The First Halo

The First Halo

John had woken up from his crash landing on Halo. His only companion was Cortana, an advanced AI that resided in a chip implanted in his suit of armor. With the rest of his squad dead and Covenant forces approaching, he moved into the tree line.

Some time had passed and Cortana chimed in, "Chief, I'm getting a few distress signals! It seems the Captain and a few platoons of Marines made it off the ship too! We have to regroup with them."

Chief agreed and slowly but surely rounded up as many allies as he could. While amassing a small army, they also looked for an adequate position to set up a base. Eventually, they reached a strange facility that appeared to be made out of stone but slowly appeared to be more and more metallic as they approached the structure. They decided to make that their base of operations. They set up defenses and hunkered down for the night. As Chief was the only Spartan II among them, the Marines admired him in awe as he moved around, towered over people, and assisted in bolstering the defenses.

As night fell upon them, the Captain, Chief, and Cortana met with the Marine platoon leaders and started brainstorming plans of what to do next. Due to the heavy resistance the Covenant established, they knew this place, Halo, was of great significance. Suddenly, a floating orb interrupted them by means of teleportation.

"Greetings, I am 343 Guilty Spark, the Monitor of this Installation. I noticed a Reclaimer signature appeared on the ring not long ago," announced the Monitor as it stared at John. "The meddlers have released the Flood. I need you to come with me to stop the Flood from spreading."

Before anyone could get a word in, the Monitor teleported John and Cortana to the Control Room.

"You must hurry, Reclaimer! Only you can activate this ring as your forefathers intended!" exclaimed the Monitor.

"Slow down. What am I activating? What does it do? Why is the Flood so dangerous?" asked the Chief.

"Reclaimer, surely you know the Flood will consume all life in the galaxy. Activating the ring ensures they cannot spread by eliminating their food, of course," responded the Monitor.

"Their food...? You mean us? They," referring to the Flood, "consume life, right? The ring will eliminate Humans and Covenant alike?" Chief inquired.

"Why yes, precisely," answered the Monitor.

"Sorry, can't do it. I'm not killing all of my people to stop an enemy I haven't even seen yet," said the Chief.

"Then you too shall perish," retorted the Monitor as his Sentinels appeared and took aim at the Spartan.

"Chief, time to go!" urged Cortana.

Chief immediately took cover to avoid the first barrage of incoming fire and made his escape as the Sentinels recharged their weapons. He had to get back to the Captain and the Marines and warn them. Unsure of exactly where the Monitor had brought him, he fought his way through many hostiles until Cortana could find the Captain's signal again.

Author's Note

The story I took elements of to write this story was Part A of the Public Domain Edition: Ramayana. In the story, Rama is the main character and is part of the human embodiment of a god. He accomplishes many great things through his journey such as bending many great godly bows that no human has been able to, marrying a beautiful princess, and being a beloved prince of the people. However, he was betrayed by a queen who wanted her son to become king and had him exiled.

I used characters and places from the Halo universe and blended them into the Public Domain Edition: Ramayana story. I tried to write the story by making Chief/John share similarities with Rama. The main similarities were how only they could yield certain mighty weapons, they were both admired by their people, they both had a trusty companion, and they were both betrayed unnecessarily by someone who could have helped them. I believe the endings to also be similar in that Rama was exiled and had his wife and brother accompany him, whereas Chief is left in an unfamiliar area with Cortana by his side.

I have touched on some of the Halo references on my previous story, Arbiter's Side Journey, so I will try to only mention the new Halo information in this note. Halo, the Monitor, and the Sentinels were made from an ancient species know as the Forerunners. The Forerunners are responsible for all of life as they had a system to place the "seed" of life after they activated Halos. There are multiple Halos, but this story only deals with one. The Halos were made to deal with the Flood by killing all life to essentially starve them. The Flood are basically ancient space zombies. The Monitor and Sentinels are smart AIs that the Forerunners created to carry out the "reseeding" of life, maintain the Halos, and contain the Flood. Cortana is a special AI that was based off a literal piece of brain of someone, in this case Dr. Halsey. Dr. Halsey is the "mother"/ creator of the Spartan program. The human faction in this universe is the UNSC (United Nations Space Command), like a space UN.

Hopefully I have explained it enough to make sense. Also, the picture is a pretty good representation of what a Spartan's suit of armor looks like, particularly for the Chief/John.

Bibliography

"Public Domain Edition: Ramayana" Parts 10, 15, 16, and 17 by M. Dutt, R. Dutt, and Mackenzie.

Image Information: Master Chief from Halo by Gunner111 (April 2008). Source: Flickr