original Halo were neatly shut up in the quarantine zone, it seems the Flood got the upper hand on the second installation, capturing the Monitor and tapping into the Halo's subsystems. This allowed Gravemind the time to develop and grow and scheme, and it wasted no time when presented with the opportunity to escape from the Halo. It captured both the Master Chief and Covenant warrior the Arbiter and set them about preventing the detonation of Installation Five. Not out of niceness, of course, but because it wants to conquer the universe, and it's hard to do that when your food supply has been cut off.
The threat that Gravemind poses to the galaxy is, well, grave. At the end of Halo 2, it managed to use the human cruiser In Amber Clad to transport itself from Delta Halo to the mobile Covenant capital city High Charity, where it quickly proceeded to convert everything in sight into Flood. (A task made easier by the fact that the Covenant was too embroiled in a civil war to pay much attention to the Flood.) Gravemind has absorbed the Prophet of Regret into himself and subsequently knows just about everything there is to know about the Covenant. And chances are pretty good he can find out all sorts of dirt on humanity from...
More soon to come...
[img:d221cbb123]http://i1114.photobucket.com/albums/k530/peaceness25/flutter_sphere_by_zackira-d4mqu80.png[/img:d221cbb123] [b:d221cbb123]I adopted a Flutter-Sphere![/color:d221cbb123][/b:d221cbb123][/size:d221cbb123] Get one here! SolarFlare1452 · Thu Jul 16, 2009 @ 09:27pm · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
