User:Forerunner/Common canon-denouncement arguments

Below, I have listed some of the poorest reasons people have given to say that the following entries in the Halo series, despite being labelled canon, are in fact not.

Halo Wars

"The game wasn't made by Bungie and so is an unauthorized and uncanonical take on the series."

Ensemble Studios worked very closely with Bungie in the development process. Much like the Japanese studios with Legends, they knew what could and could not be allowed.

"The SPARTAN-IIs in it haven't been mentioned before; they couldn't exist."

Correction: They weren't mentioned in previous entries. Jerome was mentioned in Halsey's journal.

"Thel 'Vadamee wasn't made Arbiter until 2552. He couldn't possibly be the Arbiter in this game."

The Arbiter in this game is Ripa 'Moramee.

"The armour Ripa wears is too big to be the arbiter armour."

One armour cannot possibly have lasted for centuries without requiring replacement. The nature of the arbiters - being sent on suicidal missions - make replacement parts more likely.

Halo: Reach

"The fighters in LNoS are using slipspace to reach Anchor 9. That's impossible as it was commented that a Spirit couldn't be used in slipspace-related missions in Halo: First Strike."

These aren't spirits and there is nothing to say that it is impossible for a vacuum-sealed banshee or a seraph to use such technology to a small extent - both Covenant and Human drives are designed well-enough to allow coordinated inter-system hops, with the superior Covenant drive capable of hopping around a planet's orbit with precision and the inferior human drive capable of hopping between planets at the shortest safe distance.

In fact we read in Halo: Ghosts of Onyx that the UNSC has designed small vehicles (modified HEV/SOEIVs, in fact) that can be launched out of a vessel in slipspace and exit into battle. Small satellites are also capable of going and out of slipspace to detect any dangers nearby. Both of these facts confirm the plausibility of using seraphs; banshees and phantoms to attack via slipspace, and that they are not in fact 'too small'.

Continuing, the game refers to the technology in use as an 'impulse drive', the standard engine for Covenant vehicles previously described in Conversations from the Universe. Rather than using slipspace to proceed to Anchor 9 the craft may instead have taken advantage of the forceless-nature of vacuum to reach speeds where they cannot be seen clearly by the human eye, though still below the speed of light. In fact NOT using such speeds in a vacuum-based combat zone goes against the purpose of the dog fight - to stay out of your opponent's sights long enough for him to appear in yours.        

"NOBLE team is wearing MJOLNIR armour rather than SPI, and are not being injured by the weight of the armour."

Both the S-IIs and S-IIIs have received extensive augmentation to their bones and muscles. While the average human will be crushed by the armour (through shere weight or the force of impact as the armour moves) an S-III can endure the stress. The reason for the armour change is the supremacy of MJOLNIR over the SPI in conventional warfare, and ONI could have considered the team as deserving enough of MJOLNIR, given their more S-II-esque missions (as opposed to the covert Headhunters, who used their SPI's active camoflague abilities to perform geurilla warfare tactics.

"Dr. Halsey is supposed to be in the Forerunner caves under CASTLE base. The original story is basically cast aside and repurposed using Noble team and SWORD base."

In the game Halsey has stayed behind with the few remaining researchers to get as much information from the artefact as they can before its inevitable destruction in order to prevent the Cocenant from gaining knowledge from it, should it turn out to be a weapon. After the artefact's destruction Halsey and Jun travel to CASTLE base, though Jun's status afterwards is unknown. Halsey proceeds to CASTLE base and is forced to stay there to destroy the facility. The Menachite Mountain artefact still exists, and only the time Halsey and RED team meet at CASTLE base has been changed - this can also br explained away by the possibility that the two bases are in different time zones.

"Cortana is in SWORD base with Dr.Halsey instead of being on the Template:UNSCship."

According to the journal written by Eric Nylund, Halsey had Cortana 'chip off' a fragment of her program to assist her while her main program remained on the Pillar of Autumn. We were not told that AIs could NOT perform this action (In fact, we have seen Melissa, an AI affected by a Covenant virus, brake-up into other AI programs in 'i love bees') and so is not an inaccuracy - it's simply a plot point we didn't know until recently.

"There were no brutes and drones on Reach. No one knew they existed! No one knew about the elites either until just now."

While Nylund's "Halo: The Fall of Reach" and "First Strike" establish the first recorded encounter of Sangheili warriors and the Jiralhanae as August and September 2552, respectively, these gave since been retconned out by later works... including Nylund's. As such John did not have a first-encounter on Gamma Station. The yanme'e are left out of mention in both works though 'absence of evidence [that they were on Reach] is not evidence of absence.'

"Carter; Emile; Jun and Kat can't possibly be SPARTAN-IIIs as Gamma company are still on Reach while Alpha and Beta were anihilated."

Headhunters already that members of Alpha and Beta companies were taken out of the main group and into specialist units. Halo: Ghosts of Onyx also alluded to a specialist unit outisde of the main companies.

"If all of Alpha company died in Operation: TORPEDO and all but two of Beta in PROMETHEUS, then how are the NOBLE team SPARTANs alive?"

While we know that 300 S-IIIs took part in Operation: TORPEDO we do not know how much of Alpha company this unit consisted of - there were 497 recruits, after all. Beta Company yielded another 418, of whom 298 died during Operation: PROMETHEUS. Like the Headhunters, we can assume that there were a number of S-IIIs active outside of their companies' deployments, allowing for their survival. In fact Tom-B292 was one of Col. Ackerson's interests, and wanted him to serve as his own private soldier - this role of course would be filled by B312.

"NOBLE team's S-IIIs are too old to be part of their respective companies."

The general assumption is that Alpha and Beta companies consisted only of 4-6 year olds, putting the oldest at the time of Alpha's founding as 2525. Jun is over a year older as 2524; Emile two at 2523 and Carter four-five at 2520 (his birthday occures during the invasion).

While this appears highly inconsistent with Halo: Ghosts of Onyx we can justify Jun's and Emile's ages. Kurt stated that some recruits were Harvest refugees; these refugees could be 6-8 years old at the time of induction. They are still withing the pre-pubesant recommendations for the project, though. It could be that Kurt's line is now an age average rather than a specific definition of the age groups in the company. A similar argument explains Kat being in Beta company. Carter, at eleven, is too close to puberty and so could not have been selected unless he had considerable time in cryo, allowing him to remain an eligible candidate despite his official age.

"The soldiers on Reach are using battle rifles and Halo 3-style assault rifles. These couldn't have existed back then."

The UNSC Army utilizes their own weapons arsenal distinct from the Marine Corps. This is only three-four months before the start of Halo 3 - it is highly plausible for such weapons to be available in July. As such any member of the MA5-series Assault Rifle could have been used on Reach. The Army troopers we see use an Army- specific variant of the MA5 designed in a similar way to the MA5C. The BR55 went through a number of design alterations between 2524 and 2552 and saw little use before the Battle of Earth as it was mostly a prototype. However, as the DMR is Army, there is no conflict at all between it and the BR55's production - the two military branches may have simply designed similar weapons.