Chronique:Canon Fodder - Coming of Age
Issue 159
By Alex Wakeford
Welcome back to Canon Fodder—our penultimate issue of the year!
Halloween came and saw the rerelease of the motion comic adaptation of “The Mona Lisa” from Halo: Evolutions; this weekend just gone, Halo 2 turned twenty and we had a bunch of cool things go out to celebrate that, and Halo Infinite got a new (and familiar) weapon. Let’s dive into some lore!
AGE OF RETRIBUTION[modifier]
In celebration of Halo 2’s twentieth birthday and the launch of Operation: Great Journey, we released a new short story as part of the festivities.
Halo: Age of Retribution is available to read here on Halo Waypoint, as a free PDF, and in audiobook format on YouTube.
November 3, 2552. After the Prophet of Regret is assassinated by the Master Chief, the Covenant is shaken to its foundations as the feud between Brutes and Elites reaches a violent turning point.
COVENANT CANON[modifier]
With a new short story comes some cool new lore additions for folks to chew on, and we wanted to highlight a few select elements for your attention.
AGES AND AGES
The Covenant are known to record their history through a series of ages. When we catch up with them at the start of Halo 2, we learn that they are in the throes of the Ninth Age of Reclamation—a period which began (per the UNSC Military Calendar) in 2525, when the Covenant made first contact with humanity.
The Ninth Age of Reclamation came to an end with the events that transpired following the discovery of Delta Halo in November 2552, culminating in the Great Schism.
As the title (and ending) of this latest short story suggests, what follows from here is a new age for the Covenant’s history: the First Age of Retribution.
THRALLSLAYER
Avitus, more commonly known by his title “Thrallslayer,” has been living on the periphery of the Halo universe for fifteen years now. First introduced as a playable leader in the multiplayer of Halo Wars, all we knew about him at the time was that he had cool armor and was very specific about how he likes his thorn beast prepared.
In 2012, Avitus made a one-panel appearance in the “Invasion” arc of the Fall of Reach comic adaptation when Dr. Halsey and Cortana display a hologram of the known Covenant species.
In 2014, with the release of Halo 2: Anniversary came a new series of Terminals, one of which depicted Avitus’s exploits against the Sangheili councilors as a San'Shyuum scribe pondered what he would have done about the incumbent Arbiter—the threat that he poses to the Prophets’ designs.
He was referenced in the 2022 edition of the Halo Encyclopedia, where it was stated that he has aligned with the Banished, and we featured him in an Armory Infinitum entry for Issue #150 where he provides Ik’novus the Devourer with a Volatile Skewer.
These elements combined gave us a cool throughline for this story to tap into—particularly given his connections to the Prophet of Regret, who has just been assassinated at the point that Age of Retribution picks up. In his conversation with High Councilor ‘Yajadai, we see Avitus express his own doubts about the Covenant, which will ultimately lead him into the ranks of the Banished.
FAMILIAR GROUND
The setting for Age of Retribution takes place in two particular locations from Halo 2’s missions Uprising and The Great Journey.
At the start of Uprising, we catch up with the Arbiter after he has been translocated across Delta Halo by the Gravemind. He arrives on a clifftop overlooking the control room and finds a discarded plasma rifle, we hear and see signs of a battle that is going on just around the corner, and come across a dying Sangheili who manages to say a few words about the Brutes’ betrayal before we pick up his energy sword and get to work.
The story of what has taken place here becomes immediately clear as we turn the corner and see Jiralhanae blasting the corpses of Sangheili with their plasma rifles. That little pocket of time before you arrive as the Arbiter felt like a great place to capture the sudden onset and violence of the Great Schism.
In the second part of Age of Retribution, we change perspective to High Councilor ‘Yajadai as he is placed into a cell within a structure called the Bastion of the Brutes.
This, of course, is the cell where we can find and free two councilors and a pair of Mgalekgolo during the final mission of Halo 2, who then help the Arbiter battle through the Jiralhanae holding Sergeant Johnson and his fellow marines captive.
As noted in the story, ‘Yajadai’s cell is located in the top-left corner of the room, and so the councilor you rescue from that cell is indeed High Councilor ‘Yajadai himself.
MINOR DETAILS
Upon exploring the opening area of Uprising, you will find that there are eleven bodies bearing the rank of Sangheili Minors. We felt that this provided a fun little opportunity to explore that particular perspective—a common “grunt” in the Covenant military who finds himself in the middle of events that shake the foundations of the organization he’s only relatively recently become a part of.
With that came some additional new details about the rank. For example, that the Sangheili term for what humans designate as a “Sangheili Minor” translates to “lower-chosen.” Now all can go forth without any verbal mix-ups like that one joke in Galaxy Quest!
As established in Halo: Reach’s description for Sangheili of lower-chosen rank: “All who walk the blessed path will find salvation... even in death.”
This only seemed to make the fate of Age of Retribution’s protagonist all the more fitting, and he remains purposely nameless—much like the shipmaster in The Return—to more broadly represent a perspective rather than a specific individual.
THE MONA LISA[modifier]
With Halloween capping off the end of October, we released “The Mona Lisa” on the official Halo YouTube channel.
“Um, aren't you guys a bit late?” Well, quite! The Halo: Evolutions motion comic adaptations originally lived on the Halo Waypoint app on the Xbox 360, but in the years since they have not seen another official release vector outside of fan uploads.
Halloween came as the perfect opportunity to rerelease “The Mona Lisa” on our official YouTube channel, and in the months to come we are looking to bring the other Evolutions adaptations as well. Stay tuned on that front!
In the meantime, kick back, relax, set that cricket bat down, and let yourself be taken on this viscerally harrowing journey once more.
ARMORY INFINITUM[modifier]
With the launch of Halo Infinite’s Winter Update last week, starting off with Operation: Great Journey, we released a new sandbox weapon for you to play with: the MA5K Avenger.
This weapon was originally depicted on the cover of Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, referenced in the text as a cut-down version of the then-standard MA5B assault rifle. Since then, it has made a few additional appearances in the fiction, but has never made its way into the games over the eighteen years it’s existed—until now.
UNSC FROM THE ASHES, RECORD MATRIX LOGGED BY NYX 3620-4
CONVERSATION BETWEEN [87964-33127-AC] AND SPARTAN-G059
NOVEMBER 13, 2559
AC: “What’s the good word, Spartan?”
G059: “Recon op. Scuttlebutt says that Covies are making some moves that we need eyes on.”
AC: “Covies? Been a while since we’ve had them on our radar.”
G059: “Ten-four on that. Apparently, some split-jaw bigshot is massing a fleet out there, and at the same time we’ve gotten word that a salvage effort by one of their warlords in Tau Ceti has accelerated. ONI wants to know if there’s a connection.”
NYX: “Reminder logged for SPARTAN-G059 to review file on Operation: WARM BLANKET. High value target profile attached.”
AC: “Alright, got your recon package right here. Two-day supply of smoothers, thruster pack, your usual M6Hs, and a little extra that I picked up on our last stop.”
G059: “Oh?”
AC: “MA5K Avenger. I’m sure you’ve danced with these before, but the fine folks of Misriah made this little number with a few MA40 parts. Sixty-round mags, three-hundred rounds. She’ll serve you well in tight quarters should your ‘recon’ get a little more interesting.”
G059: “Thanks.”
AC: “You bring her back in one piece. She’s expensive.”
G059: “I’ll try, Amber.”
AC: “I was talkin’ to the gun.”
COMMUNITY LORE CORNER[modifier]
Going live tomorrow, our next issue of the monthly Community Corner series will spotlight some of the fine folks of Halopedia, which itself recently celebrated its twentieth anniversary. Keep an eye out for that!
HiddenXperia put together an awesome retelling of Age of Retribution, featuring some incredible in-game “dioramas” with Sangheili and Jiralhanae in the classic version of Halo 2.
Lucyjrobin’s playthrough of the series has brought her to the doorstep of Halo 3, but she has first done a reaction video to the Believe marketing campaign.
KAI ZAMMIT is a filmmaker who has been watching through the cinematics of Halo and has concluded his great journey with Halo Infinite. It’s always fun to rewatch even “recent” titles through new eyes.
Sci-Fi Deep Dive has done a lore overview of the Great Schism, a rather appropriate topic for this issue!
Valus Killer explores the role of the Arbiter in his latest Halo lore video, the history of this rank and role—and how it was forever changed by the Covenant.
And if you like horror stories in Halo, you can’t go far wrong with the Halo: Evolutions short story “Human Weakness” that follows Cortana’s mental torment while in the clutches of the Gravemind following the end of Halo 2. Katarn343 has put together a fantastic animated adaptation you should absolutely check out!
That brings us to the end of this issue, and somehow next month is December, which means that there’s just one Canon Fodder left for the year...
For now, let us celebrate Halo 2’s twentieth birthday by gathering in the ways of old—partying up to play “just one more game” into the early hours in the morning.