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The legend of Halo (compressed)
Posted By: NightStaker<zdude94@hotmail.com>
Date: 14 January 2008, 1:25 am
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The Legend of Halo
The earth is overpopulated, and colonization is the way forward. Following this, Earth forms the UNSC (United Nations Space Command), to defend humanity's interests. First contact with an alien coalition known as the Covenant, really screwed things up, though since they are genocidal religious nutters, hell-bent on the destruction of humanity. War erupts, and the Covenant destroys the Earth colony of Reach, headquarters of the UNSC, where development of a race of cyborg super soldiers known as Spartans was near completion. The covenant had the upper hand.
Or perhaps not. The last known survivor of the Spartan program – John 117, known by his rank of Master Chief (MC) – is aboard the Pillar Of Autumn, a ship fleeing from the defeat at Reach. The POA is a vast unit of futuristic battle technology, the most advanced creation so far. Earth directives prevent the POA from returning to Earth or being captured, for fear of giving away Earth's position, so Captain Keyes orders a blind slipspace jump through space and time, in hope of loosing their pursuers. It fails, and the POA and there crew emerge near a gas giant known as Threshold. Hidden between Threshold and one of its moons is a fantastic and mysterious ringworld: Halo.
The ship comes under full-scale invasion and the Master Chief is ordered to the bridge, ASAP. At the bridge, Keyes tells the Chief to take Cortana – a holographic incarnation of the ship's computer, containing all its data and knowledge – and keep her from falling into enemy hands. The chief gets given a gun and fights valiantly to try and help the remaining marines save themselves…but the ship is simply overrun. Somewhat bemused, he retreats to an escape pod and escapes from the ship with some other marines, heading for the ring world below… Captain Keyes remains aboard, and is last seen attempting to land the POA on Halo as well.
The Chief's escape pod lands intact on Halo, but only he survives the Crash, with the help of his armor. With Cortana's aid and the help of a surviving transport ship known as Foe Hammer, MC sets about rescuing and regrouping troops who have landed in his vicinity. Along the way, Cortana realizes that this ringworld is no natural planet. It has been built by someone…whoever they are; they seem to be just as advanced as they are.
Cortana locates Keyes. He has been captured and his being held prisoner aboard a Covenant ship. The Chief and some marines take on countless covenant warriors to board the ship and rescue Captain Keyes. Many marines die along the way. Keyes informs the MC that he has heard the Covenant scheming while held prisoner – Halo is a galactic superweapon, and they plan to activate it. He assumes they plan to use it against Earth, so he tasks the Master Chief with the finding of Halo's control room as quickly as possible, wherever it may be, before the Covenant do.
Eventually the Master Chief learns the control room's location, and arduously fights his way to it through an arctic wilderness. Upon arriving Cortana interfaces with Halo's systems and learns that it was built by an ancient race known as the Forerunners. Suddenly, she warns him, saying to the Chief, you must find Keyes before he or the Covenant accidentally unleash something terrible. With no time to explain, the MC leaves and finds himself in…
Cortana decides there is only one course of action. Master Chief must destroy the Covenant forces, and the flood, and Guilty Spark (The monitor of installation 04, who turns on you when you do not obey his order). To do this, MC needs to disable three pulse generators that are interfering with Cortana's systems. The Chief fights back through the Arctic waste from before, in a terrifying and depressing dark snowstorm. Meanwhile the Flood and the Covenant are locked in battle, and the conflict between the three of them (including the Chief) is huge, scary and daunting.
The MC succeeds though, and continues to board the now Flood-infested ship, called The Truth and Reconciliation to find Captain Keyes, who you need to ensure Cortana's plan passes without a hitch.
Despite Keyes telling him that it's futile, the Chief fights through insane amounts of Flood to reach him, but our worst fears are realized – Keyes has been absorbed into a huge flood parasite! The Chief rips out Keyes neural implants, and heads for the crash site of the POA. MC fights through the POA – filled with warring Flood and Covenant. He reaches the bridge and attempts to use Keyes neural implants to activate the ship's self destruct mechanism, knowing that this chain reaction from the ships engines will destroy Halo. Guilty Spark has beaten him there though, and cancels the destruct sequence. A short fight ensues, and the MC escapes to the engine room where he uses explosives to destroy the engine manually.
It works! With the ship tearing itself to pieces and time rapidly running out, the Chief races along the hull of the POA, in an attempt to escape. Foe Hammer arrives to pick him up, but is tragically shot down. Master Chief then makes a seemingly futile dash for a hangar at the end of the ship, and somewhat luckily finds a completely undamaged Longsword spaceship there. He makes his lone escape, and watches from space as the beautiful and doomed ring world of Halo and it, and everything on it, is destroyed.
Afterwards the Chief settles down to find his way back to the fragile planet of Earth…but there was one survivor: Guilty Spark.
So now there was an elite (one of the many races of the covenant) being held responsible for the defeat on installation 04 disgraced and sentenced to death. Master Chief is now orbiting the Earth, having been picked up after the destruction of Halo.
But now the Covenant forces led by The Covenant Prophet of Regret have found Earth, and are attacking it once again, although not by anywhere near the sort of force and numbers that they had anticipated. Master Chief has barely time to receive his medals of honor , before he's thrown back into battle to save the Cairo station from a bomb, The Covenant have sneaked aboard – It seems that they were trying to destroy Earth's orbital defenses before a larger invasion arrives to help Regret with the destruction of the Earth. Acting fast, he repels the boarders, before using the bomb to destroy the Covenant ship and heading down to Earth to save humanity from what may turn into a full-scale invasion. The Chief then meets up with Johnson, fights through hordes of Covenant invaders and eventually hitches a ride on Miranda Keyes ship called In Amber Clad (IAC), which is sneakily hitching a ride in the hangar bay of Regret's own escaping carrier.
The elite was not executed – instead the Prophet hierarchs Truth, Mercy and Regret make him their own personal holy soldier – The Arbiter – and task him with destroying a heretic faction of the Covenant who are hiding out on a spacestation in orbit around Threshold. The Arbiter and his forces chase the Heretic across the vast structure, all the while being taunted by the Heretic leader about being misled about the Covenant Prophets.
It transpires that the flood are loose on this station, but this doesn't stop the Arbiter from chasing down the Heretic, who hides from the Arbiter in a secure chamber. The Arbiter eventually flushes him out by destroying the cable securing the orbital station, leaving it plunging toward Threshold.
The Heretic emerges and half heartedly tries to explain to The Arbiter that the Great Journey – a prophecy pivotal to the Covenant religion and linked closely to the (multiple) Halo rings – is a lie. 343 Guilty Spark is with him, having escaped from nearby installation 04, and confirms this, but a Covenant Brute known as Tartarus arrives and shuts him up.
Meanwhile, IAC arrives with Regret's ship above another ring (Delta Halo). The Chief chases Regret across the rings surface through stunning landscapes and architecture, fighting multitudes of Covenant forces, all the while being bombarded by holographic sermons from Regret, preaching about the Great Journey. He finally catches up with Regret and kills him – just in time to see a vast Covenant fleet (including the Covenant capital of High Charity) arrive and decimate the building Regret was in. MC falls into a vast lake, but is saved by an apparent flood overlord known as Gravemind.
The Arbiter meanwhile, is facing new problems. The Elites – the race previously elected protectors of the Prophets – have been relieved of their duties, since they allowed Regret to be killed, and responsibility handed over now to the Brutes.
With the time the Prophets call the Great Journey seemingly at hand, Tartarus, head of the Brutes – takes the Arbiter to installation 05, now also infested with flood, to recover the index needed to activate Delta Halo. The Arbiter fights through legions of flood and when he finally arrives at the library, he finds that Miranda Keyes and Johnson have beaten him there and recovered the index. Tartarus arrives however, steals the index, kidnaps the two humans and pushes the Arbiter off a cliff.
Tartarus walks off, thinking the Arbiter is dead.
But the Arbiter is saved by Gravemind. With Gravemind is Regret, somehow alive as part of him and 2401 penitent Tangent, Guilty Spark's counterpart monitor of Delta Halo. Gravemind, through the whining of Regret about the Great Journey and 2401's persistent claims that the installation needs to be activated to contain the Flood, surmises that the two events are one and the same. He then tasks MC and the Arbiter with finding the index – they are now working toward the same end.
Master Chief is then teleported to High Charity, where the two remaining Prophets are sermonizing about Tartarus' recovery of the index. Things are far from rosy however, since apparent civil war has broken out between the Elites and Brutes, (the other covenant species being divided on each side). The ship is in chaos, with war braking out almost everywhere, so the Chief uses this to his advantage and chases the two Prophets, fighting his way through.
He finally catches up with Mercy only to find him with a flood infection form parasitically attached to him, Truth and Tartarus have escaped and left him for dead. And flood forms – piloting a human pelican, amongst other things – begin to attack the city. The Chief fights through the flood-infested High Charity and has been for quite a while when Cortana comes up with a very unoriginal plan of blowing up IAC's engine to destroy Delta Halo, but MC is determined to chase Truth – who has made his way to a spaceship at the centre of High Charity – and stop him from executing his plans. Truth is determined to make his way to Earth to finish what was started. Cortana meanwhile, remains behind to execute the destruction of IAC.
The Arbiter fights his way closer to the control room, and meets Sergeant Johnson, who escaped Tartarus and know wants to work with the Arbiter to stop Tartarus and his plan of activating the ring. Johnson uses a Covenant Scarab to blow the doors of the control room and allow the Arbiter entry. As he arrives, Tartarus uses the index to activate the ring.
The Arbiter and Tartarus collide in battle and eventually the Arbiter Defeats him, and Miranda snatches the index just in time to stop the activation sequence. She then tells Johnson and the Arbiter that this has sent a message to the other installations, permitting their remote activation from an unknown location known as The Ark.
Truth's ship arrives near Earth, and UNSC fleet admiral Hood is about to destroy it when MC contacts him, informing Hood that he is aboard and not to open fire. Hood asks the Chief what he is doing on the ship and the Chief replies, finishing this fight!
The Chief's ship eventually crashes into the Earth where he is found by Sergeant Johnson and the Arbiter. The three, along with some other marines fight their way to a UNSC outpost. Here Miranda Keyes and Lord Hood plan a last ditch effort to stop the Covenant leader, The High Prophet of Truth, from activating a forerunner artifact, uncovered in the ruins of New Mombasa.
The Chief is ordered to clear a way into the city of Voi, and destroys anit-air Covenant defenses so that Lord Hood can lead the last of Earth's ships against the Prophet. Using the opening caused by the ground attack, Hood mounts an offensive against Truth's ship, but the Prophet activates the buried artifact and creates an enormous, but stable slipspace portal which he and his followers enter. As the human ship attempts to recover from the shock wave, a ship controlled by the flood, arrives via the slipspace portal and crash-lands nearby.
Covenant Elites forces, now allied with humanity, arrive on Earth and help destroy flood-infested areas, neutralizing the parasitic threat. Following the cryptic message from the human A.I construct Cortana left aboard the flood cruiser, the Master Chief, Arbiter, Elites, Johnson, Keyes and an army of marines follow Truth through the portal. Joining them is 343 Guilty Spark, who decides to aid the MC, since his ring world has already been destroyed.
Traveling through the portal, the humans and Elites discover an immense artificial structure – The Ark – which is well outside Earth's Galaxy. Here Truth can activate all the Halo's and purge the galaxy of all sentient life. The Halo's were created by a forerunner, as a last ditch effort to combat the Flood, by destroying everything in the galaxy. The Chief and the others fight their way through hordes of brutes and finally activate the installations cartographer to find Truth – in the process – Guilty Spark discovers that the Ark is creating a new ringworld to replace his destroyed installation. Guided by Guilty Spark, the Chief and the Arbiter make their way towards the control room of the Ark.
During their journey, the flood arrive on the former Covenant holy city of High Charity, through a slipspace portal, and they begin infesting the installation. Johnson is captured by Truth to activate the Ark because only a human can utilize the Forerunner technology. The Flood controlling intelligence Gravemind forces a Truth with the Chief and the Arbiter to stop Truth. Though Miranda Keyes was killed by the Prophet, the installation's firing is halted.
After Truth is killed by the Arbiter, Gravemind quickly turns on the Chief and the Arbiter, but Johnson flies away while The Chief and the Arbiter fight their way back outside. The Master Chief decides to activate the new ring built at the Ark, sparing the galaxy at large while eliminating the local flood. But before he can activate Halo, he needs an Activation Index, which Cortana had acquired. The Chief saves Cortana from High Charity, and overloads its main reactor to destroy the ship and take Gravemind with it.
Arriving on the new Halo, Cortana warns that the Gravemind is trying to rebuild itself on the ring. The Chief, the Arbiter and Johnson fight through swarms of flood to get to the control room, where they will activate Halo's weapon. Guilty Spark explains that since the ring is not yet completed, a premature activation will destroy it and the Ark.
When Johnson ignores his warning, Guilty Spark kills him in order to protect his ring. The Master Chief then kills Guilty Spark and activates the ring. He, the Arbiter and Cortana barely manage to escape the disintegrating ring, and make it into the cargo bay of Forward Unto Dawn (FUD), a UNSC ship and enter a slipspace portal as Halo fires!
Back on Earth, the front half of Forward Unto Dawn crashes into the ocean, and workers cut the Arbiter out of the wreckage. A memorial service is held for the fallen heroes of the Human and Covenant war – including Spartan 117. After the memorial service, the Arbiter boards his ship, and he and Rtas Vadum depart for there home planet, where the elites are finally free of the Prophets hegemony.
But the Master Chief is not dead…he and Cortana survived the blast in the rear section of the FUD and await rescue, drifting helplessly through space. But after a short while, they are seen drifting towards an unidentified planet!
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