I find it fascinating that the IRIS stuff, and the halo 3 terminals, the only things going against bungie up to that point were mentioned by Marty O'Donnel in a recent interview with The Act Man here on RU-vid. He makes a single throwaway line about them being weird and not really part of Halo 3 and done by someone else but being forced to shove them in anyway.
i thought i was going crazy with all the retcons in halo 4 and i was gaslighted by 343. damn you guilty spark(343I) you fooled us all...or at least tried to.
Bro I was that angry nerd many moons ago who was outraged by the obvious f***ing retcon and expressed my displeasure with the manner in which 343! rolled out the changes only to be banned from their forum. Seeing people make videos on this topic makes me feel so vindicated especially when you stop to consider half these 343! stans didn’t even read the original books nor did they play the campaigns to the same extent as me or many other people who loved Halo did. Tbh I know most people just want to make peace between to 2 factions but I say,”F*** 343!”They took something that was an integral part of my childhood and got me through some of the toughest times of my life and just took a shit on it. I hate Microsoft for it too as I know 343! weren’t the only ones to blame. That era of gaming was special one because I lived through it but more so because back then there wasn’t as fucking parasites leeching off of ip’s that, while they funded and had ownership of, they ran into the fucking ground for a money. Idk about you guys but the entire fucking reason I bought a next gen console was to play Halo MCC and chasing that glorious era of gaming. People who never played Halo during that time can’t even begin to imagine how great the games were. The waiting in line for a midnight release the countless hours spent in forge or custom games to playing ranked and being a try hard. In my opinion, Halo is what made console gaming relevant at least for Xbox. At the time the PlayStation had so many great titles but they were all single player. I get gears of war was great although it wasn’t my cup of tea and people will argue call of duty but the thing is cod was on PlayStation as well. 50% of people who bought an original Xbox got a copy of Halo Combat Evolved with it and don’t even get me started on all the content from red vs blue to MLG. The problem with gaming today is that the people bankrolling the development of these games are only after one thing and that is money. From micro transactions to incomplete/barely functional titles at launch the consumer has been robbed of the very thing that once enticed us into picking up a controller. Art is only as good as the people who care to put the time and love into it. Once it becomes about money everything goes to shit and that appears to be just an unfortunate fact of life nowadays. There are one-offs like Baldur’s Gate 3 that had the whole industry sweating but the majority of people who once loved this work have moved on to do other things because they refused to be worked to the bone for a fraction of what they should have been making while these “businessmen” pocket all of the money their hard work yielded. I can’t even blame Bungie for having to let their baby go. And after what Microsoft tried to do to Marty O’Donell they can rest in piss too.
The fact that Red vs Blue has a better, more faithful depiction of rampancy with the Alpha and the freelancer saga than a former bungie story director does says a lot about frank O’Conner 😭
What doesn't make sense is even after the retcon 343 STILL made humans a technologically advanced civilization that can rival the Forerunners. So why bother?
What I don't understand of Bungie lore is if humans are supposed to be Forerunners then why are humans not technologically advanced? I saw this question in 2005 forums too (they were saying the humans=forerunners theory is dumb and contradicted by the AI in H2). If activating the rings didn't kill everything why the de-evolved version (humans) survived and not the forerunners with all their tech, who are supposedly one and the same thing? Why did Forerunners call themselves Reclaimer? of their own technology which..they had at that point and if they planned to survive why did they lose it? If you hold this to be what their intention was Bungie lore makes no sense and never gave any explanations. 343 lore / the terminals at least makes sense with the devolution and reseeding of humanity on earth after the firing of the rings, and the mantle of responsibility to explain reclaiming, which is being argued here that Bungie didn't have in their universe. It even fits "child of my maker" more
And in Halo 2 (perhaps you've heard of it) Spark literally said the forerunners are dead. ARBITER: And those who made the rings? What happened to the Forerunners? SPARK: After exhausting every other strategic option my creators activated the rings. They, and all additional sentient life in three radii of the galactic center, died ...as planned
I think my favorite part of 343 fans is that they have GENUINELY become angry at you over this video. And I think a big reason for that is that they cannot really argue against any of your points because you backed them up succiently. And, of course, the fact that multiple former bungie employees have all come out and said "Yeah, humans were meant to be forerunners" then again, they tend to get mad at them to for some reason.
Looking at Bungie's era it looks like there are a few possibilities: Option one: - the forerunner evolved on earth returned to it after activating rings. This was my original understanding before seeing the halo 2 storyboards. It would mean that the idea of guided evolution was dropped during the making of halo 2 or halo 3. Option two: -the forerunner evolved on earth along with other hominids. Which were turned into forerunner via some kind of guided evolution after activating rings. Option three: - the forerunner evolved somewhere else found that hominids on earth were compatible or similar to them in some way and then turned them into forerunner via some kind of guided evolution after activating rings. Option four: -the forerunner were uplifted from earth hominids by some one else and then found earth again and uplifted their cousins in a similar way they had been.
None of these explain how Forerunners devolved into Humans though, if they are the same (as argued in the video). Well option 1 does but I mean WHY. In 343 / terminal lore humanity is reseeded on earth after firing the rings, but in supposed Bungie lore argued in this vid Forerunners just forgor all their tech and that they were Forerunners? Cuz like they (humanity) survived somehow, but their advancements didn't, which is not how firing the rings work. But also they left a portal to the Ark, facilities etc and biological access. So was surviving on purpose or not? To me the newer lore makes more sense To put it simply one has the forerunners sending themselves into the stone age unexplainedly but also allow themselves to reclaim their own old technology -basically delaying the species 100,000 years for the sheer craic of it, and the other has forerunners end their species from guilt and pass the mantle of responsibility onto humans which they saved and brought back like God sparing Noah to restart civilization because they saw hope in them. The former is the lore all these people are crying over? I don't get it
@@raulpetrascu2696 I think the original idea was that things hadn't gone to plan. For instance the forerunner's civilization was supposed to be preserved in the shield worlds but that plan was foiled in some way by the Gravemind (I can't remember where I got this idea from I think it was probably in the halo 3 terminals but I haven't read them in years). If the forerunner were expecting billions to survive the rings but only thousands did I do think it's plausible that a technological civilization would collapse after a generation or so. Though to be honest I get the impression that if you asked each person on the writing team what exactly happened each person would give you a slightly different answer with different degrees of definiteness.
Not sure if it's been asked but, what are your thoughts on the Halo Legends series? I noticed that in two of the animations, Catherine Halsey's eye and hair color are quite different than what we would get in Reach and everything after it. From being a blonde with green eyes (ideal wife if I'm honest) to a sometimes brown to black with bright blue eyes. I'm curious if whether or not she originally was a blonde or if it got changed later to be consistent or similar to Cortana.
I love how 11:00 just exemplifies the fact that everyone sees Chief as the solution to their problems. Like dude just shows up all ex-machina like and the Marines get an instant morale boost
Cortana thinks Guilty Soark is going to slit our throats, a Betrayal, and Masterchief sides with Cortana over Guilty Spark, creating a second betrayal.
A problem with your argument that Humans are not literal forerunners transported to earth and are just creations of the forerunners is that this, by necessity, would mean they weren't forerunners and so every time they're called such it would be incorrect. The only way for the story to be correct is for humans to be literal forerunners. As for how to tie that together with fossil records, maybe the Earth is their original planet. It would explain why they chose it.
The only thing we can confidently say is that Bungie haven't given us a solid answer of how the Forerunners re-seeded the galaxy, if they even did that. for all we know, they might have only brought back their own decendants, and as for the covenant species they simply evolved on their own. There is one line of dialog from a Brute ingame in Halo 2 which mentions Humans being put on ice. And we know that the original ending for Halo 2 was supposed to show a Human/Forerunner skeleton inside the Ark on earth that guides Humanity along the Forerunners chosen path. So this could be how the Forerunners would ensure their own culture and species arises.
@@Dragon_of_Terra Bungie actually did give a concrete answer as to how reseeding works. In the Terminal 1 Librarian-Didact conversation the Librarian mentions that she is saving individual souls. The only way individual souls can be saved is if actual individuals go into cold sleep and are then later revived to pick up civilisation where they left off. Otherwise you wouldn't be saving any individual souls.
@@jimmydesouza4375 Librarian-Didact conversations can't be taken seriously since it was these parts of the terminals that retconned Humans being Forerunners. the other terminal enteries mention Librarians as in multiple, as in a occupation not an individual. It is heavily suspected that Frank O'Connor wrote the Librarian-Didact enteries before going off to start 343i.
@@Dragon_of_Terra Half of what you type is irrelevant and the other half is wrong. Librarian is a job title, of course, but it can also represent an individual, as it does in the Librarian-Didact communication entries. And the Librarian-Didact communications are bungie lore. Indeed, there's multiple other parts of it that continue to suggest that individuals go in to cold sleep to survive the rings. For example the Librarian suggest that firing off the rings too late will doom all life in the galaxy, when the rings themselves kill all life in the galaxy (the assumption is sentient life is referred to in both of these, as the flood only infects sentient life). The only way for any sentient life to survive via firing off the rings is cold storage. And you are wrong. The Librarian-Didact communications do not retcon that the forerunners were human. I believe this video says that it does, but this is one of the many points where it is wrong. The communications only refer to a noteworthy species. This does not mean humans, and there is not even any suggestion that it refers to humans. Naturally if you decide to retcon it so that the forerunners were not humans, then you can claim this communication was in reference to humans, but there is no suggestion of that in the actual communication.
@@jimmydesouza4375 Again, you are using Frank O'Connors work to reinforce your fact, go back and read the L and D Terminal enteries and you will see how Fantasy it is compared to the other Terminal enteries, which are more logical. Also it constantly contradicts itself and reads more like 343i lore, which makes sense since the same writer of that entery went onto lead 343i. And once again, the other terminals refer to Librarians as a group, ONLY L and D Terminal refer to them as one person.
I have a theory concerning the whole, not enough time for model asset swaps, it seems like all these crappy games were originally different games entirely but the main studio heads wanted to continue the cash cows that were IPs like Halo so they tacked on memorable faces and ideas so we would accept the game they had zero confidence in
Having played Halo when it came out when I was six and I wanna say YES!!!!!!! HOLY MOLY THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH!!!! WHY MASTER CHIEF WAS LEFT TO DRIFT IN SPACE! HE WAS SAVED BY ANCIENT HUMANS ON A SHIELD WORLD!!
For the longest time, I thought that forerunners were different species than humans because of all the lore videos and wikis I consumed. Little did I know that the lore being discussed was based off of 343 books and extended media. It wasn’t until I ran across this video a year ago did I realize how in depth the original trilogy was. If you’d pay attention to the games, you would’ve learned the secrets of the forerunners without extended media or lore videos. Excellent job by the way Saber.
The question is, Did Frank O'Connor know Humans were supposed to be Forerunner and intentionally changed it or did he simply not understand and got mixed up between culture and species? one would be simply negligance while the other would be malicious.
No lie, I had already predicted the frank twist on Iris the moment that didact and librarian were mentioned. What makes this even better is that the ADAMANT defense halo story makes for the retcon (that bungle planned it look! See this terminal says so!) was in itself a massive retcon by the same guy that retcomed everything else due to not understand the franchise he was put in charge of. And likely because he fucked up in his ONE FUCKING JOB and screwed up the marketing campaign
1:02:51 A channel that I watch has dubbed this kind of phenomenon "Sodom's touch". Where everything you touch bursts into flames, is destroyed, and your wife turns into a pillar of salt... okay maybe not that last one. But definitely bursting into flames and being destroyed.
perfect! now please uncover how saving cortana would have played out. talking about 343 redconning, the timeless one was hinted throughout h1&2 than they made him just some gravemind, than they included that one special texture in an empty hidden room on the h1 anniversary map pack. and even modelled the outsides as if this could have been the timeless one's prison. but yeah than nothing. nothing at all. would have been great to uncover and fight the true leader of the flood.
wait could the humanity hand to forehead salute have been a forerunner thing as well that passed to humanity? And that elite did it at the end means that thats another thing the covenant stole from the forerunners? I still prefer the fist to chest salute, kinda glad they changed it, but that may have been the original thought behind it. Also, Truths plan as laid out in this video makes a lot of sense in this version of the story. In the canon trilogy though, I think truth did actually believe he would ascend to some kind of godhood, but that the revelation of "left behind forerunners" means that some covenant become gods and some dont. Truth wanted to be the only top dog in his new pantheon, and he wanted the brutes to ascend with him because of their blind loyalty, but he did not want the elites. He thought the forerunners discarded the "weak" among them to ascend, so he tried to emulate that. "Your forefathers wisely set aside their compassion, steeled themselves for what needed to be done. I see now why they left you behind. You were weak, and gods must be strong" In truths mind, him getting rid of the elites and the other two prophets was him setting aside his compassion, steeling himself for what needed to be done, and leaving behind the weak. He possibly knew on some level that the array would kill all life, but believed that he and his chosen ones would be the exception, and that he would rule as a god over a galaxy that only has those loyal to him left in it. Or maybe I'm coping and the writers just didn't think that hard about it.
I don't care about making enemies in this community so.. 343 fans are dumb as shit. I refuse to acknowledge 343's universe as anything other than garbage.
This is the exact reason why I lost interest in the story of Halo (as well as Star Wars). It used to be so well written and cohesive. Now it's haphazard and sloppy as if written by a 5 year old playing with Happy Meal toys.
I love the presentation and pacing of this video. So much actually that I come back for a watch from time to time. Do you think you will make another video on the subject in the future? That is, if there is anything to add.
Alright, hold the phone. Star Trek does the basically impossible and Star Wars does the actually impossible and that's different? I think it's just marketing. They're both fantasy. These is hyperdrive in Star Wars. There is warp drive in Star Trek. Star Wars shouldn't need hyperdrive, though, if they can fire near instant beams of star goo across space--at planets that can see each other clearly from lightyears away. Star Trek fits Heinlein's definition of science fiction about as well as Star Wars does. And that's just the fate of science fiction. The more we learn about what is, the more we cut off speculative options of what might be. Fantasy is quite a bit more concerned with consistent rules because the rules of magic are just what we say they are. The real world doesn't rudely intrude to introduce new rules or refinements of old rules that basically invalidate the story. Mars might have been a world of canals and warrior civilizations. Turns out, science demonstrates that those canals have been dried up for millions of years. Just like that, J. C. of Mars went from being science fiction with fantasy elements to pure fantasy. For that matter, while Halo wears the clothes of realism, much of it doesn't work scientifically--according to the science that we know. I think Bungie's story is more meaningful than 343's. It's more surprising. It's more interesting. It fits the "facts" better. There are reasons to call it better writing. Scientific accuracy is not one of them.
Star wars es fantasia el mismo creador lo dijo. y tiene muy poca precisión científica. Star trek tiene bastante precisión científica. Y respeto a la precisión científica en halo. Casi todo lo que vemos en halo no es obra de bungie. Sino de autores mediocres que no entiende realmente la ciencia ficción. Y que no saben diferenciar entre la ciencia ficción de fantasía disfrazada de ciencia ficción
Frankie seems like a guy who always secretly wanted to climb up the ladder at Bungie and happened to get the chance of a lifetime when 343i started up. I feel he's the only ex-Bungie employee of note that moved to 343. I can't recall any other recognizable names mentioned. Just Frankie and maybe "some other guys". Probably no one that would have had any significant say on the creative direction of the franchise. Seems to me that all the rest of Bungie were behaving like artists, who were ready to move on the next exciting project (what Destiny would turn into is a whole other matter), while Frank was just a fanboy, itching at the chance to let his own head canons into the wild.
RedSentimentFilms has a pretty good follow-up video to this where he not only goes into some more details, but also explains why some of the 343 fans' defenses make no sense. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GIzmp21LOx0.html
Sure, this is mostly right, and I was going to try and correct some of the bad logic in this video, but goddamn- looking at all this it's just not worth it You are genuinely the most dramatic people on the planet, and for what? Crying about lore you don't even care about in games that you hate which are actually the primary reason you're mad but you refuse to admit it. These arguments are so tiring, for nothing
Why would someone waste time to make an hour long video for an ip they hate? How is he being dramatic? Man your comment makes no sense and I doubt you had anything to correct his "bad logic" anyway. 343's corporate writing is simply bad, deal with it.
Not gonna lie, I was disappointed when I saw that 343 passed me up on the Franchise Writer job, but looking at all the mistakes they refuse to learn from again, it's definitely a compliment that they overlooked me.
