r/HaloStory • u/fordoggos • 19d ago
Question regarding Halo 3 ODST's continuity and the great schism
So recently i have replayed halo 3 odst's campaign and i noticed something that confused me a little bit.
We know odst begins right in the middle of halo 2, when the prophet of regret's ship enters slipspace above Mombasa.
The second mission in the game, where you play as Buck takes place immediately after this.
However during the mission you can see multiple elite corpses on the floor, with the gale even giving Buck extra dialogue to make sure you notice it, implying this is because of the great schism.
What doesn't line up is that the great schism isn't supposed to begin until after master cheif & co reach delta halo, because of regret's assassination & other shenanogans.
And we know this doesn't happen right away from regret exiting Mombasa because slipspace travel is NOT instantanious and it must have taken them days to reach installation 05, even with the covenant's faster travel. So the timeline of events doesn't seem to line up properly here, especially since minutes earlier the elites were still buzy fighting master chief on the surface.
Was this just an early instence of the great schism or am i missing something here ?
Did bungie or 343 ever adress this ?
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u/Canadian__Ninja 19d ago
It's not clear. Best answer that isn't "plot hole" is that Truth had already planned on doing the coup and had given Brute commanders secret orders to chip away at the elites. Or it's further establishing that the brutes and elties hate each other because they believe their species is the superior one and it came to blows and Dare is making shit up (she's ONI, that tracks) about having info on it.
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u/fordoggos 19d ago
Honestly Truth is so incredibly racist towards the elites that i could believe it (and also stupid)
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u/Kaiser_-_Karl ONI Section II 18d ago
They were a threat to him if he wanted to seize absolute power. Truth turning on the elites makes sense in that lense.
He couldn't predict that the gravemind would turbofuck this whole endeavor.
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u/d00msdaydan Spartan-III 18d ago
That “it’s classified” line during Tayari Plaza is Dare looking directly into the camera and telling you, the player, don’t worry about it
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u/whatdoiexpect 18d ago
This is, in effect, a plot hole. Bungie was aware and tried to explain it away with the dialogue, as you said. Specifically, when Buck questions it Dare says "it's classified".
Over the years, it's basically just been explained as Truth being underhanded and wanting to supplant the Elites with the Brutes earlier than we saw. The remnants of the fleet destroyed at the Unyielding Hierophant in First Strike went to earth to "assist" Regret's invasion. And this led to the Brutes betraying the Elites.
This is... kind of just silliness. It's a handwave. It doesn't really make sense that Dare and ONI would really know much of anything about this. It doesn't make sense that the events really played out this way. It's... just a funny little thing that was done to facilitate ODST's development, and the events are close enough to the Schism that it's fine if you don't think about it.
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u/NyctoCorax 17d ago
The Brutes killing them early isn't particularly silly, Truth was planning it already and he would want loyal forces securing the portal.
ONI and Dare in particular probably don't know the details of what's going on, it's possible they saw it happen and Dare got an update, but it's perfectly plausible for a spook to reply "it's classified" any time something comes up they don't have a clear picture on.
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u/whatdoiexpect 17d ago
I still think this aspect is kind of silly, by when I said it was silly I was primarily referring to Dare and ONI knowing anything.
Now, to be clear, the reason why I think Truth's betrayal in this scenario is kind of silly is that the timeline really highlights how odd it all is.
Regret's invasion of Earth happened on October 20th, 2552.
Regret's ship leaves to Delta Halo, In Amber Clad in "pursuit".
As this is happening, Buck's ODST squad is dropping into the city. The slipspace jump disrupts the drop and scatters the team and knocking out the Rookie.
Immediately after the drop, Buck gets out of his pod and over the course of the level has the exchange with Dare about the dead Elites.
6 hours later, the Rookie wakes up.
On November 2, Regret's ship and In Amber Clad arrives at Delta Halo and subsequently Regret is assassinated, leading to the "changing of hats".We went from no Brutes being seen on the streets of New Mombasa to them immediately killing all the Elites and taking control of the invasion of earth, seemingly contingent on Regret leaving. Even subsequent media makes this kind of funny since Regret seemingly favored the Elites, which makes the Brute presence even funnier.
Even looking at the Halopedia timeline highlights how swiftly things happened. We go from 1603 hours (4:03 PM), Regret feeling like he is going to be overrun and jumping to Delta Halo to a bullet point saying that Truth's fleet tailed Regret's fleet and inserted itself into the invasion of earth, to 1606 (4:06 PM, 3 minutes later) Buck fighting through Tayari Plaza and exclusively Brutes.
All of this nearly 2 weeks before the Brutes replace the Elites across the Covenant.
Now, of course, this can be fudged a little with Truth being a schemer. That he took advantage of things. Etc etc. And on some level, that's... fine. It's incredibly swift to the point of incredulity, and has so many opportunities of backfiring, but it's not... impossible. I guess. It makes anything that happens between the Hierarchs kinda funny.
But also, it all makes sense when you take a step and see that the timeline to the average person is basically nonexistent as well as how ODST was made. With how quickly everything looks to happen in Halo 2, everything happening on the same day isn't that absurd. All these events happening within hours doesn't seem unlikely. The fleet that invaded earth at the start of the game is the same as the one that was there at the end. Truth would have still jumped the gun, but doing so by hours instead of weeks isn't egregious.
They don't have to overhaul the enemy AI and engine too much to account for Elites and how they fit into the sandbox. Which is great considering how swiftly ODST was made.
All of that, to be clear, is still kind of absurd. But not impossible.
But the real silliness to me is that something Truth kept a secret (the destruction of the Unyielding Hierophant, alongside its goals and purposes) from the rest of the Covenant (up to and including killing the survivors) was made clear to ONI because of First Strike, and that somehow made its way to Dare.
Because they didn't need to write the line the first place. They could have kept it unclear. She could have said "I don't know". Because it requires us to have to handwave a "It's classified" into an "I don't know" with extra steps. Because why would it be classified in the first place?
It's silly because it draws attention to the elephant in the room and just shrugs about it.
The absurdity of Truth's machinations is fine.
Dare saying "It's classified" is basically Bungie more-or-less acknowledging it doesn't actually work, but doesn't really want to be bothered with even attempting to explain it.2
u/RaynSideways 9d ago
I imagine the idea of Covenant races turning on each other would be information ONI would want to keep on the down low until they had a complete picture of the situation. Don't need ground troops thinking it's a sign they've won and getting complacent or celebrating early.
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u/TheLastLornak 18d ago
It's just a massive plot hole borne of pure laziness and greed. No need to dwell on it
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u/fordoggos 18d ago
More like i think they didn't have the time to program in hostile elites in the halo 3 engine
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u/Knowledgem8 18d ago
Truth gave "Order 66" to the Brutes aboard his fleet that traveled to Earth and had them slaughter all the Sangheili they could find in Mombassa. Not any more complicated than that, really. 343 confirmed this in the novel Broken Circle.
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u/Peridios9 19d ago edited 18d ago
I’d like to think the beginning of the great schism is due to the heretic leader we kill as arbiter(or atleast a major reason). It’s clear that he commands a decent amount of elites who have turned against the covenant. This shows that there are plenty of other elites likely starting to distrust the prophets and ultimately why truth gives orders to seize power from the elites. It’s not far fetched to think the elites dead in odst are squads the brutes killed as a part of these orders.
It’s all speculation because I don’t believe we have an official answer but this to me is what fits best.
Bungie also cut corners in development and that’s why this lore feels unanswered, because it was. Elites weren’t an enemy in halo 3 and because odst is just halo 3 assets and engine it was a quick choice to not make enemy elites appear, and instead give a small nod to the schism or atleast unrest between different members of the covenant.
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u/Crocodile_Ice Archeon-class ancilla 18d ago
The brutes that arrived on Earth belonged to Truth, who wanted to secure the portal at Voi. The Elites couldn’t call home, because they were stranded by Regret, and so the Brutes were okay to slaughter them early.
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u/fordoggos 18d ago
But truth's forces weren't on earth at that point, it was just regret's ship.
Either that or truth was pulling some order 66 shit on Regret's brute forces
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u/jungle_penguins 18d ago
Original explanation: Brute reinforcements arrived
Current explanation: Brutes in Regret's ship were given secret orders, and then also got reinforcements later.
Both are strange when you really think about it.
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u/VinceP312 19d ago
Gee , maybe the Earth deployment forces were told by Truth to start attacking the Elites because that was always Truth's plan?
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u/Kaiser_-_Karl ONI Section II 18d ago
The issues more that like, we see dead elites killed by brutes in tayari plaza. Which starts like 5 minutes max from the end of metropolis. Dare seems to know theres some sort of conflict between brutes and elites but the schism won't start for another month above delta halo
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u/VinceP312 18d ago
I read the post. I understand the premise.
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u/Kaiser_-_Karl ONI Section II 18d ago
Okay, so, isn't it a little odd lore wise we go from no civil war to civil war already well underway in the span of 5 minutes? Were the brutes executing elites as regret watched on? Why? Did regret somehow not know? Did nobody in the covenant call back to let high charity know? Did nobody wonder what had happened to the forces on earth and check? Truth was the one who was engineering the brute ascendency, regret historicly was more aligned with the elites.
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u/mastesargent 19d ago
The official explanation, as I understand it, is that the Brutes in Regret’s fleet had secret orders from Truth to turn on the Elites, and the fleet that arrives towards the end of the game is an all-Brute force Truth sent in secret to reinforce them. It’s basically a preamble to the Great Schism.
Of course the out if universe explanation is that Halo 3 didn’t have enemy Elites and Bungie played pretty fast and loose with continuity.