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Halo: the Story

Halo: Combat Evolved

Part 1: Boot.

An extremely religious race of aliens known as the Covenant have discovered an outlying human colony and have taken upon themselves the task of wiping out the human race. After "glassing," an orbital plasma bombardment technique used by the aliens, the colony the Covenant armada moves on in search of more planets inhabited by "infidels." According to them this destruction is the will of God and they are His instrument. War soon breaks out after a human scouting party, sent to investigate, is annhilated. Many years later the Covenant have wiped out nearly every single human colony and won almost every battle. The Covenant's technology is light-years ahead of the humans', and the UNSC's Admiral Cole writes the Cole Protocol, stating that all ships in danger of being captured must wipe out their databases and destroy their on-board AI, and then plot a random jump into Slipspace in any direction away from Earth in order to hide its location. If the Covenant should discover Earth then the human race would be doomed.

The year is 2517. On the distant planet Reach seventy-five 6-year old children, specially selected, begin brutal physical training and indoctrination. Known as the SPARTAN-II program, the Office of Naval Intelligence and UNSC hoped to create super-soldiers to combat the new enemy. Many years of training are to follow for the main character, John-117, and the rest of the group. On the completion of an intense survival mission in a snowy forest, John becomes squad leader. In the final phase of training only thirty-three of the original seventy-five come out in normal physical condition after a series of physical augmentations. John is now known as "Master Chief" SPARTAN 117.

It's 2525 and the SPARTANs get their first mission; to retreive and be acquainted with special armor that ONI has built. Code-named Mjolnir, the armor is more like an exoskeleton, super dense and able to disperse the plasma energy used in Covenant weapons. The Mark IV version given to the SPARTANs plugs directly into the wearer's neural implants (all UNSC soldiers receive these) and utilizes a reative liquid crystal to boost mobility, contains an integrated computer system which continuously monitors weapons, shields, biological function, and motion. The suit itself is practically indestructible and is capable of sustaining tremendous amounts of damage and still be able to function, but even though the suit will continue to operate, the human inside can still be injured or killed by a penetrating shell or by sufficient plasma impacts to the suit's outer shell. The suit also has a number of other useful features, including recoil-compensating actuators, hydrostatic gel (to regulate temperature and dampen impact force), and biofoam injectors. However, the biofoam injectors and medical care systems for the Mark IV armor must be provided with a direct supply of biofoam, medicines and stimulants from a standard marine first aid kit when the user is injured, as the suit will not hold or generate a supply of medicines and biofoam.

Shortly after acquiring the armor the SPARTANs are forced to retreat into space, but their small battleship is then encountered by a much larger Covenant battleship. The UNSC ship captain engages in battle but after utilizing every single available weapon, including Magnetic Accelerator Cannons (MAC) and a last-resort nuclear missile, the Covenant ship is still operational. As a last hope, John sends his squad out into space and has them attempt to land on the Covenant ship by launching themselves into space and then destroy it from the inside. Only John-117, Kelly-087, and Sam-034 make it and the rest float in space waiting for pickup. This is the first encounter the SPARTANs have against the Covenant, and soon after Sam is heavily wounded by repeated plasma hits on his armor, which melts away in one spot and exposes burnt skin. John and Kelly are forced to leave Sam behind because he won't survive in zero atmosphere. Sam plants heavy explosives in the ship and as John and Kelly leap off the Covenant ship is consumed by fire. John ponders if that ship, with its thousands of Covenant, were worth the trade for one of his soldiers. Sam is the first SPARTAN to fall. *note: they are only 14 years old right now.

Part 2: The Fall of Reach.

The year is now 2552 and the SPARTANs have proved extremely effective against the Covenant in ground battles. (Master Chief has been acquainted with the super-AI, Cortana. He and a few other SPARTANs receive Mjolnir Mark V armor.) Regardless the aliens have found their way to the UNSC military HQ, Reach. With little time to spare ONI recalls all its SPARTANs, spare three who are too far away, three killed elsewhere (not including Sam), and one too wounded to continue duty. Here's how the remaining were split:

After the terrible battle at Reach, the Covenant have won and a lone ship, The Pillar of Autumn with Master Chief 117, supposedly the last SPARTAN, jump away from Reach heading in a random direction.

Part 3: [Alpha] Halo-04

The Pillar of Autumn enters normal space above a strange ringworld with technology greater than their own as well as the Covenant's. In a brief skirmish with pursuing Covenant ships Captain Keyes orders their AI, Cortana to go with the Chief via neural implant and brings the Autumn down to crash land on Halo after everybody evacuates. Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODST) use their own special pods while the Master Chief, marines, and staff climb aboard lifeboats. Some brave pilots jump in Pelican dropships and fly down on their own.

Down on Halo, Master Chief's pod has crashed irregularly, killing everyone in the pod but himself. He makes his way to rendezvous with the majority of the other marines and ODST on the recently captured butte dubbed "Alpha Base," killing many Covenant soldiers on the way. Captain Keyes was abducted by the Covenant - the rest of the command staff were executed - but was eventually rescued by the Chief with the help of some ODST. In the turning point of the story Keyes goes out on a mission with some others to destroy a Covenant ammo base and they opened the building thinking it was just an ammo cache, but accidentally releasing the Flood - parasitic virulent life forms living under Halo for many millenia - and were all infected and turned into carrier hosts. The Master Chief was then sent to find the MIA Keyes but only encountered more Flood and fought for his life - nearly getting himself infected too. While searching for Keyes an AI named 343 Guilty Spark interecepted the Master Chief, giving him the task of retrieving the Index, an artifact that could activate the installation, which was actually a "weapon," and wipe out the Flood. Later Cortana finds out that Halo was designed to wipe out the Flood's food (all sentinent life beings) and therefore stop the Flood. The Chief then ditched Guilty Spark and Cortana came up with a last-resort: to find Keyes or his body and retrieve a neural implant to grant permission for the self-destruction of the Autumn, which was still slightly functional. The explosion would destroy Halo and prevent the Flood from spreading to other planets. Master Chief did eventually find Keyes, who had turned into a Flood form himself, and grabbed the neural implant from inside Keyes' head (it didn't kill him), and flew a Covenant Banshee gunship to the Autumn. After some complications he eventually had to manually self-destruct the ship by throwing grenades down some tubes leading to the reactor and in the final moments escaped Halo before it exploded in a UNSC Longsword heavy fighter. He was the only one to survive the final explosion.

Semi-Developer's log | © Tansen Zhu 2006 | Many thanks to Bungie and other sites.

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