#halo cole protocol lore

[bloodgulchblog]

Hey so awhile back due to an ask blog ask you weighed in a bit on whether or not Thel’s married. Can I ask your thoughts on stuff I found recently: Halopedia saying he is (I don’t know how long that’s been on his page), Cole Protocol using the phrasing “send for more wives” and “father more children”? When I saw all that I mainly thought of you and was wondering your take on it.

Oh yeah I took that into account!

I think there's room to read it as the family as a whole and not just as Thel himself, because it is way way way more people than just one dude in that keep and clan is a huge part of their lives. But also... I wouldn't fight in the dirt with someone over it?

I would say that if Halo wants to make it out that Thel is married in a convincing way, they would REALLY have needed to give us a canonical character by now for that. The last time I talked about this was before Outcasts came out, and because Outcasts didn't touch the topic it didn't resolve the question.

I think that if he had a wife or wives, it really should have come up in Outcasts because it was the first time in over a decade that we got any page time in the guy's head and I just... Don't see Thel not addressing where his partner(s?) would be and what they're doing in the events going down on Sanghelios. He's a very honorable and committed dude when he takes a course, and even in just a political marriage without romantic chemistry I think he'd still be dedicated about it.

So, even without anything spelling it out anywhere, I do feel reasonably confident as a fan playing with the idea that our guy is at least not married currently.

But even then, if 343 turned around and named the Arbiter's three weed-smoking wives tomorrow it would still kind of work because "Halo lore just didn't think about it until now" is a plausible explanation for so, so many Halo lore things over the lifespan of this IP.

[yanderes-galore]

Well, time for my autistic hyperfixation skills to shine! Here's your cheat-sheet for what Halo EU media to skip to for the good parts (aka aliens):

Since you've already read The Cole Protocol, Envoy is a rlly good skipping point. Besides the greatness that is Rojka 'Kasaan, and it having a pretty notable Jiralhanae villain, it's also written by the same author and follows up on the Gray Team storyline introduced in the former book.

Hunters in the Dark also makes the top of my list for fleshing out the Halo 3 co-op characters N'tho 'Sraom and Usze 'Taham and giving us nice cross-species positive interactions. Also can't forget Broken Circle, as it's all Sangheili and San'Shyuum in the story, no humans for once. It's split between two timelines: the era of the Covenant's founding and the time of Halo 2.

The Ferrets series of books (Last Light, Retribution, and Divine Wind so far) features the reoccurring antagonistic faction the Keepers of the One Truth lead by the Jiralhanae named Castor. The Master Chief series also features Fleetmaster Nizat 'Kvarosee in the first two books (Silent Storm and Oblivion) and the Keepers in Shadows of Reach; haven't read them yet but I heard good things about Nizat so far and he seems to be one of the more unique in the lore, being kinda older than most Sangheili we've seen so far. Also can't forget the Halo CE novelization, The Flood, which featured the first portrayal of Covenant perspectives in canon I believe (and therefore some of the lore and characterization there is a bit off in comparison to the rest of the books, but it's fine). Zuka 'Zamamee and Yayap are a real treat in that one, even if the tone of their sections are a bit sillier than most (from my impression so far, haven't finished the book yet actually).

And I kind of have to include the Kilo-Five trilogy, although with the fair warning that they're a bit divisive amongst the fandom. You're either gonna like them or despise them. I think a majority people, regardless of how they feel about the trilogy as a whole, did find the alien sections fine though. If I had to re-read them again I'd probably skip to just those chapters. Jul 'Mdama is a prominent character in the first two books (Glasslands and The Thursday War), with his wife Raia 'Mdama having more of a spotlight in the second, but then the whole 'Mdama plotline wraps up and gets replaced by Kig-Yar Chol 'Von in Mortal Dictata (although she's a good character on her own and it's unfortunate her story never got picked up by other authors after the trilogy ended). Other notable aliens in the trilogy include Forze 'Mdama, Avu Med 'Telcam, Sav Fel, and probably the most concentration of named Huragoks in a Halo storyline ever. Thel also makes some appearances here too.

Speaking of the 'Mdamas tho; I haven't gotten to it yet but Legacy of Onyx does feature Jul and Raia's sons as major players post-Halo 5, plus I believe there is a Sangheili teacher character and maybe some rare alien kid characters. Ohhhh and I can't believe I almost forgot, but upcoming book Outcasts is gonna feature Thel as a main character again! Been waiting for it but it got delayed, we should finally be getting it in August tho. You may want to read the Master Chief books first tho since it looks like some lore introduced there will be featured here too, especially since it's the same author Troy Dennings.

Finally to round out the recs are the anthologies. I'd go for Fractures before Evolutions, as the former has Shadow of Intent with Rtas, Tul 'Juran, Vul 'Soran, Stolt, and Tem'Bhetek and Oasis with Jat (who existed for maybe a dozen pages but has captured my heart for years). Latter still has Henry (human nickname, we never learned his real name because of language barrier) in The Mona Lisa, some named Jiralhanae in Stomping on the Heels of a Fuss (which I forgot about so idk if it's because it's been years or if they did not have much of a role), and an unnamed Sangheili shipmaster who's the focus of The Return. The Return & The Mona Lisa also got "animated" adaptations in the form of voice-acted motion comics you can find on YouTube.

Those are all books but maybe I might as well throw in the comics. Obviously there's the Rise of Atriox miniseries. Also not as well known but there was a small prequel comic for the first Halo Wars which features Ripa 'Moramee's origin story; I got the physical copy as part of my game copy, idk if there's a way to access it digitally. The Halo Graphic Novel includes the famous Halo story The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor feat Rtas 'Vadum and Thel in his Fleetmaster era. Haven't read it but Blood Lines has two Sangheili brothers as major antagonists. Tales From Slipspace has Atriox in Hunting Party and Avu Med 'Telcam in Knight Takes Bishop. Finally one of the more well known comics, Escalation has a few points of interest (note I haven't read all of 'em yet and going off Halopedia for this): Thel in Issues 1-3 + Jiralhanae Lydus, Jul 'Mdama and Sali 'Nyon in the Janus Key arc (Issues 13-16) and Absolute Record arc (Issues 19-24), and Ayit 'Sevi in Absolute Record arc.

And what the heck. let's get obscure: The Halo Wars Official Strategy Guide published by Prima Publishing includes some flash fiction featuring Ripa 'Moramee and The Prophet of Regret, because sometimes crumbs is all ya get. Halo: Legends - aka the official Halo anime - also has The Duel which shows an ancient Arbiter and why the title is considered dishonorable in modern Halo times.

Oh and... I guess there's the Forerunner trilogy, for like, Forerunners... tbh tho they're basically bootleggish humans to me, I rank them the lowest out of all the Halo aliens and don't really consider them most of the time when hyper-focusing on Halo aliens.

Gonna read this later

[mlgssy]

Finally I can share all my Halo obsession with you.

1. Blade and Burden from Halo: Legends makes me close my eyes and think about all the Halo lore.

2. On a pale horse and Behold a pale horse is my top Halo music, and it also makes me close my eyes, but think about the First Strike when I started to ship Fred and Kelly🥹

3. Kelly and Fred. No discussions

4. Ghosts of Onyx is my all time favourite Halo book so far. I haven’t read them all, but so far it is the one. Like it’s story what got me like “omg no way it’s happening alright stay calm OH NO WHAT”.

5. Idk if it belongs here, but: If I read I always listen to music. It literally makes me melt into the Halo’s world. —-> when I was reading Kurt’s death (the real one) I was listening to Halo: FUD - Leaving AND IT TRAUMATISED ME FOR A WHOLE LIFE. I’m not okay since.

6. I’m a huge shipper of Tom and Lucy and anyone else? When any interaction happens between them I’m like giggling and kicking my feet in excitement.

7. I know I’ve already mentioned but KELLY AND FRED😍😍🥰🥰🥰🤩🤩🥳🥳🥳🤪🤪😜😜🥹🥹😩😩🥺🥺🥺😏😏💅🏼💅🏼😆🫡😍😍

8. Forward unto Dawn is my all time favourite Halo film. Tom and Chyler? Sullivan being hilarious?!!!Master Chief saving them? KELLY AND FRED AT THE END??? Take my money🫴🏼

Also, when Chyler dies and Tom saying Chyler’s name when crying just breaks my heart🥲

9. Captain Jacob Keyes. Everyone wants a captain like him.

10. I’ve only read about 8-9 books so far, and Cole-protocol was so much fun to me. Even though it’s not my favourite. I mean Jai and Adriana? Count me in.

11. The Halo itself is beautiful.

12. One thing I like in the Shangheilies is that they know what honor and respect is.

13. In the show I actually liked Makee (at first.) her character was so interesting and I liked her for it. Also Miranda Keyes is just a little cinnamon roll. AND KAI??? I love her.

14. I’m only halfway through Glasslands, but I already can see why you ship Serin and Mal, and Naomi and Vaz🥹🥹🥹

Maybe it’s not related, but I think Karen Traviss’ books must be great. I’ve read the Republic Commando novels (my No.1) and Gears of War novels from her, and I loved all of them. I think it was one more reason why I wanted to start reading Glasslands so much.

15. Sullivan from FUD was hillarious😭 like I was laughing so hard I woke up my neighbour’s dog🙃

16. I also ship and love Ash and Holly. The way Ash held Holly back by grabbing her hand? I know maybe I imagine too much into it, but in my head they had a thing going on.

At first these came on my mind, but I’m sure I’ll come up with more:D

Halo Hottakes

I'd like to hear 'em.

@authortobenamedlater, @mrtobenamedlater, @biomecharnotaurus, @killer-orca-cosplay, @ionlymadethissoicouldleaveanask, @jellotherelol, @empresskadia, @caffeineyum, @ageless-aislynn, @pelgraine, @inthatfandom, @in-amber-clad, @biofish, @sirath-brogurt, @spartanxanthe, @silverpelt3600, @aureli-us, @mlgssy, @makowrites.

[scififanpl-blog]

"Halo: The Cole Protocol" by Tobias S. Buckell

“Halo: The Cole Protocol” by Tobias S. Buckell

Halo: The Cole Protocol is a fast-paced and action-packed science fiction novel set in the beloved Halo universe. Written by Tobias S. Buckell, the book follows the story of a group of UNSC soldiers and their mission to protect humanity from the alien threat known as the Covenant. One of the standout features of this book is its well-developed characters. Buckell does an excellent job of…

[ask-cloverfield]

[communistkenobi-archive]

I've only played Reach, CE and like half of 2 (I'm a PC player, was so excited to finally get the MCC and then never got round to actually playing much haha) but so far I'm with you on Reach being kinda underwhelming - for one thing it suffers the modern shooter problem of the campaign just being so damn *short*, like I know as soon as multiplayer shooters gained any kind of popularity it's where all the dev focus went in all of them but that really does Halo an injustice 'cause the original built the world and atmosphere so damn well over at least double the hours and Reach just never seemed to have the space to do that, but also...I dunno, it's a couple of years since I actually played it but it just didn't *feel* right, bits were certainly very good but it wasn't smooth and gripping in both gameplay and plot like the original, it felt like it was trying a little too hard to conceal its actually being a little hollow and heartless.

I'm playing through 'em in order and I've just found the Cartographer in CE Anniversary (which looks bloody gorgeous compared to how I first played it, could easily just stare at those graphics) but honestly I've been mostly looking forward to ODST, I've thought it sounds fantastic and just my kind of shooter since I first heard about it and I'm so glad it's actually on PC now.

My issues with Reach primarily have to do with the fact that they retconned how Reach (the planet) fell during the War. In the books it was brutal, devastating, and happened in I believe 24-72 hours. In that span of time ~20 Spartans died trying to protect it (and failed), which was the single greatest Spartan casualty event in the entire War and made up the bulk of their class. And in the aftermath, Red & Blue Team are completely undone, unable to cope with the loss of their home and grieving the death of most of their siblings. Reach falling as fast as it did was supposed to signal to humanity that their extinction was now inevitable and they had just lost the War against the Covenant, and now the only strategy left to them was to hide the location of Earth for as long as possible via the Cole Protocol, which was itself an act of state-mandated mass suicide should the Covenant ever get ahold of the UNSC vessel. There were very important thematic reasons for Reach falling that quickly, and that informs the desperation you feel in Halo 1-3 - everybody in the UNSC knows the War is already over and this is just prolonging the inevitable.

So for Halo: Reach (the game) to retcon it into a month(s?) long ground campaign following a bunch of S-IIIs (aside from Jorge) who don’t have nearly the same emotional connection to Reach as the S-IIs did is just like. stupid as hell and thematically nonsensical. I also just like did not give a shit about Noble Team at all and I dislike playing silent protagonists in general, so overall I was very underwhelmed, and the retcon permanently weakened the lore for basically no reason. It also fucked up the timeline a bunch! It’s super frustrating.

Anyway this is like a very old internet argument people have been having for years, so if you like reach then this isn’t trying to start a fight or anything. I just personally really dislike it and tend to ignore it whenever possible

[renesassing]

Wait is blue team like. A thing in Halo lore. I thought the color teams were just for multiplayer (and red vs blue)

asdfghhj yeah it is!! the SPARTAN-II's were organized into several different teams with color names for various missions, including Blue Team (originally formed by Master Chief and his friends when he was eight), Red Team (the SPARTANs in Halo Wars), Green Team (led by my boi Kurt-051, rip king), and the more specialized teams like Black Team (idk much about them) and Grey Team. (they r cool; the Halo book The Cole Protocol is about them!) The members each team often changed throughout the progression of the Human-Covenant War but in Halo 5 you actually have Master Chief with his Blue Team (the surviving members) which is nice :) I love them a whole lot.

But yeah the color teams (Blue Team in particular) were established in the Fall of Reach novel which predates RvB, but I figure the inclusion in the novel was an intentional nod to the color teams of Halo multiplayer. It also further establishs Blue Team Supremacy as it's Master Chief's team >:) sorry Red Team

[neo-mimu-doodles]

Posting here incase anyone is interested! [Literate] [Human, AI, and Covenant characters allowed] [Newly public] [Semi-Divergent AU as events play out differently from canon after a certain point]

- A literate RP server set in the Halo universe. If you're looking for a community that's welcoming, in-depth with lore, one-liner free, mature, and friendly to members of all race, ethnicity, gender, LGBTQ, etc, this is the place for you!

BEGINNING LOG ALPHA - <<//... INTRODUCTION The year is 2535. Ten years have passed since the beginning of the Human-Covenant war, and the theocratic hegemony has continued in their cleansing and glassing of the outer colonies, growing closer and closer to discovering the inner colonies. In response, the 'UNSC Emergency Priority Order 098831A-1', AKA the Cole Protocol, has been enacted. This dictation was sent across all UNSC personnel and sites. It rules the now extremely important guidelines of purging all navigation data that could lead the Covenant to inner colonies if the ship carrying them is compromised, escaping via randomized slip-space jump vectors to avoid leaving trails to inner colonies, and ship-board AI being kept from enemy hands at all costs- CONTINUE READING - >

[illusion-of-sea-axes]

The Club

 I was looking back through episodes (once again for fic reasons) and I noticed some timeline and world building details in the club. Mainly from our two favorite security guards. So here’s some dialogue and lore analysis. 

(Taken from the RVB Wiki Transcript)

Guard 1 (off-screen): I mean, ya think jobs wouldn't be so hard to come by.

Guard 2 (off-screen): Hard times, man. Everyone's hurting.

Guard 1 (off-screen): Not Lozano, apparently.

Guard 2 (off-screen): Nah, I've been with the family for a while. They ain't hurting, but they sure as shit ain't what they used to be.

I would like to refer to something that Anneapocalypse has pointed out; “A year is an extremely conservative minimum estimate for Felix and Locus’s post-military pre-Chorus career. I’d say really, plausibly, it needs to be a few years.” 

This dialogue seems to affirm that this is occurring the same time as the Human-Covenant War, presumably. By 2535, the Covenant have eradicated most of the Outer Colonies, which provided everywhere else with food, metal, and many other important features. The Cole Protocol references food riots as a common occurrence. Not to mention the constant fear of every human with sense that the war will end and they won’t be the ones on the winning end. The Covenant don’t want to make the humans subservient, they want to wipe them out. 

From what I understand, driver’s licenses expire at different times depending on the State you live in. Fred’s is set to expire in 2560 while Dillon’s is set to expire in 2564 (or 2364, it’s difficult for me to read). Basing it on the longest set time for an expiration date that I could find is eight years, (except in Arizona) and none of these men look older than forty (the expiration limits do change based on age, but usually only after someone turns sixty). 

using Fred’s date, since it’s the easiest to read and also the lowest, subtracting 8 years from it gives the date 2532, which is one year before the end of the war. Of course, it is the future, who knows when driver’s licenses expire then. But I do think that this wasn’t the first job Felix and Locus ever had with bounty hunting. 

Mainly because of what Siris says during The Call, the sequel episode; 

Siris: The three of us set out to stop criminals. We do good, we get paid, everybody wins. Ransom makes us no better than the guys we're trying to take down!

The way that Siris interacts with them, the fact they all have code names (though Siris and Felix are shit at using them, implying they knew each other before they took up the names and also that the names are new to them) implies they have had experience as bounty hunters before this job. How much? Not much, but clearly at least some. But this story is intended to show the turning point to Felix and Locus’ careers from guys trying to do good to guys trying to make bank.

They also refer to an IPD several times, presumably the city’s police department. There are only two known Halo cities that start with I. Irbit and Irbid. Irbid was on Tribute, though I don’t know if it was destroyed or not (it’s implied to be), an Inner Colony planet that was partially attacked by the Covenant but would be revived post-war. Irbit was a city on the Outer Colony world Talitsa, which according to its Halopedia page, “Outside of the moon's heavily fortified capital, the rest of the colony was essentially ungovernable.” The planet also survived the Covenant war.

This could explain why the city is controlled by what’s implied to be a mob boss. 

Lozano: You're crazy. Don't you know my dad? You can't do this?

and

Ruben: I have a reputation to uphold. If word got out that two bounty hunters killed my men, shot up my property, and kidnapped my son, all without consequence, that would most certainly be a sign of weakness. Which is why I am personally going to bash your skulls open and feed you to my dogs. Do we understand one another, or have you not yet grasped the gravity of the situation?

We also get an idea of the city’s size with this line; 

Felix: Every police force has bad cops, even the big ones.

Of course it could also be a completely made up city, it actually most likely is, but where’s the fun in that?

[bloodgulchblog]

lmao Olympia is in her early 20s and Thel is 70 something. He literally thinks of her as his "hatchling" in Outcasts. Not to mention he already has Sangheili wives as mentioned in Cole Protocol. Good lord fandom can't turn off their fangirl shipping for two seconds huh.

This ask is rude and I don't like the implication that you think I'm on your side here just because I don't ship that and am not interested in that.

Like. Sir or ma'am or neither, I feel I must be blunt here: shipping Halo characters is mostly a pretty harmless fucking activity and a lot of what I do is goofing around about shipping fictional characters for fun so if you hate that, this isn't the blog for you.

I don't care to ship Thel with Vale, but Vale's also an adult???? If she wanted to chase that space alligator that's her right. (Not to say that she does, I am going to take forever to finish that book because I read so slowly these days.)

There's some shit people do that I don't cotton to, I've talked about certain things I just cannot vibe with in the past, but I just do my best to ignore it and move on. I can't stop people from making things I don't like, in Halo and in general, and it's better for my blood pressure not to try. It's better for me to just avoid things that upset me cause all that happens is I get upset.

(...Rich words coming from someone who complains as theatrically as I do about things, but hey. I must entertain my public.)

Furthermore, and on a much more minor and silly note, I feel the need to be contrary about lore here. Here's the bit from Cole Protocol:

Thel 'Vadamee is not the only man in that keep. He's also pretty busy out in space. This is about the clan as a whole intermarrying and forging alliances with other clans. You can read it as Thel being married and perhaps that was the likely intent, but here's the thing:

I feel like if the Arbiter had a wife and that lore actually stuck, we would have heard about her by now. He's a busy guy mentioned in multiple places over the years, and we know Sangheili are pretty serious about their wives and their wives are very socially important within a keep.

So.... saying Thel 'Vadam is not single is not really that iron clad, I think.

[yanderes-galore]

oooooooo now you gotta update on what Halo books you’ve gotten thru. there’s a bunch of book only characters that *never* get content that I’d love to request next time. also it just occurred to me that somehow all this time you’d never got a request for most popular Halo alien Thel ‘Vadam and just- *how?!*

Exactly.

I am such a Sangheili and Jiralhanae fan it's not funny.

But I'm currently reading Fall of Reach.

A long time ago I finished Contact Harvest and Cole Protocol.

I am also buying new books.

I've also been watching Halo lore obsessively so... there's that, lol

But I agree. Book only characters need more content.

[arktoons]

Continue drawing and just work on a few things. But other than just contemplate that I have a hobby. Just playing video games or watch random stuff on youtube. Right now i’m actually remembering how much i’m into the Halo lore long time ago since I knew about the books. I only read Fall of Reach and some parts of the Cole Protocol but thanks to audiobooks I can listen to them while working

.MAN idk, never got into it since it

.HAAHAHW yaaaah about that....I realized I still didn't get the good ending the moment I put the mod on sooo its already too late for that.

Aww thanks, if you want to look more, you can always look at the tag #arktoon

[coolman229]

Do you think that instead of making a sequel to the Halo series that a prequel would have been better? My idea for a prequel would be the Forerunner Flood war (but with the original concept that the Forerunners were ancient humans rather than aliens) so we could have understood the Halos themselves better and the nature of the flood which is a huge part of the series. Or maybe something during the beginning of the Human Covenant war? I'm more inclined to the former but what do you think?

I think something during the Human-Covenant War would be better. There is almost 30 years of fighting to set games in, including Spartan ops. You can set a whole lot of stories in that time. Heck you have stories like Contact Harvest, Halo Wars, and The Cole Protocol all taking place decades before the main games. Having more of that would be interesting as long as the lore is kept in check.

Personally I’m of the opinion that the Forerunner stuff should be left mostly a mystery. I like only seeing the ruins of their civilization and bits like the Halos and the Monitors, leaving most of it to be unknown. I like having only glimpses into the past like with the story of the Didact and the Librarian in the Halo 3 terminals. And we know from the terminals in Halo 3 that the Forerunner-Flood war was absolutely hopeless. They built machines that would kill all sentient life in the galaxy because they couldn’t beat the Flood. They lost pretty much every encounter with the Flood until then. I don’t think that would be very much fun play in a game. I think having expanded materials like books, comics, or shorts would be better suited for that era.

Bungie probably felt that prequels was the better way to go and that’s why they made Reach instead of a Halo 4. I can agree with that. The sequel trilogy of Halo that I came up with was a “if we have a sequel this is what I’d do”. I think it’s fine to just leave the main Bungie trilogy as is. There are only a couple things I don’t like, but overall it’s really good. But after the trilogy I came up with I would definitely think that the best choice is to go back and expand on the past or simply put the series to rest save for some expanded materials like books.

[ask-cloverfield]

I will try to shut up about Halo Infinite after this buuut

The brutes “look like orcs now” no they don’t it is a mix of their Halo 3 and Reach design

“The Lighting Sucks” yeah

“343 doesn’t understand Halo’s lore” clearly it does seeing as how it brought it in a bunch of obscure elements before abandoning them to bring back Cortana to tie into a fucking phone feature requiring massive rewrites 

And of course how quickly it established Halsey’s personality in like 5 minutes

“Master Chief Sexy” yeah

Please give it ODST style audiobooks

Who is in the AI chip who is in the AI chip please let it be a sangheili ai I want them to bounce off Dustin Echoes and John

“The antagonist is low res” yeah

The guns shown have me hope we are finally seeing weapons that aren’t produced by Misriah armory because with the exception of the the M90A (WST) we have only seen Misriah produced firearms.

WAIT SHIT IS THE PILOT DELGADO FROM COLE PROTOCOL

Edit: Seeing as his actor named him, this feels unlikely

And finally if Osiris and/or Blue Team die I will scream in anger

[hellyjumper]

👀 an excuse to talk about sangheili lore? hell yea.

so! the sangheili view the spilling of their blood as dishonorable and shameful. it was mentioned in (i wanna say) cole protocol where thel remembered a time when he was injured during training and his family had to secretly get him medical attention and cover it up, because clearly this couldn't happen to the future kaidan!

doctors in sangheili culture are considered the lowest of the low, because they purposefully spill blood (or honour). it was much more honorable to die instead, preferably in battle (hence in the games, a wounded sangheili would pull out his sword and charge at you). if the sangheili couldn't do it themselves though, they would go to a trusted friend to do it for them.

but! after the great schism, when thel became the main leader of the sangheili (or at least the swords of sanghelios), he began to change the perception of doctors in their culture, realising it was not at all sustainable. also, in halo 5 in the sanghelios camp, you can find the makeshift doctors camp with a sangheili complaining about being tended to by the doctor.

i hope this helps! also, i recommend reading the cole protocol because it covers most of what i was talking about (i also really love that book, it's v good).

I’m not full up on my halo books and lore lately, I’m gettin there - but please, whats this about sangheili apparently despising doctors? or shamed when visiting them?

[bloodgulchblog]

Good news I finished The Cole Protocol in two (2) days because the knowledge it’s taken me almost half a year to get only a third of the way through the Halo canon motivated me.

Bad news, now I have to decide what to read next and it’s probably going to be the first short story anthology because making choices is hard.

Analysis of uncompleted halo novels in a roughly chronological order:

Evolutions Anthology Pros:

Immediately next if going by year of publication, so I don’t have to think about it

I don’t think I read every short story in the anthology back when I first got it, so there’s some new ground in there

Nylund wrote one of the stories

Stories are short

Cons:

Lot of pages

Random mixed bag of things

I recall being mad about some of them?

Forerunner Trilogy Pros:

Known quantity, I read these in the Forgotten Times

Bonkers in a good way

Delicious Forerunner lores

Cons:

Not related to anything I'm working on currently

I recall the middle book is kind of a slog

Kilo 5 Trilogy Pros:

For better or worse I liked a lot of Glasslands when I read it in the Forgotten Times

Jul ‘Mdama and Sangheili lores

I always did want to know what happened re: Naomi

Getting the Nylund squad out of the Forerunner shield world

Cons:

Karen Traviss

Karen Traviss writing the Nylund squad

Karen Traviss writing Dr. Halsey in particular

Serin Osman, Karen Traviss’s very special OC

Did I mention Karen Traviss?

I usually find insurrectionist-heavy plots boring, and I think the latter two are big into that. (And it sounds like ripe territory for more Karen Traviss Karen Travissing.)

Alpha 9 Duology

Pros:

New territory

The second one talks about what’s up with Fireteam Osiris after Halo 5 I think, which is relevant to a vague idea for a future project

Cons:

I don’t really care either way about Buck

I also don’t really care about the summaries of the plots I’ve seen

Remaining 2 Ferrets Books

Pros:

New territory

Relatively recent canon that will probably tell me more about what Blue Team has been up to and I care about them

I care about the Gammas

Cons:

My nemesis, Troy Denning

Books bullying me for not bothering with Halo Wars 2

My nemesis, Troy Denning (again)

Veta Lopis, Troy Denning’s very special OC

The monkey’s paw of me getting characters I care about but Troy Denning is writing them

Saint’s Testimony and Shadow of Intent, the Novellas

Pros:

Novellas are short

Staten wrote Shadow of Intent and I think I read and liked that.

Saint’s Testimony sounds like it’s rich in AI lore.

Cons:

Novellas are short.

Saint’s Testimony ties into a comic I haven’t read and I have been studiously avoiding the can of worms that is what I will do to myself if I start reading the comics too. (I’ll get to those eventually....)

Hunters in the Dark

Pros:

I already know I thought this one was okay

Swords of Sanghelios!

Zeta Halo lore!

Olympia Vale and Usze ‘Taham should kiss with tongue.

My Boy N’tho ‘Sraom

One book is a brief commitment as opposed to a big chunk of books

Cons:

Not new territory, I could be putting the time somewhere else

Merely okay

Fractures Anthology

Not even considering this one until I get caught up to a place later in the canon

There’s an incredibly bad Denning story in here

Rion Forge Books

Pros:

New territory

Ties into Forerunner Lores

SPARK?????

I want to see if I like Kelly Gay’s writing

Cons:

I want to reread the Forerunner Trilogy first.

I’d feel compelled to revisit Halo Wars first.

Legacy of Onyx

Pros:

I’ve heard this one is charming and fun, it is about Halo Youths.

The Youths are friends across species lines

Onyx????

Cons:

Standalone, disconnected from anything else I’m currently interested in.

Silent Storm & Oblivion

Pros:

Son John!

Cons:

Troy Denning....