I had to read the manual. Ya see, 'cause this game was made back when the developers actually cared to create nice and colorful and detailed manuals that are designed to get you excited to play their game. This was always my favorite part of purchasing new games--the anticipation built by the game's manual is often strong enough to give the game a big boost (though, worst case scenario--it builds expectations, only to have them ruined by shitty gameplay).

I decided I would go over p. 4 and sort of give my thoughts on what is essentially the premise of the entire Halo series. Now, I'm not familiar Halo lore at all, so this was rather exciting for me--I finally get to learn about why these fuckers are fighting each other. Cool. Totally awesome. Let's see here:

The year is 2552. Planet Earth still exists, but overpopulation has forced many of her former residents to colonize other worlds. Faster-than-light travel is now a reality, and Earth's unified government, through the United Nations Space Command, as put its full weight behind the colonization effort; millions of humans now live on habitable planets in other solar systems. A keystone of humanity's colonization efforts is the planet Reach, an interstellar naval yard that builds colony ships for civilians and warships for the UNSC's armed forces. Conveniently close to Earth, Reach is also a hub of scientific and military activity.

...Oh dear. Not exactly the most interesting or creative premise we got here so far. I'm willing to toss aside my own personal philosophical beliefs here, and just accept this idea that we're now colonizing other planets--that's fine. I can accept that. It's stupid, but I can pretend for a moment that it isn't.

What I'm trying to figure out here, mainly, is how exactly we managed to unify all the world's governments just because of some overpopulation issues. That's kind of interesting. Does that mean that Earth is completely barren now, or are there still some people there? I mean, it's 2552. Did any nations refuse to cooperate, and were simply left behind? Or did every single governmental body in the world agree to unite for the sake of humanity? I mean, I guess that's just what I'm supposed to infer, as improbable as it seems, but it doesn't really make for a very interesting or compelling idea, if you ask me.

I'm also keeping in mind that this shit was written in 2001, so, maybe this felt a little bit more interesting at the time. Maybe the concept of interplanetary travel was a lot more fresh back then--especially in video games. Nowadays, it's pretty bland and overdone, but I suppose I can suppress my initial prejudices here, per grandfather clause. Reading on:

Thirty-two years ago, contact with the outer colony Harvest was lost. A battlegroup sent to investigate was almost completely destroyed: only one badly damaged ship returned to Reach. Its crew told of a seemingly unstoppable alien warship that had effortlessly annihilated their forces.

Okay, now we're... kinda getting a little more interesting here, but not by very much. So, aliens invade one of the colonies and fuck everything up. Oh no. The main question I'm asking, of course, is "Why?"--Did we do anything to piss them off? Or are they just irrational and violent conquistadors? Hopefully it's a little bit more deep than that.

(I also find it convenient how one "badly damaged" ship made the trip back to Reach, but whatever.)

This was humankind's first encounter with a group of aliens they eventually came to know as the Covenant, a collective of alien races united in their fanatical religious devotion. Covenant religious elders declared humanity an affront to the gods, and the Covenant warrior caste waged a holy war upon humanity with gruesome diligence.

 

Well, that's stupid.

Still, I don't know why exactly the Covenant considers humanity an affront to the gods, so that's still up in the air. We must have done something to piss them off--maybe colonizing Harvest was us treading on sacred ground, or something like that. I mean, the whole religious zealotry thing seems kinda silly, but at least that would be believable.

After a series of crushing defeats and obliterated colonies, UNSC Admiral Preston Cole established the Cole Protocol: no vessel may inadvertently lead the Covenant to Earth. When forced to withdraw, ships must avoid Earth-bound vectors--even if that means jumping without proper navigational calculations. Vessels in danger of capture must self-destruct.

Wait. Why do we still care about Earth? Like, I get it--colonies are being "obliterated", but why are we taking measures to protect Earth specifically? Who gives a shit at that point? Apparently, there's something of precious value on Earth that must be protected, but it never goes into what that is. Civilization? Yeah, but so do the other colonies at this point. Higher-developed civilization? That seems improbable. It's been centuries--we have the planet Reach that is specifically designated to build warships. I would think, then, that the civilizations on the other planets are pretty well-developed. It's not like building warships is a huge priority if all humanity is united under the same cause, right?

And the order to self-destruct upon being "in danger" of capture seems kinda silly too, but whatever. I'm not a military strategist, but personally, I'd only cut the cord when capture is inevitable. I just don't see the necessity to give Earth, the planet we left for greener pastures, any special protection. Anything of major importance should... probably not be there in the first place, and it doesn't seem likely to me that we'd fuck up like that. Admiral Preston Cole seems like a dumbass.

Anyways...

On Reach, a secret military project to create cyborg super-soldiers takes on newfound importance. The soldiers of the SPARTAN-II project rack up an impressive record against the Covenant in test deployments, but there are too few of them to turn the tide of the war.

Existing SPARTAN-II soldiers are recalled to Reach for further augmentation. The plan: board a Covenant vessel with the improved SPARTAN-IIs and learn the location of the Covenant home world. Two days before the mission begins, Covenant forces strike Reach and annihilate the colony. The Covenant are now on Earth's doorstep. One ship, the Pillar of Autumn, escapes with the last SPARTAN-II and makes a blind jump into deep space, hoping to lead the Covenant away from Earth.

All right. I still have no idea why we still give a fuck about Earth--maybe it's the last shred of human civilization left at this point, but that's never specified in this text--but this is where things finally start getting real.

The Covenant finding Reach seems like a crazy diabolus ex machina, but I'll excuse that. But I mean, it was supposed to be a "secret" military project, right? Guess they really didn't keep the secret that well--I'm not sure how else the Covenant would've found us on Reach. Maybe they're clairvoyant, or some shit. I'm sure I'll find out later.

---

Oh yeah, I meant to say earlier--don't think I'm judging the game's story by this little introductory blurb in the manual. I'm sure most, if not all, of my questions will be answered as soon as I play the game. I just don't feel like this manual did a fantastic job of tying all this shit together--and I don't expect it to, really. It's just kinda funny.

What I did expect, at least, was for the story to seem at all interesting--and it wasn't, really. We discover aliens--they attack us--we try to fight back. That's the story so far. We do a Hail Mary and jump as far away from Earth as possible, to try to bait the Covenant away from it. And hope they fall for it. I'm sorry, that's... not a great premise. I can tell this is gonna be a game where I'll have to focus mainly on the gameplay and other aspects, rather than the story. Or maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised as soon as I start playing. I have my expectations set pretty low, so anything can happen.

If there's anything you feel like I should know, post away, I guess. Just try not to spoil anything too major--I'd like this to be an experience, if you know what I'm saying.