List of inconsistencies in the Halo series

"Science Team Leader"

- ONI Commander

This list is compiled to show the various discrepancies spotted in the Halo universe. Inconsistencies on the list are divided into two types: internal and external. Internal inconsistencies refer to discrepancies which occur within a single source, while external inconsistencies are conflicts between two or more sources.

It is often difficult to decide which resource is "superior" to another, so conflicts are mostly listed in a chronological order. Likewise, it can rarely be conclusively determined whether a conflict is the result of an oversight on part of the author or editor(s) or an intentional retcon, unless this is specifically confirmed by the developers of the Halo franchise; such cases are noted accordingly. For more information, see here. There have been a number of cases in which an apparent inconsistency arises within an individual piece of media, only to receive a canonical workaround in a separate document; Halo: Reach and the Data Drops are an example of this. For inconsistencies that have since been resolved by other Halo media, see List of rectified inconsistencies in the Halo series.

Many inconsistencies on this page are provided possible explanations, although it should be noted that these are only unofficial theories unless otherwise stated, and may not reflect the franchise developers' stance on the matters in question. If you think you can explain an inconsistency, do so here, on this article's talk page.

Inconsistencies
In instances in which two or more works have been developed concurrently and released within a short span of time of one another (e.g. games and their marketing material), the "primary" work takes precedence on this list even if released marginally later than the "secondary" one. For example, conflicting information in Halo: The Fall of Reach is said to contradict Halo: Combat Evolved, even though the novel was released slightly earlier than the game. Conflicts which are persistent throughout multiple sources are listed in the "Several sources" section.

Halo: The Fall of Reach

 * Internal
 * The Eridanus II space dock is erroneously stated to be located in the Epsilon Eridani system in the chapter heading for Chapter 10. Throughout the rest of the book, Eridanus II is correctly referenced as being located in the similarly named, yet distinct, Eridanus system.


 * When Dr. Halsey and the Spartans are on a Pelican leaving the Damascus Testing Facility, Halsey tries to adjust her glasses but can't due to her space helmet. Despite this, after hearing John-117's plan to board the Covenant ship, she is said to tap her lip in thought.


 * The time stamp for Chapter 23 is labeled "0500 hours, July 18, 2552", even though the events portrayed take place after the preceding chapters which occurred over the evening of July 18; the previous chapter begins at 2010 hours that day.
 * It is possible that while Chapters 18-22 are labeled as occurring on July 18, they are supposed to take place on July 17. The time stamps suggest a day-long pause between Chapters 17 and 18, and although this can be justified by Admiral Stanforth's Battle Group Leviathan taking more than several hours to reach the Sigma Octanus system, the description of the battle on the surface suggests the events occurred during the same day as the initial space battle. Alternatively, the date in Chapter 23's heading could simply be a mistake, with the intended date being July 19. This is corroborated by the second Data Drop, in which Stanforth sends a message to Admiral Parangosky in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV at 2300 hours on July 18, 2552.


 * When John-117 reflects on his life in 2552 he notes that the SPARTAN-IIs were conscripted "twenty-five years ago". The candidates were kidnapped in 2517, or nearly 35 years prior to August 2552.


 * John-117 internally notes that he had "overheard" Dr. Halsey mention Chief Mendez departed to train a new group of Spartans. Earlier in the novel, Halsey explicitly tells John and the other SPARTAN-IIs of Mendez's future role.


 * On August 30, Cortana mentions that her test with John-117 and the Mark V MJOLNIR occurred "this morning", even though the test took place a day earlier.


 * Chief Petty Officer McRobb states that his posting on Fermion was part of the UNSC's new policy to staff Remote Scanning Outposts with their most competent personnel—a policy that was put into effect following the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV just over six weeks earlier. Despite this, he notes that he had spent three months preparing his crew for the new assignment.


 * External


 * Covenant plasma pistols are said to have barrels in one description, even though the weapons do not possess barrels of any sort as the plasma projectiles are generated between the pistol's two "claws".


 * It is stated that the Hunters' assault cannons "seemed almost as powerful as the stationary plasma cannons the Jackals used.". In the games, the Hunters' weapons are considerably more powerful than the Covenant's stationary turrets, which are operated predominantly by Grunts and Elites.


 * When the Master Chief kills Elites and Jackals aboard Gamma Station, the aliens are said to bleed blue and green blood. Both species' blood is actually purple or purple-blue in the Sangheili's case.


 * The novel repeatedly describes slipspace ruptures as being green. Although no slipspace phenomena had been shown in visual media at the time of the novel's writing, all subsequent media has depicted slipspace ruptures as blue; the effects associated with slipspace-based teleportation are most often depicted as yellow or orange.


 * In Halo: The Fall of Reach, Aki Hikowa and Ellen Dowski are female officers of the Pillar of Autumn. However, on the level The Pillar of Autumn, the bridge has no female members.
 * This may imply that, like modern navy ships, the Autumn has rotating shifts. The obvious Doylist explanation is that no female crew members were modeled.


 * William Lovell's eyes are stated to be green in Halo: The Fall of Reach, but in Halo: Combat Evolved, the Autumn's crew has no green-eyed members.
 * This is likely a result of game engine limitations, or due to rotating shifts, Lovell was simply not present on the bridge at the time.


 * In Halo: The Fall of Reach, the description of the Pillar of Autumn is considerably different from its Halo: Combat Evolved incarnation. The bridge is described as having a command chair and a curved viewport; in Halo: Combat Evolved, this chair is absent and the window consists of several flat sections. The novel also describes the bridge as being extremely cramped, with only a meter of space between the command chair and the other stations, while in the game, the bridge is clearly more spacious. According to the novel, there is also an elevator leading directly from the engine room to the bridge. In the game, the engineering and the bridge are on the same level, and there are no doors which may belong to an elevator adjoining the bridge. In addition, the engine room is described as being "hexagonal", while in the game, it consists of two vaguely rectangular chambers with the engine core in the middle. In the Combat Evolved level The Maw, it is stated that the Pillar of Autumn has four fusion reactors, each of which is destroyed by the player; in The Fall of Reach, the ship is also said to have a single main reactor nestled within two smaller reactor rings. The ship is also described as having rotating centrifuges to generate artificial gravity; no rotating sections are present in the game, unless they are located within the hull.


 * In Halo: The Fall of Reach, when Captain Keyes awakens from cryo, Cortana informs him that the capacitors of the Pillar of Autumn's MAC gun are depolarized and the gun cannot fire, yet the gun is apparently used, and the loss of fire control is treated as a significant piece of dialogue in Halo: Combat Evolved's opening cutscene.
 * It is possible that the crew managed to get the gun working again before the battle.

Halo: Combat Evolved

 * Internal
 * The main view screen on the labels the as-of-yet unidentified ring as "Halo". The name of the ring is not discovered until the level The Truth and Reconciliation.
 * Cortana says she cannot begin to calculate the pulse range of Halo just after 343 Guilty Spark finishes telling her it has a radius of exactly 25,000 light years.
 * This can be accounted for by Cortana's inherent distrust of Guilty Spark's motives. Additionally, since Cortana is an AI with an insatiable urge to know everything she can, she may have tried to calculate the range herself regardless of whatever 343 Guilty Spark had told her.
 * Almost every Pelican dropship bears the marking "E419", on its side, despite the fact that each Pelican has a different serial number.
 * There is no canon explanation. This is due to only two Pelican textures, V933 and E419, being used to represent every Pelican in the game.
 * During the Warthog Run portion of The Maw, the player has to travel a direct distance of over three kilometers atop the Pillar of Autumn to reach the Longsword fighter, but the Autumn is only 1.17 kilometers long. The Longsword's launch bay is also at the end of the Warthog run. The front or rear of a ship is an unlikely place to store a launch bay, which implies that the Master Chief traveled from side to side, further straining the realism of the sequence.
 * During the level Assault on the Control Room, Staff Sergeant Johnson can be seen with the Master Chief at the time he was really with Captain Keyes searching for the Covenant's "weapon cache"; even though the Captain has been out of reach since The Silent Cartographer.
 * This is a result of Bungie reusing Johnson's model instead of creating another sergeant model. The same can be said for Gunnery Sergeant Stacker, who was treated as a generic NPC until Halo 4, when he was finally explicitly identified in gameplay.
 * In 343 Guilty Spark a body collapses on the Master Chief in the room where the Flood is introduced. It is unclear as to why this Marine was not infected when the Flood overran the personnel in the room.
 * This was likely done simply to add tension and suspense to the level, though it does seem rather unlikely from an in-universe perspective.

Halo: Combat Evolved manual

 * External
 * The Halo: Combat Evolved manual states that the Harvest incident took place in 2520, while all other sources specify 2525.
 * The manual also states that Captain Keyes has served in the UNSC since 2526, though The Fall of Reach clearly states that he was fresh out of OCS in 2517.
 * The Grunts are referred to as being five feet tall in the Halo: Combat Evolved manual, but in The Fall of Reach, they are referred to as being a meter tall (just over three feet). Although it could be that Grunts are "a meter tall" in a natural combat stance, while they are actually "five feet tall" if they stand up straight, without a methane tank attached to their backs.
 * According to the manual, the Covenant attacked Reach two days before the Spartans' mission to capture a Prophet was to begin. This is contradicted in Halo: The Fall of Reach and First Strike, in both of which the Pillar of Autumn is already departing for the mission when the Covenant attack.
 * The manual refers to the as a colony ship. The ship is said to be a frigate in Halo: The Fall of Reach.

Halo: The Flood

 * External
 * In Halo: The Fall of Reach, Lieutenants Hall and Dominique are introduced as members of the command crew of the Pillar of Autumn, but are absent in Halo: The Flood when the ship arrives at Installation 04.


 * On page 3 of Halo: The Flood, Thom Shephard tells Sam Marcus that they are resuscitating John-117 before the Pillar of Autumn exits Slipspace. However, in Halo: Combat Evolved, it is clearly shown that Captain Keyes orders that John-117 be taken out of cryo after the Autumn is seen drifting in space and is preparing to be overrun by the Covenant.


 * In Halo: The Flood, the presence of the Covenant at Installation 04 is regarded as being unrelated to the arrival of the Pillar of Autumn; the Covenant are surprised by the arrival of the human ship and act as if it ended up in the system by either following one of their ships, or by chance. However, Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2 and the Covenant broadcast log featured in the Adjunct section in the 2010 reissue on The Flood, state that the Covenant found the ring specifically by following the Autumn's slipspace jump from Reach, and arrived at the system in advance, waiting for the Autumn on the far side of Threshold.


 * In Halo: The Flood, Captain Keyes comments that a single plasma torpedo is capable of destroying the Pillar of Autumn, though in Halo: Combat Evolved it is struck by several without losing structural integrity and breaking up.
 * This possibly relates to the Minor Prophet's order to not fire plasma torpedoes. Additionally, the Covenant ships may have chosen to fire undercharged shots to minimize damage to Halo caused by stray shots.


 * In Halo: The Flood, Cortana identifies Installation 04 as "Halo" in Halo: The Flood when escaping the Pillar of Autumn, but in Halo: Combat Evolved, it is not identified by this name until the level Truth and Reconciliation, when Captain Keyes mentions overhearing the name from his Covenant captors.


 * According to Halo: The Flood, there was an ocean at the bottom of the desert plateau the Truth and Reconciliation was holding position on. However, in both Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, there is only solid ground below the plateau.


 * In the Halo: Combat Evolved level Halo, Cortana mentions that the survivors rescued by John-117 would be transported to the "command shuttle". The command shuttle is not mentioned in Halo: The Flood, where Alpha Base serves as the main command post for UNSC forces.


 * In Halo: Combat Evolved, Cortana accesses Installation 04's Control Center by having the Master Chief remove her memory chip from his helmet and place it in the console. In Halo: The Flood, she broadcasts herself into the system using the suit's transmitter.


 * There are several differences between Halo: The Flood and the Halo: Combat Evolved level The Maw in the encounter at the final service elevator on the Pillar of Autumn. In Halo: The Flood, Zuka 'Zamamee confronts John-117 by using a Shade turret, accompanied by several Grunts. Cortana takes control of the elevator and causes it to descend, allowing John-117 to drop in a pair of grenades and take out the Covenant. In the game, Cortana does not move the elevator and there are two Special Operations Elites and no Shade turret aboard.


 * In Halo: The Flood, many of the Marines John-117 fought alongside were female, despite no female Marines being in Halo: Combat Evolved at all.


 * In Halo: The Flood, Sergeant Stacker is not mentioned at any point, despite him being present on several occasions in the game. He is replaced during the raid on the Truth and Reconciliation by Sergeant Parker, and for the raid on the Silent Cartographer by Gunnery Sergeant Waller. One place where he might make an appearance is when the Chief rescued a crashed Marine squad with an unnamed Sergeant, where Stacker is normally found in the game.


 * Throughout Halo: The Flood, the Master Chief's or other characters' weapon loadouts at a given situation occasionally differ from those in the game. Stocks of ammo left behind by dead marines are not mentioned either.
 * In Chapter 4, during the raid on the Truth and Reconciliation, the novel illustrates that John ran out of ammo for his MA5B Assault Rifle, switching to an M6D pistol; in the game, there are no pistols on that level at all.
 * Also in Chapter 4, it is stated that "the Spartan was carrying a full combat load of ammo, grenades, and other gear, plus two magazines for the M19 launchers". In the game, the Master Chief was not carrying a rocket launcher nor any magazines for it at the time.
 * The novel consistently describes Marines wielding rocket launchers; no marines are ever seen wielding rocket launchers in the game.
 * This is due to in-game constraints, as is the inability for marines to drive Warthogs.


 * As revealed in later sources, the Covenant has revered Forerunner AIs as "Oracles" for a long time, but in Halo: The Flood, 343 Guilty Spark was regarded as an enemy by the Sangheili.
 * This is probably because the fiction regarding the Covenant's beliefs had not yet been cemented by the time The Flood was written.

Halo: First Strike
In Chapter 33, it is said that Will and Linda went out to secure the area. It then says that the Master Chief climbed up to where Fred and Linda perched. Immediately after it says that Fred and Grace disembarked the dropship implying that Fred was still in the dropship and it is presumed that it was meant to say Will and Linda.
 * Internal


 * External


 * John-117 notes that Ascendant Justice was the largest Covenant ship he had ever seen with its length of three kilometers. However, several staple Covenant ship types the Master Chief had encountered over his career, such as the, are significantly larger than the Ascendant Justice ' s described size.
 * This is likely because the larger Covenant ship classes such as the CAS had yet to be introduced at the time of the novel's writing, although the error remains in the 2010 reissue.


 * In Halo: Combat Evolved, the Master Chief throws Private Jenkins' recorder chip away, but he still has it in First Strike. This could be explained by the Chief's suit automatically making a copy of Jenkins' recording as a possible means of gathering intelligence, although this is only a theory.


 * It is stated in Halo: First Strike that Dr. Halsey always referred to John by name, and never by rank or serial number. However, in Halo: The Fall of Reach, she called him "Master Chief" repeatedly.


 * Fred-104 fires three shots from a Wraith's plasma mortar which are powerful enough to reduce at least two Scarabs as well as nearby Covenant mining equipment to "piles of half-melted junk". While the Scarabs were not named as such in the original edition, the 2010 reissue's identification of the vehicles raises an inconsistency regarding their durability; in the games, Scarabs require sustained and concentrated fire to their weak points to take down, making the Wraith's mortar in the novel disproportionately powerful.


 * The city of Côte d'Azur is repeatedly referenced as if it were a planet; this mistake is repeated in Halo: Ghosts of Onyx. Although First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx clearly refer to the Côte d'Azur described in The Fall of Reach, this confusion may have given rise to the introduction of the separate planet named Cote d'Azure in later media.


 * During Chapter 33 of Halo: The Fall of Reach, many Covenant ships are destroyed, but not before they can let loose their plasma torpedoes which then destroy UNSC orbital defense platforms. However, during a space battle in Halo: First Strike, plasma en route to a target merely dissipates as the originating ship and its magnetic controls are destroyed.
 * It is possible that the magnetic controls were not destroyed in the former instance, allowing the plasma to continue to its target.


 * The Prophet of Truth's description differs considerably from his visual appearances, presumably because the Prophets' appearance had not yet been decided upon when the novel was written. While written from an ostensibly Covenant point of view, Truth is described as an "it" instead of a he. Truth is also said to have sensor and respiratory apparatus like insect antennae in his headpiece as well as protruding eyes and a snout, the rest of his face remaining obscured. Strangely, the description remains unaltered in the 2010 Definitive Edition.

Halo 2

 * Internal
 * In the cutscene Another Day at the Beach, the UNSC forces that land near Hotel Zanzibar wear ODST armor, reflecting the analogous scene from the Halo 2 E3 demo. When the Marines are encountered at the hotel during the level Outskirts, they wear standard Marine BDUs. Also, the location of the crashed Pelican does not match its position in game.
 * This is because Another Day at the Beach was cut from the game before release. The Marines from the crashed Pelican were likely switched to regular Marines later in the level's development.
 * In the level Delta Halo, seven dead ODSTs are strewn about quite far from the landing zone. However, In Amber Clad dropped only eleven SOEIVs in the opening cinematic. The Master Chief, the three ODSTs who land near him, the three killed near the intended landing zone, and the seven ODSTs means that fourteen SOEIVs should have been deployed. This is probably a deliberate reference to the number seven: 14=7x2.

Halo: Ghosts of Onyx

 * Internal
 * Kurt Ambrose's rank was apparently lieutenant commander in 2545, as said in the prologue. However, he was still referred to as a lieutenant by 2551 later in the story. In Chapter 13, he is referred to as a lieutenant and then lieutenant commander several lines later.


 * CPO Mendez remarks that Tom-B292 and Lucy-B091 are ten years old in Chapter 9, which is set in August 2541. However, it is previously established that both of them are twelve during Operation: TORPEDO in July 2545, meaning that they would have been eight years old in 2541. It is possible that Mendez misspoke as a result of not remembering the specific age of every individual Spartan due to their large numbers and the age differences between them.


 * In November 2552, Kurt states that the previous Zone 67 AI sent him a message via a slipspace probe "years ago", even though the incident to which he refers took place in February 2551, less than two years earlier. It is likely that he simply misspoke.


 * Kurt states that the Onyx Sentinels first appeared on the morning of September 21, 2552, with Dr. Halsey noting that this date coincides with the "activation" of Installation 04. However, earlier in the novel the Sentinels are described as appearing on the morning of October 31, unless they had been previously active in Zone 67 and Kurt learned this after the October 31 attack from Endless Summer's transmissions. It should also be noted that Installation 04 was never actually activated; although John-117 inserted the Activation Index to the Core, Cortana prevented the activation sequence from commencing. However, it can be assumed that this, or the related events on Installation 04, were enough to alert Onyx's Sentinels; they could not have been roused by the arming of the Halo Array from Installation 05, as this did not occur until November 3, although the Halos' arming is mentioned as having started the countdown to the closing of Onyx's shield world portal.


 * External
 * The frigate is erroneously referred to as a destroyer.


 * In Halo: First Strike, Dr. Halsey puts four submachine guns in a bag. In Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, Kelly finds the same weapons, but they are four MA5B Assault Rifles instead.


 * In Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, Kurt Ambrose remarks that some of the Alpha Company candidates were orphaned at Jericho VII. His speech takes place on December 12, 2531, yet Jericho VII was not glassed until February 2535.
 * While this is most likely to be a simple oversight, it is possible that the candidates from Jericho VII were orphaned in a yet-unseen engagement that preceded the Covenant attack of 2535, as the background of the Covenant invasion of Jericho VII is not elaborated upon in The Fall of Reach. For example, the events that occurred may have been similar to how the Covenant initially invaded Arcadia in 2531 but only arrived to glass the planet eighteen years later.


 * On page 129 of Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, Franklin Mendez is mentioned to be "pushing sixty [years old]" in 2552, which implies that his birthdate is close to or after 2493; he is previously mentioned as having "aged well" in 2531. However, this would give him a maximum age of 24 when he started training the SPARTAN-IIs, which is unlikely given his description in Halo: The Fall of Reach as a grizzled veteran instructor who had seen much combat, as well as his high rank of Chief Petty Officer, as of 2517. Additionally, because combat-oriented UNSC military personnel typically spend significant spans of time in cryosleep Mendez's biological age would likely be even less than his nominal one. Regardless of this, in Halo: Glasslands, Mendez is mentioned as being the same age as Dr. Halsey, who is sixty at the time.

Halo 3

 * Internal
 * Every Longsword fighter bears the marking 7-89 on its side, despite each Longsword canonically having a different serial number. This is the result of reusing the same model for all Longswords in the game.
 * In the ending cutscene of the level The Storm, all three UNSC frigates have the same serial number and all are labeled "Forward Unto Dawn"; one of the others is the Aegis Fate. This is also obviously the result of reusing the same model.
 * In the ending cutscene of the level Halo, the Arbiter is shown sitting at the bridge's helm after leaving the hangar. After the Dawn is cut in half by the portal, the Arbiter arrives on Earth in the front half of the ship, yet the bridge remains attached to the back half of the ship. Presumably the Arbiter moved toward the fore end just before the ship was bisected. However, the cutscene appears to occur in real time; thus, he would have had mere seconds to descend roughly two decks from the bridge to the main hull, after which he would have to move forward at least fifty meters to avoid being caught in the aft section.

Halo: Contact Harvest

 * External
 * Halo: The Fall of Reach states that Harvest has a population of three million. However, in Halo: Contact Harvest, it is stated to have a little over 300,000. The figure presented in Contact Harvest has been ignored in later media, and the population is listed as three million in Halo: Fall of Reach - Boot Camp and Halo: The Essential Visual Guide.


 * Throughout Halo: Contact Harvest, the Eridanus and Epsilon Eridani star systems are referenced as being one system: "Epsilon Eridanus". It is implied that both Reach and Eridanus II are situated in this system. With two exceptions, (a chapter heading in the first printing of Halo: The Fall of Reach and the "Reclaimer" entry in the Bestiarum), the two systems are regarded as separate in all other fiction; in Halo: First Strike, for instance, the main characters travel from Epsilon Eridani to Eridanus, a journey that would take days were it not for the Forerunner crystal from beneath CASTLE Base.


 * The Insurrection is described as being largely confined to the aforementioned "Epsilon Eridanus" system, whereas outer systems are described as being more stable due to their more homogeneous populaces. In other media, the Insurrection is depicted as occurring almost exclusively in the Outer Colonies and spanning numerous star systems. Additionally, the highly varied populations of the Outer Colonies are cited as one of the reasons for their instability. Prior to Contact Harvest, no mention was made of fighting breaking out in Epsilon Eridani; on the other hand, the conflict was described as being at its most active in the similarly named Eridanus system. This has been partly reconciled in later fiction, with the Insurrection being active in both systems, although the claim that the conflict at large was confined to Eridanus has been ignored.


 * Operation: TREBUCHET is stated to be the name for the UNSC's entire ongoing campaign against the Insurrectionists as of 2524. This contradicts Halo: The Fall of Reach, which established TREBUCHET as a single counterinsurgency operation against the rebels in the Eridanus system in 2513, one that is treated as an event long past by 2525. However, the in-game timeline in Halo Wars refers to Operation: TREBUCHET as "upcoming" in an entry dated 2520; furthermore, Halo: Mortal Dictata references TREBUCHET as the "last counterinsurgency operation against the colonies", lending more credence to the version presented in Contact Harvest.


 * In Halo: Contact Harvest, humanity is said to have seventeen planetary colonies. In a forum post, Joseph Staten suggested that a large number of the colonies are smaller settlements or outposts; he admitted to being "intentionally vague" in order to leave room for possible future expansion. Later media, (as well as the pre-release Halo: Combat Evolved timeline), have ignored Staten's claim, showing that the Unified Earth Government had, at the very least, several dozen developed colony planets and had some presence on over 800 worlds.

Halo: The Cole Protocol
When Lieutenant Keyes is warned of the incoming Covenant fleet and asks what UNSC ships are nearby, the book first states that three destroyers are picketing, but immediately counters that the and three frigates would be unable to repel a Covenant assault. However, they are later confirmed to be destroyers, one of which is the.
 * Internal


 * External
 * In Halo: The Flood it says Captain Keyes killed his first human with a pistol, which was specifically stated to have a barrel; however, Halo: The Cole Protocol states he used a modified plasma rifle, a weapon which lacks any form of barrel.


 * Thel 'Vadam reacts to Jai-006's face-concealing MJOLNIR helmet with extreme disgust, believing that only a "soulless and dead" being would hide his face. This is uncharacteristically hypocritical in light of the fact that many Sangheili combat harness variants have helmets that fully cover the wearer's face; it is unlikely Thel would so harshly condemn something that is a common practice among his own kind.


 * According to Halo: Contact Harvest, Madrigal is the nearest human colony to Harvest, the two being separated by a six weeks' slipspace jump. However, The Cole Protocol establishes that Madrigal is located in the 23 Librae system, which, at 83.7 light years, is significantly further from Sol than Harvest's Epsilon Indi. This would also make the distance between Harvest and Madrigal much longer than that between Harvest and Earth, for example. However, it should also be noted that Harvest's placement in the Epsilon Indi system in Contact Harvest can be considered erroneous based on real-world astronomy, as this would make it one of humanity's closest colony worlds rather than the most distant.

Halo Wars
In the level Dome of Light, after requesting the first Rhino to be deployed, the radio operator on the will identify the player as "Harvest Surface Command" even though the level takes place on Arcadia.
 * Internal
 * This could be that the Spirit of Fire was still assigned to Harvest.


 * External
 * Although the Forerunner relic on Harvest is discussed by Captain Cutter and Professor Anders at the end of Halo Wars: Genesis, its discovery is treated as new information in the game's opening cinematic. The simplest explanation is that Forge's discovery of the relic in the cutscene takes place during the events of Genesis.
 * In all renders and cutscenes, most notably "She Is Not My Girlfriend" at the beginning of the level Anders' Signal, the M41 Light Anti-Aircraft Gun is shown with four barrels. It is likely that this is a variant of the M41 LAAG, similar in design to the M41 Extended Light Anti-Aircraft Gun mounted on the OF-92 Booster Frame.

Halo 3: ODST

 * External
 * The depiction of the city of New Mombasa in Halo 3: ODST differs significantly from its Halo 2 incarnation, the most prominent changes being the replacement of the Mombasa Tether to a separate island and a major restructuring of the island's general shape. As a result, the Prophet of Regret's assault carrier Solemn Penance is also moved to a different location over the city than it was in Halo 2.


 * In Halo 3: ODST, the Solemn Penance is seen as being stationary just prior to it jumping into slipspace, yet in Halo 2 during the closing cutscene of the level Metropolis, the assault carrier is moving forward.
 * During the same scene in Halo 3: ODST, the In Amber Clad is seen approaching the carrier in a straight line and is clearly separate when they jump, but in Halo 2, the In Amber Clad flies in an arc to a position underneath the starboard side of the assault carrier. These changes were made for the sake of drama and to make the scene easier to witness from the Rookie's point of view.


 * In the profiles for the members of Alpha-Nine, it is shown that Kojo Agu enlisted in the UNSC when he was only 17 years old, after serving as a merchant marine. As shown in i love bees and later Halo: Glasslands, the minimum age of enlistment for the UNSC is 18 years.
 * He may have been allowed to join with the consent of a parent or legal guardian, as is allowed in the modern United States military.


 * Some of the Sangheili corpses found around New Mombasa are wearing the Assault harness, even though they were killed just before the Great Schism and the Assault harness was restricted from use until after the Sangheili seceded from the Covenant.
 * The Assault harness' description merely notes that the armor set's use was restricted, not that it was completely forbidden. It can thus be inferred that the Assault harness saw limited use prior to the outbreak of the Schism.

The Babysitter
According to Halo: The Fall of Reach, ONI's intelligence on the Prophets as of the briefing for Operation: RED FLAG on August 27, 2552 was extremely scarce; their appearance was unknown and their existence was only inferred from Covenant communications. Debriefings and helmet recorder data from the mission depicted in The Babysitter (which can be inferred to have occurred prior to November 2551 due to the MJOLNIR Mark IV armor still being in service) would no doubt have shed more light into the appearance and role of the Prophets, which would in all likelihood have been utilized in the Spartans' RED FLAG briefing due to the mission's critical nature.
 * External
 * This may be a retcon similar to later media ignoring the nature of the first human contacts with Sangheili, Jiralhanae and Mgalekgolo in The Fall of Reach and First Strike, though the statements about the Prophets remain unchanged in the revised edition of The Fall of Reach.

Pariah
Jacob Keyes is shown to be aware of the reason behind Dr. Halsey's mission to observe the Spartan-II candidates. However, Halo: The Fall of Reach and Halsey's journal clearly indicate that Keyes was unaware of the mission's true nature, and that Halsey had him reassigned before he could find out.
 * External

Stomping on the Heels of a Fuss
Connor Brien is stated to have spent time on High Charity prior to the events on Beta Gabriel. However, evidence suggests that the UNSC had no knowledge of High Charity at this time. Brien was deployed to Beta Gabriel shortly following the Fall of Reach in August 2552. In the Halo 2 level Regret, which takes place on November 2, 2552, Cortana referred to the space station as "something called High Charity", indicating that she is entirely unfamiliar with it or its role as the Covenant capital. Cortana's previous mission was to be Operation: RED FLAG, an ONI Section III-initiated operation to locate and capture the Covenant's leadership. It is extremely unlikely that ONI would have chosen to withhold its knowledge of High Charity from her, given the supreme importance of RED FLAG.
 * External

The Mona Lisa
It is repeatedly stated that the UNSC had a "policy" not to take Covenant prisoners and the main characters are shown to be baffled about discovering Covenant prisoners aboard the prison vessel Mona Lisa. However, UNSC personnel are shown taking Covenant prisoners in Halo: The Flood, Halo Wars: Genesis, and several later sources. It is likely that the "policy" to which the characters refer is a guideline or standard operating procedure rather than a official, strictly enforced protocol.
 * External

Palace Hotel
The specifics of the events of the ground battle in New Mombasa differ significantly between the Halo 2 level Metropolis and the Halo: Evolutions story Palace Hotel. In addition to extensive changes in dialog, several events and locations are described differently. For example, the scene in the parking lot of the Kilindini Park Cultural Center, featured in Palace Hotel, is not present in the game. The ending of Palace Hotel is also different from Metropolis, where John makes his way to a Marine outpost in a corporate building instead of a hotel. In the game, it is mentioned that the Marines' lieutenant was killed as soon as they arrived and that Sergeant Banks is in charge at the time, while in Palace Hotel, John meets the Marines' lieutenant at the outpost. Overall, Palace Hotel could be regarded as an alternate-continuity take on the story as presented in Halo 2, much as the Fall of Reach comic series is an alternate incarnation of the novel's story.
 * External

Human Weakness
Cortana knows about the death of Colonel James Ackerson while being held captive by the Gravemind in High Charity. There is no way she could possibly have been aware of the event at this point, as Ackerson was killed after the Battle of Cleveland sometime between November 8 and 17, and the scene in High Charity takes place days prior. Even accounting for the possibility she may have somehow learned this immediately after Ackerson was executed, she refers to the event in a fashion as if she had been aware of it beforehand.
 * External

The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole

 * External
 * It is clearly stated that Vice Admiral Preston Cole had 117 ships under his command during the Battle of Alpha Aurigae. Halo Wars: Genesis states he had only 107 ships in the same battle. The revised number is an obvious reference to John-117, so it could be considered an Easter egg.


 * According to the story, two of Preston Cole's grandfathers served in the Rain Forest Wars. This seems unlikely, as the conflict took place over three centuries before Cole's birth.


 * There are multiple discrepancies involving Admiral Stanforth's name, age and rank; for a more detailed analysis, see here.


 * In Halo Wars: Genesis, the Halo Wars in-game timeline, and the pre-release timeline for Halo: Combat Evolved, Preston Cole is said to have been promoted to full admiral after his victory at Harvest. In The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole, no mention is made of his promotion and he is referred to as a vice admiral throughout the story, even as late as his final broadcast in the Battle of Psi Serpentis in 2543; Halo: The Essential Visual Guide also refers to him as a vice admiral. It is possible his rank expired or he may have been demoted in an unseen event. Nonetheless, the ONI memorial in Halo 3: ODST refers to him posthumously as a full admiral.


 * The CCS-class battlecruiser is said to have first been encountered at the Battle of Psi Serpentis in 2543. This contradicts Halo Wars: Genesis, which shows Cole's fleet engaging such vessels in 2526; Halo Wars, in which two CCS-class ships are encountered and identified by class at Arcadia in 2531; data pad 10, which states that the Assembly's findings about glassing were derived from observing the CCS class in 2526; and Halo: The Essential Visual Guide and the Halo Encyclopedia, which state that vessels of the class were encountered frequently throughout the war.


 * Admiral Cole states in reference to the Reach super-AI network that "They're the only ones in the Outer Colonies with the raw power to get the job done," despite Reach being part of the Inner Colonies.

Halo: Blood Line
The smart AI Iona interfaces with Victor-101 through his neural interface, even using the system to force some of his memories to resurface, indicating that he has received the Spartan neural interface upgrade allowing such connectivity. The comic series is set prior to the finale of the Fall of Reach, indicating that Victor must have received the upgrade some time earlier. According to Halo: The Fall of Reach, John-117 was the first Spartan to receive the upgrade and neurally integrate with a smart AI on August 29, 2552; this is later corroborated by the data pads of Halo: Reach, in which the Assembly makes note of the melding of John's and Cortana's neural networks as a monumental achievement in their own goals.
 * External

Halo: Reach

 * Internal
 * During the level Long Night of Solace, Colonel Holland once refers to the Covenant corvette Ardent Prayer as a cruiser.


 * In the game's introductory cinematic, the Covenant-conquered Reach is depicted as being only partially glassed; the data pads in the game went on to explain the Covenant's impossibility of fully glassing a planet's surface, supported by statements of a similar nature in Dr. Halsey's personal journal; additionally, references to the complete glassing of Reach were modified in the 2010 reissue of Halo: First Strike. However, in the skybox of the multiplayer map Condemned, Reach's surface is depicted as being almost completely ablaze, significantly different from the more subdued imagery in the game's introduction. This discrepancy may stem from the map having been created by a separate studio, Certain Affinity, who may not have been properly informed of the wider retcon regarding the Covenant's glassing capabilities or the specific instance of Reach's glassing.


 * External
 * In Halo: Combat Evolved, as well as Halo: The Flood, which take place directly after Halo: Reach, the Marines on board the Pillar of Autumn are armed with MA5B assault rifles. However, in Reach, the Marines assigned to the Pillar of Autumn are armed with MA37 assault rifles.
 * From a game design perspective, this is due to Bungie declining to spend resources to create a weapon that would already have its place in the "sandbox" filled, especially given the relatively brief appearance it would make. From a canon perspective, it has since been explained that Marines will utilize Army weaponry should the situation require, as occurs in Halo: Reach.


 * According to an Intersystem News sheet that comes with the Limited and Legendary editions of the game, Jacob Keyes was already a captain in 2550. However, according to Halo: The Fall of Reach, he was not promoted to captain until after he performed the famous Keyes Loop in July 2552.


 * Halo: Reach places the Olympic Tower in the city of New Alexandria. Halo: The Fall of Reach states that the building was part of Reach's Fleet Command Headquarters, which was implied by The Fall of Reach and First Strike to be located within the Reach FLEETCOM Military Complex in the Highland Mountains as opposed to a civilian city. Halo: Reach also gives no indication that the Olympic Tower (referred to only as "ONI HQ" in in-game dialog) is part of a larger FLEETCOM complex. Additionally, the game depicts New Alexandria's conquest and glassing on August 23; the FLEETCOM HQ was still intact as of August 30 in The Fall of Reach, as the book has the Covenant launch an overwhelming ground assault to take the HQ.


 * The placement of the multiplayer map Breakneck in New Mombasa is inconsistent with the city's Halo 3: ODST incarnation. Assuming the locations of the city's landmarks, such as the bridge of the Uplift Nature Reserve, are consistent with ODST, the map should be situated near the southernmost main section of the Reserve. No skyscrapers or streets are present in the area in ODST. In addition, according to the player's HUD compass, the city center and the Mombasa tether are situated to the south and southwest of the map, respectively. Based on the way the city is presented in ODST, the aforementioned landmarks would be located to the north and northwest of the Uplift Reserve and thus the map's playable area.


 * While stated to be set on Installation 04, the skybox of the map Ridgeline features a prominent earthlike world with visible continents and oceans as opposed to the gas giant Threshold.

Halo: Fall of Reach

 * Internal
 * When the Spartans are issued their MJOLNIR Mark IV armor, the armor is free of any insignia. After suiting up, the armor now has the Spartans' tags on the chest.
 * When Halsey puts on John's helmet for him, the helmet in her hands resembles the Mark VI's, with its raised brow, oval visor groove, and square mouth guard. In the next page as John wears the helmet, it is now the default Mark IV's, with its lowered brow, sleeker shape, and large breathing ports.
 * The bonus layout artwork for Covenant shows the Spartans wearing The Package Mark VI-looking armor in the initial sketches, then being corrected to Halo Wars Mark IV armor before the inking and coloring. It may be that the Mark VI in Halsey's hands is likewise an error that was missed in the correcting.
 * During the skirmish between the Unrelenting and the, Captain Wallace orders for a Shiva nuke to be fired at the Covenant ship and for their MAC to be fired. Just as the nuke is launched, a bridge officer confirms the Commonwealth MAC has charged to 100%. The nuke impacts the Unrelenting, dropping its shield and causing some damage near the bow, but the MAC is never seen being fired or impacting.
 * When Blue Team struggles with opening the door leading inside the Unrelenting, they appear to still be in vacuum. However, a Jackal without any breathing gear fights them after the door opens.
 * In the book, the first door to the inside of Unrelenting opened automatically, then shut to restore the atmosphere, with the second one having to be manually opened. The comic appears to have skipped the previous door and a comment from Kelly about the size of the door implies it's the first one they encountered.
 * During the raid of the, the captain tells her men to brace themselves before firing their guns in zero-g, as the equal and opposite reaction will push them backwards. The cover for Issue 2 of Covenant shows John standing on the outside of the Unrelenting firing in, and not having any trouble with his gun's recoil in zero-g.
 * The MJOLNIR Mark V was shown to have magnetic soles in Halo: First Strike, so it is possible the Mark IV also had them and John was utilizing those.
 * When the Spartans are briefed about Operation: RED FLAG, Halsey reports ONI has just discovered a new Covenant species, the Prophets, and shows an image of the Prophet of Truth. Yet in an earlier issue, taking place in 2525, the Spartans, Halsey, and Vice Admiral Stanforth watch a broadcast from the Prophet of Regret himself, who displays his image quite visibly.

Halo: Fall of Reach departs from the source novel in numerous instances, with many liberties taken to better suit the comic medium. As it is not a particularly strict adaptation of the novel, one may regard it as an alternate interpretation of the original story, as opposed to an unintentionally contradictory narrative or a retcon. For a list of differences between the novel and the comic adaptation, see list of changes in Halo: Fall of Reach.
 * External

Halo: Cryptum

 * Internal
 * Bornstellar concludes that the device used to camouflage the central island of Djamonkin Crater must be a baffler instead of a dazzler after witnessing its effects. However, he later refers to it as a dazzler.


 * The Librarian is said to be older than the Didact at her "over eleven thousand years" of age, yet previously the Didact is mentioned to have served as protector of the ecumene for twelve thousand years.

There are several incongruities involved with the Ark described in the novel. Context provided by Halo: Primordium and Halo: Silentium indicates that the Ark featured in Cryptum is most likely to be the greater Ark, although it is never specifically identified as such in the novel, instead being only referred to as "the Ark" or the "Beginning Place". The construct's description deviates considerably from that of Installation 00: it is described as having six arms as opposed to eight, and its lighting system is described as a series of plasma tubes rather than a single artificial star. Halo: Silentium further clarifies that the Librarian used the greater Ark as her base of operations before its destruction; because of its use as the Lifeshaper's main base, (combined with the secrecy of Installation 00), the greater Ark was almost universally referred to as "the Ark". Based on this information, it is assumed the Ark described in Cryptum is the greater Ark.
 * External

However, this raises an apparent discrepancy regarding the lesser Ark and its secret array of six Halos. Halo: Cryptum describes a separate array of six Halo rings stationed over what is assumed to be the greater Ark for the aforementioned reasons. However, Halo: Silentium clarifies that the newer array of six Halos was manufactured by, and hidden at, the lesser Ark. This makes the rings' apparent presence at the greater Ark a contradiction, since there are no evident reasons for the six rings (the Forerunners' carefully-guarded last resort) being temporarily transported to the greater Ark.

Halo: Glasslands

 * External
 * At the conclusion of Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, Onyx dissolves into trillions of Onyx Sentinels that vaporize any vessels nearby and remain to guard the slipspace rift to the shield world formerly in the core of the planet. These Sentinels are wholly absent in Glasslands, in which UNSC vessels are capable of traversing the former site of Onyx, now said to contain a debris field, without any sign of threat. While the Onyx Sentinels are mentioned in passing when referencing past events, their disappearance is neither noted nor explained.


 * Lieutenant Commander Kurt Ambrose is referred to as "Lieutenant" Ambrose.


 * Admiral Parangosky states that Dr. Halsey escaped with "billions of dollars' worth of UNSC resources". The reference to dollars is out of place, as the credit is the standard currency within the UEG; previously, for example, a reference to "dollars" in a contemporary setting was retconned to "credits" in the 2010 reissue of Halo: The Fall of Reach.


 * During one of her briefings to Kilo-Five, Serin Osman operates under the presumption that the existence of Onyx, as well as Parangosky's cover-up of the planet, would be common knowledge. Despite this, none of the members of Kilo-Five show any indication of not knowing about Onyx beforehand. The planet was removed from all navigation charts and databases in 2511, before most members of Kilo-Five were born. As such, the rest of Kilo-Five, apart from Osman and Black-Box, would have no way of knowing that a planet called Onyx existed in the first place, much less that Parangosky had classified it. While it is possible that some information about the planet did leak out to the public (as suggested in Halo Wars: Genesis), Osman's assumption that non-regular ONI personnel would be familiar with a single, obscure planet among humanity's hundreds of colonies is highly doubtful.


 * Captain Osman claims that the UNSC had captured and defused a Huragok "a couple of years ago", and that ONI made several technological developments by reverse-engineering the data it contained. She implies that the Engineer had died and states that ONI needs more than one Huragok so they can repair each other and reproduce. Strangely, she does not mention that several Huragok were rounded up aboard the when it returned to Earth, nor does she say that one was rescued from New Mombasa and interrogated shortly thereafter. It is possible that she refrained from telling the "whole truth" to motivate her team to board Piety and capture the Engineer onboard.


 * It is implied that Halsey threatened someone with her personal sidearm when hijacking the Beatrice; CPO Mendez uses this as basis for confiscating her pistol. Halo: First Strike describes the event in question, and no threats are involved when Halsey boards the vessel (which is empty and unguarded) and leaves unopposed. Additionally, Mendez refers to the incident as if he had been present, even though he did not have first-hand knowledge that Halsey had stolen a ship; him knowing about the event would be based on Blue Team's, or Halsey's own, accounts. Mendez was also not aware of Halsey's ulterior motives for bringing the Spartans to Onyx, as she had divulged that information only to Kurt Ambrose in private shortly before the group entered the shield world, casting Mendez's paranoia about her in a questionable light. Furthermore, Mendez treats the incident as if Halsey had stolen a friendly vessel, though Beatrice was in fact the personal ship of Governor Jacob Jiles, an Insurrectionist leader. Most damningly, Admiral Parangosky lists the theft of Beatrice as one of the warcrime charges brought against Dr. Halsey following the latter's arrest on Trevelyan.


 * According to Halo: Glasslands, Dr. Halsey did not have an AI to help her decipher Forerunner symbols while in the shield world. However, she had the "micro" AI Jerrod in her laptop in Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, helping her translate Forerunner symbols while they traversed the interior of Onyx. No mention was made of Halsey losing Jerrod, and she still had her laptop after she and the other survivors had entered the shield world.


 * During an argument with Dr. Halsey, CPO Mendez claims that the SPARTAN-III program lacked any form of genetic filtering. In Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, Mendez is personally present at a meeting where it is established that the SPARTAN-III program did indeed have a set of genetic qualifications, a necessity because the biochemical augmentations at the time were only compatible with a particular series of genetic markers, and any deviations would carry a significantly increased risk of failure. For this reason, the initial pool of candidates for Beta Company had to be reduced from the original projection of nearly one thousand to 375. While he may have lied, this is suspect in light of his argument being based on the alleged lack of genetic screening making the SPARTAN-III project more morally sound than the previous program due to the latter's perceived elitist overtones because of its strict genetic criteria (disregarding that the screening was in place not only for the sake of the augmentations but also to ensure that the candidates would be fit both physically and psychologically to acclimatize to—and survive—the harsh military life imposed upon them).


 * Lucy-B091 lashes out in a fit of rage and strikes Dr. Halsey in the face with strength enough to "send a shock wave right up her arm" and leave her hand "throbbing"; based on the description of the incident, it is apparent that there is no self-control involved on Lucy's part. Halsey quickly recovers and does not suffer more apparent injury than a slightly bleeding nose. Based on prior evidence of the SPARTAN-IIIs' physical strength, combined with the SPI armor's hardened gauntlet plating (as seen here and here, the knuckles and fingers are reinforced with metallic armor), such a blow would have inevitably resulted in Halsey's death. SPARTAN-IIIs have been stated to possess the strength of "three normal soldiers", and while Lucy is around twenty at the time, SPARTAN-IIIs have been described as being capable of matching Sangheili and other Covenant in close quarters at only twelve years of age, effortlessly snapping the aliens' necks and limbs, demonstrating strength that would certainly be lethal against a frail, aging human. Although Glasslands offers Lucy's small size as a justification for the meager force of her punch, Halo: Ghosts of Onyx gives no indication that her physical prowess is in any way anomalous among the SPARTAN-IIIs as she is able to keep up with the decidedly superhuman feats of the rest of her fireteam and the rest of Beta Company during Operation: TORPEDO as well as later on.


 * In Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, the omniscient narrator states that Lucy-B091 would remain mute for the rest of her life following Operation: TORPEDO. However, Lucy overcomes her post-traumatic vocal disarticulation and regains the ability to speak in Halo: Glasslands.


 * Lucy-B091 consistently internally refers to Kurt Ambrose only as "Kurt" despite the fact the SPARTAN-IIIs only knew him by his rank and surname. Even though Lucy learned that Kurt was a Spartan when she saw his MJOLNIR armor several days earlier, it is unlikely that this would change her well-established internal image of him as Lieutenant Commander Ambrose.


 * When the survivors in the shield world reestablish contact with the UNSC, Admiral Parangosky tells Dr. Halsey that it has been "five months" since John-117 and Cortana went missing after stopping the Halo Array from firing. However, John and Cortana disappeared on December 11, 2552, with the UNSC receiving confirmation of this when the Arbiter returned to Earth on December 23. The scene with Parangosky informing Halsey about their disappearance occurs in February 2553, so less than three months had passed at that point. Even considering the possibility that Parangosky may have lied, she would have no reason to do so, as both she and Halsey were aware of a transmission sent by Cortana on November 3 - less than four months earlier - in which she announced that John was on his way to Earth.


 * When describing the SPARTAN-IIIs, Vasily Beloi notes that "If they'd been pumped full of growth hormones and ceramics like Naomi, then it hadn't worked. They were just regular-sized kids." While not as imposing as the SPARTAN-IIs, the SPARTAN-IIIs' bodies are still described as decidedly atypical for their age in Halo: Ghosts of Onyx. Lucy-B091 is mentioned as being abnormally small for a SPARTAN-III with a height of 1.6 meters at the age of twelve; this would still make her tall for her age by normal human standards. Additionally, at twelve years old, the Spartans of Gamma Company had grown to near-adult size because of hormonal supplements, and are compared to Olympic athletes years older due to their "well-muscled" and "sculpted" physiques, making it unlikely for anyone to assess them as "regular-sized kids".


 * Glasslands maintains that Dr. Halsey attempted to hide the SPARTAN-II flash clone replacement operation from the upper echelons of ONI; Admiral Parangosky claims that she did not learn about the clones until years afterward. When referenced in previous fiction the flash cloning operation is never singled out as something separate or particularly secretive in comparison to all other aspects of the program; on the contrary, ONI is unanimously identified as the chiefly responsible party as opposed to Halsey alone. In Halo: The Fall of Reach, John-117's classified file, accessed by Cortana, refers to the replacement operation as an "ONI black op". In Halo: First Strike, Halsey refers to the "old flash clone techniques that ONI had used to replace the originals". In her journal, Halsey refers to the clones like any other part of the program, failing to mention any attempt to conceal it. Furthermore, Halo: First Strike notes that Colonel James Ackerson had the clones monitored as they grew up and even had the bodies retrieved after they died, which calls into question Parangosky's statements of not learning about the cloning operation until years later. It is also suspect that Halsey would see it necessary to conceal this particular aspect of the program from ONI, given their oft-demonstrated neglect for moral concerns, particularly where the secrecy of their operations is concerned. Had there been an attempt to withhold information, it would have been futile from the beginning; the dozens of ONI scientists and field agents that carried out the operation would have relayed the information to ONI's leadership in the unlikely event that the ONI surveillance of the program failed to do so.
 * Parangosky may have lied about Halsey's coverup of the flash-cloning operation, setting her up as ONI's scapegoat for the morally abhorrent actions of the SPARTAN-II program. Parangosky thus could have charged Halsey with the false coverup in addition to the genuine warcrimes for which she was arrested to settle the personal vendetta between them. However, the doctor makes no attempt to dismiss the admiral's claims as false. Indeed, both characters' internal monologues indicate (though not explicitly) that the coverup actually occurred.


 * The Sangheili repeatedly refer to Fleet Admiral Hood as "Shipmaster of Shipmasters". While not strictly a contradiction, it is somewhat out of character for the Sangheili to insist on using such an epithet. Hood's rank would draw more natural comparisons to the actual Sangheili ranks of Supreme Commander or Imperial Admiral rather than a neologism contrived from the lesser rank of Shipmaster.

Halo: The Thursday War

 * External
 * The carries a large arsenal of nuclear weapons onboard and is yet capable of remaining completely undetected over Sanghelios. According to Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, this would be impossible, as the plutonium in nuclear weapons negates any stealth measures upon slipspace transition by emitting an easily detectable Čerenkov radiation signature, forcing even stealth vessels to jettison any onboard nukes in order to perform a cloaked slipspace exit.
 * Port Stanley had been heavily upgraded with Forerunner technology, so it is possible that this flaw had been alleviated (although no such upgrade is mentioned).


 * Dr. Catherine Halsey is portrayed as being entirely unfamiliar with the concept of a fourth-generation AI and appears to believe Black-Box when he falsely claims that fourth-generation AIs are created by other AIs. However, in Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, Halsey demonstrates close familiarity with fifth-generation smart AIs and has an intimate understanding of their behavior; she is able use a Zen koan to attract the attention of the fifth-generation AI Endless Summer, states that fifth-generation smart AIs like to "show off", and mentions that she wrote the subroutines that allow Endless Summer to lie.
 * It is possible that Halsey feigned ignorance out of unwillingness to help Admiral Parangosky's underlings, who were responsible for her arrest and regarded her with open contempt. However, Black-Box would most likely have known the full extent of her expertise given his unrestricted access to her and ONI's files, unless Halsey managed to hide this information from ONI at large. Regardless, he appears to regard Halsey's ignorance about the development of fourth-generation AIs such as himself as a fact.


 * While on Trevelyan, Jul 'Mdama is said to be able to determine the passage of time based on the "position of the sun". Given the structure's nature as a full-size Dyson shell, this would be impossible, as the sun would always be directly overhead any point on the sphere's interior surface.


 * The Sangheili are revealed to have an insult for humans: "nishum", which roughly means "intestinal parasite". The name is derived from the Sangheili mistaking armored humans for creatures with exoskeletons, then after examining dead human bodies concluding that they are parasites inside insectoid beasts. However, the Sangheili themselves wear body armor (which is often thicker and more carapace-like in design than standard human infantry armor), as do most of the Covenant species, so it seems suspect of them to not be able tell that humans wear artificial armor just like they do.


 * Dr. Halsey asks Black-Box "So which ship or Spartan are you assigned to?" upon encountering the AI. This question is absurd in the given context, as it excludes a broad range of assignments in which AIs are commonly known to serve, while equating Spartans with ships as one of two noteworthy posts for AIs; Halsey would have no reason to presume that an AI would be assigned to a Spartan, given that Cortana's assignment to John-117 was a one-time exception and not a standard procedure among Spartans.


 * Fleet Admiral Hood is suggested to be antagonistic toward Dr. Halsey; he assures Admiral Parangosky that Captain Del Rio is "Halsey-proof" and that the doctor will not be able to "manipulate" him. In previous fiction, Hood has been established as one of Halsey's closest friends and allies within HIGHCOM, harshly censuring Colonel Ackerson for mocking the doctor and her SPARTAN-IIs and lamenting Halsey's supposed death on Reach.


 * Evan Phillips mentions that it is common for Forerunner teleportation systems (referred to only as "portals") to displace individuals to different planets, even though there is no precedent for such technology in previous fiction nor an evident reason for Phillips being informed of how Forerunner portals operate (he is a xenoanthropologist specializing in Sangheili culture). Additionally, a teleporter on Trevelyan propels Jul 'Mdama over a distance of many lightyears, all the way to the Sangheili colony of Hesduros. Individual translocation across interstellar distances — or the broader implications of such technology — are never acknowledged in any prior source. Given that the teleportation grids on the Halo rings, for example, are exclusively local systems (the teleportation grid on Installation 04 does not extend even to the nearby Threshold), logic would dictate that individual teleportation does not operate on an interstellar scale and that a starship is required to access the larger-scale slipspace portals due to the dangers of long-term unshielded exposure to slipspace. Moreover, travel through a portal can still take days or even weeks (as with the Ark Portal), as opposed to the seemingly instant displacement Jul experiences when transitioning to Hesduros.
 * Individuals traveling interstellar distances via portals are later featured in Halo: Escalation ' s "The Next 72 Hours" story arc, suggesting that this may represent a universal retcon regarding the Forerunners' translocation capabilities. Alternatively, it is possible that interstellar teleportation was possible only to a limited extent or under specific circumstances, but not regularly practiced due to possible issues with safety or reliability. Notably, the sending nodes in both known instances of interstellar individual translocation have been located at significant Forerunner installations: the first, Shield World 006, is the most important known shield world with the possible exception of Requiem; the second is the Composer's Abyss on Halo Installation 03, a key component of the Ur-Didact's crusade against humanity. Though Hesduros' significance to the Forerunners is never elaborated upon, the portal in the Composer's Abyss is shown to be a service portal leading to the Composer's Forge, where the Composers were built; the portal link between the two sites is supposedly maintained due to their connection to the Composer.

Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn

 * External
 * In Halo 4, it is implied that coordinate data from an incident with a Forerunner artifact at Installation 03 led the UNSC Infinity to Requiem. No mention is made of the Infinity picking up Cortana's distress call which results in the ship and its battle group making a slipspace jump toward Requiem in Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn. Although the Infinity receives the distress call in Halo 4, this appears to be after the ship is already near Requiem; in Forward Unto Dawn, the signal is picked up while the Infinity is still light-years away, as evidenced by the crew having to enter cryo-sleep for the journey.
 * Forward Unto Dawn also depicts a considerably different interpretation of Cortana's introduction as depicted in the game. In the game her avatar simply winks into existence when intruders are detected aboard the ship; she then calmly (though hesitantly) revives John with the words, "Wake up, Chief. I need you." In the webseries, however, Cortana experiences a series of violent personality shifts (at one point vowing to let John die with her) until the Dawn ' s sensors detect Requiem. Cortana's avatar then dramatically fades from a large sphere to a much smaller point, from which she then appears. She then wordlessly begins thawing the Master Chief's cryo chamber without using the holographic terminal seen in the game. In the level Dawn Cortana claims to be unaware of the ship's proximity to Requiem; however, she should have been able to see it through her neural link with John, so she was likely either joking or experiencing the effects of rampancy.
 * Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn depicts a fleet of more than two dozen cruisers and frigates accompanying Infinity to Requiem. The Commissioning shows only two s by the time Infinity has reached Requiem, though the camera angle obscures any other ships that may be present. Regardless, this escort fleet is never mentioned in the game.
 * The fleet may have been sent to deal with the Covenant ships still in orbit above Requiem. However, the fleet is never mentioned during the level Shutdown, when it could have been used to intercept Mantle's Approach before the Didact could escape Requiem.
 * At the end of the webseries, most ships in the fleet are shown entering slipspace under their own power. However, some of the vessels hold formation so closely to Infinity that they may have entered its slipspace rupture and followed its wake; the two closest frigates maintain the same formation as those seen in The Commissioning. It is possible that these ships arrived alongside Infinity while the rest of the ships were outpaced due to their slower engines, thus explaining the frigates seen in the trailer. They may have been destroyed when Requiem began pulling the flagship inside, explaining the high volume of debris seen cascading toward the shield world.

Scanned
Linda-058 and two other female Spartans are portrayed with long hair during the augmentation procedures. According to Halo: The Fall of Reach, all of the Spartans had their heads shaved in preparation for the procedure.
 * External

Halo 4
John-117's size varies from cutscene to cutscene. John is five inches taller than Sarah Palmer; they are 7' 2" and 6' 9", respectively. However, in the level Infinity he is only minutely taller than her while in the Epilogue he towers over her by about two feet. In the middle cutscene from Infinity, she even jokingly tells the Master Chief, "I thought you'd be taller."
 * Internal


 * External
 * Many inconsistencies are shown in the Prologue cutscene, though it is implied that Dr. Halsey is imagining most of the cinematic's visuals.
 * The SPARTAN-IIs in the introduction wear John-117's uniquely upgraded armor. Josh Holmes has stated that this was due to 343 Industries having insufficient time to create separate CGI models for the cinematic and that the armor's appearance in the cutscene is not intended to be canon. However, Halo 4: The Essential Visual Guide establishes that John's suit's superficial upgrades are based on a variant of the Mark IV, retroactively indicating that the suits seen in the Prologue are in fact this particular variant. The suits are nonetheless depicted with energy shields, though MJOLNIR energy shield tests had begun as early as 2531.
 * In John-117's accessible service record in the level Dawn, the Pillar of Autumn is misidentified as a frigate.
 * Although Cortana used nanomachines to heavily overhaul John's armor while he was in cryo, the suit retains a gash on its right side received from John's freefall drop in Halo 3.
 * Since John's full armor is never seen until the opening cutscene of the level Requiem, it is possible that the gash was indeed repaired only for the suit to be damaged again after John fell into the shield world.
 * Despite maintaining a generally similar profile, Halo 4 ' s incarnation of Forward Unto Dawn is noticeably different from its appearance in Halo 3. The ship appears much larger, with more of the forward half remaining intact, though the ship is still canonically 490 meters long. The number of engines has been reduced; rather than having two primaries on the main hull and two secondaries on the "wings", there are only two primary engines. The port and starboard hangar bays have been reduced from five small bays on either side to one much larger bay on either side; they are moved much farther back, remaining with the aft section. The enlarged cargo bay, a defining feature of the Charon class, is conspicuously absent or is at least moved inside the hull; either way, this creates an inconsistency with the final cutscene of the level Halo. The point defense guns have been retconned into two separate models, increased in number, and moved to different areas on the hull. The ship's cryo tubes have also been remodeled and the cryo bay has been rearranged.
 * From a production standpoint, the ship was enlarged to create a more dynamic and exciting playspace; the original model would have been very small and cramped, limiting the first level's gameplay potential. The more superficial changes, such as those made to the cryo tubes and the point defense guns, are intended to reflect Halo 4 ' s revamped art style. The introduction of the superficially identical in Spartan Ops and the inclusion of an original-style Charon class in Halo: Escalation suggests that the Forward Unto Dawn ' s redesign in the campaign was merely for gameplay purposes and that the appearance of the entire Charon class has not been retconned.
 * The Cryptum that preserved the Didact on Erde-Tyrene in Halo: Cryptum left him very weak, and he had to be reinvigorated through a nutrient bath to regain his strength, a process that took several days. In Halo 4, the Didact's Cryptum has preserved him perfectly for over a hundred millennia and he has not suffered any kind of muscle loss.
 * According to Halo: Silentium, the Cryptum the Librarian imprisoned the Didact in is a "combat Cryptum", though the nature of this variant is never elaborated upon.
 * The Didact, in both his forms, is depicted with thick, spike-like protrusions in the place of hair; he is described as having a patch of pale, bluish white fur as in The Forerunner Saga.
 * Slipspace is described as an entirely featureless, pitch-black void in written media, a direct result of its inherently "nonvisible" nature.   In the level Midnight, though, slipspace resembles a bluish expanse with white streaks of stars being flown past. Likewise in the opening cutscene of Departure slipspace appears as a kaleidoscope of colors. This may be from both ships using Forerunner slipspace engines, which have been observed to create differing environments.
 * In his journal entry in the Infinity Briefing Packet, Gabriel Thorne indicates he is unfamiliar with the concept of a dedicated military branch named "Air Force", even though the UNSC maintains a branch of the same name. In addition, his apparent uncertainty about whether the Master Chief was the only Spartan-II is strange in light of the fact the Spartan-IIs and their exploits were highly publicized by ONI Section Two and widely known among both the military and the general populace throughout the final years of the Covenant War, with rumors of them having circulated for years prior.
 * The terminals introduce many incongruities with The Forerunner Saga. However, 343 Industries have clarified that the terminals are a condensed version of the more complex story in the novels and should not be taken as a literal account; in-universe, this is explained with the unreliability of the Domain, through which the terminal records are presented.

Halo: Silentium

 * Internal
 * It is established that Path Kethona is the Forerunners' name for the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is correctly stated to be 160,000 lightyears from the Milky Way. Later, when Audacity completes its second jump toward Path Kethona, the middle distance from the Orion complex is stated to be 87 million lightyears, or 60 million lightyears from the galactic border.
 * The reference to millions of lightyears instead of thousands is likely a typographical error.


 * External


 * In Halo: Cryptum, the Didact states that he told the Librarian what the Primordial had said to him at Charum Hakkor and that her research had changed drastically as a result. In Halo: Silentium, the Librarian claims that while the Didact told her about the Primordial, he did not reveal what it had said to him, and the Librarian would not find out herself until thousands of years later when she journeyed to Path Kethona.

Halo: Initiation
The first issue of Halo: Initiation references Sarah Palmer as a lance corporal, and later corporal, during her ODST career immediately prior to her recruitment into the SPARTAN-IV program; this is corroborated by by Catalog. According to Palmer's biography on the now-defunct official Halo 4 website, she spent much of her Marine career as a lieutenant. Captain Del Rio calls Palmer a lieutenant when ordering her to apprehend John-117 in the Halo 4 level Reclaimer, although the context of this line has since been changed with the reworking of the rank structure of the Spartan branch; Del Rio is now canonically addressing an off-screen Navy lieutenant. Halo 4: The Essential Visual Guide states that Palmer's leadership skill was the primary reason for her selection as a Spartan; assuming Palmer was a lance corporal, it is unlikely that such qualities could even be ascertained in practice, as a lance corporal would have virtually no command experience. While it is possible the she may have been demoted prior to the events of Initiation, this is not indicated in the comic; Jun-A266 congratulates her for her promotion to corporal, and no previous demotion is mentioned at any point. Thus, it is likely that her background as a lieutenant has simply been ignored.
 * External

Halo: Mortal Dictata

 * External
 * According to a video clip of the early days of SPARTAN-II indoctrination shown to Naomi-010 by Black-Box, Dr. Halsey lied to Naomi that her father had approved of her conscription and was not expecting her to return home. In Halo: The Fall of Reach, Halsey specifically states, contrary to Déjà's recommendations, that they will not attempt to lie to the children about their parents to motivate them out of risk that the Spartans may go rogue if they ever learned the truth. Halsey's notes in her her journal correlate with the version given in The Fall of Reach, noting that "They deserve as much truth as we can stomach to tell them." ONI recordings described in Mortal Dictata also show the SPARTAN-II children exhibiting more extreme reactions to their abduction than Dr. Halsey's observations in her journal let on. However, descriptions in Halo: The Fall of Reach are more in line with the journal's suggestion of the children being mostly calm and compliant, as it is established that their ability to cope with the intense psychological strain involved with the program was one of the criteria for their selection. The comic adaptation Halo: Fall of Reach - Boot Camp corroborates this in an added scene in which Halsey and Déjà observe that none of the children are crying during their first days in the program. Mortal Dictata also claims that the Spartan children were based deep underground in CASTLE Base in the first three days of the program, even though Halo: The Fall of Reach describes them being relocated to a barracks on the planet surface in the Reach FLEETCOM Military Complex immediately after their induction (though they did train at CASTLE later on in their training). As stated in The Fall of Reach, the first days' extreme physical training and education sessions were arranged specifically to prevent the children from having time to think about their predicament, yet the nature of the sessions described in Mortal Dictata allows the latter scenario to occur. The three days in CASTLE base could also not have occurred prior to Halsey's introduction to the program, as the children had only recently been awakened from cryo-sleep at the time and were only informed of their new purpose during Halsey's induction session. The military-oriented focus, intense pace and ruthlessness of the initial training are also nowhere to be seen in Mortal Dictata ' s descriptions, which suggest a comparatively leisurely acclimation period.
 * In light of these contradictions, it is not out of the question that ONI tampered with the records or simply forged false footage to make Halsey's part in the program look more morally reprehensible as part of their campaign to smear her reputation; or, more specifically, to manipulate Naomi in particular. Indeed, while the aforementioned footage is said to be from official recordings Naomi is watching on a data pad, it is ambiguous how much of the sequence described in the book is factual as Black-Box is directly interfacing with Naomi's mind through her neural implant to trigger her childhood memories and repeatedly points out the fallibility of human memory prior to the session.


 * The SPARTAN-II candidate abduction process is depicted with several incongruities. Retrieval team Theta 2 is shown to first kidnap Naomi-010 and transfer her clothes to the flash clone, which is only then released—several kilometers distant from the spot where she was originally taken—but not before Naomi temporarily escapes, leading to the whole replacement operation lasting several hours. This drives her family to panic about her disappearance and an extensive search operation is organized before she is "found". The need for the clothing transfer procedure is questionable, given that Halo: Fall of Reach and Scanned depict the clones wearing duplicate clothing, enabling ONI to switch the children on site and thus removing the need for a potentially suspicious disappearance before the clone is returned.


 * Staffan Sentzke matter-of-factly references the Flood's arrival on Earth during the Battle of Voi, yet Staff Sergeant Geffen gives no indication that a civilian (let alone an insurgent) should not be aware of this occurrence. Halo: Spartan Assault states that glassing of the Tsavo region (in reality meant to cauterize the infestation) was officially declared a Covenant sneak attack to prevent knowledge of the Flood from leaking to the public.


 * Black-Box references Dr. Halsey's termination of Araqiel as a cold-blooded murder (BB makes a similar suggestion in The Thursday War). It is strange that BB is aware of the incident in the first place, as CASTLE Base had been evacuated of personnel at the time and any means of off-planet communication had been cut by the Covenant long before. BB also blatantly disregards the context of the incident as detailed in Halo: First Strike: not only was Halsey acting in self-defense, with Araqiel threatening to kill her, but her actions were also in accordance with ONI's Operation: WHITE GLOVE, which entailed the destruction of any remaining AI in the facility to prevent their capture by the Covenant (although Halsey had not yet formally implemented the protocol at the time). WHITE GLOVE also forced Halsey to destroy Kalmiya, one of her personal AIs, something Black-Box never mentions when referencing the incident. In spite of his personal dislike of Halsey, Black-Box (a high-level ONI AI) should be able to acknowledge that purging AI constructs was a relatively common practice throughout the war as part of WHITE GLOVE as well as the Cole Protocol, yet he regards the incident as a unique act of cruelty without precedent.


 * Plasma torpedoes aboard Pious Inquisitor are referenced as physical munitions stored in a dedicated "torpedo bay". In previous fiction, plasma torpedoes have been established as shaped agglomerations of electromagnetically-guided plasma, not unlike the bolts fired by handheld plasma weapons. The "torpedoes" are brought into existence at the time the weapon fires and do not exist in any meaningful capacity aboard the vessel.
 * The references to "plasma torpedoes" can be interpreted as referring to the ship's supply of superheated plasma used to generate the torpedoes, although the wording used suggests that the torpedoes themselves are stored onboard the ship.

Halo: Escalation

 * Halo: Escalation introduces a number of incongruities and mistakes which are further detailed in the dedicated articles of each issue:
 * Issue 1
 * Issue 2
 * Issue 4
 * Issue 5
 * Issue 6
 * Issue 7
 * Issue 8
 * Issue 10
 * Issue 11
 * Issue 12
 * Issue 13


 * External
 * Issue #9 reveals the Ur-Didact's plan to use a Halo against Earth, killing all life on the planet shortly after his attack on New Phoenix. However, the Didact's opposition to using the Halos is presented as one of his core values in earlier fiction, serving as the impetus for his first exile in Halo: Cryptum. Halo: Silentium shows that he continued to abhor the thought of activating the Array even after his mental torment by the Gravemind which drove him to enact his crusade against humanity.
 * The Didact's willingness to use a Halo likely stems from his second, 100,000-year exile on Requiem, during which he was isolated from the Domain and most other external stimuli. This solitude led him to dwell on his hatred of humanity for millennia, possibly culminating is his inclination to forsake one of his most sacred principles and commit genocide. The Didact may regard his actions in a similar manner to the Conservation Measure: though the majority of humans (at least those on Earth) would perish, the millions composed in New Phoenix would live on in digital form.

Halo: Broken Circle

 * Internal
 * In Chapter 14, the narrator mistakenly refers to Trok 'Tanghil as Ernicka the Scar-Maker even though Ernicka was a rebel to the Covenant and a good friend of Ussa 'Xellus.


 * The Jiralhanae homeworld is erroneously called Oth Sonin in one reference. The novel previously identifies the planet correctly as Doisac; Oth Sonin is the name of Doisac's system.


 * It is stated that Bal'Tol 'Xellus' "heart sank at the sight". This idiom is out of place as the Sangheili have two hearts, something that is acknowledged several times in the novel.


 * The Refuge is described inconsistently; in the first description, the eco level's "ceiling" is said to be convex and then concave in all subsequent descriptions.


 * External


 * Throughout the novel, the Ages of the Covenant's history are referenced as if each named age were a singular and unique span of time, ignoring the system of numbered—and often non-sequential—Ages used in previous fiction. For example, the Ninth Age of Reclamation is only referred to as the "Age of Reclamation" and there is implied to have been only a single "Age of Conversion" during which species were incorporated into the Covenant instead of multiple numbered ages with that name.


 * One description suggests High Charity still maintains a translucent atmospheric shield in lieu of its solid dome as of 2552, giving individuals in the city a view of the space outside much like at the time the station was still under construction. All depictions of the city-station in the modern era show the dome as being entirely opaque with no view to the exterior.

Halo: Nightfall

 * Internal
 * Michael Horrigan remarks that Alpha Shard has a surface area of 96 km2. Based on Installation 04's established surface width of 318 kilometers and the fragment's length and curvature, the shard's surface area would be hundreds of thousands of square kilometers.


 * Jameson Locke implies that the HAVOK tactical nuclear weapon has a blast radius of 100 kilometers. The screen on the device later specifies that the weapon causes complete destruction within seven kilometers, and light damage for 44 kilometers. Despite this, the fireball from the same warhead completely overwhelms Alpha Shard's width of 318 kilometers.

Halo: New Blood

 * External
 * Narrator Edward Buck states that Mickey "sounded as grim as a medic telling a soldier that the only good thing about him bleeding out on the battlefield was that his cancer wouldn't get him first." In Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian however, cancer is described as a disease rarely-seen since the 22nd century, and indeed had become so uncommon that Michael Baird had never even heard of it until he was diagnosed. Cancer is also described as "easy to treat" with 26th century medicine. It is therefore highly unlikely that Buck would use cancer as an example of a deadly disease.

Ancillary material

 * According to complementary fiction released in the Halo Wars: Official Strategy Guide, the Covenant had discovered Shield World 0459 prior to the events of Halo Wars. The Halo Waypoint video series "The Halo Wars Story Retold" negates this, establishing that the Covenant discovered the shield world from data gathered at the Forerunner ruins on Arcadia. The version given in the game guide (ostensibly written by the game's writers as background fiction to flesh out the characters) is seemingly supported by the in-game story: the first scene showing the Covenant on the shield world does not give any indication that the shield world is an immediately recent discovery, only serving as the backdrop for the Prophet of Regret and the Arbiter's conversation about the recent events on Harvest and Arcadia.


 * In Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, Frederic-104 is not promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, Junior Grade until the end of the Battle of Onyx. However, the interrogation transcript featured in the Adjunct section of the 2010 edition of Halo: First Strike continuously refers to him as a lieutenant by the start of the Battle of Earth.


 * The ONI Directorate Memorandum Interrogation Findings log included in the Adjunct section of the 2010 edition of Halo: The Fall of Reach refers to Preston Cole as a fleet admiral. Though there is a conflict over Cole's rank between Halo Wars: Genesis and The Impossible Life and Death of Preston J. Cole (see here), no other source has referred to him as a fleet admiral.


 * In the Spartan Ops chapter Didact's Hand, Gabriel Thorne claims to have joined the Spartans because he felt he could have saved his family and friends' lives in the New Phoenix Incident had he been a Spartan. However, Halo 4: The Essential Visual Guide explicitly states that Thorne had already joined the Spartans prior to the attack. Indeed, the book notes that Thorne was not in the city at the time because he was away on deployment with the Spartans. It can thus be inferred that (through a minor retcon) Thorne actually means he had been in the Army until he joined the Spartans a year before the incident.
 * The latter story is corroborated by Halo: Escalation: While visiting Thorne's childhood home in New Phoenix, Spartan Grant finds a Master Chief action figure. Thorne tells Grant his grandmother bought the figure after he was recruited into the SPARTAN-IV program. This would be impossible if Thorne joined the Spartans because of his grandmother's death.


 * In the second Data Drop, Admiral Stanforth states that several cities on Sigma Octanus IV—Caracas, Huiren, Côte d'Azur, Silma and Enfield—were destroyed during the battle for the planet. Halo: The Fall of Reach explicitly states that most of the planet was spared with fighting only in and around Côte d'Azur.

Multiple sources
Conflicts which involve more than two sources are listed here.


 * All pertinent media released since 2009 state that 25 of the 28 active SPARTAN-IIs were summoned to Reach for Operation: RED FLAG. All sources agree that 33 SPARTAN-IIs successfully adapted to the augmentations. Three Spartans were killed in action and one was too wounded to continue active duty in the decade between 2542 and August 29, 2552. Kurt-051 and Randall-037 were listed as missing in 2531; the former was kidnapped by ONI to lead the SPARTAN-III program, while the latter fell out of contact and eventually left the UNSC, though Dr. Halsey was not aware of this and considered him to be truly MIA. During the same year, Douglas-042, Jerome-092, and Alice-130 became stranded outside UEG space, unable to contact allied forces, and were declared MIA in 2534. Jai-006, Adriana-111, and Mike-120 had been missing since 2551. SPARTAN-IIs confirmed KIA prior to the Fall of Reach include Samuel-034, Daisy-023, Sheila-065, Solomon-069, and Arthur-079; Cal-141 is obviously meant to have died in The Babysitter, though her death contradicts the statement that only three SPARTAN-IIs were killed between 2542 and 2552. Jorge-052 fought during the Fall of Reach, though he served with Army SPECWAR's NOBLE Team rather than being recalled for Operation: RED FLAG. The Kilo-Five Trilogy makes no mention of Naomi-010's participation (or lack thereof) during the invasion of Reach; if she did fight on Reach the means for her survival are unclear (although the circumstances of many of the supposed SPARTAN-II fatalities on Reach are relatively vague and at least Jun-A266 is known to have escaped the planet independently of the party in Halo: First Strike). By this count, no more than 18 SPARTAN-IIs could have been present for Operation: RED FLAG, with Naomi's potential absence reducing the number to 17.
 * In her journal, Dr. Catherine Halsey expressed her hope that Kirk-018 and René-081, two of the twelve crippled "washouts", could be rehabilitated and returned to active duty; she further noted that experimental rehabilitation protocols were in development for 80% of the washouts and that AIs predicted a total survival rate as high as 50%. Soren-066 escaped the program in 2526, having unwittingly joined the Insurrectionist cause; Halsey refused to bring him back into the fold against his will and he presumably died afterward. Ralph-103 was discharged due to psychological problems and his augmentations were curtailed; he later joined the Marine Corps and was killed in 2531. The wheelchair-bound Fhajad-084 became an ONI data analyst. Maria-062 retired sometime before October 2552, though she was still capable of using MJOLNIR powered armor. Cassandra-075 was still undergoing skin grafts as of October 2552. Musa-096 also became wheelchair-bound and was responsible for developing the SPARTAN-IV program by January 2553. Including Kirk and René, this leaves six washouts who were potentially rehabilitated and returned to active duty, which could increase the number of Spartans at Reach to as many as 23.
 * Dr. Halsey refused to allow invasive autopsies on the deceased Spartan candidates' bodies and arranged a closed-casket funeral; the coffins were empty and the bodies were actually placed in cryonic storage. She feared what ONI would do with the candidates' cadavers, suspecting that they would form their own, secret Spartan unit; indeed, this is presumably how the four-member Black Team came under ONI's command. Given that Halsey resurrected Linda-058 from clinical death with the rather limited facilities aboard the, it is possible, though very unlikely, that the SPARTAN-IIs' numbers were bolstered by some of their once-clinically deceased comrades.
 * Serin-019 was officially listed as deceased, though in reality she survived in spite of rejecting most of the augmentations. She was withdrawn from the program before the washouts' closed-casket funeral and was later reassigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence as CINCONI Margaret Parangosky's personal attache. It is possible that other Spartans (such as the aforementioned Black Team) were likewise falsely reported as dead, which in practice would produce the same results as the previous theory.
 * Yasmine Zaman was conscripted as part of the second class of the SPARTAN-II program. Although Yasmine died, Nicole-458 was successfully augmented and it is possible others were and bolstered the ranks of the depleted SPARTAN-IIs.


 * In Halo: The Flood, the D77-TC Pelican's operational capacity is said to support a pilot, a copilot, a crew chief, and twelve passengers in the troop bay. According to the Halo: Combat Evolved strategy guide, the Pelican can operate with three crew members, ten seated passengers, and five standing passengers. In Halo: The Flood, Pelican Charlie 217 carries thirty Sangheili in the troop bay in addition to the human pilot and another Sangheili in the cockpit. In Halo: First Strike, Pelican Bravo 001 carries twenty-two Spartans, though the Spartans had removed all unnecessary equipment from the troop bay, including the seats, and were packed nearly shoulder-to-shoulder in the troop bay; Halo: Fall of Reach - Invasion, which rather loosely adapts the story of Red Team's insertion from First Strike, shows that the Pelican had an expanded bay and far more massive overall than normal Pelicans. Pelicans seen in-game feature ten seats and could easily accommodate around ten more standing passengers.

Written works vs. visual media

 * According to Halo: The Fall of Reach and First Strike, the SPARTAN-IIs wore identical MJOLNIR armor which lacked any identifying features, making it nearly impossible for an outsider to tell them apart; Dr. Halsey distinguished the Spartans only by the subtleties of their movement. However, in later visual media they are shown displaying their numeric tags on their armor and wearing specialized MJOLNIR variants. At least five SPARTAN-IIs (Jerome, Douglas, Alice, Cal, and Kelly) even had pinup art painted on their Mark IV suits.
 * This is a twofold retcon with both artistic and canonical merit. Such distinction is all but necessary in a visual medium, as depicting the Spartans as identical to one another could confuse the audience. While the Spartans could distinguish one another by body language, having their tags displayed could benefit any non-Spartan personnel they served alongside. The reason behind the Spartans' use of armor variants is more obvious: forgoing their use would be out of character, particularly for specialists who could make use of MOS-intended models. Indeed, Halo: The Essential Visual Guide unambiguously states that some MJOLNIR variants saw particularly widespread use among the SPARTAN-IIs. From a production standpoint, this is because The Fall of Reach and First Strike were released before Halo 3 introduced the concept of purpose-built armor permutations.


 * In Eric Nylund's books Halsey is often said to wear glasses, habitually pushing them up her nose. In each of her visual appearances (with the exception of Homecoming) Halsey does not wear glasses, while the Kilo-Five Trilogy simply makes no mention of them. The novels also frequently describe Halsey as having her hair tied to a bun, which is never portrayed in visual media; she is instead most often depicted as sporting a hairstyle roughly similar to that of Cortana in Halo 3.


 * In all of its visual appearances Slipstream space is depicted as having some form of visible effect to it, often a blue-tinted tunnel. In all written media slipspace is established as being a nonvisible inky void, barring the anomalous slipspace pocket generated by the Forerunner crystal in Halo: First Strike which caused a number of ships to be trapped in a slipspace bubble resembling blue fog. Presumably, the visual depictions of slipspace are concessions to visually convey the movement of ships traveling in the alternate domain.


 * In the novels, it is common practice within the UNSC for individuals to enter cryosleep naked due to the risk of intense blistering and pain caused by clothing adhering to the skin.  In Halo Wars, The Package and Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, individuals are shown entering cryo fully clothed. Forward Unto Dawn introduces dedicated skintight bodysuits for use by personnel in cryo; it is possible that the atypical clothing worn by Dr. Halsey in The Package is meant to function in a similar way, although Ellen Anders is wearing her normal civilian clothes when entering cryo in Halo Wars. In any case, the omission of nudity from scenes involving cryosleep is obviously a case of artistic license for content rating reasons.


 * The size of the explosions produced by HAVOK tactical nuclear weapons varies considerably throughout Halo media. For individual examples, see here.