Halo 1 and Halo 2 storyline game videos and book summaries

Halo books 1-3 (The Flood; First Strike; The Fall of Reach)This Halo 1 and 2 game storyline, as well as a summary of the books that fill out the blanks in the game’s storyline, are recapped for those of you who need a freshing up of the storyline or who never played the first two Xbox Halo’s and are planning on buying Halo 3 for Xbox 360 when it’s released on September 25th, 2007.

Halo: The Fall of Reach

Time line: August 17, 2517 – August 30, 2552

While the brutal Covenant juggernaut sweeps inexorably through space, intent on wiping out humankind, only one stronghold remains…the planet Reach. Practically on Earth’s doorstep, it is the last military fortress to defend against the alien onslaught. But Reach’s defenders have another, higher priority: to prevent the Covenant from discovering the location of Earth. Outnumbered and outgunned, the soldiers seem to have little chance against the Covenant, but Reach holds a closely guarded secret. It is the training ground for the very first “super soldiers” Code-named SPARTANs, these highly advanced warriors, specially bioengineered and technologically augmented, are the best in the universe… quiet, professional, swift, agile, and deadly. This, is how the SPARTAN program began…

Lieutenant Junior Grade Jacob Keyes had an assignment to assist Doctor Halsey in an experiment that would turn the tide of the war and change the future forever. They were on their way to the Eridanus Two system onboard a diplomatic shuttle, known as the Han. They were to examine one of their test subjects’ number 117, John.

They enter the Eridanus Two system and make there way to the playground on the Elysium City of Primary Education Facility No. 119. Their subject is a child, six years old to be exact. Their mission for now was to only examine the child, Dr. Halsey and Lt. Keyes made there way to the playground only to see a group of kids on a hill, pushing and shoving each other, they were playing king of the hill. But one of them stood out from the others, he was a head taller then the rest and also had a more muscular body then the other children. He was on top of the hill denying anyone who would try and topple him over. Dr. Halsey pulled out a palm-sized pad and opened the file on the subject. The child had all the generic markers she had flagged in her original study…he was as close to a perfect subject for her purposes as science could determine. He was a typical six-year old male. He had brown hair and a slight grin that reveled a gap between his two front teeth, along his face a few freckles. Dr. Halsey took a picture of the child and scanned the freckles on his face and compared them, a match, that was their subject. They finished examining the child and made there way back to Reach.

During that night the UNSC had kidnapped 75 children, put them into cyro-sleep, and entered slip-space to Reach. They brought them to an auditorium, each child was escorted by a trainer, some of the children tried to get up and were forced back down by a strong hand. Dr. Halsey told them that they couldn’t go back to their parents and that they were here to be trained, to become the best, and to save mankind…When Dr. Halsey was done they sent the subjects to a barracks where they would sleep.

In the morning, Chief Mendez, their leading officer woke them up for extreme exercises, 100 jumping jacks, 100 sit-ups, and so-forth. After their PE, a 2-mile jog to where they went to school, an AI named Deja who frequently thought the children gave them a lesson about wars and kings. When school was over Mendez waited for them outside, he took them to the playground. But it was like no other playground John had seen, cargo nets, poles, bridges, and ropes. All in a maze like fashion. Mendez separated the children and game them a number and whatever number you were that was your team, John got number 3 he looked to his right, he saw a boy named Samuel-034, and to his left a girl, a tall girl, her name was Kelly-087. Their goal was to ring the bell, Mendez pointed to the highest pole. The winners won dinner, the losers would not be eating. The teams to have all their members to ring the bell before the others won. John looked for the easiest way to get their first, he wasn’t going to let his team slow him down, he was going to win, he always won.

Mendez told them to start and John shimmied up a rope, it was a long rope, but he forced himself to climb it. He rang the bell first, but his team got stuck at the end as the line built up to ring the bell, his team lost. The next day the same exercises were performed, Deja taught them about wolfs and their tactics, after school, the playground for the same activity as the day before. There were the same teams; Sam and Kelly didn’t look too happy to see him. John looked for a way they could all get there together. He found one, a basket with a rope to pull yourself up in. Kelly told them she could run, fast, so she when ahead and held it for them, they were only half way when she got there. They got in the basket and pulled their selves to the top. They were 3rd, but they finished together. From that point on…they were friends and allies.

Several years of training passed, then the augmentation began. The augmentation consisted of multiple body enhancers such as muscle, reflex, optical, and many others. This whole process took place in 4 weeks. After the augmentation was finished, many of the subjects died, or their bones were twisted so much they didn’t look hardly human. With the Spartans new enhancements they had to relearn how to walk with their new muscles and reflexes. They were back on track after a few weeks of rehabilitation. Shortly thereafter, the Spartans were given their first mission. They were to capture and bring back a rebel by the name of Captain Watts alive for interrogation and debriefing. Watts had a base camp on an asteroid belt on one of the inner colonies. The Spartans were to use extreme caution; Watts’s men weren’t too fond of strangers on their heavily protected asteroid. The Spartans accomplished that mission with pinpoint accuracy and skill. After their mission was over, Dr. Halsey called for them on Reaches’ UNSC Military complex for a briefing on their new mission. Dr. Halsey told them that they had a new project that would change the Spartans into something…new.

She told them about project MJOLNIR. An armor system, it would enhance the Spartans reflexes and speed to 10x the normal humans. The new armor was on a testing facility in the Damascus system on Chi Ceti 4. They would get aboard the Commonwealth with Captain Wallace and enter the system that way. They went aboard the ship and were on their way, they were just about to enter the system when they were surprised and attacked by a Covenant ship. Captain Wallace pulled brilliant attack maneuvers but the covenant ship had energy shields, so it could take a tremendous amount of damage. The Covenant technology was light-years more advanced then the UNSC’s. So Dr. Halsey and the Spartans to an escape pod and went the rest of the way their with Captain Wallace distracting the Covenant vessel. Once they arrived on Chi Ceti 4, they entered the testing facility and tried on the new armor. It was amazing, it enhanced their already enhance reflexes and strength. The technicians actually were able to replicate the covenant shielding, so their armor had rechargeable shields. They would move the armor and in return…it would move them. All the Spartans had to do was think about moving their arm to their chest and it sprang into motion. It was extremely efficient. Dr. Halsey fitted John with a special AI named…Cortana. She was one of the Smartest AI the ONI (Office of Navel Intelligence) developed. She could help the Chief tremendously. Once they were used to the armor, they decided to go back to the Commonwealth to help Captain Wallace against the Covenant ship. John decided to take 2 other Spartans with him. Sam and Kelly. They were going to Infiltrate and destroy the ship from the inside, since they couldn’t from the outside. The team took some ARCHER missiles with them, to help them in their mission.

So John, Sam, and Kelly entered the ship through a hole that Captain Wallace had blasted through with a missile. They were making their way through the ship when an Elite showed up; the three Spartans eliminated the target quick. They continued to move when yet another Elite showed up; this one had his shields on…He shot and the Spartans returned fire. Sam was hit in the side but kept firing. John ran up to the Elite and side kicked it, the shields fluttered and disappeared, he then shoved his gun into the Elites mouth and pulled the trigger. The target was dead before it hit the ground. Sam lay on the floor clenching his side. The shot burned a hole right through the armor. They helped Sam up and moved to the next room, it was the room where the covenant held their Plasma, a source for their main weapon for their ships. They set the timers on the missiles they carried and through them in the room. Sam had to stay behind and keep the Covenant from stopping them. He couldn’t get out of the ship; he would die from the atmospheric pressure because of the hole in his suit. So John and Kelly ran and escaped the ship before it blew into tiny pieces of shrapnel. It was a victory, they now knew they could kill the Covenant, at a high cost however. John knew that he had to sacrifice lives to save many others, but no one told him it would feel like this…He then pulled up a list of his Spartans and placed Sam as “MIA”. The Spartans were to never be listed as KIA, they were heroes, Spartans. In Greek mythology the Spartans were greater even then the gods. They ruled their universe with absolute power.

They were a symbol of hope, a symbol of courage to the young soldiers. To list them as KIA would bring a massive decrease in morale for the UNSC and they could not have that, as the war was already being won by the Covenant dramatically. John closed the screen and removed the thought forever. A few days later John was promoted to Petty Officer Master Chief.

Shortly after this happened, Captain Jacob Keyes was on the Iroquois enroot to Sigma Octanus Four. When he arrived in the system he was stunned to see 4 Covenant ships and a Covenant carrier. Four Covenant ships were an even match for 7 UNSC battleships. He had seen the Covenant carrier’s make Swiss cheese of UNSC ships with their plasma torpedos. He called for backup from any ships in the area; it would take a while for them to arrive there. He had to fight; 17 million lives lied behind him. He wasn’t going to just sit here and watch the Covenant glass the planet. (Glassing is a term used by the UNSC because the Covenant would surround a world they didn’t need and fire all their plasma weapons on the surface till it looked like a glass ball). This battle would be over in minutes…Captain Keyes managed to pull a brilliant maneuver to destroy 3 of the covenant ships. But the other ships turned and left. The covenant didn’t just leave. They killed everything or died trying. He told one of his deck crewmen to check the planets atmosphere to see if anything was there. There were 43 drop ships inbound for Sigma Octanus Four…it was an invasion. Their predicted trajectory was the city of Corte De Azure.

Master Chief and his team were given a mission to stop the Covenant Invasion of Corte De Azure and evacuate the citizens there. When they landed on Sigma Octanus they made their way to the city only to find that thousands of Covenant were in the city. John armed a HaVoK tactical nuke and placed it in a sewer drain. The rest of the team rounded up survivors and headed back to the evacuation point. John met them there and they entered the Pelican, once inside they took off, John pressed the detonator and the Nuke exploded into a plume of fire and smoke. John was them told to meet with Captain Jacob Keyes onboard the Iroquois. While Master Chief was on his mission Keyes and his crew were in repairs as a dozen UNSC ships and a Repair station called the Cradle entered the system. They went in orbit around Sigma Octanus, shortly thereafter 18 Covenant ships entered the system in perfect formation, this time the UNSC was ready for them.

The UNSC ships entered battle formations. The battle lasted only minutes, all the UNSC ships fired their MAC cannons (Their most powerful weapons) simultaneously to take out 8 covenant ships. They then scattered and the UNSC took out 5 more. But the covenant destroyed 8 of the UNSC’s ships. The fleet was spread thin as it was. This didn’t help that at all. Once the UNSC fought off the Covenant the rest of the ships turned and entered Slipspace. This was a Victory for the UNSC. But the war was far from over. Keyes got a new ship for is bravery, The Pillar of Autumn. Master Chief then met up with Keyes and went aboard the ship. They were going to the Andreedy system when Keyes got a message from FLEETCOM that the Covenant were going to attack the only thing left between them and Earth…Reach.

Halo: Combat Evolved for XboxThe UNSC moved every battle worthy ship to Reach for one last stand against the Covenant. They had one advantage though, the orbiting super MAC cannons, the UNSC’s most powerful non-nuclear weapons, there were 16 of them. Covenant ships entered space around Reach, 314 ships to be exact. The battle was huge. So much firepower in space it looked like a solar flare. Eventually the covenant took out the Super MAC cannons and engaged the UNSC ships which were no match. Reach had fallen. Keyes and his crew, with Master Chief and Dr. Halsey had to make a Randomized Slipspace jump to escape the Covenant and live to fight another day, and that’s where Halo 1 picks up…

Halo Combat Evolved: summary showing the beginning of the Halo saga.

Halo Combat Evolved: Master Chief encounters the parasite known as The Flood, and aids the monitor of installation 04 in it’s mission to eliminate them.

Halo Combat Evolved: Master Chief learns the truth behind Halo.

Halo Combat Evolved: Master Chief must destroy Halo before it’s too late!

Halo books 1-3 (The Flood; First Strike; The Fall of Reach)Halo: First Strike

Time line: September 13, 2552 – September 22, 2552.

Halo had been destroyed, and the threat it posed to sentient life, neutralized. But victory has come at a terrible cost for the UNSC. Thousands of valiant soldiers fell in the battle to prevent the alien construct from falling into the enemy’s clutches. Now, everything depends on the Spartan known as the “Master Chief.” Yet even with the aid of the Artificial Intelligence Cortana, the Master Chief will be hard-pressed to rescue survivors and evade the Covenant ships patrolling the remains of Halo in debris-strewn space….

Master Chief is in a Long-sword interceptor ship within the debris field of the newly destroyed Halo construct. He thought about his team, how he sent 27 his Spartans down to protect the generators of the Super MAC cannons on Reach. The supposedly “Easy” mission for his team. He wondered if they were still alive….He then though about the new mission FLEETCOM had given him, he was to capture a Covenant Prophet and bring him back to earth for interrogation, and possibly they could settle a peace treaty. But he had to focus on the present for know, he has to keep his mind clear. The Master Chief told Cortana to search the field for any survivors or a ship with Slipspace capability, without one it would take them years to return to UNSC controlled space.

While this was going on Covenant ships entered the system all around him, Master Chief immediately powered-down the ship but left enough power to keep Cortana online, He looked at the ships, one of them stood out from the others, it was huge, the biggest ship the Master Chief had ever seen, 7 plasma turrets on each side. Cortana picked up signals coming back a forth through the ship. Cortana found out that it was a Flagship. The ship detected them; its sensors were far more advanced than the UNSC’s. Master Chief handed over the pilot controls to Cortana, they were dead if they sat there…The ship turned towards them to follow, then twin plumes of fire hit the Covenant Flagships shields, Master Chief turned to see a Pelican firing at the ship. The Flagship turned towards the new threat, obviously more interested in hunting bigger prey. “They bought us time, now let us return the favor…“ Master Chief said, “You do realize that we cant harm the Covenant ship at all right?” Cortana replied, “We’ll see….give me a firing solution for the missiles we have, time them right when their plasma is about to shoot. They have to let down their shields for a split second…”

The ship fired and so did Cortana, the missiles hit one of the turrets damaging it but doing hardly anything to the massive vessel. Master Chief told Cortana to meet up with the Pelican, which had gone in orbit behind a moon. They met up and linked the two ships, Cortana vented the atmosphere and opened the hatch. A hand reached up and John pulled the man up into the ship. The shock only lasted for a split second. John’s reflexes kicked in, he grabbed a handful of the mans uniform and kicked the hatch shut and propelled both of them against the hull. With lightning fast motion pulled of a pistol and aimed it squarely at the mans forehead. “You were dead,” the Chief said. “I saw you die. On Jenkins’s helmet recording. The Flood got you.” The black man smiled, “The Flood? The man chuckled. “Chief, it’ll take more than that pack of walking alien horror-show freaks to take out Sergeant A. J. Johnson.”

While Reach was being attacked…7 days ago…

The sun was beaming down on dead bodies strayed across the field. Marines, Grunts, Jackals, and Elites. Destroyed Warthog and Wraith bodies smoked and sparked from the long battle. Fred sat inside a bunker with Red Team on Grid 63. They were here to protect the only thing left to stop the Covenant to taking over Reach…the Generators of the Super MAC cannons.

Fred wondered if John was still alive…if the other Spartans on Blue Team were alive, He dislodged the thought and tried to focus on his mission. He looked to his right, Kelly sat beside him reloading her MA4B assault rife, and too his left wounded Marines still having the will to fight but couldn’t. Then Fred heard a sound, he knew that sound, it was like thunder rolling across the ground. He stood up and magnified his vision to 10x. He stood completely still…He saw thousands of grunts and other Covenant running toward him and his team. The Grunts barked and squeaked as they ran on all fours with Elites and Jackals right behind them. There was no way they had a chance at stopping them, he ordered his team on a full retreat to a hideout underground that him and the other Spartans used when they used to train here on Reach. He sent a message to Red Team to tell them that the Generator on Grid 63 had fallen, that the Covenant had overwhelming numbers. And that the fallback point was hot, that they should not go there. All he got was static, so he reloaded his M4AB and exited the bunker.

They ran and didn’t look back. Once they entered the cave Fred and Kelly saw some Spartans, it was Li, Will, and Grace, they then all ran down one of the tunnels and came to a metal door. Fred keyed the Mic. On the outside of the door, “ Open up if anyone is in there, this is a Spartan”, “Most likely no one is here, they all evacuated once the fight began” Will said. Kelly then whistled a six-note tune into the Mic. On the outside of the door that they all used since they were small as their “All clear” signal “Ollie-ollie-oxen-free”. They waited a full minute and the doors slid open. And Dr. Halsey stood in the entrance along with one more person, Admiral Whitcomb.

The Master Chief pushed the gun harder into his head, suddenly the smile disappeared from the mans face. “Yeah they got us all right” Johnson said shaking his head, “Those little pumpkin-headed infectious freaks jumped Me, Jenkins, and Keyes.” “They swarmed all over us… Jenkins and Keyes were taken, but I guess I didn’t taste too good…” “The Flood don’t taste anything.” The Chief replied. The Chief told Cortana to scan the Sergeants body for any infection of the parasite. “He’s clean.” Cortana said. “It was a long shot but, he’s 100% human Chief.” John was shocked and curious on how Johnson escaped the Flood, but he had to worry about that sometime else, so he clicked the safety on the pistol and opened the hatch. He then pulled the next person up; a young man came up and looked at the Chief with an angry glare.

The Chief noticed the patch on his left shoulder, he was an ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper), they were notorious for their tenacity in a fight, and their temper. Another man climbed into the shop it was Lieutenant Haverson; The Master Chief snapped a crisp salute. And one other person climbed in, it was Warrant Officer Polaski, a Pelican pilot, and a very skilled one at that. He told the team about his mission to capture a Covenant Prophet and they couldn’t get back to Earth anyway because they didn’t have a Slipspace generator, so they went for the next best thing, The Polaski to pilot the pelican and go on a collision coarse with the flagship; She was hesitant but obeyed his insane command.

The ship was massive, the Chief told her to shoot the X34 Mobile Space Mines the Long-sword had in its inventory. She fired them toward the ships and put the to remote detonation. The Covenant ship launched its seraph fighters just as the Chief expected and he detonated the mines. It killed them all the fighters. He then told Polaski to land in the fighter bay. That’s where they would infiltrate the ship. Once Polaski landed the ship, she took out a few grunts that were wondering around the place with the turret on the ship.

She then opened the hatch and MC expected a warm welcome by a few Elites and grunt but no one was there. The rest of them came out and they started to make their way to the bridge of the ship. Cortana entered the ship schematics and also found out that there were only 100 Elites and a few Grunts onboard the ship, the rest were just those technician aliens, which were harmless. Master Chief made their way to the Bridge of the ship, they had encountered a few Elites while doing so but it was nothing they couldn’t handle. Cortana vented out the atmosphere on different levels of the ship to take out any camouflaged Elites coming to take them out. She watched on different cameras as the Elites stopped in their tracks holding their throats, clamping their mandibles trying to get air that was no longer there, and they fell to the ground, dead. The Master Chief and everyone finally made their way to the bridge of the ship, The Chief checked his Motion detectors nothing, but his sensors might not have gone through the door so he stayed on his guard. Polaski pushed a covenant symbol to open the door but it was clamped shut.

The Chief grabbed hold of one of the sliding doors and pulled slowly but surely it opened little by little, just then he picked something up on the other side with his motion detector. He let go of the door and stuck his gun through a crack in the door and fired, and Elite screamed on the other side and dropped to the floor dead before it hit the ground. Chief again grabbed the doors and pulled the doors then slid open with ease. He went to a control panel and gave Cortana the controls to the ship. View screens popped up and Master Chief saw all the other Covenant ships turn toward them with their plasma cannons glowing like red angry eyes. He told Cortana to jump to Reach, he could not jump directly to Earth because it would be against the Cole Protocol plus they had to give the information about Halo to the ONI at Earth, it would give them an enormous amount of information to give them an edge on the Covenant. There would be two situations they would have to face, one, The Covenant has glassed the Planet and moved on or, the Covenant is still there. Cortana made the jump.

While they waited to arrive at their destination Cortana found that the ship was called the Ascendant Justice, and also found out that the Covenant found out the location of Earth. The Chief stopped in his tracks, “The Covenant WHAT?” The Chief knew the Covenant would eventually find out Earths location sooner or later, he just hopped that it was later…Cortana explained that the Covenant had mobilized a Command and Control center called the Unyielding Hierophant along with Warships the number of ships was unlisted, but they were making plans to attack Earth in the Next 48 hours. Once they arrived at Reach they found out the horrible truth that the Covenant were still there…all 40 Warships of them. They were about to start glassing the planet. The Master Chief had to find out if his Spartans were still alive…just then Cortana received a message from E-Band, it was one of theirs…“Play it…” the Chief said. “It’s just a six-note tune Chief, and it plays over and over again.” “Haverson, Johnson, Polaski, on me.

Were going in, there are Spartans down there.” “Ollie-ollie-oxen-free” The Chief whispered to himself.
Polaski was piloting a drop-ship they took from the Ascendant Justice; John knew exactly where to look. The Spartans had a place they would all go to if things got to hot. They saw thousands of ground forces getting back into the huge Warships. They had to hurry, or they would be ionized along with the rest of the Planet. Polaski landed the drop-ship and the Chief, Johnson and Haverson ran into the cave, they then came to a door, and it was open, they entered the room and saw Dr. Halsey, the Admiral the rest of the Spartans. They shared their quick “Hellos” and ran back to the drop-ship where they would meet up with Cortana and the Ascendant Justice. Once they got on the ship and got out of harms way, Dr Halsey was doing a study on how Johnson escaped the Flood, she found out that he had a very rare disease that was called Boren’s Syndrome, it is caused by exposure to high-yield plasma. Like the burst released by a Covenant plasma grenade. Apparently, the Sergeant had captured a whole crate consisting of 12 plasma grenades during the Siege of Paris IV, and used them all. Boren’s Syndrome is characterized by migraines, amnesia, and even death. It disrupts the electrical signals in a person’s nervous system.

The Flood or parasite interfaces with a host by forcing a resonant frequency math to each host’s neural system. But the Sergeant’s nervous system is so jumbles that the Flood couldn’t force a match. This was the first time a human has ever come in contact with the Flood and live. She has to tell the Chief about this discovery…
The Chief sat in a drop-ship along with the rest of his team. He knew he had to stop the Covenant and by Earth more time, he had to…He had told Cortana to jump to Earth and give the ONI the information about Halo and how Johnson escaped the Flood. He and his team would try to stop this Unyielding Hierophant. Cortana told him that he had to get past the Covenant security systems, so she made a copy of herself and gave it to the Chief.

John launched the drop-ship and headed straight for the Unyielding Hierophant, once they got close they cut the engines off. John froze “how many ships am I looking at here Cortana…” “One moment Chief…you are currently looking at 500 Covenant ships” The Chief sat their motionless, 500 ships? That was more then enough firepower to take Earth. He had to destroy the Unyielding Hierophant. “Their pinging us” The copied Cortana said “Just tell them that are engines died and that we need repairs” John replied “Sending message.” They waited a full 5 min. and two seraph fighters latched on to each side and towed them to the Unyielding Hierophant, their bluff paid off. Once they reached the C&C hanger, Master Chief and his team started to make their way to the Central core, that is where they would overload the core and take this thing out along with the 500 ships with it.

They followed the path for eleven hours and they came to an intersection, “Right or left Cortana” “Well if you want to take the fast route then you woul…” “There’s not much time, give us the fast route” The Chief said “Go right for 100 meters and turn left” They continued as they came to a huge room, the Chief spotted a few packs of Grunts and a few Jackals, no Elites…yet. It was a good 500-yard dash in open ground with no cover to the next door they had to enter. “Be advised Chief there is a Covenant species we have no yet encountered yet.

They are supposedly only stationed as imperial guards, they call them “Brutes”, if they were harmful we would have seen them in other Covenant campaigns they shouldn’t be a problem.” John didn’t know about that, the name “Brute” didn’t sound to welcoming. He told his team to stick close and don’t stop for anything. The Chief took a deep breath and ran. It took him three steps to reach his top speed, in the corner of his eye he saw the Grunts were startled and ran as they saw them. He reached the door and was about to press the symbol that would open it, but it opened before he pushed it, there was a huge alien in the entrance, it was taller then John and more muscular. The Chief jumped back and unloaded a full clip into the so-called ‘Brute’ but it didn’t even phase it. The brute ran at John determined it was going to kill him. Fred fired at the brute and got him right in the head.

A plasma grenade hit Grace right in the side; John ran to her to help her, it was useless she had died as soon as the grenade blew. They couldn’t take her body with them it would slow them down too much, but he wasn’t going to leave her for the covenant either, he activated the detonation code on her armor and set it for 8 minutes. They finally made it to the central core of the Unyielding Hierophant. He put the copied Cortana into it. “There is no way to stop this once I start it Chief, uploading your escape route back to the drop-ship. “Start it, give me 10 minutes” “Countdown started Chief…good luck.” They ran back the way they came, and entered the room Grace was in, he looked to his right and a bright light covered a pack of Grunts and Elites. Everything in a 20ft. radius was vaporized.

They continued till they reached the drop-ship, Fred hopped into the piloting seat and eased out of the Hanger. 4:23 left on the countdown timer, “Easy does it Fred, go slowly, don’t attract attention to yourself.” There was a moon nearby the Chief saw a ship behind it he knew that ship, it was the Ascendant Justice. Fred met up with the ship and they entered the Ascendant Justice, the Admiral, Haverson, and Johnson was there to meet them when they entered. “What are you doing here” The Chief asked “Well son, I figured even if we did warn Earth that the Covenant were going to attack Earth it would have done a thing. The Covenant wouldn’t even have to aim with that much firepower, so we decided to give you a lift back home.” The Admiral replied “But at least lets see the fireworks Chief” Johnson smirked. The Chief looked at his time 0:29 on his mission timer. The Unyielding Hierophant wan engulfed by light and hot plasma and the Ships that were beside her melted and vaporized, only 5 Covenant ships survived the blast and sluggishly flew away. He had destroyed 495 ships out of the 500. “Well done Chief, well done” The Admiral said. Today they had won. They had stopped the Covenant. John would return to Earth with a warning and enough Intel to keep scientists at ONI busy. But what about tomorrow? The Covenant didn’t give up once they set their sights on a target. They wanted Earth; they’d come for it. Destroying their fleet would only delay that inevitable fact. They had time, though. Maybe enough time to prepare for whatever the Covenant could throw at them. John would take today’s victory. And he’s be there when the fighting started again, he’d be there to win…

Covenant History

The Covenant was created long, long ago. It’s said that the Prophets and the Elites were locked in a bitter and seemingly unending battle, during this battle the prophets learned of the forerunners and their “Great Journey”. The prophets were desperately searching for a way to end the war between the elites, so they told the Elites of their doomed existence and promised that they would find the means of the Forerunners’ transcendence and share the knowledge with the elite race. The Elites in turn promised to protect the Prophets as they searched for information regarding the forerunners. Over time, they encountered different alien races and the prophets continued to promise salvation and freedom in return for only one thing, obedience. The covenant steadily grew larger and larger.

The covenant is governed and lead by the Prophet Hierarchs (The Prophet of Truth, the Prophet of Mercy, and the Prophet of Regret) who are in turn advised by the High Council of the Covenant which is made up by several high ranking elites and several low ranking prophets. The Prophet hierarchs have complete control over all of the covenants daily operations and plans.

The elites used to label the humans as an inferior race. However the elites still pleaded with the prophets to allow the humans to join the covenant, so that they could be saved by the “Great Journey“ that had been promised to all of the covenant. The prophets would not allow it.

The humans seem to have gained respect amongst the elites through the Human-Covenant war. The elites petitioned to the prophets for the humans saying “Even the smallest of them throw themselves at us in battle; if only the grunts were as dedicated.”

Halo 2 for XboxThey state to the prophets that humans are persistent, that their technology is limited but useful, that their battle techniques are impressive, and that they are excellent strategists. They seem to believe that humans, although weak, are honorable and brave. Certainly, some Elites believe that humans should be admitted to the Covenant. Some even believe that the humans are equal to them – a considerable step for an Elite, or any member of the Covenant, to make.

Halo 2: summary showing the aftermath of Halo 1.

Halo 2: summary part two.

.
Halo: Ghosts of Onyx bookHalo Story Line: Ghosts of Onyx

Time line: May 1, 2531 – November 4, 2552

The Spartan-II program has just gone public. While the Master Chief is defending a besieged Earth, and the myriad factions of the Covenant continue their crusade to eliminate humanity, an ultrasecret cell of the Office of Naval Intelligence commonly known as “ Section Three “ devises a plan to buy the UNSC vital time.

While Master Chief is fighting to protect Earth another Spartan by the name of Kurt, had been given a mission to train a new group of super-soldiers, the Spartan-III’s on Onyx, Onyx was the prime choice to train men on, it had the safety and rough terrain for the soldiers to get the best possible training that they could use in the war against the Covenant. The effort to train additional Spartan-II’s was postponed indefinitely by Dr. Halsey. There were other candidates within the gene pool, but they were out of synch with her age restriction protocols. And with the continuing war, her program funds were diverted. They were diverted to a new armor system call the Semi-Powered Infiltration ( SPI ) armor systems. Kurt would train 100 new Spartans in 7 years, and the plan was to employ several of these new Spartans to train more, soon enough the UNSC would have thousands of Spartans in 20 years and then possibly over 100 thousand in 30 years.

In the final day of the new Spartans training a huge earthquake erupted on the training grounds, the ground split and mountains opened up, out of the mountains and the ground Sentinels started to pour out and attack every living thing they had seen. Some of the Sentinels started to link together and become more powerful and faster. The Sentinels had appeared all over the surface of Onyx. They had lost countless Spartans and men that day on Onyx.

Kurt and a few of the newly trained Spartans after being pinned down for a couple days escaped the planet by jumping into an abandoned Pelican and jumped into Slipspace where he would meet up with his fellow Spartans Kelly, Fred, Linda, and also Dr. Halsey on a mission to target enemy ships to stop them from getting to Earth so they can buy humanity vital time. While on this mission Kurt and Dr. Halsey and his team would capture a Covenant destroyer, and on this destroyer they had found some amazing information. They had discovered a world called the “Shield World”. The world was built by the forerunners as a shield incase the Halo’s went off. They decided to find out what was on this world and what was it. They made a Slipspace jump to the location of this world and they infiltrated it, they had come to realize that this world is a massive factory making a Sentinel every 6 seconds.

At this time the UNSC sent a ship called the Prowler Dusk to see what had become of the Planet Onyx when it had been taken over by the Sentinels. What they saw was bone chilling, a dozen Covenant destroyers surrounding the planet. When the Prowler Dusk saw this their sensors picked up a massive amount of energy from Onyx, the crew guessing the Covenant were about to glass the planet and at that time a light covered the planet, and huge beam shot from the middle of it and Ionized 5 covenant destroyers. The surface of Onyx shattered and exploded into space. They magnified their camera to 1000x at Onyx and the crew was frozen, trillions of Sentinels attached together in a crystalline structure. The Sentinels had been under every landmass, every ocean…under the entire surface of Onyx in linked rows like the carbon bonds of an infinite polymer chain. Onyx was made up of Sentinels, the Sentinels were Onyx….. Right before Onyx was obliterated the Covenant had sent thousands of troops down to the “Shield World” to protect what they thought was the “Holy World”. When this was going on Kurt, his team, and Dr. Halsey had made there way into a huge room that was in the middle of this world. There was a platform with a control panel in this room, as Dr. Halsey was examining it she found out that it was a teleportation platform, but they did not know where it would take them. The Covenant broke the door that leads to the room, and they started to fire. Kurt placed a HaVok Tactical nuke down on the ground and set it to remote detonation, Dr. Hasley pushed an oblong symbol and the platform hummed to life, a countdown timer started at “1:00” for the rift to close. Kurt and his team held off the Covenant until Dr. Halsey could go through the teleportation platform, and then one by one Kurt’s team went through. The Covenant had the place surrounded and Kurt was the last one left. There were thousands of them…A Hunter leveled his plasma cannon and the weapon glowed and eerie green and shot, Kurt jumped to get out of the way of the beam, but was hit in the side. Kurt struggled to get up and couldn’t, he tried again and his vision started to tunnel and his legs turned to wet sand, he looked at this timer “0:47”. Once he got up the Covenant stopped firing, a Ship Master walked up to Kurt and looked him over. Kurt spoke “You haven’t won“, “You still have to get through me”. The Ship Master grunted, Kurt looked at his timer once more “0:00” he exhaled a sigh of relief the rift was closed. The room started to spin and his mouth went dry, the Ship Master spoke and Kurt looked at his translation filter and it said “ One last fight, Demon. You will die and we shall reopen the silver path.” “Die?” Kurt laughed “ Didn’t you know?” “…Spartans never die.” He turned his gauntlet face up and pressed the detonator…

Big thanks for the recap info to X2.

Don’t forget to check out our Halo 3 storyline feature.