S1E12: The Halo Universe Explained - Part 2

A single word—Regret—kicks off a fast, funny, and surprisingly tender tour through Halo’s golden era. We jump into Halo 2’s New Mombasa chaos, chase a Scarab, and unpack why one slipspace jump inside a city reshapes the battlefield and sets the stage for ODST’s rain-soaked mystery. From there, we trace clues to a buried Forerunner juggernaut and connect the dots to the Ark, opening the door to one of gaming’s most satisfying third-act escalations.

The heart of the story belongs to two voices: an unbreakable Spartan and a shamed elite. Playing as the Arbiter reframes the Covenant as a fractured faith where heresy is curiosity and loyalty gets weaponized. We dig into the Gravemind’s uneasy bargain, why High Charity’s fall still chills, and how Halo blends space opera with horror without losing its pulse. Yes, we celebrate the set pieces—the Scarab takedown, the Prophet of Regret beatdown, the legendary Warthog run—but we also sit with the moments that bruise: Miranda Keys’ sacrifice, Johnson’s last words, and Cortana’s lonely courage.

We round it out with practical guidance and honest takes. Want the cleanest entry path on Game Pass? Start with Reach, then Combat Evolved, Halo 2, ODST, and Halo 3. You’ll see why the music cues are iconic, how skulls turn challenge into comedy, and why “Wake me when you need me” is the line that lingers. We also talk about the Bungie-to-343 handoff—what got richer, what got lost, and where the storytelling stumbled—without losing our love for what makes Halo timeless: big feelings, bigger vistas, and a world that rewards curiosity.

Hit play, then tell a friend who still hums the monk chant. If this deep dive stirred your nostalgia or sparked your first run, subscribe, share, and leave a review to help more fans find the Silly Goose Society. What’s your all-time Halo moment?

Chapters

• 0:00 Setup, Disclaimer, And Part Two Begins
• 1:15 Halo 2: New Mombasa And “Regret”
• 4:10 Scarab Fight And Mission Highlights
• 6:20 Can You Start With Halo 2
• 8:50 Slipspace In The City And ODST’s Parallel Story
• 12:00 ODST’s Mystery Structure And Payoff
• 14:10 Enter The Arbiter And Covenant Politics
• 18:00 The Truth About The Halos And The Oracle
• 20:20 Beating The Prophet Of Regret And Skulls
• 22:30 Gravemind Revealed And Forced Alliance
• 25:20 High Charity, Flood Everywhere, And The Music
• 28:30 Halo 2’s Cliffhanger And Cortana’s Capture
• 31:30 To The Ark: Halo 3’s Big Shift
• 34:20 Truth’s Plan, Keys’ Death, And Betrayals
• 37:20 Flood Turns, Replacement Ring, And The Maze
• 41:00 Rescue Cortana, Fire The Ring, Johnson’s End
• 44:20 Final Run, Memorial, And “Wake Me When You Need Me”
• 48:00 Bungie To 343: Story Highs And Lows
• 52:00 What To Play First And Game Pass Tips
• 55:20 Halo Vs Warhammer And Lore Depth
• 1:00:40 Why Lore Hooks Us And Closing CTA

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:15

Before we begin today's episode, we would like to share a quick disclaimer. The views, opinions, and statements expressed by the host and guests on this podcast are their own personal views and are provided in their own capacity. All content is editorial, opinion-based, and intended for entertainment purposes only. Listener discussion is advised. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Silly Goose Society. This is Anne, and I'm with Goose Springsteen, otherwise known as Kyle. And I really don't this is the second week in a row that I don't really know what we're talking about this week. Because this is all Kyle. So hi Kyle.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03

Finishing this episode. And by this episode, I made the episode from before. So we're doing this episode to conclude the other one.

SPEAKER_04: 1:12

Oh, so we're doing part two.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14

We're doing Halo Halo part two. That was a little bit of a never mind.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18

Anyone who knows the games knows that finishing this fuck. It's like one of the greatest fucking lines.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24

Anyhow.

SPEAKER_04: 1:27

Where the hell were we?

SPEAKER_01: 1:29

Oh man, we um ended up in a really deep philosophy.

SPEAKER_04: 1:35

No, no, we're not talking about the falafel.

SPEAKER_01: 1:37

Falafel.

SPEAKER_04: 1:38

Before falafel.

SPEAKER_01: 1:40

Before the philosophical stuff. No, I remember.

SPEAKER_04: 1:42

Okay, cool. Yes. The greatest cutscene in all of video game history, which then leads us to uh let's see. Yes, we crashed into Numambasa. And I think we're there, and it sounds over. Yes, okay. Yeah, so then the that. I think we should go mission. I don't I don't want to go mission by mission because that's what I was doing there. We'll clean this up. This see, everyone gets to hear right now. Like I'm I'm thinking out loud. Like how I'm talking right now is how I'm at I'm I'm talking at think speed. I'm actually slowed down a little bit, but still.

SPEAKER_01: 2:19

He's processing.

SPEAKER_04: 2:21

Yeah, this is no visual.

SPEAKER_01: 2:26

Yeah, we need like um some like hold music or elevator music.

SPEAKER_04: 2:31

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_01: 2:36

Oh yeah, that'll work.

SPEAKER_04: 2:38

All right. Anywho, um fuck it. We'll take it back from that one. So yeah, then after you blow up the fucking ship, you have to go on land to try to find, like I said, follow the other big fucking ship that just kind of just went through the defenses like out of this whole entire massive space bus going on one ship. It's like, fuck you guys, we're out of here. And click obviously it's the capital ship. You gotta follow that one down and it goes to one specific country town area. It was like it could have gone to the entire planet. There's a fucking reason why it went to this city, town, mega city, um, new Mombasa.

SPEAKER_01: 3:15

Okay, it is this it is this game two? Is this the second one?

SPEAKER_04: 3:19

It's still Halo 2. This is like mission three of Halo 2.

SPEAKER_01: 3:22

Okay. Okay, so we're still in two. Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 3:25

Yeah. It's like it's I don't know why. I always like go back to these. I these are like two of my favorite fucking missions, if I'm being honest. I don't know why. Um yeah, so you get shot down by this, like you're flying into the city, whatever, and then during that cut scene, you pick up the transmission, another really great scene in this one. You pick up the transmission, it goes like, oh, the signal that they're doing, it just keeps repeating. Regret, regret, regret. For those of you who don't know, name of regret is one of the prophets, so there's the prophets of truth, regret, and mercy. Anyhow, so the prophet of regret is the one who's leading this invasion of Earth. And so it's just regret, regret, regret. And so Sergeant Major Johnson, or Sergeant Johnson, who's actually a Spartan one. Think of every like quintessential like sergeant from any military movie ever. Black dude cigar with like a really shitty attitude. I'm telling you he's a he's a pwn from Aliens.

SPEAKER_01: 4:21

I was gonna say, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 4:23

I'm telling you, they literally, it is, they just copied him and they put him in the Halo game. I promise you, it is just the sergeant from Aliens.

SPEAKER_01: 4:34

Nice.

SPEAKER_04: 4:34

Black dude mustache cigars and just a grisly shitty attitude. But like they had to like CGI his nuts down to fit on screen because just like the biggest balls you've ever seen. Anyhow, he goes, he gets on the cons and he just goes, Dear humanity, we regret being alien bastards. We regret coming to Earth, and we most definitely regret the coral just blew up our raggedy-ass fleet. Ooh, rah. The two pilots just go, ooh, rah. It's like the most marine sergeant thing you've ever seen in your fucking life. Ooh. It's hilarious.

SPEAKER_01: 5:09

You know how I feel about that. Well, it's not like that.

SPEAKER_04: 5:11

He's not like barking orders. He's talking, he's talking shit.

SPEAKER_01: 5:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 5:15

Oh no, he barked, he barks plain enough orders. Yeah, you'll you'll have fun with that, Sonic. But it's just it's like I said, that's him just like talking shit about like that's what the message is saying. Because all those things regret, it's like, yeah, they regret being dumb fucks and we're kicking their asses. And then a giant walker it's scarab, it's what it's called. It's a super fucking tank thing that shoots you guys down, and then you gotta fight your way through in that one mission, a bunch of assholes, and then the mission after that one, you gotta go blow up that giant tank thing. It's so much fucking fun. Yeah, like jump on it, like blow it up in the antennas, all that kind of fun shit.

SPEAKER_01: 5:49

Now, quick question. Can you start with game two and then just like kind of know? Or is this are these games like you really should start with game one definitely?

SPEAKER_04: 6:04

Yeah, you can start with you can start with number two. You can fucking start with number five for all I give a rip.

SPEAKER_01: 6:10

That doesn't help me.

SPEAKER_04: 6:12

I know it doesn't. Well, no, you can't start with you can't start with Halo 2. You're just not gonna understand some like some little like there's little callbacks and like little things here and there, and like other characters that have developed and whatnot, but there's like so many new people that they introduce in the second game, it's almost like starting over, honestly. Because the first one they just kind of they just they they just they made the first one like a semi-standalone. Like they didn't have plans for it to be like this massive franchise. That's what it says. It's like at the end of the first one, the first one pretty much ends with a bow on top. And you don't have to. There's just the most of a cliffhanger you get is Chief going, I think we're just getting started. Which like that's not that much of a cliffhanger. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 7:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 7:04

Um yeah, and then the second one just kind of starts from that one. Like, like even you don't even meet the person who they call the um I think I talked about in the first episode, you know, this character that they call the uh the arbiter. He's like he was like the lead, like the lead shipmaster. Like he was the general like in command of the fleet that was that chased you off of reach and that technically you were engaged with in the first one. You never see him, he's never referenced whatever. He's introduced in the second game. So even him, who was quote unquote a like massive crucial antagonist in the first game, you don't even meet until the second one. Like they just wrote him in to just to give the story much more depth. So yeah, like dipping your toes in the franchise in the first one doesn't even come close to like how massively necessary the first one is. But um the second one I would say you have to, if anything, you you have to play the second one before you play the rest of them. Like you can't just start with three if you're gonna really give a shit about like the story and how this happens and that happens because like the massive changes happen to them. Like, I mean, even the fucking profits get introduced in the second one.

SPEAKER_02: 8:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 8:22

Yeah. Yeah. But while it activates hyperdrive, so as you as you blow up that giant tank, the prophet of regret is like, oh shit, I'm gonna ass kicked. I need to get the fuck out of here. So he goes to do like his hyperdrive bullshit in the city, and when it does that, essentially, like in the Halo universe, what they call a slip space or hyperdrive or whatever, you like open a portal to go through. Uh apparently when you're on a planet and you open up a uh a slip space ruptor, um, it's essentially setting off like five nukes. So like when that portal closes, it's bringing like there's the there's essentially like a massive explosion and shockwaves that happens afterwards. So it's making a jump in the middle of it. So the picture like right next to the Empire State building. This massive interdimensional portal opens and this huge fucking ship is just going through it. And then when that happens, it's like the movie Independence Day. It's just massive destruction, right? Okay. Yep. Well, as it goes to make that jump, you know, you you you guys get in your shape and you just like kind of sneak in right behind it, and then you just so now you're just dragged fuck knows where in space. But while that's going on, we're gonna jump a little bit ahead to Halo ODST, because that's where ODST takes place, is in that city that you were just in.

SPEAKER_01: 9:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 9:42

So that one's happening in parallel with Halo 2.

SPEAKER_01: 9:46

Um ODST was first what does ODST stand for anything?

SPEAKER_04: 9:53

Nope.

SPEAKER_01: 9:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 9:54

No, that's a joke. No. ODST, orbital drop shock trooper. Think of it like uh um your uh like your Navy SEALs.

SPEAKER_01: 10:02

Okay, got it.

SPEAKER_04: 10:03

Think of them as like the Navy SEALs. Um they are the they are they were the most elite fighting force the UNSC had until the Spartans were developed. So the only thing above an ODST in badassery is a Spartan, is the Master Chief.

SPEAKER_02: 10:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 10:20

So um yeah, literally, so yeah, so think of like um what you see in like movies, what they do the uh actually funny enough, what they call halo dropping, high altitude, low open jumps. You know, when they're you know they they're all geared up and whenever they have those giant masks on and they jump out, they're checking their gauges and all sorts of kind of function. You've seen that in movies and whatnot.

SPEAKER_00: 10:38

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 10:39

Um so that that's that's that. That's what that's what our people do. Uh the ODSC are literally dropped from orbit. So a spaceship flying over the planet, they drop out of these fucking pods. They literally shit out. Like um, they kind of remind me of the escape pods from like a new hope. They kind of look like that one.

SPEAKER_02: 10:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 11:00

So once again, you gotta have enough room for the massive scrotum that you have to be one of these fucking troopers. But anywho, as you're in the middle of a combat drop, because of like because the same thing. So, like if that's going on, and the orders are the covenant came to this one city. We gotta find out why. While the chief kick their ass, we need to find out why they're here trying to kick our asses. So, like, you're literally in the middle of the drop, and like you know, you in you know, on the screen, you're seeing the ship, whatever you see the whole thing, it's like, oh shit, that's what takes place during that mission of Halo 2, and then it happens, and then boom, everything goes to shit. So now you're like scattered all throughout the city, and you have to kind of you have to uh like like piece together, it's almost like a mystery kind of puzzly thing. Your character, you have to wander the streets of this now like kind of bombed out slash occupied city. And it's like, you know, this day is, you know. You go to this one area and you find a clue, and you look at the clue, and then the next mission, you know, there's like a it's like a black screen, it'll say like you know, you know, ten hours earlier or whatever.

SPEAKER_02: 12:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 12:05

And then you play as a different character and you play through that mission. At the end of that mission, it brings you, oh, so that's how that helmet got lodged in the wall there. And then you cut back to your character, the rook, and then you go scouring the city again, and then you find another clue. And same thing. You do that back and forth until the last like two or three missions, and then it all comes full circle. You all all your forces kind of rally and you kick the shit out of the remaining covenant forces and whatnot. And yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 12:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 12:31

And then you fit. Yeah. So at the end of that game, you find out the reason why they chose that why the covenant chose that city was because there's one of their um, one of their gods, or the forerunners, one of their massive ships called Juggernauts, one of their ships is buried under that city that crashed there like a million years ago. Remember when they when all the forerunners sent all the ships out to escape the flood and whatnot, and then they crashed on them, and then the covenant was founded because they started worshiping the the people in these ships.

SPEAKER_00: 13:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 13:07

Well, this is a ship that landed on Earth.

SPEAKER_01: 13:11

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 13:12

So they went there because you need one of those ships to activate um a specific portal to get to what's known as the arc, and the arc is what creates the halo array, to what makes the halo. So since the first one was destroyed, they could only be fired from the the first one was destroyed, and then when there's a remote shutdown of a halo, they can only be like hard reset or factory reset from the arc where they were made. So that's why they went to New Mombasa was to find that artifact to get to the arc to remake the halos.

SPEAKER_01: 13:46

Okay. Got it.

SPEAKER_04: 13:48

Yes. Uh yes, but that one, uh, back to Halo 2. Oh, and at that part, that's when at then that's when you get introduced into the arbiter, and you kind of go back and forth. The rest of the game, you kind of go back and forth between a mission as the arbiter, a mission is chief, a mission is the arbiter, a mission is chief. So the arbiter was a he was an elite, like I said, he was a general for the covenant. And but he was shamed and also the kind of shit.

SPEAKER_01: 14:12

Shame, shame, shame, shame, exactly.

SPEAKER_04: 14:16

Shame, shame, shame. Anywho. Um so their title of arbiter is like the most suicide of suicide missions. It's like a high, it's it's a massively important role. You only answer to um the prophets. Like that, that is it. He is above any and all else, but he's also like disavowed. So like he's not a part of like he's not a part of like the milit, their military. He's not a citizen of their covenant anymore. Nothing. He is literally just an instrument or a weapon for the prophets. But when he's sent out on a mission with somebody in the covenant, they have no jurisdiction, he has no jurisdiction, they have no jurisdiction, they can't tell him what to do. He doesn't have to listen to them. He does whatever the fuck he wants. But they all have to comply. But like you want to talk about like the most dangerous missions ever. Oh yeah? That's where everyone that's where everyone was okay with him being named the arbiter because they're like, the like you're gonna die. You're expected to die. So deal with it. But it is seen as a great it's so if you do complete your mission, it's like that's how you regain your honor and you're welcomed back into it. Kind of a thing. Uh so yeah, so you're sent on some mission because they're like, oh, there's this one guy who's a fucking heretic against our uh covenant. Go kick his ass. Well, then you go and you find out that he's not a heretic, he just found out the fucking truth. That the great journey, what the halos are, is weapons, and like they're gonna literally kill us all, and the prophets are going to kill us all. But, you know, you do as you're told because you're a good little squid face, and you kill him.

SPEAKER_01: 16:03

You kill, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 16:05

Yeah, you kill, you kill who the guy who is labeled as a heretic because the floating eyeball from the first one, uh, Guilty Spark, the Oracle. I think I talked about him in the first, in the first one.

SPEAKER_05: 16:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 16:16

Um, like I said, that's that's like um you think of him as like the the manager in like the the uh of the halo arrays. The forerunners made them in like this little floating ball. Um he's the one in charge of he's like in charge of the halo. He can operate the halo, you know, from there. Well, that one, like I said, that thing is just doing its job. You know. So the covenant shows up and they're like, oh, holy oracle, what is this magnificent thing? It's literally a death ring that's gonna fucking kill you and everything in the galaxy. Huh? Yeah, that's what your great journey is, bud. It's a massive suicide mission from your shithead fucking paraplegic asshole priests. And he's like, Jesus, huh? Can you prove this? Yeah. Yeah. I can prove literally everything. Show me. And so he shows him. And he's just like, and then like I said, the n that guy went, he was like, dude, we're all gonna die if we keep listening to these dudes. And then those dudes found out that he was talking shit. So like he's a heretic and he sucks. We need to kill him. And uh, and and and so and so you do, and so you go and you do that. Um, but you know, as you played through more of his missions, you find out that, you know, then like the arbiter's like, mm-hmm, you know what? Maybe this guy was right. Maybe the prophets are wrong. Maybe the ball is actually gonna kill us all if we don't stop. So there's all that kind of turmoil going on. Because it's funny, they keep they keep referring to the ball as Oracle. And he was like, You call me, he's literally like, you call me why? That's literally not my job. I'm literally just like Hank from HR. I'm not I'm why do you call me that? You guys are so fucking stupid. It's kind of funny. I hate him because he does he is incredibly poindextry. Like it's he's very C3PO.

SPEAKER_02: 18:03

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04: 18:03

Like that goody t-shoes. He's just an annoying dick. It's just the way he talks. Um, but it but like I said, it is kind of funny because that everyone's like more or less, it's kind of think of it like this. Uh what's it like Jesus has been worshipped as this like amazing messiah and yada yada, he turned water into wine and the fishes and breads and stuff and things like that. And then like a little bit they had in family, you go back in time, and he's really just like a fucking slob. You know what I mean? It's like literally it's like finding out that Jesus was like an actual like piece of shit, is essentially what was gonna happen in this video game's religious lore. So it's all lies, it's all deceit, it's all horse shit. I mean maybe actually using Christianity, but I digress. I digress.

SPEAKER_01: 19:02

Isn't everything sitting on a throne of lies?

SPEAKER_03: 19:04

It's sitting on a throne of lies.

SPEAKER_04: 19:06

Anyhow, um it is just kind of funny though, because he was like, Stop worshiping me. I'm literally just a guy. A ball guy. Doesn't matter. Um, so then you get out you get a split uh slip space with the chief, and then you're on a new halo ring, and then you gotta go kick the prophet of regrets ass because he's a punk ass bitch, and that's a really fun mission too, because the halos are so pretty. They're so pretty. Like absolute majestic. The bluest of waters, the greenest of everything. They're just gorgeous. So deadly.

SPEAKER_00: 19:45

Gorgeous but deadly. Song title.

SPEAKER_04: 19:48

Yeah. Anyhow. Um yes, you go, you what's really funny is that you lit you literally beat his ass. At the end of like that mission, the mission after, when you have to actually fight you know, you your little boss battle with the Prophet of Regret. You physically you physically beat him because like his whole thing, you gotta like sneak up on him, and you you l you jump on, he's in like a big floating hover chair thing. You jump onto it, you hold you you're like holding him by like by the throat, and you just beat him. You physically beat him to death. You just punch the shit out of him. It's funny.

SPEAKER_03: 20:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 20:32

Little secret findy thingies in the game. They're called skulls. It's like little cheats and little buffs and debuffs that happen. So like one, you know, one makes the enemy stronger, makes them shoot things, you know, makes them shoot more accurately, blah, blah, blah. That kind of shit, right? Yeah, there's a couple fun ones. So one of them, the one of the most famous ones, it's called Grunt Birthday Party. So one of the little enemy guys, is it the grunt, little short bullshit guys? If you shoot them, if you have that skull activated and you shoot them in the head, you hear like a cork pop and confetti flies everywhere, and you hear little kids go, yay! It's funny as hell. I swear to God. You gotta put that on. It's so funny when you get that one. Well, one of them is uh one of them is called like turn to 11 or something like that one. All that skull does on that, on that mission, in that specific part of the mission, every time you punch the prophet, it makes like a guitar noise, like dwell, bw, dwell, wait, dwell. It's funny. It's like it's the small shit.

SPEAKER_00: 21:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 21:31

It's the small shit in games that's just the best. Well, then they find that that you're there, they're gonna kill you so now they're gonna use one of the big capital ships, they're gonna blow you that building up because you're inside. You just killed one of the prophets, so like a scorched earth kind of thing. So you jump into the water, and then as you're in the water, you hear this really creepy voice start talking to you from the murky depths of the water, like another has been chosen, whatever the fuck he says. And these giant tentacles come drag you into the murky depths. And then you play a bullshit mission with the arbiter. Two bullshit missions with the Arbiter. And now the Flood is on the halo. So the Flood has now made it to this halo, the secondary halo. You're sent on a mission. The mission that he's sent on is to get what they call the sacred icon. It's just the fucking ignition key. It's literally just a key.

SPEAKER_02: 22:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 22:18

To fire the uh the halos. So you go to get that there while so uh spoiler alert, the humans beat you to it. So there's Sergeant Johnson and Commander Keys. They're about to get you know, they're gonna they're gonna grab the key, but then the Arbiter shows up and he kind of fights with them and so on and so forth, and then fuck, and then talk about him all that much. Either way, there is another faction in the covenant called the Brutes. They're just like they're a cross between like gorillas and like rabid dogs. Oh yeah, so there's these beastie, hairy, snarly, barbaric sons of bitches.

SPEAKER_01: 22:59

And what are they called?

SPEAKER_04: 23:00

They're called brutes.

SPEAKER_01: 23:02

Brutes.

SPEAKER_04: 23:02

Brutes. You know, very original. The big brutish enemies are called brutes. Very original. Either way. Um he's kind of like you know, the main one, like the leader of them, the general, if you will, Tartarus of the brutes. Uh-huh. He's like, he's your professional rival. Think of like Michael Scott and Toby, right?

SPEAKER_01: 23:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 23:26

So he's so he actually is like the boot-licking, ass-kissing general of the covenant. Well, you're sent on the mission as the you know, there. It's like, alright, cool. So Tartar shows up, he's like, okay, cool, I've captured all the humans. Now I've got the icon. Congratulations, we've completed a mission. And then the big crisscross applesauce happens there, where he was like, hey, the prophet sent me here to kill you, because fuck you. Um and so yeah, then you know, oh, it's all just it was all a big setup, and so you get knocked down to this big pit. And then he gets grabbed, and then the the arbiter gets grabbed by those tentacles. Next cutscene. The giant tentacles bring the master chief and the arbiter. And then now assimilated into the Nexus, the Prophet of Regret, and the monitor from the first Halo. Or the big oracle thingy from the first Hala. And then this is where everything is revealed to everybody. Well, this giant the giant tentacles are attached to the most fucked up and disgusting looking uh, what is it, the piranha plants from um Maria.

unknown: 24:39

Right?

SPEAKER_04: 24:40

Hell. Yeah, think of it like I'm I can't even think of I don't know exactly how big they are, but it's gotta be at least like 12 stories tall, 15 stories tall. That's how big this fucking worm plant shit looking thing is. Ew. Like if like what the Sarlac pit probably looks like in Star Wars, like with big beak, like if it actually was out of Star Trek.

SPEAKER_01: 24:58

Oh, okay. If it was out of the thing.

SPEAKER_04: 25:00

Yeah, so it's a big beak on a worm-looking thing with these tentacles. That is the grave mind or the Nexus mind that is the flood. The flood is controlled by this grave mind. You take this thing out, there goes the flood, right? So this thing here brings you and does the very long-winded way of saying the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So I was like, listen, these assholes want to shoot these rings. You don't want them to do that because they're gonna kill us all. You don't want them to do that because they're gonna kill us all, and you want a little bit of revenge because they tried to kill you and so on and so forth. And I don't want them to kill us all because it's it was literally designed to fucking kill me. So, how about we all work together and we stop these assholes from firing this ring? Sound good? No, good. And he just like teleports them the fuck out. And he sends one back to the halo, which is kind of funny because then he sends the former covenant guy to the halo to go save the humans and fight the brutes, and he sends the human back to the covenant, like he sends him to the covenant like capital shit, high charity. He doesn't know no layout, he don't know no nothing. You know what I mean?

unknown: 26:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 26:15

At the same time, though, if he's the motherfucking master chief, he don't need to know shit, he's gonna learn shit, and he's gonna blow shit up along the way. I always found that kind of funny in that game, but I digressed. Yeah, so then as the chief, now you just now you're on high charity and you gotta go fighting through a whole bunch of fucking covenant assholes. At the same time, the um the arbiter's gotta fight through a bunch of the brute assholes that have now completely there was like a coup. There's like a massive coup that happened in the covenant. The elites or the uh the Sangue Lee, as they're called, the the squid face people, like the arbiter is his race, they were to defend all, be all, protectors of all of the covenant. Okay. And then the brutes were just kind of like the new guys. They were like the second strings. Yes, they were part of the covenant, but they weren't it was like, and then completely orchestrated by the prophets, the other prophet was killed, and then they do the changing of the guards. Like, all right, one of the prophets was killed, the elites, you can no longer guarantee our safety, so we're gonna give the job to the brutes. And then the brutes are not gonna be our personal bodyguard. Well, then they like unleashed the brutes and like killed any, like they said they pulled a massive coup, and the prophets took like total control of the covenant, massive hostile takeover. So there was like um loyalists and people who went rogue and yada yada.

SPEAKER_02: 27:30

Right, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 27:31

But now you have a whole entire upheaval happening in this religious sect. So now they aren't just gonna fight through a whole bunch of all that bullshit, and what's a little annoying is that John is that you catch up with Sergeant Johnson and Commander Keys, they get to drive the scarab, you don't get to drive the scarab, the giant fucking tank thing that's now on this Halo. I mean, you get to fly Banshee, which is pretty cool, but you don't get to drive the tank.

SPEAKER_00: 27:55

But well that sucks.

SPEAKER_04: 27:57

Yeah, I know. It's fun and all, like it's a cool mission and all, it's cool and shit, but like, come on, I'm gonna drive the fucking scarab tank shit.

SPEAKER_01: 28:04

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 28:05

But I do I do think that Chief won in this one because that mission there is one of the absolute peak moments of the entire franchise. So now you're on, like I said, so you're on the the the covenants like capital homeworld thing, high charity. You're there, you're fighting, surprise, surprise. Guess what? Now the fucking flood shows up here. I told you these assholes are everywhere. You see why they had to create a weapon that destroyed everything in the fucking galaxy?

SPEAKER_00: 28:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 28:33

No matter where you go, they're trying to get a hold of you to extend your car's warranty for like no fucking reason. Right? Have you heard about your Lord and Savior eating the flesh of another? Like, fuck off. Jesus Christ. The fucking, I'm telling you, man, they are intergalactic zombie Jehovah Witness. That's what the flood is. Intergalactic zombie Jehovah Witness.

SPEAKER_01: 28:53

Don't bring up that religious trauma.

SPEAKER_04: 28:58

I said what I said and I meant what I said. I'm telling you, when you play these games, you're like son of a bitch. They are like the fucking J-dubs, man.

SPEAKER_01: 29:06

Intergalactic J Dubs. That's the last thing we need.

SPEAKER_04: 29:09

Intergalactic zombie J-dubs, parasitic J-dubs.

SPEAKER_01: 29:13

Well, I mean.

SPEAKER_04: 29:16

Anywho, I digress. So now I so like the last person you play is the chief in this game. It's like right before you get to like, you know, Cortana tells you, Chief, it's like right through that door, the thing you gotta get, right? And she goes, like, just so you know, you gotta you gotta pass through like this massive like throne room thing. And um uh Cortana's like, hey, so the flood's in there and they're fighting what's left of the covenant. She says, and I quote, you might want to sit this one out, and then the door opens, and then yeah, you're seeing rockets go through, then the other guy's leaping there, and there's the shooting, there's chaos. But as soon as that door opens, in the original theatrical cut of the game, because they when they remastered it, I don't know I need to know what fucking putts thought it was a good idea to replace this song. But they play the instrumental to Breaking Benjamin's Blow Me Away. Oh wow, like they wrote that song specifically for Halo. Like, you want you think Ahmad, but like Ben for Breaking Benjamin and just that entire band are insanely massive Halo fans. Like when when they fucking play their shows, when they play that song, you know, like they'll have like screens behind bands and whatnot, and the for like people who are really far away and all those cool things for like the cameras and whatnot, they will put the HUD from the fucking game. Like you'll see like the health bar and like the weapon things and like the grenades and the ammo and shit, they'll have projected on the screen. Oh wow. It's like the coolest shit ever. And like you'll hear, and then they'll also like play like the noises from the game like during it too. So like right before the breakdown happens, you hear like the shield break, and then like as it's like as like the build-up kind of comes with like the big screen for like the breakdown, they you hear like the shields like recharging, like the of the shield recharging. It's the fucking, it's the shit. Fucking love so much.

SPEAKER_01: 31:14

I'll have to look that up.

SPEAKER_04: 31:15

But it is like the most badass thing. Like you're just and you're just like, who in their right mind is gonna speed run through this? Like, you have one of the best breaking Benjamin songs playing, and you get to run and you get to kill aliens and zombies in the same time. Who's skipping this? Right. Oh, it's it's fucking great. And then yeah, it's all cool. It's done. If you if you play it just right, the song ends and everyone's dead, and you can then go through the door and finish the mission. It's fucking it's one of the most epic scenes in gaming. It's one of the greatest things in gaming they've done.

SPEAKER_01: 31:46

And let me guess, you have timed it perfectly.

SPEAKER_04: 31:50

Like 77 to 95% of the time.

SPEAKER_01: 31:55

Doesn't surprise me.

SPEAKER_04: 31:56

It depends. Because if you're fucking if you're trying if you're lassoing this game, absolutely not. That's the only time you're allowed to speed run through that as if you're fucking lassoing. Last lasso is called legendary. Um yeah, legendary all skulls on. I'll talk about that.

SPEAKER_02: 32:10

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 32:12

Um, yes, and you go through that one. Like I said, okay, yeah. Jump back to Arbiter and the Scarab Tank. You go to this, that, and the other thing there, and you gotta fight Tartarus and the other brutes to get them to stop fighting the Halo thing. You kill him, and then that's when you find out about the Ark and the rest of the Halo array, and like how many there are, and that we have to go to this place called the Ark to fight them all, and so on and so forth. And then, you know, this is where like the truce kind of begins between the Arbiter and at least Johnson and Keys, like, you know, a little bit of a partnership happening here in humanity. During that bit with Chief on High Charity, uh Cortana he Cortana tells him, Leave me here in the system in case we've got a remote fire. I'm not gonna risk a remote detonation. Like, leave me in the system here in the covenant, like megacity. You go kick his ass. So Cortana is left on high charity in this game. You get on the ship to now start flying wherever the fuck it's going to. And a massive heartbreaking scene as he's leaving. She goes, Well, like, you know, you're more or less like, I've made it. And she was like, All right, go kick their ass. And then Chief goes, uh, when this is over, I'll come back. She cuts him off. She goes like, Don't make a go prom don't make a girl a promise if you know you can't keep it. So like you're saying goodbye to Cortana there. You're leaving her there to go worth the galaxy, right? Uh okay.

SPEAKER_01: 33:46

Question though. Why did he have to leave Cortana? Because wasn't she just like a chip in his helmet?

SPEAKER_04: 33:51

Yeah, but she's also like the she's like the super mega AI.

SPEAKER_02: 33:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 33:58

So she's now in like the covenant mainframe. So she's the anywhere and everywhere. She essentially is their mega city, their mega space city.

SPEAKER_02: 34:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 34:08

Like the Death Star, but it's more of a cone than a ball.

unknown: 34:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 34:12

That's what this thing is. So she's now in like control of it. So if so their plan is to get to wherever they gotta go to stop the profit and destroy the rings, she's just gonna redo what you do at the end of the first game. We're just gonna overload the reactors of our ship that we crashed here. That'll destroy this, destroy the ring, everything we gotta do. She doesn't want to risk a remote detonation.

SPEAKER_02: 34:36

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04: 34:37

So she stays in the system.

SPEAKER_02: 34:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 34:39

Like if something happens, this, something happens that, she goes, like, I'm literally just a computer, I'm just a computer program. You can just re-download me wherever the fuck we are.

SPEAKER_02: 34:48

Um got it. Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 34:50

She's like, I don't want to have to risk you having to push a button. I can fucking push the button. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02: 34:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 34:57

So that's why you leave her there. So she is the mainframe.

SPEAKER_01: 35:01

Um, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_04: 35:04

Yeah. But yeah, it's like a really like kind of sad moment because like she's just like watching you super sad is like you're flying away on this ship. No. Uh and uh yeah, that thing stops, like I said. No, it goes to it goes to you know, then the last thing, or it's you know, you you go back to you go back to Earth and you're like, Master Chief, what the hell are you doing on there? And you say, sir, finishing this fight. Cut the black. Well, then there's an end credit scene. There's secret end credit scenes in the game. So when you beat it on the hardest difficulty, legendary, when you beat the game out that difficulty, you get like a secret locked end credit scene kind of thing. So at the end of Halo 1, it was Guilty Spark just kind of flying in space. So that the Oracle thing lived. But even that, it was kind of like just a cutesy one, it wasn't like a cliffhanger.

SPEAKER_02: 35:52

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04: 35:54

The end credit scene, the secret end credit scene to Halo 2 is you go back to High Charity. Remember, now the Flood is on there. The flood has completely infested and infected it. And the grave mind has now teleported himself onto High Charity. So the Flood now owns like the Covenant Mega City. So think of like zombies in charge of the Death Star.

SPEAKER_02: 36:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 36:20

So they have control of that one. And he's like talking about like he's going on and on about like the infidence of knowledge to the universe and blah, blah, blah. I I'm left with so many questions, this, that, and the other thing. And then Cortana flicks on and says, okay, shoot. So it's her, like, you know, she's she's gonna, she's about to be, she knows what's everyone knows what's about to happen. She's gonna be interrogated ridiculously by the grave mind. Because, like I said, the grave, she is all of the knowledge that ever was and ever will be in the galaxy. And that's a remotely intelligent organism that is as parasitic and deadly as it is curious in nature.

SPEAKER_02: 37:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 37:04

So, like if the grave if the flood of the grave mind gets of the knowledge of the universe, I can't even think of a funny way to explain how fucked humanity would be. Just how fucked anything would be, because the flood would literally take over all of space. Infinite space, the flood would take over.

SPEAKER_01: 37:20

Ooh.

SPEAKER_04: 37:20

So that's not good.

SPEAKER_01: 37:22

No bueno.

SPEAKER_04: 37:23

Yeah, so now Cortana is left by herself with the flood on that fucking ship thing. Ooh. Uh Halo 3 to some pretty cool badass um Halo stuff, kicking asses, taking names, and you kind of picked up word like I said, because in between Halo 2 and Halo 3 was when um I think that was when ODST came out. No, I think it was right after. Doesn't matter. ODST happens then, yes, when you find out that, like, oh, they're here because the portal to the arc, we gotta find the stuff in the thing. So he was like, okay, we're here. There's this ship they dug up. You know, you could sum up a whole bunch of, you could sum up the first like half of the game, and just by saying there was a giant ship that the covenant dug up. Humanity doesn't know why they dug the ship up. We gotta find out where the fuck it's going. Well, then it takes off, and this same thing, this giant fucking portal opens up above it, they go through it, and it brings you to the ark. So you take uh, let's see, like the the elites that went against the covenant are now teamed with you, so you now have some type of backup. And so the elites, chief, and a handful of you know, like Marines and humans, they go through the portal to get to the ark to stop truth at the ark. Down the ark doing badass stuff, kicking ass, taking names. You find out what you gotta do, where you gotta go. He's in this one building where everything is, it's protected. Shocker, fucking Johnson gets captured. So now you gotta go save his ass because he's fucking competent. He's now, yeah, so like he's being held hostage there. You gotta go save his ass with everybody. So now you show up there. Um, right at this point, guess who comes a knock-in?

SPEAKER_00: 39:23

Um the flood.

SPEAKER_04: 39:27

Do you have time to talk about our Lord and Savior, the fucking grave mine? The goddamn flood fucking shows up on the goddamn arc. Right? Wow. But not just any flood. It's it's fucking high charity. Like the megacity, the Death Star. Like the flood-infested Death Star comes crashing into the fucking arc. So literally all of the flood and the grave mine, and all that shit is now on this installation that the Forerunners have built. So to say that it has hit the fan is a map, once again, a massive understatement. Um, another enemy of my enemy moment because you're like at the end of this massive hallway, truth's about to light the rings and blow everything up, and this, that, and the other thing. Well, now you and the flood are working hand in hand to fight through the brutes and a bunch of what's left of the covenant to stop truth. You get all the way to the end, there's this big, you know, he's he's trying to use Johnson to ignite the rings because humans can act. Forerunners and humans are the only ones that can activate the rings.

SPEAKER_02: 40:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 40:33

Because of the whole mantle of responsibility that the forerunners did. So it's like literally, so think of like I said, there was that husband and the wife, there was the librarian of the Didact. The librarian was the woman. She was more peaceful and she was the one who liked humanity. She said that they are the peaceful, they are the rightful holders of the mantle of responsibility. She pulled a um Oh God, what was his name? Mads Mickelson's character in Rogue One. Whatever. She put she intentionally put like that kind of fail-safe into the Halo arrays that they can only be used by humans. Forerunners cannot activate them. They cannot activate them. Even if they wanted to try it, they fucking couldn't. Only humans that had this that had a specific gene, and that's a very confusing story. We're not even gonna talk about it in Halo 4. Um, but yeah, humans can activate the rings. The Covenant cannot, the prophets cannot, nobody else can but humans and forerunners that are loyal to the librarian, which is really funny. So he's going to use Sergeant Johnson. Truth is gonna use his Johnson to activate the rings. And then Commander Keys, she comes flying in to save him from crashing the shipping and blah, blah, blah. She fucking waste a bunch of dudes with a shotgun, there's all this cool stuff. And like a punk ass bitch fucking prophet of truth shoots her in the back. Big sad. Commander Miranda Keys. Commander Miranda Keys. She gets it there. Very sad, very sad moment in the game. Um, once again, uh, there is a prophet bestowed before us upon their knees in agony. Um The Arbiter takes it upon himself to choke the prophet of truth and then stab him with an energy sword. Awesome. So you stop truth. But there's still like three missions to go in the game. Because as soon as you stop truth, the flood's like, hey, remember I said the enemy of my enemy? He goes, Yeah. Well, our enemy's dead now, so fuck you guys, we're gonna kill you and eat you.

SPEAKER_00: 42:36

Nice. Right there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 42:37

They flip the fucking switch, and once again, you're back to fighting the uh you're back to fighting the flood. Yeah, you go all the way to the as an end of this mission, so on and so forth. Everything starts kind of acting weird, and you're seeing like like small hallucinations, if you will, of Cortana. And so you kind of follow them, like the little glitch things and whatever. And then for whatever reason, Chief pushes some button. This one thing. And then this big like blast in front of them opens up, and this huge thing starts coming up, and what the hell is going on, and yada yada, and this, that, and the other thing. It's the replacement halo ring from the first one. So something told you to do that to push that button, and blah, blah, blah, and yada, that's what the kind of fun shit. Now it's an incomplete halo ring, so it can't, that ring cannot fire. If that ring goes to fire, it will self-destruct. You know, it ain't right. Don't use it. Yeah, it's a fucking turkey baster from Thanksgiving with my fucking great-grandfather. That's what it is. Intergalactic space great grandpa is like something's wrong with the halo ring. Don't use it. Bad stuff's gonna happen to good people if you try to use this fucking halo ring.

SPEAKER_01: 43:52

Throw it out in a yard. Just throw it out.

SPEAKER_04: 43:55

No one use this halo ring. Next mission, for whatever reason, you're like, okay, so there's that giant ugly ship thing that I left Cortana on. I gotta go find her. I replay Halo from its beginning. From the from like I said, from Halo Reach, and I play it all the way through to the very last of uh Halo Infinite at least once, sometimes twice a year. I play every single Halo game, play anything and everything through it. I love it. I I've rewatched the show that's not that good a couple times, but everyone knows I I very much love this franchise. I have only ever played this mission twice in my whole fucking life. The very first time I played the game, so I didn't know what was happening. I had to play it. And the one and only time I ever lasso'd the game, and I've only played this mission twice for two reasons. One, it's a fucking pain in the ass. It's a goddamn maze. I get lost every fucking time. All you're fighting is the flood. Ever. That's it. You're just fighting the flood on this thing. And all the different types of the flood and just how horrible they are and super strong and so on and so forth. And it's just gross. It's just gross. It's like whoever designed them, it's like everything looks like fucking like pimples and warts and like the inside of the human body, and like there's gook and like sphincters everywhere. It's just not pleasant.

SPEAKER_02: 45:35

No. It's not sound pleasant.

SPEAKER_04: 45:38

It's not. So like I said, think think of a sphincter the size of think of a an intestinal tract the size of the Death Star. That's what this mission is. It's just fucking gross. And the noises, like as you're stepping, you're squishing, and you're hearing like that of like stepping through. Everything's just gross. And you hear like the stick, like the the noises you hear from fucking Daven Attenborough and his bullshit fucking centipedes. It's just that noise. Oh, mission is just that noise. I'm so uncomfortable playing that fucking mission. I hate it. Ugh. Right now. That's what I should have said. Do you know what makes me uncomfortable? Call back to that episode. This fucking mission in Halo. God, I fucking hate it so much. If you couldn't tell. Well, you find Cortana and you blow up high charity and get rid of the flood once and for all. She's got the plan of how to stop the how to stop the flood, how to stop this, how to stop that, how to do everything. She has she has since found how to save literally everything. And that's when you find out that you have to activate this halo ring. Will it fire and cause destruction on a galactic scale? Yes. Is this ring going to then self-destruct, blow itself up, and then blow up the arc? Also, yes. But why is this a good idea? Thank you for asking. The Arc is not in the Milky Way galaxy. It's not in the Andromeda galaxy, it's in a completely different galaxy. So the Halo array only just has a radius of like the galaxy.

SPEAKER_01: 47:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 47:19

So humanity and everything else, at least in our galaxy, will be safe because we're not in our galaxy anymore.

SPEAKER_00: 47:26

Got it. Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 47:27

Which is actually really cool because like on the missions, when you're on the arc, if you look up, so that's what's that's that's one thing I've really liked about the the game, too, is like the little details on you're on the halo ring, and the halo ring is like a full circle. If you look, you actually see like you can follow it up, and then you look up and you see the ring like goes above you, and then it just follows you. You can see like where you are, like on the ring, and it's like I just thought that was like a really fucking cool detail.

SPEAKER_02: 47:49

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_04: 47:50

But the same thing with the arc. So the arc isn't actual like a halo, it's almost like a weird bowl, almost like a flower. It kind of has like or a star, it's like a crisscross. So it has like um, you know, the yeah, there's there's uh there's uh something that makes a uh a cross section there. There's the circle in the middle where the halo rings actually come out of, and then it has what is that, one, two, like eight or like ten prawns that kind of come off of it. Well, depending on where you are, and if you look out, you could see the other prawns, but if you look directly up, you actually see the Milky Way galaxy. Oh. It's really cool. Like, like just like design and cinematography, all that kind of shit. It's really cool details like that that I think are pretty dope.

SPEAKER_01: 48:29

Yeah, I like details like that in a game.

SPEAKER_04: 48:31

It's really, really cool. Um, and just for continuity's sake, I think it's pretty dope. Anyhow, um so uh all right, cool. So that's that's what we gotta do. So on this mission, you gotta fight so much fucking flood. And you gotta go in there, you gotta kick this thing's ass. And now it's you, it's Johnson, it's the arbiter, you're finally getting this thing. All right, we're gonna blow this thing up and fucking you're there or whatever. And she's like, all right, Johnson, here's the key. Go fucking, you know, let's go light this powder cake and get the fuck out of here. So he goes to do it and so on and so forth. And now you're little talking, annoying HR representative, this fucking cocksucker. He comes in and he goes, like, you will be happy to know that installation 009 is ahead of schedule, blah, blah, blah. And Johnson's just like, terrific. He's just like not, he doesn't give a fuck about his shit. And he was just like, oh, it'll be ready in such a time. He goes, we don't have insert whatever time he says here. And he goes, like, what are you doing? He goes, like, we're lighting it, but a premature firing of this ring will destroy the installation. He literally goes, deal with it. And then the ball turns from green to red. You know exactly what this fucking floating orb dip nuts is gonna do. Spoiler alert, he kills Johnson.

SPEAKER_02: 49:41

Oh.

SPEAKER_04: 49:42

Oh, fuck, I know, fucking cock. So clearly, you gotta blow this fucker up. So you blow him up, and then now you're holding Sarge Johnson, and he's like the chief's like, I'm getting you out of here.

SPEAKER_03: 49:53

And he's like, nah, fuck that. I'm dead.

SPEAKER_04: 49:56

Um I do kind of love it though, because it's the same thing. It is they do one thing, another fantastic voice acting that they do, and just the delivery of the lines. Is it kind of like a cliche moment? Yeah. But still, man, like Johnson, man.

SPEAKER_01: 50:11

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 50:12

That's the kind of shit. And he goes, send me out with a bang. So yeah, start this thing up, everything's gonna blow up and all it's like a bullshit. But that's funny because like you do it, like it starts, so like that room starts kind of falling to pieces, and then like the bridge you guys were on kind of tilts to the side, and you see Johnson's corpse like slide off the bridge. It's kind of funny. You see it just kind of go, and then whatever. So now one of the greatest runaway scenes in the entire franchise. You have to now you have to drive, I think it's the equivalent of like however many miles you have to go and outrun like the explosions and the flood and the debris because everything's falling around you and whatnot. And there's the ship. You have to do the massive final jump into the ship to fly off into the sunset or whatever. You you land in the ship and everything's there, it's cool, you're going. The port, the slip space fucking portal thing is there. And once again, another beautiful shot that they do. So now the cargo bay is now open, and the cargo bay is in the rear of the ship. So it's like the back of the ship is completely open as you're getting thing off through this portal. And then it's the shot, is kind of like third person from behind Cortana. So she's looking at Chief. So you have like Chief kind of looking at you, and you're seeing behind you, you're seeing like everything like exploding and all this cool, like whatever the hell animation of the halo getting ready to fire. Uh-huh. Like right there at that moment. God's killing you right now what the hell they said. It doesn't matter. But then you go and you see like that, and then like the screen kind of goes white, and you see that the ship is like halfway through the portal, and the screen kind of goes white. And then Back to Humanity, they're talking about, oh, the people, you know, the Lord Hood's there, and talking about the people we've lost, like a makeshift memorial that they have of the Human Covenant Ward. Everything's been going on the past three fucking games. Okay. And there's all the different pictures of the different characters throughout the three games who have died. So you see um Commander Joshua Keyes, who died in the first one. You see Miranda Keyes, the daughter who died in this one, Johnson, a bunch of other NPCs and other people there. And there's a really nice um when they remastered it, one of the original devs um like passed away during that one too.

unknown: 52:17

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04: 52:18

So they made a picture of him in like UNSE like Admiral uniforms, and they put him in there too. I thought that was really sweet that they did that.

SPEAKER_01: 52:25

Aw, that was that is sweet.

SPEAKER_04: 52:26

That's really touching. And um then you see kind of cut into like cut into the um the panel that that that's like what like the memorial is of whatever is the numbers one, one, and seven. So it's expect so you know, at least leaning towards that, you know, John didn't make it. For every reason, Arbiter's there, but uh Chief and Cortana didn't make it. And uh also the kind of function. So yeah, it's a sad moment, and then it, you know, then it whatch it called it, then it um screen kind of cuts the black, and then you hear Cortana, then Cortana starts saying something or whatever it is, and then the lights flicker on, and there's you know, there's uh Chief and whatever the hell it is. Um the ship got cut in half, so when the portal closed, it literally cut the ship in half.

SPEAKER_02: 53:17

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 53:18

So they got stuck somewhere in some galaxy. Obviously not in that one because they're still alive, and not in the Milky Way galaxy because they can't reach anyone on comms in UN SE space, quote unquote.

SPEAKER_02: 53:31

Right, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 53:32

So that's so that's how the game, so that's how they put the the cherry on top of the Halo series, is kind of sorta, somewhat in a way, going full circle. Because when you first meet Chief, they get him out of cryo.

SPEAKER_02: 53:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 53:50

So in this one, she's like, what are we gonna do? He's like floating through the ship and getting to a cryo chamber, and they're kind of talking, she goes, like, it's gonna be a long time before someone finds us, and he goes, Like, you know what to do. Wake me when you need me. And like the cryo tube like closes and like the lights go off, and then but then if anything, that made me more sad than Halo 2 because okay, so Chief's gonna go to cryo sleep, you know, and in science fiction, he's just gonna be you know, frozen in time. He's fine. He's whatever the hell is Cortana's left on her own. Yeah, she's a fucking computer program, but still, she you can tell she she has intelligence. She's she has a personality. She's not, you know, she's not just you know, your your fucking blender. Like she intentionally is the part of a human that makes them human. Like she has emotions, she has a thought process, she is like it's it depending on how deeply philosophical you want to get, she is a soul.

SPEAKER_02: 54:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 54:47

She doesn't have a physical body, and yeah, she has a hologram ever, but she is a soul, she is a personality. She sentence exactly, she is that, she is existence. She's left on her own. And the ending of that game was like, wow, that was a great game. But yeah, it all it kind of left me, like I didn't think the game ended. It it wasn't a happy ending.

SPEAKER_01: 55:11

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 55:11

I think the first one was only a quote unquote a happy ending, because like whatever. But yeah, I didn't it I I always felt kind of sad at the end of that. I was like, damn, that kind of sucks. It just ended there. And then they went on and they did their spin-off games and their extra games. I think that's when Halo Reach came out and yeah. After Halo 3, they did um Reach and ODST. Those were like spin-off games because of like um contracts with the studios and whatnot. That was the last one that Bungie made.

SPEAKER_02: 55:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 55:45

Well then Bungie then did uh Reach and ODST. And those were their last games to just throw, just get rid done out of the contract. They didn't want to do Halo anymore. They wanted to move on to Destiny and other games. Um But yeah, all sorts of other bullshit and contracts and assholes and whatnot.

SPEAKER_00: 56:05

So Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 56:07

Yeah, then it switched to that's when you definitely saw a massive switch in Halo and like its actual like how good it was and like its storytelling and its writers and whatnot, because like I said, that's when the split happened, and then Bungie went and started, like I said, that's when they started the game, the the franchise, um, Destiny and all the shit that they were working on. And then another gaming company was founded by like um you know, original devs from Bungie. They founded uh 343 Studios, and then they gave us um, like I said, the rest of the Halo's after that. And any and all of the bad decisions that came have come from them since.

SPEAKER_02: 56:44

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 56:45

So Halo 4, Halo Wars, Halo 5 Guardians, which is just a fucking clusterfuck of a game. Which is a shame. Because like it had like there's so much potential. And then don't even get me started on Halo Infinite. Don't get me started on Halo Infinite because you want to talk about a game that just like even following any and all of Halo, that game just happened out of nowhere. Like Halo, the only good thing that happened with Halo 5 and Halo Wars 2 was their massive cliffhangers. Huge cliffhangers that happen at the end of those games. Oh my god, this is great. And then Halo Infinite comes out of East Bum Fuck Nowhere Left Field, and it just throws you in the middle of a random storyline out of nowhere. It was like a time jump of like 10 years from Halo 5. And apparently Halo 5, you know, it's cliffing that happened, it came to its fruition, and that story happened, but you don't know what happened.

SPEAKER_02: 57:50

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 57:51

It just lives in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of fuck nowhere. Like, think of think of like you watched A New Hope and then Empire Strikes Back. Right?

SPEAKER_05: 58:05

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04: 58:06

And then the next movie is The Last Jedi.

SPEAKER_02: 58:14

Oh.

SPEAKER_04: 58:15

Like, yeah, you know there is some characters and some people to reference back to from like there's but like there's a mess, and there's apparently an entire storyline has been buttoned up, and a brand new one is in full fucking swing. But no one knows shit.

SPEAKER_01: 58:31

Right. Wow.

SPEAKER_04: 58:32

Yeah oh yeah, that's like that is the only way I think you can actually describe the like how sloppy the storytelling got throughout the fucking franchise. There's time jumps, but they don't explain the time jumps.

SPEAKER_01: 58:48

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 58:49

And just snuff out bullshit, which is really upsetting.

SPEAKER_01: 58:52

Yeah, it sounded like they just kind of like made a game to make a game and to continue trying to make a book.

SPEAKER_04: 59:00

Yeah, because it what's really annoying is that like it's got two of like the biggest tropes. Like, if you want to make a game fucking awesome, you do. You make it open world and you could do whatever the fuck you want, and you give the player a fucking grappling hook. Like that's like number one and like number three of how to make your game like the fucking shit.

SPEAKER_00: 59:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 59:19

And instead of the shit, you just take the word the out of that. Instead of making the shit, they just made shit. Shit. They just made shit. Like the it's it's it's it's fun, it's cool. Like the like I said, the actual like the openness. I play that as its own standalone game. I play Halo Incident as its own standalone. I try not to associate it with the rest of the franchise.

SPEAKER_00: 59:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 59:42

Because it like I said, there's cool guns. There's a fucking grappling hook, man. And like all sorts of other fun shit, and like it's great. But it also sucks.

SPEAKER_00: 59:54

Yeah.

unknown: 59:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 59:55

As its own, it's a great game. As an installment into the Halo franchise, it's a piece of shit. But um, back to all the fun stuff and the good stuff. Yeah, that is um, believe it or not, my summarized opinion of the golden age and the best Halo games. In chronological order, um Halo Reach, Halo 1, aka Halo Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo Old ESD, Halo 3.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:27

Okay. Yeah, I mean yeah. And I I think the you know, just like the storyline and the way that you describe them, it does make me want to play the game.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:41

Hell yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:44

Which because you have you you have an Xbox, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:46

I do, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:47

I don't know how much it is. I would uh do you have Game Pass?

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:51

I do. Yep. You do have Game Pass? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:53

The Master Chief Collection, I I'm pretty sure is on Game Pass still.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:59

The Master Chief Collection is all of the Halo games.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:02

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:03

It's all it's it is, yeah, is the mat it is um it's Reach, Combat Evolve, Halo 1, uh Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo ODST, Halo 4. Yeah, so it's the story of Master Chief and like his before, his during and his after kind of a thing. The only one that's not included in that one is Halo 5, but trust me, that's a good thing. But but Halo 5 is, yeah, I'm pretty sure all the Halo games are on Game Pass. They all should be on Game Pass.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:33

Okay. I'll have to check it out.

unknown: 1:01:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:36

Hell yeah, you should.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:38

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:39

And I would say just play, I would say play them in that order. So when you go to the campaigns, they have them in like uh what is that? Um uh not release order, but like, but like that, like timeline order, like sequential order. So like the first one the list is Halo Reach and then that one. So play the I would I would say play them in that order because the story is just better.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:02

Okay. Yeah. I mean, you talked me into Red Dead, and you know how I feel about Red Dead.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:09

Red Dead is the greatest fucking video game that was ever made.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:12

This is true. This is very true.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:18

Yeah, yeah. So as we're like Yeah, so so like as is as we're Red Dead is my favorite game just because it's like relatable and however for for actual story-wise, why that's my favorite game. Halo is my nostalgia favorite.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:34

Like I said, it does have a really good storyline, but you know, some other games have impeccable stories. Like I said, Red Dead, I think Red Dead's one and two have better stories to it. Um God of War, both the original and the reboot of it, I think, have, you know, more compelling stories. Like Halo is essentially just a regular, there's bad guys doing bad things to stop them from doing bad things. There's not a lot of depth to it. Not saying it's bad. It's just it it's it's a playable action movie.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:01

Well, which do you between Halo and Warhammer? What do you like?

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:08

Which is Between Halo and Warhammer?

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:12

What the hell kind of a question is that? It's like what do you like better? Tacos or other tacos? Like there's uh there's there. That's not really an easy answer, even for someone with a normal brain. That's not my brain, because they're so wildly different, and they do very uh different itches and scratches, kind of. I would probably say just for simplicity's sake, I'd have to choose Halo. Um it's impossible. It is impossible to um to summarize Warhammer. It's it it it is genuinely impossible.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:03

Oh, I know, because there's like hours and hours and hours of the history.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:08

Oh, and that's of just one faction. That's of one cell of one faction.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:14

There's endless factions. Like you can't even begin to it's it's un it's unfathomable. It really is unfathomable. Anything that can be is when it comes to Warhammer, nothing makes sense, and everything makes sense. It's just though I I think the actual there is like a quote unquote canon storyline to it, if you will. Um so like if you think about it, I I guess to kind of put it for our I don't know, just one way so I don't talk and think myself into fucking circles here. I'll try to relate it to Marvel. Okay. So as to where each Marvel character has their run of movies, right? Captain America has his, Iron Man has his, Chang Chi is gonna have his, Black Panther has his, and all these different storylines that go of those ones. They all they all build on top of themselves.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:10

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:12

But then there's the Avengers movies who, if you're gonna which I'll fight 2-3 with my dying breath, the Avengers is the main chronological important storyline.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:21

Where the other characters kind of come in and out, left and right, and how they interweave, and how they also their stories then also build on the actual main story. I guess gun to the head, if there is an actual like main quote-unquote story that everything is kind of built on. Um, it is like the Emperor and the Imperium and like these space marines. So like anyone who's it anyone knows Warhammer by the uh the ultramarines, the the the giant blue looking dudes. Those are the ultramarines of the space marines from the Imperium. So like anything that has to do with them and anything that has to do With um um commenditis. That is arguably the the That's kind of the uh the um Oh shit. That's like the reference point people use when they talk about when they talk about that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:20

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:21

Cause like there are they are for the most part received as the quote unquote good guys. Very, very loose air quotes. There is no good person in Warhammer. They're all committing atrocities. All of them are committing atrocities. I'm telling you, I there is no other way to explain it. There is no so like I would say that like it's like comparing it's comparing the Emperor to Darth Vader. One of them is very clearly bad.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:02

Very bad and not good and evil and not good at all. The other one they're definitely not good. They're evil. They are bad. They are homicidal, genocidal, sociopath. But it's obvious they're not as bad as the other one. Got it. Like, that's pretty much it. So it's like the Space Marines in the Imperium is Darth Vader, and the Tyranids are the Emperor. Okay. Like, there is nothing more evil than the Emperor in Star Wars. There's nothing more evil than the Tyranids in Warhammer. Their whole thing is just assimilate, replicate, devour. They don't when they conquer a planet, it's not to conquer its resources, it's just to fucking conquer. They're wildly based off of Xenomorphs. The original creators of Warhammer said that they based a lot of them off of Xenomorphs. There is no It's just feed, feed, feed, feed, feed.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:14

Conquer and take its resources to save our planet like other aliens will do. It's just, and it's not even conquest, like rule to rule. It's rule to eat. That's it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:26

There's no way to there is nothing to them but eat.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:31

Um I know I like a good xenomorph.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:34

Yeah, no, there's and there's I w I'll I'll send you a couple of when we're done here, I'll send you a couple of whatever it is. When I had time to actually paint minis. Um I had a couple, I had a couple of Tyranids and I painted them. And one of the a couple of them I was kind of, okay, what if I paint them like this one? So I took um they're like main grunt kind of force thing.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:56

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:56

Uh like I said, they're like I said, uh think of like a xenomorph and like a velociraptor were kind of put together. Ooh. That's that's kind of like their design, how they move, how they think the overwhelming forces, blah, blah, blah. Um I took one and I painted it like blue from um Jurassic World.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:13

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:14

It's like the gray with like the little blue accents and so on and so forth. And I had to take one and paint it like a xenomorph. And like it's not just all like, okay, it's like a xenomorph, it's just all black. It's not. You'll see. I was very proud of myself when that one came out.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:28

Clever girl.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:31

But anywho. Well, that's my mama. That's Halo and a little bit of Warhammer.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:41

Yeah. I mean, I think this has been for me, it's been interesting. Because I really, I mean, I'm I've always been aware of the games, but I've never played them. Um and this has been like an interesting deep dive into the game.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:58

Yeah. About three-quarters of the first episode, you don't find out unless you like read all like all the little there's like in each of the games, there's like a little hidden terminal thing, or there's like a cute little cutscene that they did, or little extra little lore shits or whatever. You don't get any of that massively deep lore until like the fourth game. And even that just barely scratches the surface. Like all that deep lore came from like my brain and like reading shit and all sorts of other shit. Like, you don't get that from you don't get all of that from the games.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:32

Yeah, like you don't even see a forerunner or hear about the you you hear them mentioned. Like they're kind of mentioned, like, oh, forerunners and you know, all this other kind of fun shit. You don't even see them until the fucking fourth game.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:45

But I like I like the fact that, you know, there there are games or, you know, for whatever reason, whether it's, you know, just been the makers of the game made them or fans have created this lore, but that like just lore. Lore associated with with anything. You know, like I mean, there's lore in theories on Red Dead. There's you know, lore with this. I I think that's it just makes it fun.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:15

There's that 10-hour long video I sent you of that one guy who did the deepest of lore on Destiny. Technically he's 14 hours because he did a four-hour cut before one of their videos. And then when uh when that other game came out, like before like the quote unquote end of Destiny was going on, he released a fucking 10-hour long video.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:33

It's some it's some great, great fucking story, though. It's a it is fantastic lore. It is beautiful. I love it so much.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:43

Yeah. That's good stuff. Well, thanks for listening, uh, everyone. And I hope that these part one and part two um either made you very nostalgic for the game or made you interested in checking the game out. Um, because I know it has made me interested in it. And um yeah, so follow us on social media, uh, look for us at a new episode every Wednesday. Please like, share, do all the things. Um, again, the greatest thing that you can do for us is tell your friends, send them a link wherever you listen, and uh have them listen. And then those two people will tell those two people, and then those two people will tell, you know, how it goes.

SPEAKER_04: 1:12:33

Insert joke about the flood.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:36

Yeah. All right, everyone. Bye. I thought you'd give a master chief honk.

SPEAKER_05: 1:12:49

Oh yeah.

unknown: 1:12:52

Honk.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:55

There you go.