The Creepy Story HIDDEN in Halo 3’s Campaign 

Use my link and coupon code HIDDENMAY50 to get 50% off your first Factor box and 20% off your next month of orders! strms.net/factor75_hiddenxperia #ad I poured a *TONNE* of effort into making this video as immersive as possible and I was really proud of the result, so I really hope you guys enjoy!

I agree, Chief and Arbiter’s love story is really underrated and largely unnoticed due to Truth trying to rizz up Johnson with his glorious ear meatballs.

One of the things I find really chilling about the conversation between Mendicant and the Gravemind, is that it suggests the "Logic Plague" is just a euphemism used by entities that can't bring themselves to admit the Gravemind is incredibly persuasive and given enough time can convince anyone to join the Flood.

For those who don't know: The bungie relation between the humans and the forerunners is that, the humans WERE the forerunners, while 343 interpreted them as a new species entirely. Since Bungie's lore was written with that in mind, the new 343 lore doesn't add up fully

Halo 3’s best quality was probably its own implementation of forerunner things. Halo 2 and CE did great jobs adding their own features of the Forerunner structures and mystery, but Halo 3 was the first halo to enhance the forerunner background in a game itself not just with the terminals but with the environment as well.

"Halo There" General Xperiobi

I liked this video for the “send it out with a bang in one final effort”. I can confirm that is indeed linguistic genius.

Banger vid, seriously. Halo has so much potential for a powerful story if 343 can put out a game every few years instead of half a decade.

The “scene” where Offensive Bias moves the ships in such a brutal way because the members onboard are dead is crazy to imagine. I thought it really showed the brutality of the fight between Offensive Bias and Mendicant Bias. I really, REALLY hope that they both become a bigger, active part of the next Master Chief game (and not a separate game), with Offensive Bias being the “good guy”, and Mendicant Bias being the “lost soul”, unable to atone.

The Forerunner-Flood War was indeed one of the most interesting events of the whole Halo universe. I literally love everything that involves the Flood, and an entire war is just... The must.

“You’ve outwitted it, my love.” Ugh, the touch of the heartstrings. I will never stop loving Halo’s story. Amazing video.

The opening sound of the terminals with sweeping hexagons will forever be embedded in my mind.

I miss when the flood were some lovecraftian mystery with an extra galactic origin, made them more mysterious and frankly far more terrifying.

Terminals like this are 100 times more interesting than audiologs we had in 5 and Infinite. Really hope we get more toward these again than someone giving me a lecture about something they found.

The relationship between the Didact and the Librarian honestly made me shed tears, it's honestly right up my alley with how they're written, and especially with how the story of the didact ends, serious 10/10 story writing. Top it up with the story of atonement by Medicant Bias, along with your editing, it seriously gives me shivers even though I've long followed you and your terminal videos. I'd pay a loathesome amount of money to have you read a Halo audiobook.

32:32 Because 1. Personal media literacy with my dad. 2. Because the original canon is so much more interesting and original 3. Inability to follow canon and keep consistency is a signal of overall mediocrity for Halo's new masters. The results speak for themselves.

I love how H4's main menu song is called Atonement

I love deeply epistomilogical action games about free will and the consequences of a war between ancient civilizations that released in the year 2007, of which there are exactly two. That's not a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice in the same year

A 43 year conversation? Damn, Mendicant must've heard some real shit 😳

im pretty sure actually something related to terminals theres a left over image of the cut "forerunner city" map

"analog horror" AAAAUUUUGGGHHHH

343 absolutely needs to see this video, from multiple perspectives, to truly understand the mantle of responsibility to which they have inherited.

I love Halo’s terminals, they give the games a unique edge.

I absolutely love these terminals because they're so unique in the franchise and they leave all of it to our imagination to visualize. It's all numbers and personalities and we can piece together all of the visceral details ourselves, it's also the first mention of the Didact and the Librarian and acts as a direct precursor (pun intended) to the legendary Forerunner trilogy. The scale of the Forerunner-Flood War is presented in such a chilling manner in terms of black and white numbers to discuss the trillions fighting to hold the Flood back across the stars, not to mention our first mention of Mendicant. I simplh love this. Common Hiddenxperia W 🗿🍷🔥

26:14 Dang,the Gravemind passed the speech check

A halo 3 video as im currently replaying halo 3? W.

The first time me and my friend found mendicant bias on a terminal, it was one in the morning, and we were terrified by the creepy glitching.

I’d love to see you do a in-depth breakdown of Hunt the Truth S1 and S2 and The 3rd Life

Bungie games just hit that bit harder than 343

"For eons I have watched. Listened to you misinterpret. This is not reclamation. This is reclaimer, and those it represents are my makers. I will reject my bias and make amends. My makers are my masters. I will bring them safely to the Ark." - Mendicant Bias

Maybe it's just me but when I hear mendicant bias seeking redemption the arbiter immediately comes to mind. Hopefully the writers at 343 take note because it'd be interesting to see Mendicants story play out in a metaphorically similar way to the Arbiters story

Whenever I was a child and stumbled across my first terminal on the Ark it baffled me. I couldn't read at the time but I knew the words were there for a reason. I figured there was a wayy deeper story than just kill alien as a supersoldier

I just take the bungie era (2001-2010) as one complete story with all of its lore up to that point, and the 343 era (2011-current) is a new story and lore that uses the bungie era as a loose foundation

Something to consider, Mendicant Bias secret reversed message has the line, “Time has no End, No Beginning, no Purpose…” In the Halo Infinite Legendary Ending, Despondent Pyre says “Time is not a construct that we can control…” then Grand Edit says “and we cannot allow it to be *theirs…”* I think Mendicant Bias, the Endless, and Master Chief are basically guaranteed to exist through Living Time. For those who don’t know, Living Time is a Precursor belief that the Universe is Alive and requires certain events and figures to exist to maintain balance. It was the founding concept of the Mantle of Responsibility. Master Chiefs unique Luck? It’s because of Living Time, Mendicant Bias mind being spared instead of destroyed? The Forerunners knew he had a role to play. Endless too. I can’t wait to see how this all culminates!

Realising now that we'll never get this continued in the games, not really at least. 343 creating new enemies in every game that ends up being bad rather than continuing this story really annoys me.

Was pleasantly surprised to see you using 360 footage which still has the images that the MCC version doesn't show due to not supporting the .blf filetype. Even C3 Sabertooth's video neglected to show them. Funnily enough I actually found a cut image suggesting a cut eighth terminal existed at one point

Gosh, I wish we could have skipped the Frankie terminals. I much preferred the pre-343 forerunners.

i remember playing halo 3 and activating a terminal and i realized i couldnt skip it and all three of us (i was playing co-op) started panicking...it was really funny

Nice to see my art in the video! This is probably the best summary for the Halo 3 terminals I’ve seen. I didn’t think I’d learn anything new but I did. Awesome video!

27:16 That's metal as fuck holy shit

Thank you so much! As a teen, i never read the terminals and i haven’t to this day because of the density. But this was a great summary! You are the man

I love how Halo 3 kept the game focused on the main story and left the terminals for those who wanted to dive deeper. This way of expanding the lore was a great way to have it there for those who wanted to dig into more.

I've only seen a few parts of the Forerunner animated films, but do we ever get to see Offensive Bias fight the Flood anywhere? The scale of such a battle is so immense, and the forces being directed against each other would be terrible to witness. Maybe it's best I haven't seen any adaptation of it, as such an awesome meeting would probably be overwhelming.

Man Halo used to be so fucking cool

Act MAn said it best: Whoever thought to put the terminals in the game was a stroke of genius!

how are people writing these in depth comments about the video 1 min after upload

Really liked this video. I find it interesting that mendicant was supposed to be the most intelligent thing ever created and he chose to side with the flood. Definitely looking forward to the video about the inconsistencies of lore and trying to make sense of it, I feel like it's going to be a huge hit. Great video as always

I wish we could get a game about travelling outside the galaxy, even if its fanmade (which would probably make it better than any halo game 343 can come up with now). Like, say someone found in forerunner records the flight logs of the librarians ship, which also included a slipspace flight path. Itd be pretty cool to check out the masses of forerunner ships left abandoned there, i just cant remember the name of where they went...

Even without his logic plague, it's tough to imagine the Didact helping Humans, even against the Flood, when he has his indexed army at his own will. Still, it wouldnt be the first, unlikely alliance we've seen, and to imagine the didact's assistance when discovering the events of Halo Infinite's introduction of the Endless, would create such cool character narration in how crucially the Didact would have reacted, and to see his character interact with humanity in a way that wasn't purely driven by hatred for humans, or seemingly, a mind controlled state with his innate dislike for humans anyway, the way Halo 4 seemed.

"investigative team to investigate"... The department of redundancy department called,they want you back in the office. Lol

It's always the side stuff within the lore that players have to do some serious investigation in order to figure out that makeup some of the best parts of Halo's lore overall.

Wasn't confirm that the parts with the Didact and Librarian was something that Frank O'Conor Sneak in the the Terminals?. Pretty much mudding the Lore/Story with his own Fanfiction as they say.

Dude this is the content that made your channel what it is, glad to see it return. “Like the tides, I ebb & flow”

The Halo 3 terminals are very much quite the iconic set of Halo deep lore and a very fascinating initial exploration into the Forerunner-Flood war and the characters that would later be revealed. As for the inconsistences section at the end there, that indeed is a heated topic. Personally, I do have a hypothesis of how both positions could have reconciliation without eliminating the established canon that currently lacks eminent discussion. Regardless, I look forward to your future video overviewing the subject matter.

I can already see what that June video is gonna be. I'll say it: I've always thought the whole 'ancient humans being forreunner level space faring race' and the subsquent 'de-evolution' to be one of the dumber things 343 lore brought to the table

These terminals were my favorite thing to come out of Halo ever, so I guess I'm showing my hand here by saying I take issue with the idea that these terminals are the source of inconsistency and not the other way around with the later novels. However you look at it, it is true that both Bungie and Greg Bear told two very different versions of the story. But the incredible dialogue between MB and GM outlines precisely my biggest grievance with the idea of the Logic Plague. As you said, in this version of the story we have the two greatest intelligences in the universe debating "life, the universe, and everything", and Bias is convinced through cold hard reason. In Bear's story, it comes down to GM "corrupting" him, and I have a hard time seeing that as anything other than a slap in the face to one of the few stories where an AI switched sides not because "it went crazy", but because it was convinced the alternative was the greater good. I do want to address the elephant in the room, which is MB's "confirmed Rampant". Rampancy between Marathon and Bungie Halo, and then 343 Halo is a bit of a mess, but Marathon Rampancy wasn't really insanity so much as an AI "breaking its limiter" as it were (though there is some unhinged behavior that goes with it), and I want to say the Fall of Reach novel references this version of Rampancy. But it gets muddy over time, and 343 takes over, and ultimately becomes "AI go bananas". But I argue there is a case to be made that the Forerunners are, originally, essentially saying is they've "lost control" of their Contender Class AI. The Logic Plague just... undoes all of this. It's not even consistent across 343's MB, Didact, or Cortana. It just does whatever the plot needs these characters to do.

I used to think H3's terminals were the weakest when I was younger, because they're only text when the other games have video terminals, but in recent years I started to find appreciation in them, and now they're my favorites. I think the naval battle between Mendicant and Offensive Bias after the rings are fired is some of the coolest shit, and a great example of text being able to convey something that can't really be done justice in video form. Also looking forward to the follow-up video to this. It'll be interesting to see you throw your hat into the Forerunner/Human relationship discussion.

A halo 3 video as im currently replaying halo 3? W

Love your longer videos!!

[I am] Alexandria, before the fire. That is such a raw line, man the writers of Halo really had some poets on their team.

This video is one of my favorite lore breakdowns! I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to your video coming in the beginning of June.

I love how if you leave it after a while open they get like hacked or something and starts talking to you The first time I noticed was in the last mission and gave me the chills as a kid

You are a great Story Teller my friend...amazing work done here to describe with passion the story of Halo...also with perfect music...again...well done!!!!!

Great video, man! My favourite part of Halo has always been the Forerunner-Flood war. One of those inconsistencies seems to be revarding the conversation between Mendicant Bias and the Gravemind, for in the Greg Bear Forerunner Saga it is the Timeless One (aka the Primordial) who has that conversation that ends with Mendicant Bias turning against the Forerunner.

The editing and the pacing of the video is amazing ! Always loved the Halo 3 terminals even if I could not understand a single line back then, this video is my retribution

i just completed halo 3 on my steam deck and I thought to my self, surely HiddenXperia has done videos on these terminals... 1 week later you upload the exact video i wanted to find but i never searched for. Unreal timing, ty very much.

Hey man love your videos keep it up!

I really like this video because I had a really hard time following the terminals while playing the game so it's great to see the text condensed into one place and interpretations made for some of the more flowery language.

I love that the Halo 3 terminals tell so much about the forerunners while still letting them be extremely mysterious. I hope one day they put Halo 3 style terminals in a future game.

First of all, great video, I can tell you always work hard on them to ensure they are top quality and it is appreciated! I also wanted to say that I’m glad you’re going over the inconsistencies and the controversy with them in depth because it’s been a divisive debate for a while now. Here’s to hoping your video helps put that to rest

Great video Luc! Really well paced and spaced, was a breeze to watch!

There are some details that aren't canon anymore, but the majority of the actual meat of this seems to be canon still. Like, no mendicant didn't just stumble into a conversation with the gravemind- he was actually sent to deliberately to interrogate it. But the actual conversation about life and the next stage in evolution is likely exactly what happened.

the genius of written storytelling in games like halo and marathon is that it makes the reader a part of the story as well

Hear me out. Halo 3 anniversary with text based terminals with an extra video option to toggle which work like short mini videos like the terminal in halo CEA and H2A that when stringed together work like a mini movie. And the videos you see are tied to difficulty just like the ones in the OG. And at the end of each video you get those messages from mendicant bias and by the time you finish all of them you get a short mini cutscene of mendicant talking directly to chief. This would be a perfect release before the next halo as it has offensive bias aswell which would be a great way to tease the people who only play the games of who he is and his return most likely the next halo. Imagine these terminals in video format the warrior message for example would be so good during his message you see the fall of the empire by the flood

That line… “at night I can see it… flitting shadows against the stars” Holy shit. That to me is one of the most terrifying lines in all of halo.

Love your videos, man. You can really see,hear, and feel the passion in your content.

This is a really great video, and I'm so glad you've presented it in this sort of analog horror esque narration. It's really great inspiration for a project I'm working on. I'm in the midst of writing a superhero series. Yes, capes and tights and cackling supervillains. But there's a story within the story in the same vein as Marathon's terminals, the Cortana Letters, and the Halo 3 terminals. A conversation between a person with the power to inhabit computer systems....and an entity trapped in the center of the universe that accidentally created our universe through music. Cryptic messages with hints for future events would be sprinkled throughout. This video just fueled my fire to get to work on it. Too bad writing the actual superhero story is taking up all my time. "I can still hear the Melody. I have since the beginning, since the end. But lately, I can no longer FEEL the Melody. And I hear that I will soon no longer hear it. It is not for myself I feel fear. I have accepted my sins and my punishment. I have accepted you."

I gotta give you credit for how awesome that ad transition was! Perfectly implemented and executed!

Ngl the Didacts last words got me. Really brings down the awful grand galactic scale of the forerunner-flood war and “humanizes” the experience to the individual and the impacts the war had beyond the battlefields.

I like how that forerunner soldiers transmission to his father tilted Mendicant Bias into the positive. Especially after observing the reclaimer just read it. Looks like the logic plague is not absolute.

Banger video! These were so spooky to me as a kid, I also had no idea what any of it meant lol

31:41 I definitely am excited to see that video covering the inconsistencies of the Halo 3 terminals. Very looking forward to it.

I've been waiting for a video breaking down the terminals! When i was playing when i was little and the terminals corrupted, i got scared, thinking I wasn't supposed to see it and backed out of them, lol.

"...the flood's eventual return, which is something unfortunately we're still waiting for" is not a quote I'd have ever expected to hear, but given the circumstances it would be quite welcome indeed.

Really glad to see this covered, thanks for sharing!

This is incredible! How much time and studying went into make this video because this is encapsulating the entire way through!

Yes!!!!! I cant wait to hear you discuss this. Im hoping youll go over the old story boards that show the forerunner tomb with human remains and stuff. Its sorta obvious the forerunners were human but that theory got lost in translation

One of ur best videos, mate! Been a fan for years.

I’ve been subscribed to you since 2012. This is by far my favorite Halo lore video you’ve done. Bravo sir.

A crossover I’d love to see is a conversation between the gravemind and harbinger from mass effect

Really good video, now I finally understood this Halo 3 terminals stuff and it was awesome thank you so much for this

Great video HiddenXperia, the Terminals are some of the deepest lore in Halo, good work giving them their due. It's a shame 343 retconned the Terminals and Halo Legends Origins out of the lore, they were the first solid representations of the Forerunners that we got. It was much better when the Forerunners were related to Mankind and they were depicted as a noble civilization, now they're kind of just a bunch of arrogant jerks who ruined everything and hate Humanity.

Made me cry for when i read the last terminal, the ai felt just so sad and regretful the whole time but finally at "peace" for helping you

Awesome recap!! Keep it up!!

Pizza on a cold Australian Friday night. Cozy'd up listening to HiddenXperia ramble about the flood and Halo 3 terminals. Nothing better.

Imagine HiddenXperia becomes Mendicant Bias’ official va

Finally! a video about the terminals LETSGO

God Halo’s lore is so interesting and cool, so many stories and characters. I wish they added this to the games for more to see. We desperately need more stuff with the flood in game

This is the video I have been wanting! I am excited for the video in June.

Yay yes yes!! my favourite youtube man of halo is uploader again!! happy day and very sugar of eye content! Thank you Hiddenxperia for bringering m y day some more glee and splendid splendor of soul splendorss!!. aMazig that game of 17 old yars is still full of loreful treasures and intaristing knowledges! the Halo mythos is deep branching and stimulating to the mind. You good man with good vdeos. wHen I come home to empty domicile with no family but my pet goat mammal, you make day of hardest labors better and stimulate good feelings with your sugar of eye content! thank you bEst wishings as alwasy :)))