so... why is the covenant still a thing in Halo 4 exactly?

[Nuclear Kangaroo]

and why do they follow the dilact? am i missing something? the prophets are dead the and great journey is a scam, i thought that was common knowledge among the races of the covenant by now, also why are the elites attacking master chief after he helped save their entire stinkin' race?

i dont think this was ever explained in the game

[Nuclear Kangaroo]

Originally posted by Zeruca:

Originally posted by Nuclear Kangaroo:

and why do they follow the dilact? am i missing something? the prophets are dead the and great journey is a scam, i thought that was common knowledge among the races of the covenant by now, also why are the elites attacking master chief after he helped save their entire stinkin' race?

i dont think this was ever explained in the game

They are a tiny split off section of the covenant. It explains it in the lore and I believe Cortana literally says it in the first mission.

i think this deserved more than a passing comment, but regardless, why are they following the didact? why are there elites among them, and why are they attacking chief, are they still trying to go through with the great journey despite the fact it was shown it was basically mass suicide?

[Crescendoll]

I have the same question since Halo 4 is out, I know most of Halo lore is in the books but damn, important information should be in-game.

[Based Legionary™]

This Information isnt even in the Books, 343 is just too dumb to write new Factions. Because of this Creative Essembly basically forced them to bring in the Banished, a actually great Faction, that will probably ruined by 343.

If it wasnt clear at that Point, my hate for 343 burns in my veins like Fire.

[RICK 100]

Maybe was a faction that didn't recognize the defeat against the humans and the sangelirie and still look for the great journey,like the vietnam soldier like they were in the jungle still fighting even when the war was over

[silver_II]

If they ever actually do a PC port for 5 your head is going to explode my man

[Blamite Delight]

after the covenant collapsed a lot of splinter factions formed and most sangheili with combat experience became something akin to warlords. Jul Mdama a pissed of elite that hates humanity found out about how the Didact also wants to kill off humanity and so he amassed followers and started searching for the didact.

[Blamite Delight]

Originally posted by CEO Senpai Großbaka Kaffee Kain:

This Information isnt even in the Books, 343 is just too dumb to write new Factions. Because of this Creative Essembly basically forced them to bring in the Banished, a actually great Faction, that will probably ruined by 343.

If it wasnt clear at that Point, my hate for 343 burns in my veins like Fire.

yes is it is in the books dumbass, have you even read Halo: Glasslands?

[Limygeorge]

It says an "ancient evil," Just guessing that a splinter group of the covenant have joined whatever the "ancient evil," is. I don't think the Covenant are ancient. The flood are but I don't think that's it.

My guess is that an entirely new ancient empire or whatever have come back with the splinter group of this ancient evil. I got that idea from level 1, but one of the terminals on Requim shows an entirely different "race," The great journey was done with in the last game, now they (ancient race) seem to put trust in the "mantle." Seems religious. Also there is a video on that terminal of huge star ships destroying covenant ships.

One other thing, make of it what you will, is that on that terminal, there is a scene where one ancient xxxx, say the covenant are very persistant. So they are fighting them and protect/use the Mantle. So two covenant groups? What's the mantle? Seems the covenant are after something of enormous power which I guess is "the mantle."

All I wrote was base on Cortana level one, and a terminal on Requim level. Also the language or sound the grunts use is totally different from the previous games. Design choice? Or have they been tricked, willingly joined, or enslaved by this ancient thing and the mantle?

I'' repeat that at this point in the game I am not sure of anything, so if someone knows no need to say everything I wrote was utter garbage in a flaming way. It could well be garbage, I just don't know.

It's intriguing though, and the slow drip drip of information makes me want to play to find out.
But in the end, like all Halo games the story is secondary to the game play. The story of the first few games (not Reach or ODST - just 1, 2, 3) was simple and basic. Didn't interest me at all despite loving the games for excellent fps action.

This is the first Halo game that actually has me interested in the story.

And that's despite playing Halo ce on original xbox several times when released (yeah I'm an old fart) and the other games multiple times back in 360 days.

The only game I started but didn't finish, both on 360, and now in MCC is ODST. Personally I was fed up with it by about chapter 3. I mean Halo - have to be a spartan, not some regular spec ops human! Reach, mmm, not impressed.

But Halo 1, 2, 3, and now in 4 (early game probably) are hugely great. The game play and beatiful graphics in 4 are what I expected and would have been fine with just that. As a bonus first time after countless play throughs of the earlier games on Xbox original, 360, it's the first time I want to find out and/or interested in the story.

Sorry for rambling off topic in the last 3 paragraphs, but just to say, it may turn out that the story of Halo 4 has nothing in common with my guess above. It is just a guess based on a few things.

[Limygeorge]

Ok, I got it mostly, but that would be going into spoiler territory so I will just say one thing. Seems obvious now lol. The ancient, very ancient race are the "Promethians." Interesting story, but I won't write any more. That would be spoiler.

Enjoy!!

[AshHill07]

A fair amount of what's going on with Requiem is explained further in Spratan Ops.

[Limygeorge]

Originally posted by AshHill07:

A fair amount of what's going on with Requiem is explained further in Spratan Ops.

Thanks, looking forward to it. Great no one has written huge spoilers. Hope it stays that way.

[MK_]

Originally posted by Limygeorge:

It says an "ancient evil," Just guessing that a splinter group of the covenant have joined whatever the "ancient evil," is. I don't think the Covenant are ancient. The flood are but I don't think that's it.

My guess is that an entirely new ancient empire or whatever have come back with the splinter group of this ancient evil. I got that idea from level 1, but one of the terminals on Requim shows an entirely different "race," The great journey was done with in the last game, now they (ancient race) seem to put trust in the "mantle." Seems religious. Also there is a video on that terminal of huge star ships destroying covenant ships.

One other thing, make of it what you will, is that on that terminal, there is a scene where one ancient xxxx, say the covenant are very persistant. So they are fighting them and protect/use the Mantle. So two covenant groups? What's the mantle? Seems the covenant are after something of enormous power which I guess is "the mantle."

All I wrote was base on Cortana level one, and a terminal on Requim level. Also the language or sound the grunts use is totally different from the previous games. Design choice? Or have they been tricked, willingly joined, or enslaved by this ancient thing and the mantle?

I'' repeat that at this point in the game I am not sure of anything, so if someone knows no need to say everything I wrote was utter garbage in a flaming way. It could well be garbage, I just don't know.

It's intriguing though, and the slow drip drip of information makes me want to play to find out.
But in the end, like all Halo games the story is secondary to the game play. The story of the first few games (not Reach or ODST - just 1, 2, 3) was simple and basic. Didn't interest me at all despite loving the games for excellent fps action.

This is the first Halo game that actually has me interested in the story.

And that's despite playing Halo ce on original xbox several times when released (yeah I'm an old fart) and the other games multiple times back in 360 days.

The only game I started but didn't finish, both on 360, and now in MCC is ODST. Personally I was fed up with it by about chapter 3. I mean Halo - have to be a spartan, not some regular spec ops human! Reach, mmm, not impressed.

But Halo 1, 2, 3, and now in 4 (early game probably) are hugely great. The game play and beatiful graphics in 4 are what I expected and would have been fine with just that. As a bonus first time after countless play throughs of the earlier games on Xbox original, 360, it's the first time I want to find out and/or interested in the story.

Sorry for rambling off topic in the last 3 paragraphs, but just to say, it may turn out that the story of Halo 4 has nothing in common with my guess above. It is just a guess based on a few things.

***Careful, SPOILERS (sorta)***

So, here we go:

Most of the extended lore needed to fully comprehend h4 came just about the corner of the street in 2 separate trilogies, Kilo Five (Halo 5 events) and Forerunner Saga (Halo 4 backstory).

Jul'mdama splinter Covenant ultra religious faction is a parallel to the natural religious hegemony of the original Covenant, they dont explain it in H4 indeed because it's extended lore that came just before H4 launch (the first book in Kilo5 Trilogy - Glasslands), after the great Schism the og covenant disolved into smaller factions with their correspondent hierarchs taking a great blow with the separation of a really big portion of the Sangheilis, this event was previosuly experimented with during Halo 2 and the Sesa'Refumee splinter covenant faction that obtained knowledge about the original intention in Halo's existences.

The arbiter, Tel'Vadam efforts to make a peace treaty with humanity is not taken kindly by a lot of Sangheilis and splinter even more the recently separated covenant elites, leading to rogue factions in site in Sangheilios one of which is Jul'Mdama's.

The forerunners were believed to be ancient humans but were indeed a totally different species that were alive at par with humans, the "mantle" was the metaphor of galaxy wide vigilancy and protection of the species within that was "passed from" their progenitors/creators (the primordials) which are believed to be the origin of the life in the Milky Way.

About the "new" covenant language, it's stated in the very first book of the halo series, "The fall of reach" that the covenant does not speak english (or common as stated in the series) and that only the San'shyuum (prophets race) can understand, articulate and speak it due to their similarities to human larynx system and their origin homeworld along with humans in Charum Hakkor (the prophets broadcast directly towards humanity in their original message using archaic english to declare war), in H4 you cant understand them due to Cortana malfunction due rampancy as she is not able to do live translation as in other games.

It's a very very thinned out explanation of your doubts but i hope this help you out in understanding a bit of h4 design. I would advice to get up to date with the novels, all of them really fill most of the blanks in the games and help you expand your vision in the halo series event viewed from master chief perspective.

[Limygeorge]

Thanks. At first I speed read in case any minor spoiler, but thanks, it's not spoiler stuff and glad to know what you wrote.

I have never read any of the books by the way. Man, I was way off!! I hang my head in shame.

Thanks again, you wrote that well, plenty of background, most of which I had no idea of. And you managed not to include spoilers!

What you wrote should be, ahh, I was going to say game disk package, but not possible now.
Anyhow, I think it should be an optional read menu in the game or something. Knowing what you wrote really helps without spoiling anything. Cheers!

Edit: One thing that I did know is that grunts don't speak English but Cortana translates. But what you said about Cortana not being able to now is very good to know. Really ties in with the Cortana AI life span - or not.

[RICK 100]

Originally posted by MKNavaG - S-III G331:

Originally posted by Limygeorge:

It says an "ancient evil," Just guessing that a splinter group of the covenant have joined whatever the "ancient evil," is. I don't think the Covenant are ancient. The flood are but I don't think that's it.

My guess is that an entirely new ancient empire or whatever have come back with the splinter group of this ancient evil. I got that idea from level 1, but one of the terminals on Requim shows an entirely different "race," The great journey was done with in the last game, now they (ancient race) seem to put trust in the "mantle." Seems religious. Also there is a video on that terminal of huge star ships destroying covenant ships.

One other thing, make of it what you will, is that on that terminal, there is a scene where one ancient xxxx, say the covenant are very persistant. So they are fighting them and protect/use the Mantle. So two covenant groups? What's the mantle? Seems the covenant are after something of enormous power which I guess is "the mantle."

All I wrote was base on Cortana level one, and a terminal on Requim level. Also the language or sound the grunts use is totally different from the previous games. Design choice? Or have they been tricked, willingly joined, or enslaved by this ancient thing and the mantle?

I'' repeat that at this point in the game I am not sure of anything, so if someone knows no need to say everything I wrote was utter garbage in a flaming way. It could well be garbage, I just don't know.

It's intriguing though, and the slow drip drip of information makes me want to play to find out.
But in the end, like all Halo games the story is secondary to the game play. The story of the first few games (not Reach or ODST - just 1, 2, 3) was simple and basic. Didn't interest me at all despite loving the games for excellent fps action.

This is the first Halo game that actually has me interested in the story.

And that's despite playing Halo ce on original xbox several times when released (yeah I'm an old fart) and the other games multiple times back in 360 days.

The only game I started but didn't finish, both on 360, and now in MCC is ODST. Personally I was fed up with it by about chapter 3. I mean Halo - have to be a spartan, not some regular spec ops human! Reach, mmm, not impressed.

But Halo 1, 2, 3, and now in 4 (early game probably) are hugely great. The game play and beatiful graphics in 4 are what I expected and would have been fine with just that. As a bonus first time after countless play throughs of the earlier games on Xbox original, 360, it's the first time I want to find out and/or interested in the story.

Sorry for rambling off topic in the last 3 paragraphs, but just to say, it may turn out that the story of Halo 4 has nothing in common with my guess above. It is just a guess based on a few things.

***Careful, SPOILERS (sorta)***

So, here we go:

Most of the extended lore needed to fully comprehend h4 came just about the corner of the street in 2 separate trilogies, Kilo Five (Halo 5 events) and Forerunner Saga (Halo 4 backstory).

Jul'mdama splinter Covenant ultra religious faction is a parallel to the natural religious hegemony of the original Covenant, they dont explain it in H4 indeed because it's extended lore that came just before H4 launch (the first book in Kilo5 Trilogy - Glasslands), after the great Schism the og covenant disolved into smaller factions with their correspondent hierarchs taking a great blow with the separation of a really big portion of the Sangheilis, this event was previosuly experimented with during Halo 2 and the Sesa'Refumee splinter covenant faction that obtained knowledge about the original intention in Halo's existences.

The arbiter, Tel'Vadam efforts to make a peace treaty with humanity is not taken kindly by a lot of Sangheilis and splinter even more the recently separated covenant elites, leading to rogue factions in site in Sangheilios one of which is Jul'Mdama's.

The forerunners were believed to be ancient humans but were indeed a totally different species that were alive at par with humans, the "mantle" was the metaphor of galaxy wide vigilancy and protection of the species within that was "passed from" their progenitors/creators (the primordials) which are believed to be the origin of the life in the Milky Way.

About the "new" covenant language, it's stated in the very first book of the halo series, "The fall of reach" that the covenant does not speak english (or common as stated in the series) and that only the San'shyuum (prophets race) can understand, articulate and speak it due to their similarities to human larynx system and their origin homeworld along with humans in Charum Hakkor (the prophets broadcast directly towards humanity in their original message using archaic english to declare war), in H4 you cant understand them due to Cortana malfunction due rampancy as she is not able to do live translation as in other games.

It's a very very thinned out explanation of your doubts but i hope this help you out in understanding a bit of h4 design. I would advice to get up to date with the novels, all of them really fill most of the blanks in the games and help you expand your vision in the halo series event viewed from master chief perspective.

Make sense

[Nuclear Kangaroo]

Originally posted by MKNavaG - S-III G331:

About the "new" covenant language, it's stated in the very first book of the halo series, "The fall of reach" that the covenant does not speak english (or common as stated in the series) and that only the San'shyuum (prophets race) can understand, articulate and speak it due to their similarities to human larynx system and their origin homeworld along with humans in Charum Hakkor (the prophets broadcast directly towards humanity in their original message using archaic english to declare war), in H4 you cant understand them due to Cortana malfunction due rampancy as she is not able to do live translation as in other games.

wait, what the ♥♥♥♥? then how does anybody understand the arbiter and the other aliens in halo 2 and 3

this is so stupid, they didnt have to point this out, now the story makes less sense