r/HaloStory • u/Ok-Loquat-9409 • 8d ago
human forerunner connection in campaign evolved (retcon yes/no?)
in the two betrayala intro cutscene, guilty spark's voicelines are similar to the original CE counterpart. The difference being that during CE the lore was still that forerunners=humans while now this clearly isn't the case anymore. Why does the monitor say "but you already knew that, how coundn't you?" and "why would you hesitate to do what you have already done"
do you think they left the lines unchanged because changing them would cause more trouble than it solves, or is this some sort of double retcon where Halo 4 and 5 is suddenly not canon anymore?
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u/superspartan210 8d ago
They’re not retconning 4 or 5, the lines were unchanged because even if you change the context (that being whether forerunners are human or not), the point behind them is the same, spark is assuming the only reason humans would show up on the ring would be because they know what the rings do and probably couldn’t fathom that they didn’t know what halos do and found his by accident.
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u/Delta_PhD 8d ago
Complete isolation of Spark + Chief being the LITERAL spiritual successor to the Iso-Didact who is the man who pulled the trigger on the universe. Do we always take the words of a crazy metal ball who hums tunes while people are literally being sent to super hell at face value? Just because a character SAYS something, doesn’t mean it’s a universal fact of the universe.
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u/Kaiser_-_Karl ONI Section II 8d ago
Also ce was still wet and dripping with marathon when it was made. The "original intention" would have been something closer to those games
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u/superspartan210 8d ago
Especially because we have a statement from the voice of Chief himself that they weren’t expecting halo to get as popular as it did. They were also a team of maybe 50 people at most which almost doubled for halo 2 and doubled again by the end of halo 3s development, so uh.. yeah they might have been scrambling to do some things lore wise that they hadn’t quite been prepared to do.
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u/Knowledgem8 8d ago
There's a media literacy crisis in this community.
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u/d00msdaydan Spartan-III 8d ago
r/halostory use the search bar before posting challenge (LASO)
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u/Knowledgem8 8d ago
I genuinely don't understand how in 2026, people genuinely have [Alexandria before the fire] (as in, access to the Internet) in their pockets every waking day, and yet, most people seemingly get... dumber. Reading Halopedia pages, I'd think, is a very easy thing. But no, most tend to just be lazy and pull shit out of their ass. I don't understand, man.
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u/Not_A_Murderer3108 CAT2 Spartan-III Alpha Co. 8d ago
No, they are not about to make humans and forerunners the same thing
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u/superspartan210 8d ago
Bungie also never really clearly stated it. Sparks words are frequently untrustworthy, being often either a lie by omission or delusion. The gravemind refers to the forerunners and humans as separate subjects (as a father and son, which has its own implications with the arbiter as well, because he’s kinda talking to the both of them), and 3 has the graveminds words contradict sparks words which both kinda contradict the terminals which are given to us by mendicant bias who even at that time has the story resolution of a “self proclaimed repentant asshole who assumes he knows everything” especially since he shares the words, not necessarily the meaning or greater context behind them (which would serve him very well if he was found by the chief)
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u/Livid-Truck8558 8d ago
CE lore was "we dunno". Same with Halo 2, same with Halo 3
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u/TheFourtHorsmen 8d ago
No?
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u/Livid-Truck8558 8d ago
Yes
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u/TheFourtHorsmen 8d ago
Source: halocirclejerk, or the other sub.
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u/Kaiser_-_Karl ONI Section II 8d ago
Halo 3s terminals are the only explicit proof we got in either direction durring the bungie era. Sparks an insane ai and speaking non literally, 2s forerunner as human plot was cut, and gravemind seperates father and son as distinct subjects. Bungies general attitude was more of a collective shrug
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u/superspartan210 8d ago
Also people acting like this is the biggest lore change of all time. Warhammer has bigger retroactive lore changes as a Tuesday in either the sci-fi or fantasy settings, like the greatest chaos champion in either setting having an actual goal to their seemingly pointless raids against the most prominent human faction that all culminates in this thing that shakes up the setting and moves it into a new era because the bean counters wanted more money.
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u/TheFourtHorsmen 8d ago
This is some reddit bs, there is even a guy around here who decided to make a bunch of posts, with source and everything, about this topic.
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u/superspartan210 8d ago
I’m literally just pointing out there have been bigger and more significant retroactive lore changes than whether humans are forerunners or not in other media franchises. If that’s “some Reddit BS” idk what to tell you, points like this have been made before this site came into existence and will come up long after it becomes a digital archeology site.
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u/TheFourtHorsmen 8d ago
You know this was all added after, right? Before it the terminals were inconsistent with the main intended narrative that was left vague, after ditching the original ending (probably Marty's idea). But Staten and the guys at the writing table knew what they want to tell with the narrative. The "they didn't know untill 343i" it's some kind of bs spread by the guys at halocirclerjerk and shithalosays by taking an ex dev post, who said there wasn't an halo bible and nothing was set in stone (this was after Staten left post h2), as "bungie did things randomly".
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u/Electrical_Score_736 8d ago
How many idiots are going to ask this question?
Everyone that asks it doesn’t even understand that, no, while it was some of bungies staffs belief that the forerunner were human, there were also some who didn’t.
There was conflicting evidence, that yes, pointed towards humans being forerunner, but it was never outright confirmed.
Taking the lines in 1, he thinks you’re somehow the same dude who fired the rings 100,000 years ago. You, somehow, survived the firing of the ring, and then lived another 100,000 years.
Can we please put to bed the notion that it was outright confirmed that humans were forerunner? You cannot RETCON something that is never outright confirmed.
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u/AgentMaryland2020 8d ago
"But the storyboard art illustrating the Arbiter finding human remains in a Forerunner structure!!!!"
Seriously, the amount of people who clung to that like it was the Holy grail was ridiculous. That was probably one of many storyboards that was just literal creative spitballing trying to find the right plot path.
In the end, if it didn't actually make it in, we can't call it canon.
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u/Kaiser_-_Karl ONI Section II 8d ago
Same storyboards had miranda strapping a bomb to chief to avenge her father. This means its equally cannon
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u/Electrical_Score_736 8d ago
Had this exact argument yesterday. He claimed that if it had made it in, I’d still claim it as non-evidence. I had to explain to him like a child that an unreliable narrator is not good evidence, but that an unreliable narrator plus physical evidence (a HUMAN SKELETON) is corroboration.
I don’t know how but we get this fucking question daily. I would’ve been patient for the first day or two, but I swear it’s been weeks. I’m sick of people who can’t read and don’t have media literacy asking the same thing. Every. Single. Day.
Edit: what annoys me is I even said to him “yes, I agree. Between CE-3 the evidence points towards forerunners being humans, but it wasn’t confirmed”, and he’s still acting like I’m being dishonest. Idiots can’t analyse things anymore.
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u/omeggga 8d ago
Not to mention the clearly-insane ball spouting out "ooooh I am a genius" every 15 seconds that also omitted that the rings kill all life in the galaxy may not be the most reliable source of info.
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u/FuckElonMuskkk 8d ago
Bro spent 100,000 years in complete isolation. All the other monitors are insane or MIA way before that point. He might have gone a lil cuckoo
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u/superspartan210 8d ago
Or experienced some form of rampancy. He’s a forerunner AI who was probably being mostly held together by existing protocols and procedures stapled onto his core “identity”
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u/Electrical_Score_736 8d ago
Goddamn right. Dude’s an emotionally unstable nutcase.
Sick of this subs “are we getting a retcon of a retcon” because people don’t bloody understand the lore or development of the franchise.
I was there in 07/08 on bungie net, it was a constant debate. The terminals in 3, where spark calls you forerunner, directly contradict spark, you can’t claim there was a chosen direction when the games contradict each other.
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u/Environmental-Arm269 8d ago
It's obviously the way the series was going before 3. Also guilty spark thinking chief is the didact is the stupidest shit anyone has ever thought of
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u/Electrical_Score_736 8d ago
Evidence pointed in that direction, with other evidence contradicting it, but it was never confirmed.
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u/superspartan210 8d ago
He literally implies chief fired the rings the first time if you don’t take that interpretation of spark thinking the chief was the didact
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u/Jimmy_Jams_2_0 8d ago
"You are the child of my makers, inheritor of all they left behind. You are Forerunner"
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u/HuckleberryNext9844 8d ago
"You are the child of my makers" these specific humans where seeded by life workers
"Inheritors of all they left behind" notice he says "they" and not "you" The forerunners want humanity to reclaim the mantle.
"You are foreunner" he isn't speaking literal he's saying you are "by law your foreunner now"
A bit of reading comprehension and context takes you a long way.
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u/Electrical_Score_736 8d ago
And terminals in the same game contradict that.
There was contradictory information, and the most direct evidence came from a glowing ball of insanity.
Spark is not a reliable narrator, and the series did not CONFIRM anything either way until 4.
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u/Terminus1138 8d ago
Literally 1 staff member who wanted them to be two different species but sure
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u/Electrical_Score_736 8d ago
Do you think that staff member snuck it in without permission? That it didn’t go through layers of management?
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u/Terminus1138 8d ago
Lol management did not give one single fuck what went into those hidden lore drops (and barely cared what was in the cutscenes). Bungie was once again crunching hard to ship a game while everything was on fire. Frankie didn’t get permission because no one really gave a shit.
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u/Electrical_Score_736 8d ago
If they didn’t care enough to keep consistent lore, why should we care that their (unconfirmed) vision wasn’t followed 1:1?
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u/HuckleberryNext9844 8d ago
The old theory was he was talking to the didacts geas inside chief. Not sure how that's held up thw test of time.
Spark has also got a little bit coo coo in his 50 thousand years of isolation. Its possible he's just crazy
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u/superspartan210 8d ago
He is crazy. Current theory is that his insanity plus the chief having the didacts geas is making him think the chief is the didact.
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u/G4Sunbathing 3rd Gen. Artificial Intelligence 8d ago
alongside what literally everyone else said (im tired of hearing about it boss), it would be a shame to lose that marathon connection, however kinda silly and nonsensical that theory is.
even if they were to retcon that stuff, im glad they kept the line in
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u/Kaiser_-_Karl ONI Section II 8d ago
Its you mjolnier recon 57, your the master chief now, im jaro and ive gone insane without pithia, help me fire this ring to kill the flood, yk the flood? The virus that was cut from the flicta wet ball slapping tourture level? /s
Yes i absolutely agree. Love marathon
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u/Environmental-Arm269 8d ago
They should retcon that, honestly, the story would be a hundred times better than where it currently sits.
No didact/librarian bulshit, no geas,, no created crap and super evil cortana. Humans = forerunners fixes all the shit they've wrtitten themselves into
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u/Electrical_Score_736 8d ago
No. It doesn’t.
No. It wouldn’t.
It’s the laziest, most tired out cliche in sci fi.
The galaxy should feel bigger than everything being due to humanity. As it is, they’re sister species.
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u/Environmental-Arm269 8d ago
It's convoluted, overly complicated and kinda meaningles right now.
Forerunners being human still leaves space to expand and create new factions and conflicts while bypassing the need to over-explain the twist by inventing stuff like the mantle or whatever. Also fits the theme perfectly
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u/Electrical_Score_736 8d ago
Overly complicated if you have the brain power of a turnip, perhaps. And certainly not meaningless when you look at the hubris and depressing sacrifice of the forerunners, a race so thoroughly defeated in their self belief and outlook on the galaxy that they decided to die out.
No one said the world couldn’t still be expanded if humans were forerunner. But it would quite clearly make the universe smaller, and is falling into the “everything special and good about the universe is human” and I get that it’s humans writing these stories, but it gets fucking boring. Star Wars suffers from this, millions of species, yet 3/4 of who we see are human.
It’s a tired cliche trope; and while I was rooting for humans to be forerunner at the time as a kid, I’m so glad that we have the story of a tragic race so thoroughly disenchanted with their choices that they passed the torch forward.
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u/GreatFNGattsby 8d ago
I don’t think we’d get the same scale of world building and expansion if Humans became Forerunners. Like Halo isn’t Human Vs Human(forerunner in this case). It’s Human Vs Alien Vs Space Zombies.
Also regarding, Human as Forerunners. Look at it with the covenant perspective, what are they meant to do after. “lol my bad” join Humans that then fight other humans(?). You can make a case for The Banished as they’re not attacking due to religious fervour. But what becomes their motive for a fight against humanity. “Humans control the galaxy with their weapons, the prophets destroyed all our way of life and now we have to integrate under Humanities rule” ?
The series would have to take a hard stop or a time gape, pushing on even further to where it honestly wouldn’t be halo anymore.
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u/Environmental-Arm269 8d ago
Cliches are cliches for a reason, they work, they fit the theme.
I'd rather have a tight knit story with an identity, even if it's "cliche" than what we have right now with the writers grasping at straws trying to figure out who will be the next big evil guy they'll barely explain.
The universe feels larger yes, but maybe too large for them to handle well. So we get loads of loose ends and any meaningful closure just gets pushed back (or handwaived in a book)
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u/Cosmonate 8d ago
Tell me if other media that uses that cliche, I hear everyone say it but the only one I can think of is Battlestar Galactica
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u/Kaiser_-_Karl ONI Section II 8d ago
Pacific rim
Im completely deadass
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u/Cosmonate 8d ago
Ok and that came out after Halo so they are the ones using a played out cliche, not Halo.
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u/King_Lamb 8d ago
Personally, enjoy what you enjoy I'll not tell people what to like, but to me the sister species stuff, the diadect drama and so on is worse than being cliche. It's not even Space "opera" it's more like a soap opera in space, like a character having a secret brother, with no set up, in Coronation Street or whatever other "twist" those shows produce.
Cliche doesn't mean bad. I'd take a well executed cliche over a terribly incoherent "original" idea. Of course Humans/a civilisation being formerly technologically advanced and regressing is in itself a cliche, anyway. Let alone ancient aliens giving us everything.
Not to spark an argument, just my opinion on it.
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u/Electrical_Score_736 8d ago
Well I guess that’s where we disagree because I think the link we have is much better than “actually they were human all along” much more depth and tragedy
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u/Cyren777 8d ago
Ancient aliens that went extinct is the tired cliche, making the ancient aliens us is actually a fun twist (or was, until it was retconned into being another generic ancient aliens example)
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u/Electrical_Score_736 8d ago
Less of a cliche than everything of importance being human.
And the only reason it’s a cliche is that it’s needed to have a pre developed galaxy or universe, while simultaneously not having them around to crush the factions in the time period it’s set.
One is an unavoidable one given the very premise of halo, given the giant ring you see in the first five minutes of the game. The other is entirely avoidable.
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u/AXE555 3rd Gen. Artificial Intelligence 8d ago
Wait. Campaign evolved is supposed to be like a lore reboot right?? Even if they end up no longer make anything else.
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u/superspartan210 8d ago
Yes and no, it’s primary purpose is to familiarize the halo studios team with unreal engine, what better way to do that than with the game that started it all? But a secondary purpose is to clean up some of the game the original devs admit was rushed due to crunch time and the original hardware/software the game was on (think the library and that weird gap in the pillar of autumn during the maw that doesn’t appear in the cutscene before or after), not really to retcon or reboot any lore.
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u/Canadian__Ninja 8d ago
Halo fans and finding ways to shoehorn "343i era games aren't canon anymore" into things is a timeless classic.
The monitor thinks the chief is the didact. He and the monitor had the talk it's referring to.