Halo (Verse)

## Summary

**Halo** is a popular game Franchise created by Bungie in 2001 and now continued by 343 Industries. It has spawned 3 sequels, 2 prequels, a few books, a comic series and an anime inspired cartoon. It is also widely regarded as the most notable Xbox exclusive franchise and in icon of the FPS genre. The character, Cortana, has also become a mascot for various Microsoft operating systems.

In the distant past, an intellectual race called the Forerunners fought an alien parasite known as the Flood. The Flood, which spread through infestation of sentient life, overran much of the galaxy. Exhausted by their war and after having explored all other options, the Forerunners conceived a weapon of last resort to combat the Flood. Using an installation known as the Ark, they built large ring-shaped megastructures known as Halo. The Halo Array, when activated, would destroy all sentient life in the galaxy—depriving the Flood of their food, after which samples of the lost lifeforms would be reseeded. Delaying as long as they could, the Forerunners activated the rings and disappeared.

Tens of thousands of years later, in the 26th century, humanity under the auspices of the UNSC colonize many worlds thanks to the development of faster-than-light travel. The UNSC creates an elite group of enhanced supersoldiers, known as Spartans, to suppress the rebellion covertly. In the year 2525, the human colony of Harvest falls under attack by a theocratic alliance of alien races known as the Covenant. The Covenant leadership declares humanity heretics and an affront to their gods—the Forerunners—and begins a holy war. The Covenant's superior technology and numbers prove decisive advantages; which initially turned the war in the favor of the alien alliance. The spartans previously used to put down the insurrection, though effective, are too few in number to turn the tide of battle in humanity's favor. But, everything changed when MCPO John-117: the Master Chief appeared.

## Power of the Verse

For the extant races, it has spaceships ranging from just under a kilometer long up to almost 29 kilometers long with pulse lasers in the hundreds of kilowatts range at least, smart-guided plasma torpedoes with energy equivalent to several megatons of TNT, and a powerful particle beam weapon that they can use to "glass" the surface of planets over time; a petaton-yield thermonuclear bomb that can easily shatter a small moon and raze half a terrestrial planet from hundreds to thousands of kilometers away; orbital defense platforms with a massive magnetic accelerator cannon that fires 3000-tonne slugs at 12,000 kilometers per second (4% the speed of light) with an impact equivalent to 51.69 gigatons of TNT every five seconds; an over five kilometer long warship armed with four magnetic accelerator cannons capable of accelerating ultra-dense slugs to a fraction of the speed of light with an impact equivalent to at least dozens if not hundreds of megatons of TNT (capable of creating terrestrial impact craters at least a half dozen kilometers in diameter and generating an atmospheric shockwave strong enough to knock large atmospheric craft nearby out of the air); space stations that can tank the impact of small moons; and power armor-wearing super soldiers who can lift vehicles, strike in the small building-destroying range, walk off impacting a surface at supersonic speed, and dodge high velocity bullets.

For the extinct races, destroying entire planets or even stars was an standard fallback method of defeating an enemy. The Forerunners thrived on the energy from other universes, built superstructures larger than planets, and could manipulate stars. Their standard tanks had weapons that could flatten continents. Their ships were 100 kilometers long. Forerunner infantry, and leaders have Multi-City Block level attack potency, with potent transmutation abilities via the Composer.

### Calculations/Respect Threads

* Blood Gulch Size
* Master Chief Falling from Orbit

## Profiles

### Factions/Nations/Armies/Organizations

* United Nations Space Command
* Covenant Empire
	+ The Banished
* Forerunner
* Created
* The Flood

### Locations

* Harvest
* Blood Gulch

### Characters/Units

* Elite (Halo)
* Master Chief