Hunt the Truth/01 VO

Master Chief was born in the metropolis of Elysium City. Then known as John, he grew up like any kid in the Outer Colonies. Childhood playmates and school teachers share charming stories. But what happens when a single document throws everything into question?

Benjamin Giraud: There's a story you tell yourself when the world blows up in your face. There's no way you could have seen it coming. No one could have, so there was no way to stop it. This is what lets you sleep at night. But go back in your mind to before it all happened. Replay it in your head, except this time, maybe you'll see it: something small, out of place. Maybe it's just a single thread, but it's the truth. Nobody saw it coming when they arrived, an alien race known as the Covenant. Before 2552, there was no way anything like that could ever happen on Earth. On one of those distant planets in the Outer Colonies, maybe. But an attack on Earth? Couldn't happen - until it did. It's called glassing. Covenant warships rain plasma down on a planet until everything, and everyone, on the surface melts. Usually it's complete world destruction. Earth only got a taste. The prolonged orbital bombardment destroyed East Africa, killing millions before it ended. None of us were safe anymore. But something else happened that day, too. Or someone. You've heard the eyewitness accounts, every skeptic has seen the footage. I was there and yet, still to this day, it's unbelievable. A massive man in green armor appeared, seemingly out of nowhere in New Mombasa, performed superhuman feats to singlehandedly repel a global invasion, and then disappeared. This was the Master Chief. The unified government's military body, the UNSC, eventually released a statement: who he is, where he came from, and that he's continuing to keep us safe. And that was that. But, who is the Master Chief? Where did he come from? Is he continuing to keep us safe? I'm Benjamin Giraud, and this is Hunt the Truth.

For all us cosmopolitan Earth types who don't venture into the far reaches of space, there's a planet way out in the Outer Colonies called Eridanus II. If you're thinking of visiting, don't bother. It was catastrophically glassed in a Covenant attack in 2530. But 19 years before it got wiped out, our hero, Master Chief John-117, then known as John, was born in a metropolis called Elysium City. That's where I started.

Deon Govender: Do I remember him?! Oh, yeah! You don't forget a kid like that! (fades, continues)

Benjamin: That's Deon Govender. He chatted with me from his home in the Outer Colonies. Deon's retired now, but years ago he taught John at Elysium Primary Education Facility Number 119. Apparently, schools in the Outer Colonies don't have the catchiest names.

Deon: John was something else. He was sharp and quick. Always evaluating the situation. (BG: Mmhmm) The other kids just gravitated to him, you know?

Benjamin: Deon seemed most excited to talk about John's athletic ability. The kids used to play King of the Hill after school. Y'know, the game where you wrestle and push each other to try and be the last man standing.

Deon: I would...I would walk by sometimes, see 'em playing after school, and w-w-w-without fail, I swear, it was always John standing alone at the top of that hill. (laughs)

Benjamin: Right. Right. (chuckles)

Deon: Every single day. As a matter of fact, I think the other kids ended up fighting for who got to be king o' halfway up the hill. 'cause (Benjamin chuckles) nobody was messin' with John.

Ellie Bloom: I definitely remember John. You're going way back... (fades, continues)

Benjamin: That's Ellie Bloom, another lifelong resident of the Outer Colonies. When she was young, she and John lived on the same street, just a few houses down.

Ellie: Well, he was a little younger than me, but, let me tell you, that boy did not look like a kindergartener. He was a big kid. My friend Katrina and I used to meet him in this vacant lot in the neighborhood. The three of us would build these, these obstacle courses out of random junk and then race. Y'know, just kid stuff.

Benjamin: As Ellie talked about her early years in Elysium, it wasn't long before she was getting nostalgic.

Ellie: On warm nights, sometimes our parents would let us go out to the green space and lie in the grass. And we'd just lie there, stare up at the stars. It was a nice place to go out.

Benjamin (voiceover): Finding Ellie was a huge win for me. When a planet's been glassed, tracking down former residents can be damn near impossible. Any records kept locally - paper, hardened data storage, even human memories - after a full-scale glassing, they're just gone. Thankfully, though, the Office of Naval Intelligence, or ONI, had furnished me with a list of interviewees. That's how I'd gotten Deon. But I wanted to go the extra mile with this story, so I'd hit up some of my old connections in the Outer Colonies, looking for more sources. Ellie was my only hit so far.

Benjamin (in call): Did you keep in touch with John?

Ellie (in call): No. I wasn't allowed to use Waypoint much when I was little. But I did keep in touch with Katrina - we still talk, actually. You know, she probably remembers John. I'm gonna tell her I talked to you. Wait - ah, what was this for again? This a military thing?

Benjamin: Oh, haha, no. No, John, uh, John is, ah, the Master Chief.

Ellie: What? He's--

Benjamin: --Yeah, Jo- John became the Master Chief.

Ellie: Like, the Master Chief?

Benjamin: Yep.

Ellie: Oh my God, no na- way, are you serious?

Benjamin: I'm not kidding you, I'm te--

Ellie: Oh my God! That's crazy.

Benjamin (voiceover): Ellie lost her mind for a few minutes. I guess it's not every day you find out that your childhood playmate saved the galaxy.

Ellie (in call): Oh my God, now I'm definitely telling Katrina! I mean, she is gonna freak out.

Benjamin (voiceover): Alright, so maybe Ellie wasn't gonna be much help. I needed more of the 'young warrior' angle. Here's Deon again.

Deon (in call): Did I tell you the boxing story?

Benjamin: No, no no, what's that?

Deon: OK, OK, so--

Benjamin: Not yet.

Deon: I taught the primary kids, you know, right? But I also ran this-s-s, this boxing league at the high school--

Benjamin: Uh huh.

Deon: Now, second week, in second week, we're doing drills in the gym, John walks in.

Benjamin: Yah.

Deon: Now, mind you, John is in sixth grade at the time. I say, "Hey, John, what's up?" He says, "I wanna sign up for boxing."

Benjamin: [laughs]

Deon: And I say, "John--"

Benjamin: Mmhm.

Deon: "--you're twelve," you know, "what are you talking about?"

Benjamin (voiceover): But John was adamant.

Deon (in call): We- heheh, but I- I look at him, and he, he ain't leaving.

Benjamin (in call): Right.

Deon: So I said, OK, what the hell, figure, let it be a formative lesson for the kid. I don't know, but it's all-- I put him in the ring with one of the smaller guys. John pummeled this boy! Was over in about fifteen seconds, OK? So, I, well, alright, well, I put him in with this bruiser, now, a real good fighter.

Benjamin: Yeah?

Deon: OK? Good fighter. Two punches. John laid him out. Twelve years old!

Benjamin (voiceover): I liked talking to Deon. He was warm and funny in that grandfatherly, memory-lane kind of way. I realised I'd gotten lost in it all when the narrative took a dark turn.

Deon (in call): --But then, one week, John just ... didn't show up.

Benjamin (voiceover): It was 2524. John was 13. That's when the nightmare of the Insurrection that had been plaguing the Outer Colonies finally landed on John's community. Under pressure from UNSC troops, the rebels were on their last leg, desperately seizing territory in the region, and launching paranoid inquisitions to find spies. Civilian abductions and interrogations became commonplace.

Thomas Wu (in call): Uh, they would just - you know, um - question you. Just - these meaningless questions, for ... hours, and hours.

Benjamin (voiceover): Thomas Wu was living on a neighbouring colony when the rebels showed up and hit hard, sweeping up Thomas and thousands of others in raids. What followed was months of horribly overcrowded detainment, neglect, and often constant questioning.

Thomas: You know, "Did you know this guy? W-, w-, what are the encryption codes for this system, that system? You know, and you have no idea what they're even asking you."

Benjamin (voiceover): In the final couple months, Thomas says his captors started coming unhinged - and then toward the end, they just disappeared, leaving Thomas and hundreds of others locked up, starving. I don't want to play this part of the interview, but I'll tell you - it got bad. He talks about being packed in like sardines. Warm bodies, cold bodies, people dying in the dark - the smell. He doesn't know how long it lasted, maybe weeks - but Thomas, and many others, survived. They made it out.

Thomas: Well, you know, we, we, we helped each other, you know, we looked out for each other, you know, and I mean that's- that's- that was the only way. And we, and we made it through to the Liberation. And then we left. You know? We, we, we, we never looked back.

Benjamin (voiceover): When I asked him where the survivors relocated to, Thomas began to list off which cities were safe for refugees at the time. Decades later, he can still recite them all from memory. I asked about John's hometown.

Benjamin (in call): What about Elysium City?

Thomas (in call): No. Insurrectionist cesspool. Yeah, no, they got it bad there.

Benjamin (voiceover): Deon Govender confirms this.

Deon (in call): In Elysium City, people just disappeared back then. Just happened. Once Insurrectionists took over, whole neighbourhoods just got scooped up.

Benjamin (voiceover): This went on for months. He talks about watching his community get torn apart slowly, every day. I asked him about John.

Deon (in call): Yeah. Mmhm. Him and his parents. John missed the first practice, then-- the last one. Back then, seemed like everybody he-- [breaks off] I'm sorry. [clears throat]

Benjamin (in call): No, no no, it's fine, take your time.

Benjamin (voiceover): It was hard watching Deon break down like this. He just looked defeated. These kinds of interviews are brutal. I wanted to comfort him, but it just felt ... condescending. Like I have any idea what it was like for him. So we were quiet for a bit. Before we ended, though, he said this:

Deon (in call): I think that - if anything good can be said to have come for all of this, it's that ... everyone who went through it can know that their struggle wasn't for nothing. When you have a young man who can rise up from something like this and do what John has done, he honours all of us.

Benjamin (voiceover): Deon believed in John the way the rest of us believe in the Master Chief. He made it seem like this tragedy that shaped him was almost necessary. I certainly felt like I had the proper beginnings to a hero's origin story. The story made sense, it felt right. Sometimes, you have to go back, though - look again. Because maybe you'll see something, something small ... out of place. That single thread. Later that evening, after my interview with Deon, I was pretty drained, so I spent some time sifting through a bunch of file boxes. I'd paid this scavenger in the Outer Colonies to dig around and send over any Elysium City documents she could find. The only local government records left were hard copies, but I took them anyway. I was sorting through a messy box of local census registries, when I stumbled across John's name. One line of basic information, printed out in black and white. That's when I saw it. A single letter next to his name: D. I was staring at an official document that said quite plainly that in 2517, John died at six years old.

Please join me for the next episode of Hunt the Truth.