For example, John, who was in his damaged armor and suffering from lack of sleep, managed to punch a Banshee hard enough to fling it across the landscape, but couldn’t manage to punch through a Brute’s weak spot.

Despite the recent events, books are still coming out, and, as is tradition, so too are my usual threads.

For those who aren’t aware, I do these worldbuilding threads for every book release, after getting my hands on said book early. A nice little teaser for everyone.

What these threads don’t do is spoil plot, instead, I go over neat worldbuilding details, things added to the Halo Universe that I find interesting. This is not an exhaustive list, and you are seeing my jot-notes, so do keep that in mind. I’m happy to clarify anything, but I will not be spoiling any plot points.

The ONLY plot point I will go into detail with is Mobuto’s fate, because if you’re reading this book, you know about his fate, at least somewhat.

Regardless, let’s get going.

As always, this will be grouped by faction, UNSC first, then Covenant, then Flood, then Forerunner/Halo.

UNSC

This book, I’d argue more than most, is incredibly character focused. Everything we learn comes from the eyes of the characters, and because of that, my first few entries will describe each character, in sequence.

I should note, here, this is the UNSC at it’s most bitter. Genuinely, with what this book describes, it’s a wonder people like Hood can look Thel in the eyes after how the war is depicted here. It is bleak.

I mention this to give context to the characters I’m about to describe, starting with our leading man, Mobuto:

Staff Sergeant Mobuto: The man needs little introduction, really, but something the book does really well is explain just how broken he is. Staff Sergeant Marvin Mobutu is a decades-long veteran of the Covenant War. He has seen battle after battle, loss after loss, and the recent events in Reach have further taken his sanity. He is less a man, at this point, more a shell of anger, rage, and determination encased in armour, fueled by grief from losses both personal and societal. During the Fall of Reach, he was not part of the Autumn’s complement, but instead part of a mission to initiate the Cole Protocol on various stations and crippled warships around Reach. Aboard two Mako-class Corvettes, Mobuto’s platoon has a terrible time of it, one ship is lost to a collision from a drifting covenant vessel already knocked out earlier in the fighting, and the remaining marines, though they board Lambda station and complete their mission, are killed almost to a man. Of the forty marines who board the station, four make it back to their Mako, and when it’s picked up, hours later, by the Autumn heading towards Azod, Mobuto is the only one left, covered in the blood of his comrades he couldn’t save. His tragedy doesn’t end there, though. On Reach, his wife, Maggie, worked on one of the orbital elevators, ferrying supplies and cargo up and down the stalks. The elevator was deemed so important a team of Spartans was earmarked for it’s defence, but they, along with the battalion of Marines assigned, couldn’t repel the Covenant boarding parties, and eventually Covenant ferried themselves down to the surface. There, they gathered up all the civilians, and the wounded, locked them in a warehouse, and burned them all alive. Though Mobuto does not know how exactly Maggie died, he tells himself she was screaming. It is this act that drives him, it hones his rage and focuses his anger. All Covenant must die. No treaties, no alliances, no mercy. Fun fact, John-117, the Master Chief, did indeed fight alongside Mobuto when aboard the Autumn. He didn’t recognize him later (because Mobuto’s body was so mangled) because Mobuto isn’t special, he is an Everyman, an every marine, you could day. He’s not an ORION, or some super cool ODST, he’s a bargain bin rifleman, one of millions in the UNSCDF. No one here is special, they’re just people, in the wrong place, at the right time.

Corporal Paxton: Part of the Autumn’s complement, though originally an infantry marine and proficient sniper who participated in several battles on Reach before being reassigned. Her unit was being screened by a squadron of Cougar IFV’s during an assault on a landed Covenant warship, but they had to retreat after taking major losses, and Paxton was herself traumatized by the event. In particular, the actions of another marine who we'll get to in a moment. Paxton struggles with leadership and finds it hard to trust anyone else in their group once they land on Alpha Halo, but Mobuto grounds her, and keeps her focused. Unlike Mobuto, who only possesses the singular green eyepiece, Paxton has a full face visor with VISR linkup, allowing her to make use of a small reconnaissance drone, and in-built compass and comms.

Aside from the above two characters, everyone else in the UNSC ensemble is a prisoner… or at least, not serving marine.

Private Green: Formerly Sergeant, and a gunner on one of the aforementioned Cougars. When her vehicle was hit, she abandoned it, leaving her driver and weapons operator behind. Corporal Paxton, when their units withdrew, tackled her and branded the capital letter “D” onto her neck (for ‘Deserter’), and she was demoted in rank and locked up in the Autumn’s brig, rather than shot by firing squad. She has major PTSD from the Battle of Actium, when she was actually just a Private. During the battle of Actium, she was wounded in the thigh by shrapnel and evacuated aboard the Manta-class medical corvette Ariana. The Ariana is shot down by Covenant forces while leaving the atmosphere, and crashes in Actium’s thick jungles. For several days, Green and three other Marines guard wounded prisoners and civilian refugees while waiting for rescue. A covenant patrol finds the ship first, kills the Marines outside, and begins slaughtering the wounded. The Sangheili shoot down anyone who can walk, while the Unggoy stomp the remaining people to death. Green survives this only because she had been in another room securing more bandages. In her nightmares, she envisions herself killing the patients, and tortures herself with a small piece of metal from the Ariana’s hull, which she uses to prick her fingers as a form of atonement. The events on Reach, with the Cougar, was just the straw that finally broke the camel’s back.

Gabriel, Watershed Division Contractor: A WD/ONI contractor assigned to the Mjolnir armour crews for RED FLAG (that is, he’s one of the ones who helps armour up, and remove, the Spartan II’s MJOLNIR armour), is probably the most important person in the group, with regards to what he knows. He was placed in the brig for killing a (presumably Marine, though possibly ONI - it’s not clear) Captain who had gotten his son killed during the battle of Ballast a few years earlier. He’s not a combat marine, but he is analytical and very smart, one to think problems through instead of shoot them down. Despite his ONI nature, he’s just as confused and bewildered about everything as everyone else. He’s a repair tech, after all.

Private Lawrence “Lucky” Fluck: Infantry Marine. Reason for the brig is unknown. He’s tall and broad shouldered, a giant of a man, though very trusting. He’s assigned by Mobuto to be Green’s battle buddy. A task he fulfills with excellence.

Private Sandra “Sandy” Amor: Infantry Marine, in the brig for drunk and disorderly conduct. Sandy serves as something of a moral centre for the group, at least, due to another character I’ll get into in a few moments. She claims to have been spending most of the book in the throes of a terrible hangover, but she’s actually going through alcohol withdrawals. Despite her state, she’s a capable and confident marine.

Private Sarah “Silly” Milly: An Infantry Marine. Silly is a jokester, she claims she can “kill someone from a thousand metres away with mean words” as a joke, and most of her jokes are at her own expense. Dry wit and self-depreciation are her trade, and she pokes fun at almost everyone and herself in the group. She’s implied to be at least bisexual, if not a lesbian. Though it’s not clear why she was in the brig, she claims to have stolen a pelican at least twice, and is a (somewhat) capable pilot… landings, though, she’s still working on those.

Private Xander: Part of the Autumn’s complement. He’s an asshole, self-professed, and incredibly arrogant. The man is a defeatist, and stays with the group only because he has nothing better to do, prospects wise.

Hospital Corpsman Julie Martinez: Combat medic. In the brig for stealing medication. She’s addicted to painkillers. Quiet, but a good shot, and kind-hearted, as befitting a medic. Interestingly, she’s referred to as a private, but if she’s a marine medic, she should be a hospital corpsman. I’ve listed her as such for the purposes of the list, but it’s something to note.

Charlie Collins: A fourteen year old stowaway after his mother, an Army Medic, smuggled him aboard the Autumn in the chaos of Azod. Born on Reach,he’s lived in New Alexandria his entire life. His father died in an accident while building the ODP’s over Earth. He likes nature, and is well versed in flora and fauna, but like everyone else, is no stranger to death and war. Even the children not taken for Spartan programs are robbed of their childhoods. When he was younger, a botched rebel attack in New Alexandria saw a freighter crash near his house, his mother, Gabby Collins, spent days working Search and Rescue, Charlie smelled burnt flesh and decaying bodies for a week. He served as something of the group’s conscience, and Sandy is his guardian after he’s separated from his mother in the chaos of abandoning the Autumn.

With the characters out of the way, let’s discuss some smaller worldbuilding things. Very small Section, mind you:

UNSC vehicles require a more advanced neural lace to operate (scorpions, cougars, etc)

Some Pelicans carried M99 Stanchions aboard (well, the Autumn did, but these were taken when the ship was abandoned.)

UNSC trauma/mental health services are not up to the task of dealing with the Covenant War. Combat capable marines are needed on the frontline, not behind a desk or discharged, and the system is overflowing with the traumatized and PTSD-riddled such that soldiers are given medication, and therapy, but then, after a time, sent back into the trenches. They cannot afford to waste good fighting stock.

Full on penal colonies exist, though whether these are penal colonies as in, planets, or just large prisons isn’t clear.

Alongside the conventional Marines, Spartan III Gauntlet Team was also deployed to enact the Cole Protocol over Reach in it’s final hours.

Paper books are not commonplace anymore, and most are kept as private collections. An older adventure serial series from the early 2400’s of fiction books is called “Outbound”, detailing an alternative timeline where Wallace Shaw and Tobias Fujikawa lived into the 2360’s and went gallivanting across the galaxy with their perfected Slipspace Drive.

Actium has thick, treacherous jungles, full of dangerous alien wildlife, and diseases.

Marine body armour can stop assault rifle rounds, and ricochets don’t damage the plates, but they do hurt the marine. Broken ribs from taking a chest hit are common.

COVENANT

Like the UNSC, the Covenant here are at their most brutal, as already mentioned. War crimes and massacres are commonplace and celebrated, and no one is really “good”, morally.

Most of these points below will detail only one character, but I’ve separated them, just for readability.

Our POV is a Minor, Seelior ‘Andolee, assigned to the Truth And Reconciliation of the Fleet of Particular Justice. Andolee is a veteran of multiple battles and has participated in the glassings of at three three human worlds, including Reach and Paris IV. He is a very proficient warrior, and his skills are such that he confidently believes he could kill three or four marines in close quarters even while unarmed and without any armour, himself.

Andolee is a Truthseeker. This is a bit hard to explain, as at times this is treated as a proper noun, and thus a ln actual group, and at times as something kind of grass roots. As far as it pertains to this book, Andolee considers it to mean anyone who searches for the truth of the Forerunners. Andolee does not believe them to be gods, and hopes that Halo will allow him to prove this to be true.

Though Andolee considers this makes him a Heretic and a betrayer, he doesn’t seek the dissolution of the Covenant itself. He has no issues with the Prophets, the Sangheili’s place in Society, or the subservience of the other races, he just doesn’t agree that it should be a religious alliance.

To that point, he believes humanity should be granted an olive branch, and allowed to join the Covenant and contribute to it. At the same time, he has no qualms with killing humans to achieve his goal, even if he does seek the end of the war through an armistice. He doesn’t take pleasure in killing humans, unlike many of his Covenant allies, but he has no real issues with it.

Andolee is exceptionally proficient with a Covenant Carbine, but his primary weapons in the book are a Plasma Rifle, and an arm mounted energy shield (I think it’s meant to be the cut ones in pre-Halo CE gameplay, which is neat!)

When Andolee learns of RED FLAG, he laughs at the insanity of it. Even had the UNSC managed to capture all three Prophets, the Covenant would have simply labeled them as martyrs and continued the war.

On the world of Paris IV, what the Sangheili know as Tosinta, Andolee witnessed a Spartan team wreck havoc on a Covenant base, though he did not engage them personally.

Though Andolee is a confessed atheist, even he admits some religious rapture at finally finding Halo, and finds it hard to not use more religious terms to refer to Forerunner objects and constructs.

Everything beyond this point will be more general Covenant Worldbuilding, but again, it’s small:

Some Hunter pairs delighted in the torture maiming of humans, and if possible, preferred to crush them under their large shields, rather than use their fuel rod guns.

Jiralhanae were part of Thel’s fleet and deployed to the surface of Alpha Halo

Because they had taken damage during the space battle, Thel (with the Prophet of Stewardship’s urging) allowed the Truth and Reconciliation to send out Hunter-killer teams to hunt down human survivors.

The Sangheili practice of rising through the ranks via kills is at it’s forefront here. It’s not clear how it’s tracked, per se, and seems to be mostly word of mouth.

Banshees deployed in teams of two or three are non-standard formations and are used for Hunter-killer missions.

Covenant forces have encountered Flood many times before, and managed to contain all prior outbreaks, and sterilize the sites, though usually not without heavy losses.

Flood

There isn’t to much here, not without much spoilers. But I’ll give what I can.

Flood Combat forms can be comprised of basically any species. Brutes, humans, elites, jackals, even drones and grunts, all serve as combat forms, carrier forms, and a mixture. It’s not entirely clear what causes what mutation.

Flood contact isn’t necessarily guaranteed infection. A slash or a stab from a combat form isn’t 100% lethal. However, if you are stabbed (by a claw) you’ve likely been infected by a smaller pod infector. This can possibly be removed if you’re fast enough, stopping the infection, but it’s not really clear.

The Flood will change your body on the fly, making you grow extra limbs, removing others, adding tentacles and other things to better serve it’s cause. Even in the feral stage, it’s capable of recognizing potential of certain victims, and does seem to prioritize keeping people trained in specific roles doing those same roles (so, a pilot of a Dropship will be made to continue piloting a Dropship, if possible.)

The Flood does seem like it can be resisted, for a time, depending on the style of infection, and we see a few victims granted moments of lucidity, similar to Private Jenkins.

Though the flood of course hsve the ability to use firearms, they’re not really skilled with them, the hosts’ bodies not really able to use them to their full effectiveness, and instead the weapins fire is mostly for suppressive purposes.

Not really a spoiler, and admittedly, not Flood related, in and of itself, but more relevant to the UNSC and Covenant. The state of the Covenant War is made clear in this book, the distrust and anger. When a group of combined Human and Covenant Flood forms crest a ridge, both the humans and Covenant forces ball at the idea - not of the flood - but that either species would ever truly fight side by side wilingly. The hatred just runs that deep.

Halo/The Forerunners

Small section here, mostly about Halo, but I’m including Guilty Spark and a few Forerunner things here.

Spark’s “ripping apart” of the Halo Ring as seen in the Halo CEA terminals (when he jettisoned a section into space) was originally an accident, but over time, he’s turned it into something to pass the time. Every eight thousand years, he jettisons the same section, and then artificially changes the landscape that’s made when the ring repairs itself. When the Pillar of Autumn arrives, he’s between cycles, and is really hoping for either a fjord, or maybe an inland sea, how quaint

Because the Halo Rings are preservations of life, but are obviously very small, relatively speaking, nature isn’t really natural. Plants and animals that shouldn’t mix have been allowed to mix, for example, sub-tropic plants being pollinated by more Northern bees, both set amidst a more temperate southern equatorial environment. Orchids that are supposed to only bloom at night blooming during the day, and animals that should be nowhere near each other geographically living as part of one ecosystem.

Sentinels can more or less deal with most flood outbreaks, but Guilty Spark kind of hedged his bets on a Reclaimer such that his defences didn’t really activate in time. That, and the UNSC and Covenant forces killing each other took his focus off of things.

When Guilty Spark finds the group, he briefly has a memory of himself as Chakas, a phantom pain, of sorts, remembering his old friends. This is only fleeting, however.

Per Guilty Spark himself, firing 04 will not trigger the rest of the array. It will only be a tactical pulse, maximum range of 25,000 LY. The other rings (presumably) will be informed, but they will not activate.

Blind Wolves make an appearance here. They’re dangerous, but if you aren’t ambushed, they can be dealt with easily enough (weapons dependant).

Debatably this should be in the Covenant section, but I’ll put it here. The Covenant would not distinguish between Ancient Human and Forerunner. As far as they are concerned, modern humanity are directly descended from their gods.

Briefly, we seem to explore a section of the Halo 3 multiplayer map Cold Storage, or a facility very much like it.

Interestingly, night and day do not seem to be a thing on 04. At least, not as we would understand it.

And that’s all for the details. There is an adjunct I can go into, but I’ll avoid talking about it. I will say that there are no timestamps in this book, so it’s not possible to really line up any events with the game or The Flood. That said, the Adjunct does feature a timestamp…

…But that’s not my story to tell. ;)

Overall, I’d rate this book extremely highly. 9/10, easily. Do yourself a favour and pick up this book. It is phenomenal.

As mentioned above, I’ll happily clarify anything I can, but again, no spoilers for plot. If you have a plot related question, do not ask it, I will not answer and I will inform the mods.

Regardless, I hope you've enjoyed this thread!

~ /u/EternalCanadian

Of course we are all individuals and all of the books will find their audience regardless of gender. But I'm still really interested in the female perspective.

Having always chosen which one to read next from this sub, I sometimes got the feeling I followed a male taste and that those books, that are not really that much popular here, I sometimes liked best. I wondered if that has something to do with the majority of the community being male.

So anyhow, question to all non-male readers: what are your personal favorites?

EDIT: Decided to count the votes and make a small top list based on mentions:

🥇 Kilo 5

🥈 Contact Harvest

🥉 Forerunner Trilogy

The Battle Born and Envoy

The UNSC's strident class heavy frigates come equipped with alot of post-war upgrades, but one feature that I find particularly interesting is the 'experimental shield-peircing rounds' it's castor naval coilguns are said to utilize.

The UNSC being in possession of ammunition with these attributes raises alot of questions. Why wouldn't they prioritize designing a shield breaking full caliber MAC round if they have these? How would these even work? It it just some sort of forerunner exotic matter crammed into a coilgun shell kinda like those experimental hardlight buffed UNSC weapons from halo 5?

What is your best explanation for the what these 'shield-peircing' rounds could be?

Do you think it would break the setting a bit if smaller UNSC warships were suddenly able to deliver first round kills on fully shielded covie carriers/battleships thanks to forerunner derived MAC slugs that just ignore energy shielding?

When the covenant arrived (it's unknown if this was Rho or Thels fleet) Black Team was aboard the UNSC Of Uncommon Courage in the Epsilon Eridani system. They were dispatched to board the Covenant carrier Splended Intention and capture advanced weaponry aboard. Ultimately an unknown series of events would doom the mission and Uncommon Courage would sacrifice itself to down the carrier in the ocean of Beta Gabriel.

After this mission Black Team was sent to Tributes capital Casbah where they linked up with an unknown Spartan-III fireteam. Together they would hold off a massive Covenant assault. Ultimately the Spartan-III team was killed while covering the evacuation of Black Team and a small number of civilians.

From tribute Black Team would deploy to Verge to sever the supply line to the Covenant fleet around Tribute (Blunt Instruments)

After the raid on Verge they were sent deep behind covenant lines to gather intelligence on a major Covenant supply route (Blood Line)

Of course none of this is explicitly canonized but with a full roster we know for sure now that no other teams could have been present at Beta Gabriel or Tribute. That being said, devil's advocate, Silver or Omega team could have escaped Reach and made it to Tribute in time but that's a stretch.

'Tis the season for early copies to start showing up on the shelves at shops. I've seen several people posting photos of copies and story details. Keep an eye out!

The carver report says that the situation will devolve into full blown civil war unless the UNSC develops a way to decapitate the Innie leadership. The Spartans were the answer. Most people seem to agree they would have worked and the Insurrection would have fizzled out of fear of the Spartans. But the Spartans don’t address the root cause of the insurrection which was the outer colonies being subservient to Earth and the Inner colonies.

Sure, constantly crushing the rebellion will cool things down but the fundamental causes still remain. As far as I’m aware, The UEG and UNSC had no intentions of ever addressing the problems the Innies had and just filed them away as trivial reasons the Innies blew up into rebellion issues, while choosing to just send fleets and Spartans to any rebelling world.

In real life, constant military crushing may temporarily end rebellions but inevitably military force stops working and the government either has to properly address the grievances or decide to cut its losses and let the rebels have their freedom.

The only outcome I see happening is that years, decades, maybe centuries down the line, the UNSC and UEG become rightfully known as authoritarians who will destroy entire worlds and their populaces for their grievances, leading to a full blown outright Civil War that will devastate the UEG and lead to its collapse

There was also a mention of 33 Spartans at Chi Ceti, implying that he was there.

Who was he then? Do we have an unknown Spartan he could take the place of?

I initially missed the part about the Harvest Spartan and figured he was removed from the group of escapees to fill that role but now im just confused. I feel like there must be a reason he was saved from being the Homecoming or Harvest Spartan.

Hello everyone I’m reading First Strike and I have a question about Fred’s armor. Is he wearing Mark IV or Mark V? I remember in The Fall of Reach Chief received and field tested the Mark V on August 29th. Then were set for operation red flag on the 30th and the Covenant invaded Reach. So was chief the only spartan wearing mark v at this time or were the other spartans equipped with it as well? I assumed they were because there were a few mentions about Fred’s shields. But then in Castle Base Fred and Will recover Mark V components.

I know talking about 343 lore and it's future is a bit pointless these days, but looking at the last Canon Fodder and the bit where it showed off their ideas for the franchise future. Most notably the Banished and Atriox were just '404 not found' - instead we had the Order of Restoration - led by three old San'Shyuum and 'Tartarus son' as a warlord (bit unnecessary and overly slavish to the OT IMO).

I haven't read the post-Infinite books (which is why I'm asking), but I recall that one of them was trying to set up this Order of Restoration as the new threat, with the Banished forces seemingly being integrated under them (an odd thing considering in the current fiction they're so dominant that they can fight off all the major factions where they're strongest simultaneously) - this seems awfully like the books we had before where they'd write an existing faction out offscreen, while setting up a future direction. So, was this in fact what they were doing? Were we headed for a third 'soft reboot'? Maybe more, given the other factions mentioned after that?

I've not seen anyone else mention it, but it would have been disappointing to have the next 15 years of 343 games be the same as the last 15 with constantly changing direction.

If I'm not mistaken, guilty spark returned to seed Precursor Dna in another galaxy. Does that mean all Precursors are dead?

I saw a mod that added Flood Hunters to one of the Halos, I think 2, and that got me thinking if Hunters can be infected and if there is any source that mentions Flood Hunters or a design?

especially Mckay, like It always bother me that we still don’t have a full official art or depiction of Melissa McKay after all Antonio Silva is also a character from The Flood novel and we finally have an official depiction of him in fire team Raven Same with Whitcomb and Parangosky (who were finally depicted in the 2022 Halo Encyclopedia.) yet not Melissa McKay. I don’t know if it’s just me or maybe 343 or Halo Studios really hates Melissa McKay for some unknown reason or even they just simply forget about her. Either way It certainly feels like they sidelined her, which is wild considering she literally saved Earth.

In my opinion she should had appeared in either the prequel missions from campaign evolved (basically replaced the unlikeable jerk Williams with the much more likable McKa although I’m pretty it may cause continuity issues.) or better have her appeared in the campaign evolved in general. what a huge wasted of missed opportunity for an already terrible remake?

Were the Forerunners so racist towards humans that they didn't believe them?

Or more specifically does it product thrust onto the ground?

For the longest time I assumed vehicles like Ghosts, Wraiths, Spectres, Prowlers, etc. do not produce any ground pressure and the hovering mechanism is a sort of propellantless drive that allow Covenant vehicles to hover without any reaction. I guess just from the name "gravity" and if else, why would they use them? The drive will otherwise need to generate constant thrust to keep vehicle hover and push all that force onto the ground.

However, I have not find a single confirmation of this notion in any sources, in writing, and seemingly in opposite to gameplay, as we see vehicles emitting vertical glow under the vehicle and onto the ground, as if it is physically propelling the vehicle with direct force.

The question came to me when I'm thinking about Covenant ground operations. The nature of hover vehicles mean they could traverse a more types of terrain unlike human vehicles. However if they don't hover instead just propel the vehicles against the ground then there might be a lot more terrain that are impassable to Covenant vehicles.

As question intends, i understood cortanas story without anything else and would love to read more about other parts before playing it again.

I feel like I'm the only one that likes cortanas story in 343 era and the forerunners and orometheans and wish they expanded

Through out the first two books and the first half of silentium I really got the impression that he basically defected to the primordial with mendicant bias and was working from the inside to undermine the forerunners. Even as late as his interrogation in silentium this seems like the case when its mentioned the forerunner losses in his region were 5 times greater than the average or somthing like that. Then we get to the 1st ark and especially in his final scene you can tell he's loyal to the forerunners. Was he really just that much of an asshole that he caused all those problems while genuinely still being loyal to his people or did he just switch sides again at the end of the war?

Hello all I hope you're doing great,
let me preface this post by saying I am fairly familiar with the Halo universe and have played through majority of them, and those I didn't (Staring daggers at Halo 5's nonexistent PC port) I know the general gist of its story.
So recently, my girlfriend, the lovely bookworm that she is, infected me with the desire to read more so I thought - what better place to use it than the Halo universe!
So here's my question: What books do you recommend for someone who knows a fair bit already but not a lot about the book side of things? It's not a requirement but I'd especially welcome recommendations with focus on marines or ODSTs!

Thanks a lot in advance <3

The issue here concerns the dehumanization that clearly took place—after all, the lore explicitly states that humans were viewed as a kind of parasite or vermin. However, I am curious about the consumption of human flesh; for instance, I’ve read about areas that were partially vitrified—not to destroy the planet, but to create hunting grounds for entertainment. Would the Sangheili—given their efficiency—engage in that sort of thing? Or would it be the Brutes, who seem to relish eating and toying with their prey? Furthermore, since the flesh would be "heretical"—coming from beings considered an insult to the gods—would commanders still allow its deliberate consumption to demonstrate the brutality and effectiveness of their troops, or would religious concerns regarding honor take precedence? While I understand the dehumanization aspect, in some instances, it seems there was a greater appetite for violence than for the mere efficient elimination of humans, even though they were viewed as parasites at the time.

I’m not asking whether the Sangheili ate humans—I already know they didn't, or at least that it wasn't something they typically did. Rather, I’m asking about their commanders and generals—specifically, how they allowed such acts to become commonplace, or in many cases permitted brutality against humans even when it ran counter to military effectiveness (like the partial glassing that created those human-hunting zones).