Factions of Halo


The Halo video game and media franchise takes place in a science fiction universe, where there are four major factions players encounter or control. Halos story has 26th century humanity, led by the United Nations Space Command, caught in a war with an alien coalition known as the [|Covenant]. In the 2001 video game ', the UNSC ship Pillar of Autumn discovers a mysterious ringworld known as "Halo". The massive installation was built by an enigmatic race known as the [|Forerunners], who have long since disappeared; the Covenant worship the Forerunners as gods. During the course of the game, players discover that the Halos were built as a weapon of last resort against the Flood, an extragalactic parasite which is driven to consume all sentient life. The Forerunners were forced to activate the Halo network, killing themselves and any potential Flood hosts, in an effort to starve the Flood to death. The Covenant leadership discovered Humans could interact with Forerunner technology, and decide to destroy humanity in order to suppress this fact. The Flood, meanwhile, escape the confines of Halo and threaten to spread across the galaxy again.
A large portion of the series' success lies in the creation of a believable world, and Bungie reinforced the fictional factions the player interacts via a lengthy design process with the release of each game. The overall design of each faction was slowly developed before the release of the first game in the series, ', and continually refined in the later games' development.
Reception of Halos factions has generally been positive. The Covenant were praised by reviewers as exciting and challenging enemies. Characters, weapons, and vehicles of all the factions have been released as toys or promotional materials.

Development

Early in the video game s development, Bungie environmental artist Paul Russel solidified the concept of three "schools" of Halo architecture for the main factions in the game—the humans of the United Nations Space Command, the alien alliance of the Covenant, and the Forerunner structures on which most of the game takes place. For future humanity, the artists and developers settled on a functional, industrial look. Art Director Marcus Lehto said that the artists examined current technology trends and tried to extrapolate what future technology would look like. Designs were molded by the desire for building a realized and distinctive feel for the human ships and buildings, but also to make the areas fun to play in. For example, the design team wanted a cramped, claustrophobic feel for the human ship levels in Combat Evolved. Ron Cobb's work on Aliens informed some of the design for a "lived in" appearance. In comparison to the visions of dystopia common in many other science fiction works, the cities and buildings of Earth which were first shown in Halo 2 were clean and functional, with parks and attractive structures. Character design for the UNSC was more straightforward, with uniforms based on existing military outfits, ranks, and insignia. All aspects of the game were designed to feel believable and cultivate suspension of disbelief.

Weapons and vehicles

Due to Halo being a first-person shooter, significant emphasis was put into the design of human weaponry. The chief designer for human weapons was Robert McLees, who at the time of Combat Evolveds development was the only staff member at Bungie with knowledge of firearms; McLees wanted to make sure that the weapons looked "cool", but were also grounded by real-world physics and considerations. The game designers also wanted items that would be recognizable to players, yet futuristic-looking enough to plausibly exist in Halos 2552. In an interview, McLees noted that after human weapons had been vetted and the rough design worked out, "I went ahead and built the highest-res LOD – and this is where I get "bogged down" with all of the stuff that "nobody cares about" like correct barrel diameter, placement of safeties, sights, magazine release buttons, and making sure that the magazines are actually large enough to hold all the bullets they're supposed to, that they would feed correctly and that the casings eject out of the correct side of the gun." Occasionally, technical restraints forced design changes; the submachine gun introduced in Halo 2 originally featured a transparent magazine which allowed players to see the caseless ammo feed into the gun, but it proved too ambitious given the time and hardware available.
Vehicles play an important role in the Halo games, and so vehicles were also given a long development stage. The UNSC's vehicles were designed by Marcus Lehto, Eric Arroyo, and Eddie Smith, and were designed to be functional and utilitarian. Their use of wheels also led many players to feel that they were more fun to drive. The addition of the Mongoose ATV made headlines, after being cut from Halo 2. The original Warthog was considered a fan favorite.
Paul Russel is considered the architect of the Forerunner's design. In an interview, Russel stated that creating the Forerunner's "visual language" was a tough process which only came together "like five months away" from the game's completion; much of the design was finalized on a single level, "The Silent Cartographer", which features both exterior Forerunner structures as well as deep interior chasms. Concept artist Eddie Smith is also credited with helping hone the Forerunner's direction, and said that he started work by reading the game's mission synopsis. "I knew what human and Covenant architecture looked like, so I tried to make the Forerunner concepts different," Smith said. The result was a sleek angular design which was distinct from the curves of the Covenant's architecture and the functional human designs. For Halo 2, designers wanted to refine and elaborate on the Forerunner design, without abandoning the style set by Russel; environment artist Frank Capezzuto found that looking at the Forerunner structures as sculptures rather than buildings helped to drive the designs for Halo 2.
The Flood were added early in the game development stage of Halo: Combat Evolved, and life of Halo was specifically tailored to increasing the surprise of the Flood's sudden appearance, halfway through the first game. At one point, Halo featured large numbers of terrestrial dinosaur-like creatures, but Bungie felt the presence of other native species would dilute the impact of the Flood and removed them.
Covenant technology, architecture, and design continually changed throughout development, occasionally for practical reasons as well as aesthetics; one piece of alien technology, a "gravity lift", was created so that a Covenant ship's low-resolution textures were not so obvious. In comparison to the other factions, Covenant architecture is smooth and organic, with the use of purple or blue tones throughout.

Forerunners

The Forerunners are a long-lost species which are first cryptically mentioned in '. Little is revealed about the Forerunners in the games, but some consider humanity to be most eligible as reclaimers of the Mantle; humanity is thus the only race which is allowed to retrieve the indexes with which to activate the Halo network.
According to the official backstory to the series, the Forerunners came to power after they successfully rebelled against their creators - the Precursors. To ensure that the Precursors will never again threaten their existence, the Forerunners exterminated them, except for one imprisoned which they called The Primordial. At the height of their power the Forerunners formed a galaxy-wide empire for more than 100,000 years before the events of the main Halo story arc. The Forerunners successfully usurped the Mantle—protection of all life in the galaxy—from the Precursors.
Much later, they were threatened by the parasitic Flood. The Forerunners took action, but the parasite was unstoppable. A group of Forerunners conceived a plan to stop the Flood once and for all, building an installation known as the Ark that created seven ring-shaped megastructures called "Halos". The Halo Array, when activated, would destroy all sentient life within range—depriving the Flood of its food.
After waiting as long as they could, and traveling the galaxy to collect species from planets, which would later be used to "re-seed" the galaxy, the Forerunners activated the Array and vanished. Although the parasite's spread across the galaxy was halted, the Forerunners paid a terrible price as they, and all sentient life capable of sustaining the Flood in the galaxy, were annihilated. The Covenant worship the Forerunners as deities and relentlessly search for Forerunner relics. The reason for the Forerunner's disappearance is revealed in Halo: Combat Evolved when the artificial intelligence Cortana enters one of the Halo's computer networks and learns the true purpose of the Halos. In the Halo: Fractures short story "Promises to Keep," it's revealed that the surviving Forerunners exiled themselves from the galaxy after reseeding life which took about a century.
Additionally, the Forerunners created battle constructs known as "Prometheans", robotic AIs armed with Forerunner weapons to defend areas such as the shield world of Requiem.
The Forerunners also created highly advanced AI's known as Contender-class AI which were numerous AI "minds" working in synchrony, thus giving it intellectual properties greater than any other AI. The Forerunners also created Sentinels which are machines designed for the defense, construction, and maintenance of Forerunner facilities. Sentinels are also used in Flood outbreaks since their "beam" is useful as it not only destroys dead combat forms, it disintegrates them to prevent reanimation.
Another invention of the Forerunners depicted in the games and novels are artificial planets known as shield worlds. First appearing in ', shield worlds are constructs designed to act as bomb shelters from the Halo Array. Generally, they are made up of an outer terrestrial planet with the shield world contained inside in the form of a micro-Dyson sphere. The inner shield world acts as a terrestrial world on its own, containing a wealth of Forerunner technologies and information. As revealed in the Forerunner Saga books, shield worlds were originally created by the Didact in his war against ancient humans and were adapted to fight the Flood. One of the most prominent shield worlds is the Onyx shield world introduced in Ghosts of Onyx. Appearing in several novels, the shield world is currently the site of a joint UNSC-Swords of Sanghelios research outpost and, following the events of , under conflict with a former Covenant faction seeking shelter and control of the world. It currently acts as a safe harbor from Cortana and her Guardians, having been returned to its slipspace bubble for safety. Another example is the Forerunner planet appearing in Halo Wars, identified in other media as the Etran Harborage. In the game, taking place in 2531, the shield world is contested between forces from the Spirit of Fire, the Flood and the Covenant who seek a Forerunner fleet docked within to decimate humanity with. At the end of the game, the Spirit of Fire sacrifices its slipspace drive to destroy the shield world by causing its interior star to go supernova, leaving the Spirit of Fire stranded in uncharted space. The debris field from the Etran Harborage appears in the novels Halo: Smoke and Shadow and Halo: Renegades. In the latter, the debris field is destroyed by a UNSC fleet in 2557. In Halo 4 and Spartan Ops, the Requiem shield world becomes the primary battleground between the UNSC and the Forerunner known as the Didact as well as Covenant remnant forces led by Jul 'Mdama. It is destroyed by 'Mdama at the end of Spartan Ops.

Flood

The Flood is a parasite which is driven by a desire to infect, kill, or consume all sentient life it encounters. The Flood first appears in , when the Covenant release some captured specimens from stasis on Installation 04; the parasite spreads and threatens to escape the ring, until the Master Chief destabilizes the installation with a massive explosion coming from the Pillar of Autumn. It is also later found in Halo 2 on Installation 05 along with the Gravemind, an enormous tentacled creature that acts as the parasite's central intelligence. In Halo 3, the Flood reaches the Halo Ark using the giant Covenant holy city High Charity. Master Chief then defeats the Flood once again by firing the incomplete replacement for Installation 04, which damages but does not destroy the Ark. The Gravemind, present on the replacement ring when it explodes from the strain, accepts defeat, but insists that it will only slow, not stop, the Flood. In the Halo Wars 2 expansion pack Awakening the Nightmare, some of the Flood is revealed to have survived the firing of Installation 08 in the ruins of the Covenant holy city High Charity. Recognizing the danger, the Ark's defenses erected a containment shield around the ruins to successfully quarantine the surviving Flood inside the city. However, Banished forces, believing the Flood to just be another of the Covenant's lies, deactivate the Ark's defense systems and breach the containment shield, releasing the Flood upon the Ark once again. The Flood forms a Proto-Gravemind which grows quickly and becomes dangerously close to becoming a new Gravemind. However, the Banished reactivate the Ark's defenses and kill the Proto-Gravemind. With the Proto-Gravemind dead, the Banished and the Ark's Sentinels are able to contain the new Flood outbreak and seal off High Charity once again.

Covenant

The Covenant is a theocratic collection of alien races. In many Halo video games, they fill an antagonistic role. The alliance worships an ancient alien race known as the Forerunners and search for their gods' relics. The novel reveals that the Covenant's luminaries, devices which search for Forerunner relics, discovered a massive cache of the relics on a human colony, Harvest. The Forerunner artificial intelligence Mendicant Bias awakens and reveals to three Covenant politicians that the "relics" are in fact the humans themselves—Bias identifies them as descendants of his makers. Worried that the discovery of such a secret would destroy the Covenant, the leadership instead directs the Covenant to destroy humanity as an affront to the gods. This leads to the search for Halo, an ancient weapon designed by the Forerunners to attempt to contain the flood. In Halo 2, the Covenant splits apart in civil war when the Elites learn of their leaders' treachery; the Elites eventually ally with humanity to stop the rest of the Covenant from activating the Halos in an attempt to follow the Forerunners into godhood.

Banished

The Banished is a violent mercenary organization that splintered off from the Covenant, founded and formed by the Brute known as Atriox. Composed of various alien mercenaries, Atriox welcomes competent members from all species to join the Banished, including humans.
A month after the events of , they invaded and took over the Forerunner world Installation 00 until the long-lost UNSC Spirit of Fire arrived after 28 years from slumber of drifting following the events of Halo Wars. Making their debut in Halo Wars 2, the Banished battle Captain James Cutter and his army for control the Ark. The battle leads to the death of Atriox's right-hand man, Decimus, and the destruction of the Banished flagship known as Enduring Conviction. Installation 09, a newly constructed Halo replacement for Installation 04 created by the Ark, is piloted back by Dr. Ellen Anders of the UNSC Spirit of Fire to the Soell System in order to contact Earth but is intercepted by a Created Guardian.
The Banished are set to return in Halo Infinite as an antagonist hostile to humanity's UNSC.

United Nations Space Command

The United Nations Space Command is the main faction of future humanity. The UNSC was formed in the mid-2160s under the United Nations and would later become the military arm of the Unified Earth Government. According to Halo story architects Frank O'Conner and Robert McLees, during the 26th-century events of Halo, the UNSC exercises considerably more power than its civilian counterpart.
Before the beginnings of the war with the Covenant, humanity was in turmoil, with the remote colonies fighting for independence from the UEG. To help quell the revolts, the UNSC commissioned the highly classified SPARTAN Project, responsible for the development of four generations of unique, highly-trained infantry, collectively called Spartans, who operate in powered armor known as MJOLNIR. The Spartans undertook classified missions against rebels and insurrectionists. When the Covenant began destroying the outer colonies, these Spartans became humanity's best hope against the technological superiority of the Covenant.
One of the UNSC's unclassified special forces units are the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers or ODSTs. They are also called Helljumpers after their motto "Feet first into hell." They specialize in orbital combat insertions via Single-Occupant Exoatmospheric Insertion Vehicles jettisoned from ships in low orbit. The 105th Marine Expeditionary Unit are labeled as the 'Helljumpers'. As characterized by author William C. Dietz in , the future corps shares thematic similarities to the present-day United States Marines.
The most important Special Force unit in the game is the SPARTAN project, more importantly, the second generation of Spartans within the project – a group of specially trained supersoldiers. The main playable character in the main trilogy, John-117, is one of the few known surviving Spartan IIs. The UNSC also has an army, which serves as a ground defensive force within the UNSC military along with the UNSC Air Force. The UNSC Navy and Marine Corps are mainly responsible for space combat.
The UNSC also field various ground vehicles for combat; among these is a general purpose scout 'jeep' dubbed the "Warthog" or simply the "'Hog", a real working replica of which was created by special effects company Weta Workshop for a series of shorts by director Neill Blomkamp. This vehicle had fully functioning four-wheel steering, machine-gun, digital displays, and air-bags.
The initialisation "UNSC" has occasionally been confused with the United Nations Security Council. For example, on May 24, 2012, a BBC news report on the UN used the Halo UNSC logo, as opposed to the United Nations Security Council logo, as a background image.

Cultural impact

Merchandise

Halo has a variety of affiliated merchandise. A version of the strategy board game Risk was released based on Halo Wars with game pieces being modeled after the UNSC, Covenant, and Flood. A mix of human and Covenant vehicles and weapons were also featured in the Halo ActionClix tabletop game and a series by McFarlane Toys. Game journalists have even noted the similarities between the Warthog and the Hummer HX, which GM denies. The merchandise includes several series of action figures. The first series of figures were created by Joyride Studios, and featured characters, weapons, and vehicles representing all of Halos factions. The task of creating Halo 3s action figures fell to McFarlane Toys; in an interview with Bungie, Todd McFarlane stated that the challenge of creating figures for a franchise was that designers had to accommodate and integrate both articulation and attention to detail, "without compromising one or the other too heavily". A total of three series of figurines have since been produced, featuring UNSC, Flood, and Covenant forces. Manufacturer Kotobukiya also produced "high-end statues" for Halo 3s debut. Other merchandise based on the weapons of the Halo universe include die cast weapons replicas and a set of Covenant weapons used for Laser tag.

Critical reception

Halos universe and the factions in it have been well-received, both from a storytelling point of view and from game play. Gamasutra lauded Halos artificial intelligence. For example, Covenant or Flood forces never spawn in the same places when the player restarts from checkpoints, which gives the player "the sense that the creatures have things to do besides killing humans". Bungie's goal of making characters behave realistically in the games has led to the behavior of the Covenant, Flood, and Forerunner units being praised in each game of the series. A point of criticism has been the AI of allied UNSC characters; reviewers noted that in Halo 3, they were often more of a hindrance than help.
The various factions that make up the Halo universe were each received differently. The Flood have been alternatively praised as terrifying foes, and lambasted as annoying zombie-like enemies; the literary adaptations of the Flood, particularly their representation in The Halo Graphic Novel, have been best received.