Halo anime series

[CaptHawkeye]

Origins was the only short that sounded interesting. All of the others sound like typical wankhard shit consistent with social loser power fantasies. Am I interested in watching some 'Leets kill eachother and proclaim the Covenant Empire? Nope. The writing sounds about as good as an episode of Voyager.

By the way, would it kill nerds to *NOT* use the stupid "warrior race" cliche some-fucking-time?

[Samuel]

Origins was the only short that sounded interesting. All of the others sound like typical wankhard shit consistent with social loser power fantasies. Am I interested in watching some 'Leets kill eachother and proclaim the Covenant Empire? Nope. The writing sounds about as good as an episode of Voyager.

By the way, would it kill nerds to *NOT* use the stupid "warrior race" cliche some-fucking-time?

Without it nerds never get to see sword fights... and so the villian just shoots the hero. We can't have intelligent opponents can we? God forbid the enemy is a citizen that joined up at the local recruitment office for a chance to defend his country against aliens.

[loomer]

It also makes it less of a moral issue. If you have a species dedicated to warfare, who the fuck cares if the main characters gun them down by the thousands? If they're just people who joined for the good of their country, on the other hand...

[Themightytom]

I did like the Batman anime shorts collection, i might look into this.

Zor

yup I'll keep an eye out on netflix instant DL. I was not impressed with Animatrix but as yous ay, Batman was pretty good.

[Molyneux]

Origins was the only short that sounded interesting. All of the others sound like typical wankhard shit consistent with social loser power fantasies. Am I interested in watching some 'Leets kill eachother and proclaim the Covenant Empire? Nope. The writing sounds about as good as an episode of Voyager.

By the way, would it kill nerds to *NOT* use the stupid "warrior race" cliche some-fucking-time?

Without it nerds never get to see sword fights... and so the villian just shoots the hero. We can't have intelligent opponents can we? God forbid the enemy is a citizen that joined up at the local recruitment office for a chance to defend his country against aliens.

And yet the Elites, the race with the hard-on for beam swords, are the Covenant species that ends up doing a heel-face turn. Huh.

[Enosh]

It also makes it less of a moral issue. If you have a species dedicated to warfare, who the fuck cares if the main characters gun them down by the thousands? If they're just people who joined for the good of their country, on the other hand...

given the origin of the spartans and their intented role the UNSC don't realy sound like the "good guys" either
and what the elites, brutes, grunts etc do in halo is from their perspective "for the good of the country" so I don't get the last part

[Samuel]

And yet the Elites, the race with the hard-on for beam swords, are the Covenant species that ends up doing a heel-face turn. Huh.

Becauses all warrior race are obcessed with honor of course! So they don't mind switching sides after being gunned down in the millions.

[Molyneux]

And yet the Elites, the race with the hard-on for beam swords, are the Covenant species that ends up doing a heel-face turn. Huh.

Becauses all warrior race are obcessed with honor of course! So they don't mind switching sides after being gunned down in the millions.

Nah, it was more that they a) realized that the Prophets had been lying to them for hundreds of years, and the Great Journey was just going to kill everything, and b) the Prophets replaced them with the Brutes and started killing all of them.

It was more of an "enemy of my enemy" thing with humanity for mutual survival.

[loomer]

It also makes it less of a moral issue. If you have a species dedicated to warfare, who the fuck cares if the main characters gun them down by the thousands? If they're just people who joined for the good of their country, on the other hand...

given the origin of the spartans and their intented role the UNSC don't realy sound like the "good guys" either
and what the elites, brutes, grunts etc do in halo is from their perspective "for the good of the country" so I don't get the last part

It's not so much about 'good guys' or 'bad guys', so much as 'They're a warrior species, of course they're going to fight us. It doesn't matter if we kill them, since they'd just fight anyway and they honour a 'glorious death'.

[Wing Commander MAD]

I may be able to answer a few things with my knowledge of the halo series regarding motivations, at the worst this may prove an interesting reference for those unfamiliar familiar with the series:

Grunts: Slave race, they have no choice in fighting. This also explains why they have the habit of fleeing in terror so often. Brutal masters also help, as apparently by Holo 3 the Grunts are more afraid of the Brutes than dying at enemy hands (not surprising as there's a story about some Brute officer esentially leaving a grunt that delivered its meal as an unrecognizable stain on a wall that had to be genetically tested to determine origin because he didn't recieve enough dipping sauce).

Jackals: Apparently mercenaries to some extent, though probably religius reasons as well. They apparently joined Covenant out praticallity in not being conquered and profit motives (there are mention of Jackal privateers attacking human ships).

Hunters: Joined covenant out of threat of orbital annihlation. Apparently a large motive in their fighting is also to attain spaceflight via the Covenant and probably religious motivations. They also seem to enjoy relatively high status in the Covenant compared to most other species, and apparently view the Elites as kindred spirits ( I assume they have a somewhat warrior culture as well). Additionally for those who don't know they are colonies of eel like creatures, and aside from standard hunters and the Halo 3 Scarab there are many "forms" (presumably non-military) we haven't seen.

Drones: Unknown, but assumed religious. Appear to serve in ship construction as can survive vacuum of space unaided apparently, and as light highly mobile skirmishers. There is talk of "hives" so they are apparently your typical insect hive race. It's possible the troops that we see are largly unintellingent worker drones/warriors, though there are apparently some at least who specialise in technical fields as well.

Brutes: They seem to be even more Klingony than actual Klingons. They apparently love to fight, and have a tribal social structure (may or may not be result of thier fall). They may be an uplifted race (personal speculation), at least to some extent, though there are certain things attributed to their race so its hard to say. They have apparently fervently embraced the Covenant religion, and are eager to prove their worth to the Prophets. It's worth noting that they apparently made it to at least a modern day Earth techlevel or further and then apparently quite litterally bombed themselves back to the Stone Age. Supposedly, they learned nothing at all from their actions (this further reinforces my uplifted belief).

Elites: Stereotypical warrior culture, though they are perhaps also the most prone to fight for "good of country". I get the impression that their culture is largly modeld after feudal Europe and Japan in some aspecs. It should be noted that the whole alliance with humans is due pretty much exactly to what Molyneux said (except for part a., make that more likely thousands of years). The influence of the Arbiter is also extremely important for the whole alliance. I am really having a hard time trying to think of a real world cultural role that would be similar to just how highly revered the role of Arbiter seems to be in Elite culture. Also it should be noted a large portion of the Elite leadership that would probably have been able to politically oppose the Arbiter and alliance with humans was killed, by the brutes and by humans accidently (senior military leaders were apparently killed after the the accidental arming and detonation of a human WMD at some kind of gathering after the Elite purge in the Covenant).

Prophets: Dying race that considers themselves favored of the gods. Orchestrators behind the whole Covenant. Seem to view humans the same way we view rodents, and apparently annoyed by the way Humans seem to be special to the gods. I will note that apparently the majority of their population was aboard the space station High Charity.

Engineers: Artificial race created by the Forerunner to maintain their technology. Seem to be biomechanical in nature. Not so much a part of the Covenant as they are maintenance drones coopted by the Covenant. Appear to be usable by anyone possessing Forerunner tech, as they are above all interested in maintaining it, they also seem possess a curioriosity regarding all machines/technology. Indeed, they may try to analyze and repair anything they can get their hands on.

Couple these reasons, along with your standard clichés for the genre and you get the motivations of the Covies.

Edit: Damn typos.

[CaptHawkeye]

Uh yeah, thanks for basically quoting the entire game manual? It's not like Bungie has ever set any real ground rules about aspects of Covenant culture. They pretty much just let ego-stroking losers mill about their universe creating backgrounds as they see fit. Bungie cares oh so much about the fine details of the Halo Universe, (Hint: They don't) they just reference shit from the books and occasionally splash the games with hints of 'oh hey we read Fall of Reach and it seems pretty good so yeh'.

Oh look, here's a warrior race, and a mercenary race, and a race of cowards, and a race of super smart technical dudes. Wow, it's like every cliche in sci fi found a home in Halo thanks to these guys. I'd proclaim Halo's Expanded Universe to be the No.1 in shitty fanboy writing, but the Star Wars EU is still waaaaaay ahead of it.

[Samuel]

I'd proclaim Halo's Expanded Universe to be the No.1 in shitty fanboy writing, but the Star Wars EU is still waaaaaay ahead of it.

That is just the shitty plot writing and science abuse. The alien races are more reasonable given that with a million you will see ones more optimized. Not to forget the engineering and prejudice creating racial professions.

Grunts: Slave race, they have no choice in fighting. This also explains why they have the habit of fleeing in terror so often.

That is retarded. Why use slaves when you have a race that breeds like crazy? Just take the religious fanatics, press them into service and them give them first pick in colonization.

Brutal masters also help, as apparently by Holo 3 the Grunts are more afraid of the Brutes than dying at enemy hands

Slave revolts- when you vent the atmosphere the look on your opressors faces is priceless.

Jackals: Apparently mercenaries to some extent, though probably religius reasons as well. They apparently joined Covenant out praticallity in not being conquered and profit motives (there are mention of Jackal privateers attacking human ships).

Translation: Strange powerful aliens are offering to help us? Well, it beats 12 hour workdays...

Joined covenant out of threat of orbital annihlation. Apparently a large motive in their fighting is also to attain spaceflight via the Covenant and probably religious motivations.

Are the Prophets retarded? Try to maintain at least a pretense of benevolence for gods sake.

Dying race that considers themselves favored of the gods.

Translation- another species that has never heard of in vitro, artifical wombs or any biotech more advanced than bandages.

along with your standard clichés for the genre and you get the motivations of the Covies.

Cliche evil religious fanaticism. Seriously, their faith is essentially a carge cult- you would think they would be more open to the idea their belief system is incomplete (after all, it is compatible with science). But no- you have to go the evil batshit insane route. It gets more ludicrous when you realize they could come up with perfect working explanations inside their own religion. Flood inside the rings? Obviously a warning left by the Forerunners of nightmares in the void of space. Humans are forerunners? Obviously some stayed behind to help other species in their quest for enlightenment. Equipment can be improved? Obviously we weren't using it properly the first time and we are now closer to have the forerunners worked.

I could go on, but instead they go down the "evil corrupt" path... even though they know there is solid backing for their religion (aka forerunner artifacts, lack of forerunners, things that interact with another dimension, etc).

[Wing Commander MAD]

I should clarify, that the whole dying race bit for the Prophets is more of a personal speculation. The population is listed in the low millions, I believe after the events of the Halo games, and the Elites and Humans who seem to be in charge don't seem to be the kind to forgive and forget.

I agree the slave angle is rather stupid, though it does make them more evil to your average Joe, which is probably the whole point of it. They actually did massively revolt at some point though, it just failed, which is at least better than having them be enslaved for generations and merely be passive.

Nice points regarding the religious stuff. The covies, like most aliens in sci-fi are riddled with cliches, something I think we'll probably just have live with. The humans could be cliched out the wazoo as well, though we aren't really told much about them despite them being the protagonists. Who knows, maybe they won't be stereo typical good democratic humans in the end, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Edit: Hawkeye, the manuals are far, far less informative.

[loomer]

It didn't just fail, when they revolted. They were taken down so hard that they were actually genetically modified to be less intelligent and independent as punishment.

[Wing Commander MAD]

Loomer do you have a source for that?

[loomer]

I read it on Halopedia quite some time ago - but it no longer seems to be there, or I may have confused it with another species from another property. If so, anyone who can tell me what I'm thinking of would get my sincere thanks.

[Sarevok]

Ugh Halo EU.

It makes the Covenant look same as the humans, only with different culture instead of aliens.

[Vehrec]

IIRC, the Prophet's destroyed their own homeworld thanks to monkeying about with the Keyship, and the only survivors were the ones actually in the ship at the time when they blasted off and took a roughly 300 kilometer chunk of their planet with them. I guess Sulu isn't the only one who forgets to disengage the parking brakes. That was about 1000 of them, and they were already a chronically inbred species with plenty of genetic defects. The problem is so severe that it's simpler just to preemptively ban large segments of their population from breeding, their genes are so bad. Also, the survivors were apparently religious nutjobs focused on anylizing forerunner tech, not genetics, so their early lack of any expertise is such matters is easily explained. Less so is why they didn't throw themselves into genomic research head over teakettle.

The grunts, on the other end of the spectrum aren't really slaves. They're laborers, they're under-class, they're bullied and picked on by everyone else, forced to live in an atmosphere that's lacking in the gas they need to live, but they also have contributed members to both the clergy as lay-priests and to the military, even going as far as Spec-ops teams. Their main oppressors are the Jackals-who apparently were one of the major reasons the Grunts rose up against the whole covenant. A rebellion that apparently was responsible for equalizing conditions between Grunts and Jackals as well as integrating them into the military.

As for the Hunters... well they're just strange. Poems one minute, brutal violence the next, with very little inbetween. I'd say their one of the most alien of the Halo alien species, but we never really get a feel for how alien they are, other than their strange biology whereby each one is composed of hundreds of meter-long worms that somehow can think.

[Molyneux]

As for the Hunters... well they're just strange. Poems one minute, brutal violence the next, with very little inbetween. I'd say their one of the most alien of the Halo alien species, but we never really get a feel for how alien they are, other than their strange biology whereby each one is composed of hundreds of meter-long worms that somehow can think.

Also, apparently "twin" Hunters are actually still a single colony, just too big for a single suit of armor. As for how they communicate - I'm going to assume "biological radio" until someone says otherwise. And given that it's Word of God that they're immune to Flood infection, it really would have been nice to have some on your side on Halo 3...oh, well.

I don't really understand the hate-on for the Halo EU...the books I've read have been pretty good, and the graphic novel had some downright cool stories.

[Samuel]

I don't really understand the hate-on for the Halo EU...the books I've read have been pretty good, and the graphic novel had some downright cool stories.

Because it manages to reinforce more and more how idiotic both sides are. I think I read 2 or 3 of the books and you have to wonder at the intelligence of the factions- the Covenant let Joyous Exaltation be destroyed by a super bomb, apparently not bothering to check human gear for booby traps, they fall for a fake hologram trick, humanity uses ground forces despite the fact the covenant just glass planets, Covenant ships are insanely easy to take over to the point of ridiculousness...

[Hawkwings]

But don't you know? In every fiction ever, the enemies suddenly become inept when the main characters arrive.

They wouldn't touch human equipment because it's "dirty" to them, an affront to the technology of the forerunners that they use. Fake hologram trick in First Strike? Why, that's the same trick as just using a decoy, just with the decoy being a hologram. What, you thought they were going to send a crystal-clear transmission so that the Covenant could carefully examine the picture and deduce that the crystal was a fake?

[Molyneux]

I don't really understand the hate-on for the Halo EU...the books I've read have been pretty good, and the graphic novel had some downright cool stories.

Because it manages to reinforce more and more how idiotic both sides are. I think I read 2 or 3 of the books and you have to wonder at the intelligence of the factions- the Covenant let Joyous Exaltation be destroyed by a super bomb, apparently not bothering to check human gear for booby traps, they fall for a fake hologram trick, humanity uses ground forces despite the fact the covenant just glass planets, Covenant ships are insanely easy to take over to the point of ridiculousness...

Wasn't the bomb shipped in completely disassembled into seemingly-innocuous components? I seem to remember that one general banking on an Engineer reassembling it for just because it was there.

[Samuel]

They wouldn't touch human equipment because it's "dirty" to them, an affront to the technology of the forerunners that they use.

Oh yeah- they have detect forerunner as a device. I'm not going to ask how that works- did the forerunners put lead in everything

What, you thought they were going to send a crystal-clear transmission so that the Covenant could carefully examine the picture and deduce that the crystal was a fake?

Given they think humans are demons, expecting them to be lying and having it as a trap would be a reasonable course of action. So you would disable their ship and send in one assult ship to take them down. But we already knew that their commanders weren't choosen for competance.

Wasn't the bomb shipped in completely disassembled into seemingly-innocuous components? I seem to remember that one general banking on an Engineer reassembling it for just because it was there.

Yep. The Covenant apparently didn't notice a power source capable of exterminating all life on a planet and turned it over to the engineers.

[Darksider]

would a nuke like that emit an active power source if it wasn't armed?

I mean, I know they should've detected fusionable or fissile material, but a power source?

[Hawkwings]

For all the engineer knew, it might have been a really big self-contained reactor.

Apparently forerunner tech and human tech are similar enough that thousands of industrial plows and who knows what other machinery on Harvest were mistaken for Forerunner artifacts. As we have no alien tech to compare to, I wouldn't begin to know how to explain why human stuff scans the same as Forerunner stuff.

They don't think Humans are demons, they think humans are animals. And animals aren't smart enough to lay traps. Even if personal experience in individual members of that fleet has told them otherwise, remember that there are Prophets about, very important ones. Surely the desire to recapture the crystal and having the honor of recovering it for asskissing/advancement purposes figured highly into the commanders' minds. Not to mention that Whitcomb was taunting them to come and get it.