Halo mortal dictate (spoiler within)

[foxleader]

This is a forum focusing on the kilo-five story, with this I hope for us to learn what we can about the state of the UNSC mortals and the next step for it. And to paint a big picture of Dr. Halesy in the light of all things to follow. Now we’re starting to see that Spartan-II’s are being allowed to open and read their files, and then we will soon know what the last name of every Spartan-II’s.
Now if place’s like venezia are works of what the UNSC could one day be the norm for earth if ONI doesn’t go and kill every other race out there ,but would they? The sangheili mostly the arbiter’s clans want peace with humanity, telmac want’s war, so ONI give’s telmac weapons and helps them start a war which gets jul’s wife killed. If only we hadn’t gave them weapons and let lood hood broker a deal with them the storm won’t be around. But that’s what ONI does we want chaos and nothing more as long as it keeps humanity on top. Then there’s the mess with the kig-yar sure their pirates but chol want’s to put together a fleet the fight off the covenant if it came but for them. Then there’s the engineer’s the one that strikes me as being the best of them was ‘sometimes sinks’ this guy opened my eye’s a little more then the one Adj and Leaks sure the covenant used them to just build just like the forerunners and they hadn’t changed much over 100,000 years and then there’s BB (black box.) a damaged AI that wished for death when his time came, (not like cortana how was evolved even dr. halesy knew she was different.) now BB was 4th gen AI so it might be able to live past seven years. Now I don’t know why after finding all that forerunner tech they couldn’t figure out

 

[kingair983]

I think that the 405th definitely needs to start a book club Though I personally enjoyed the Kilo-Five trilogy, certain aspects sort of, for lack of better words, left a bad taste in my mouth. But in light of the novel, maybe that was the point. Anyway I found it slightly odd that after several video games, and additional novels that portrayed Spartans as hardcore, tough-as-nails super-soldiers they then went to soft and vulnerable and it just felt, well, weird considering the persona that I've come to expect and admire about them. I guess Karen Traviss was trying to 'humanize' Spartans as people too, and bring in a level of sympathy regarding their UNSC 'childhood.' But that in and out of itself is somewhat uncharacteristic in how most regard and think of Spartans. The other thing I found as odd was how once again after several books and video games Halsey goes from an admired 'mother figure' to a person so loathed that everyone, including members of Kilo-Five want to literally put a bullet in her head. In novels like The Fall of Reach, the Spartan children looked up to Halsey, she cared about them and did everything she could to protect them. Hell in Reach Jorge still referred to her as 'mom'. Now in the Kilo Five series they seem either apathetic to her, or out right hate her. Obviously part of the Kilo Five series was to bring the morality of the entire Spartan program into question, but it did so by doing a complete 180 on the the way most have previously thought of Halsey and the Spartan program, at least thats the way I felt.
One of the things I really did enjoy though was the in-depth look the Black Ops style of ONI and ONI based operations.

(black box.) a damaged AI that wished for death when his time came, (not like cortana how was evolved even dr. halesy knew she was different.) now BB was 4th gen AI so it might be able to live past seven years. Now I don’t know why after finding all that forerunner tech they couldn’t figure out

Hey fox I may have not read this right, but I think you may have it a little backwards, both Cortana and BB were developed from human brains. Cortana was based off a clone of Halsey's brain, while BB came later and was modeled off the brain Dr. Alban, a member of the medical team and researcher in the Spartan program who had committed suicide because guilt towards his participation in the Spartan program.
Now as far as the continuation of the Sangheli rebellion goes, I think it's important to note that the events of Kilo Five take place just before the event of Halo 4, so for all points and purposes the Storm Faction may be at war with Humans now. And with places like Venezia, well places like that existed before the war with the covenant, it was the whole point of the Spartan program being created after all. So I would think its safe to assume insurrectionist worlds will continue to be a problem to the UNSC as Earth tries to reestablish its colonies.

Now I don’t know why after finding all that forerunner tech they couldn’t figure out

This is actually occurred to me too, but made me excited as well. After all if the E3 Halo teaser was anything to go by, with Chief hold Cortana's data chip, and the big Forerunner machine coming out of the sand maybe there will be a way for AI's to be able to last longer than their seven year life-span. All in all I enjoyed the Kilo Five trilogy, it brought an interesting story from Spartan, civilian, ODST, AI, Alien, and ONI points of view.

 

[Serin]

The Kilo Five series has brought me to this really weird conclusion.... Were this is a parallel universe, I'd be really happy to be a devious bastard involved with ONI.
Something quite appealing about throwing ethics out the door when faced with an alien threat.. Dunno what that says about my personality...

Was anyone else half expecting Osman to be Parangosky's daughter? Perhaps a bit too drama, but still that really would've thrown me.

I love that Halo's taking the old Star Trek route of exposing the ethics and morality of a situation, it really makes me a lot more interested in the actual story than the playing of the games.

 

[blackout11c]

Was anyone else half expecting Osman to be Parangosky's daughter? Perhaps a bit too drama, but still that really would've thrown me.

I have the Halo 4 Essential Visual Guide, so no. But I would have known, not expected.

I love that Halo's taking the old Star Trek route of exposing the ethics and morality of a situation, it really makes me a lot more interested in the actual story than the playing of the games.

I too like how they did that.

 

[Sal86]

I just finished reading Mortal Dictata after not being able to put it down for three days. What an excellent read. I really like the humanization of the Spartan II, to show that they are not this invincible super heroes that we usually get in sci-fi / fantasy stories these days. It makes you think twice if it would be bad ass if you were to be a Spartan, it shed new lights on the situations. I enjoyed the Father-Terrorist / Daughter-Spartan twist to the story because it is something new and refreshing to see rather than typical cliche' rehash. How often do you read stories about child soldiers reuniting with their families? It would awesome if 343 were to release "classified files" of some of the most prominence Spartans; John, Fred, Sam, Kelly, etc.

 

[Connor Xfor]

The other thing I found as odd was how once again after several books and video games Halsey goes from an admired 'mother figure' to a person so loathed that everyone, including members of Kilo-Five want to literally put a bullet in her head. In novels like The Fall of Reach, the Spartan children looked up to Halsey, she cared about them and did everything she could to protect them. Hell in Reach Jorge still referred to her as 'mom'.

I always thought that Jorge called Halsey "ma'am", in a rather British way, although I do agree with your point.
As for this book, I'm kind of in two minds about it. On the one hand, I really liked the story of the team, and the humanisation of Naomi was really well done in my humble opinion, I still find myself not quite agreeing where this series, and indeed, all of the Halo series as of late, is going in terms of how Dr. Halsey is portrayed. Don't get me wrong, I found this series of books rather refreshing in terms of the morality and ethical debates raised within it, but I feel as though too much of the spotlight is being shone on her. There were plenty of other people involved, like BB's donor. Anywho, overall I have really enjoyed this series, it's been a more thoughtful, pensive take on the universe. BTW, was anyone else a little bit perturbed by the physical size of Mortal Dictata? The thing is much taller than the other two on my shelf, and it drives my OCD side bobkers!

 

[foxleader]

Hey fox I may have not read this right, but I think you may have it a little backwards, both Cortana and BB were developed from human brains. Cortana was based off a clone of Halsey's brain, while BB came later and was modeled off the brain Dr. Alban, a member of the medical team and researcher in the Spartan program who had committed suicide because guilt towards his participation in the Spartan program.
Now as far as the continuation of the Sangheli rebellion goes, I think it's important to note that the events of Kilo Five take place just before the event of Halo 4, so for all points and purposes the Storm Faction may be at war with Humans now. And with places like Venezia, well places like that existed before the war with the covenant, it was the whole point of the Spartan program being created after all. .

well I was talking about how cortana was 3rd gen and bb was 4th gen so I don't know if that makes him better or not because halesy didn't know there was 4th gen AI's.

and I think storm is attacking every one in eslcalion brutes and arbiter try and make peace and then boom their they are with a Spartan 4 under their belts. so I think it's more then just human's I mean even the civil war was still on at the end of the book. and then their's the whole sprit of fire coming back, so they might go inne and that's with three Spartan II's so that's got to tell us something right.

 

[Serin]

Something to note about the direction the story is going is that it's just viewing the same things from a different perspective.
After almost every war Humanity has ever been through we've had to deal with the atrocities all sides commit to achieve victory, I believe the Kilo Five series deals with that idea very very well.
Most great science fiction stories are wrapped up forms of social commentaries on events taxing our ethics and morality in current times.
Of course, this story exists without the commentary, but it does, in a way, explore what we do when faced with the things we've done in the past to ensure survival.
That for me is why I've really started to take a more serious look at Halo as a fictional piece, it's always been extremely serious in it's actual fiction, maybe just less-so in the games.

Ok.. Now back to working on my Osman cosplay kit.. Because the coincidence of being named Serin is just too brilliant to ignore!