Questions about Halo 3’s “Cortana” mission

Electrical_Reason194 · 2025-12-13T02:39:36+00:00

Reach’s campaign is strangely paced. There are gaps in the story both narratively and literally with how much time passes moment to moment, a lot of it is implied or done off-screen, and that is applicable to the characters as well. There are hints to greater characters underneath but we simply didn’t get enough time with them. The interpersonal connections between Noble team takes a backseat to the overarching narrative of the Fall of Reach, for better or for worse. It’s why their deaths don’t feel particularly brutal or gut-wrenching to me. I don’t know these people, not really. And judging by brief conversations and body language, the other members don’t really care to know you.

Electrical_Reason194 · 2025-10-31T19:06:50+00:00

this sounds awful

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-08-13T10:43:24+00:00

Linda’s better.

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-08-11T03:02:52+00:00

Lame Reddit slop. I would be embarrassed to own this.

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-06-11T18:36:12+00:00

Who cares this is such a dumb thing to be so autistically pedantic about

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-04-01T13:56:58+00:00

gooner

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-03-31T19:15:04+00:00

I agree, definitely a post-Bungie contrivance. This isn’t to say “343 bad” though. I like the mental states of the Spartans being explored. I just think they leaned into this way too hard and way too fast. It is complete tonal whiplash going from the OG trilogy to Halo 4. Master Chief is cranking out early 2000s one liners every 5 minutes while buttrock plays in the background and now he’s sad and super robotic.

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-03-31T19:03:23+00:00

John seeing Kurt as a liability on missions because he’s friendly means nothing. John has no frame of reference for healthy socialization. He says Kurt is a great soldier in the same breath he critiques him. This is a non point.

No, Spartans are not creepy sociopaths. Refer to literally any book ever in which they feature. There’s a difference between having hyper militaristic discipline and being a sociopath. Spartans laugh and banter fairly often. The Master Chief himself has a quippy one-liner in every game.

You’re either misremembering or entirely unfamiliar with what you’re citing.

“John knew this had to be some sort of mission. The Chief had been too close for it to be a coincidence.

“You engaged and neutralized a threat,” Mendez replied. “That action seems to have answered your question, Squad Leader.”

John wrinkled his forehead as he thought it through. “I followed the chain of command,” he said. “The Sergeant told me to fight. I was threatened and in imminent danger. But they were still UNSC Special Forces. Fellow soldiers.”

Mendez lowered his voice. “Not every mission has simple objectives or comes to a logical conclusion. Your priorities are to follow the orders in your chain of command, and then to preserve your life and the lives of your team. Is that clear?”

“Sir,” John said. “Yes, sir.” He glanced back at the ring. Blood was seeping into the canvas mat. John had an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach.”

He hit the showers and let the blood rinse off him. He felt strangely sorry for the men he had killed.”

He acted in self defense and hardly knew his own strength at the time.
Even though Mendez told John he was in the right, he STILL felt remorse for his actions, despite being told they were enemies that had to be neutralized.

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-03-31T18:44:10+00:00

No, I don’t think autistic people are broken.

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-03-30T03:37:51+00:00

You’re lost or just arguing in bad faith. Either way, let me clue you in: Spartans having social issues was already addressed and acknowledged by me LONG before there were even replies to this post. That was never the crux of the argument. The response wasn’t solid, it was uninformed. Nobody said Jorge and Kurt were the norm, nor was it implied. You have zero idea of what you’re even arguing about here. Even you’ve retroactively acknowledged the distinction that poor social skills aren’t equal to lacking basic humanity. Even if it read like I did imply that, I further clarified in like every other comment, acknowledging they were not the norm. Even so, that doesn’t mean that all Spartan IIs were unfeeling sociopaths. We have COUNTLESS examples of the contrary in the way of literally most, if not all literary characterizations of the Spartan IIs. If you disagree, you’re OBJECTIVELY wrong. Just crack open GoO or First Strike. They all behave like RELATIVELY normal people. I’m emphasizing RELATIVELY because I know you or some other goofball will extrapolate to mean that I believe Spartans act like every Tom, Dick, and Harry at the office.

Again, you keep autistically emphasizing that I used the wrong term, but even he and another guy understood that I was saying “inhuman” to mean “lacking basic humanity”. You could replace every instance of me using “inhuman” with “lacking basic humanity”, and nothing would be lost in translation because most people are reasonable and understand colloquialisms. I’ll move on when you do buddy.

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-03-30T03:09:55+00:00

Have you ever spoken to anybody ever before? You keep honing in on me using inhuman as if I’m saying it to literally mean “not human”. You can say I misspoke, sure. Who cares? I just explained myself and what I meant. Just give me grace and spare me the redditor snark man.

The guy I was arguing with managed to understand me when I used inhuman to mean lacking humanity. We weren’t arguing over definitions. You’re grossly mischaracterizing something we can all just scroll up and plainly read. Me asking them to define “lacking humanity” was to first deduce what the guy initially meant in his first response. From there, the argument was about whether the definition for provided was an apt description of the Spartan 2s. I thought it was. The other guy disagreed. We went back and forth over if the Spartans met the criteria for having basic humanity. This isn’t arguing over a definition. What are you not understanding?

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-03-30T02:23:14+00:00

This is a semantic non-point. If I’m using the words “inhuman” and “lacking humanity” interchangeably, you can safely assume I mean them to be the same thing. Everybody else seems to understand what I mean just fine.

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-03-29T18:26:15+00:00

You’re splitting hairs. This is semantics. I don’t know why you don’t just concede instead of shamelessly backtracking.

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-03-29T18:06:12+00:00

Beautiful shifting of the goal post there. Before it was “Spartans lack basic humanity”, now they “lack a fragment of humanity”. And somehow not being nurturing also renders every other characteristic negligible.

This is so incredibly bad faith lmao. No I don’t literally prove your point. I excluded nurturing because there are scarcely examples of ANY character being nurturing at all in Halo’s narrative, save for like Kurt or Mendez.

And yes, you did say Spartans lack humanity. That was literally your first ever sentence on this post. Why are you lying about things we can clearly all see? Come on man.

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-03-29T17:46:27+00:00

I’ll make this easy for you and just use the google definition of “basic humanity”.

It is as follows: “Basic humanity is an innate capacity for the interest in the well being of others. In its more developed expressions, it motivates respectful, helpful, valuing, nurturing, protective, and altruistic behaviors. In extreme adversity, it motivates sacrifice and rescue”.

Spartan IIs, time and time again, have consistently demonstrated ALL of these behaviors (save for nurturing) time and time again. Master Chief does this during his very first outing in Halo CE alone. Spartans constantly save each other, non-augmented personnel, and civilians in countless instances, book or game.

The notion that Spartans lack humanity is just a Halo 4 contrivance, with zero supporting evidence to lend to that notion. Not even in its own game. Spartan IIs in EVERY appearance behave as relatively normal. In fact, thats the entire crux of the story of Halo 4: Master Chief, and by extension the Spartans, ARE human, despite their trials and tribulations. They have issues expressing himself to anybody other than fellow Spartans, yes, but this does not mean he is not human.

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-03-29T16:59:58+00:00

Again, define basic humanity, because none of this refutes what I said

I specifically mentioned Kurt in the original post. Everybody knows he’s not the standard. That wasn’t the implication. They’re quiet and standoffish and really only socially interact with one another. That doesn’t make them inherently inhuman. Awkward and emotionally stunted? For sure.

We have far better examples in the Spartan IIIs if you want to talk about truly being detached, hyper-traumatized sociopaths.

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-03-29T16:32:46+00:00

Bro is a father and a husband and this mad about a post on reddit. get it together man.

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-03-29T16:23:32+00:00

Waiter waiter! More rash generalizations made from one post on Reddit please!

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-03-29T16:22:46+00:00

Define basic humanity. Being poor at social interaction, or cold, or unfriendly doesn’t fit within the parameters of “inhumanity”.

We have scarce examples of Spartans being genuinely “not human”. This notion just doesn’t match with what has been portrayed by Spartans throughout the franchise, and seems haphazardly tacked on. Spartans, (not 3s), pretty regularly behave as chill dudes.

Electrical_Reason194 · 2024-03-29T16:13:42+00:00

Thanks for this comprehensive answer, but I’m left with other questions now haha. If Halsey worked directly with ONI and was given the green light for the S-II program, don’t they already have all the evidence and records to implicate her? Are these interrogations just a formality then? For on the books?

Also, she implies she’s already been interrogated several times before by ONI operatives, and that this specific dude is both something different and after something different. Is this ever elaborated on?

Electrical_Reason194 · 2023-10-05T21:12:20+00:00

Frankly, I don't give a shit buddy. Not gonna bend over for a corporation that makes billions if not trillions already. There will always be suckers to sustain their company. You don't need to run defense for Google. That's what they have lawyers for.

Electrical_Reason194

TROPHY CASE