Forum:Regarding John vs Locke fighting scene in Halo 5: Guardians

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My understanding of energy shielding for the MJOLNIR in the Halo universe is that the shielding system is always active. However, the scene where John fights Locke shows nothing of the energy shielding system working its magic, not even a flicker when John's visor cracked. Would this mean all physical combat scenarios whatsoever does not trigger the energy shielding of the MJOLNIR? — subtank   00:10, 30 January 2016 (EST)


 * I view it as just an example of . In gameplay, a single punch is enough to kill a fellow Spartan (after all, this is an armor that can punch through tanks), but here John and Locke move far slower than the MJOLNIR is claimed to move the user and withstand many punches with only a flinch. There's also other cutscenes where physical impacts are depicted as hitting shields, such as Six fighting Elites in the last cutscene of Halo: Reach or the Infinity ramming a Covenant cruiser while its shields flare. So I would just chalk it up to just a cutscene inconsistency because no one wants to see Locke die from a single smack to the face.


 * Tuckerscreator (stalk ) 00:24, 30 January 2016 (EST)


 * That was beautiful. We need more Chips. But on a more on-topic note, I agree that it's just an inconsistency. -- NightHammer (talk)(contribs) 00:40, 30 January 2016 (EST)

I have to admit that video made me smile a little bit. Alertfiend - Warning, my comments may appear passive aggressive. (Converse) 03:24, 30 January 2016 (EST)

Dune has an explanation - that energy shields are specifically designed to stop hypersonic weapons, and atomic or energy weapons produce catastrophic feedback, but melee weapons cut through like a blunt knife through frozen butter, which is at least something. I don't know whether Halo would use that explanation, since they seem to work on entirely different principles, but it's an influential series. And, after all, we've seen ODSTs without Spartan-grade augmentations stab shielded Brutes, so perhaps it's not so far-fetched that a punch or a stab might not trigger the shields. --  Qura 'Morhek   The Autocrat     of Morheka   05:43, 30 January 2016 (EST)


 * True, but in Dune's case the melee attacks are much slower, to the point of types of sword play designed around fast strikes that suddenly slow to a crawl. By contrast, even without the claimed enhancement of MJOLNIR (likely due to animating this scene with motion-capture) John and Locke are still throwing punches much faster than in Dune. According to here, a boxer's average punch speed is 25 mph to 30 mph, the same speed a Warthog can ram a Spartan at. A Spartan's punch speed would likely be much faster than an unaugmented boxer. I don't think it was ever the intention that Halo energy shields work like Dune's, based on scenes in The Fall of Reach where John can't keep his grip on a Covenant ship's surface because its shield is repelling him or when he feels his arm's shields with his other arm and encounters resistance. And on top of that, there actually are cutscenes in Halo 5 where bodily impact triggers shield flares, . As stuff like Elites dying from a single Storm Rifle shot in Spartan Ops have shown, we shouldn't always assume the cutscenes are the "true" reality to the gameplay.


 * Also, in Buck's case where he stabbed the Chieftain, . Romeo blasts them off with his sniper rifle and we see the flare of the Chieftain's shields breaking. Tuckerscreator (stalk ) 14:10, 30 January 2016 (EST)

It looks like John took some serious hits before his visor cracked. It could be that his shields failed (invisibly) before the punch to the visor. --Weeping Angel (talk) 19:17, 5 February 2016 (EST)

Also, if I remember correctly from Halo: the Fall of Reach energy shields were slippery and made things harder to grip. John might have disabled them for protracted hand to hand combat. --Weeping Angel (talk) 13:46, 11 February 2017 (EST)