Recap: Part Deux
Ancient Alien 1 (who I will call Rudy): "Whoa. This sentient plague is pretty nasty."
Ancient Alien 2 (who I will call Carl): "Don't worry. I made these megastructures that can wipe out all life in the galaxy."
Rudy: "... that's pretty fucked up, Carl. What if there is another way?"
Carl: "No. This way is best. We can't let the terrorists win. Everything biological must die."
Rudy: "Maybe someone will come up with a better way to fight back? Or what if there is a pocket of life that thrives? We would be destroying them too!"
Carl: "Listen. I made these death machines, Rudy, and I'll be damned if I don't destroy all life with them!"
Rudy: "We are life, Carl!"
Carl: "Sacrifices have to be made."
Rudy: "Can we at least make these things self-destruct? That way they don't become a mythical weapon that is sought by rogue mad scientists and death cults?"
Carl: "..."
Carl: "You know what, Rudy?"
Rudy: "... what?"
Carl: "I fucked your sister." *presses DESTROY ALL LIFE button*
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Anyway... we saw none of that. There was, I think, one throw-away line about ancient aliens leaving shit lying around the galaxy. Otherwise, this entire series is about chasing artifacts that no one knows actually exists.
The Covenant are aliens that never grew out of their teen angst "I never asked to be born!" phase. They joined a death cult, and are looking for the means of ending all life. No, they don't explain how these baddies know about Alien Death Bomb. They just do, OK?
Over at the UNSC... uh, nobody ever explains how bad these guys are. Sure, they are run by a predominately military council. Sure, they turn a blind eye to one of their scientists committing crimes against humanity (let's be fair though, Halsey would totally commit crimes against all species equally). Anyway, we are just supposed to know that they are very bad. They also are looking for ancient alien death weapons that they have no idea actually exist. They just know that ancient aliens were around millions of years ago, so they probably left functional weapons lying about.
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So the story begins with the Spartans crushing a terrorist rebellion. Then aliens come around to fuck shit up, because... I dunno, they evil or something.
One of the Spartans, John, wanders off and finds an ancient alien artifact just lying about in a cave, as ancient aliens do. For some unfathomable reason, the Spartans also leave alive a girl named Kwan, who vows to annihilate the government.
For baffling reasons, John is sent back to base apart from the rest of the team. I guess it is supposed to be to keep this fancy artifact secure. They also put the little terrorist shit on board his transport because security is hard.
So eventually high command orders John to kill the terrorist, and despite her being the most annoying person in the universe he instead deserts the military to protect her and takes Kwan to a pirate haven run by another deserter, Soren, who he once betrayed. But he asks kind of nicely to keep the terrorist safe, and now they are buddies again or something?
So now the story splits in two.
The less interesting story is Kwan insisting on liberating her planet from the governor who is on friendly terms with the UNSC. Who is bad, but we never did get around to explaining why people on other planets should see them as bad. We know that they have dark projects, but publicly the UNSC is just the defenders of humanity from the alien death cult.
Kwan takes Soren to planet Madrigal to rah-rah fight the powah. Blah blah, I guess they kill a bunch of people, so now the planet is free to be terrorists again. Also, Kwan is abducted by desert mystics and told she is a chosen one. She Super Mario Bros her way down a random-ass pipe, and her side of the story is concluded.
On the more interesting (a term used loosely) story, John just reappears at home base and is welcomed back like desertion is no big deal. He pops out a device that controls his emotions, and now he is pretty much the exact same person but mildly woke. A Spartan teammate also goes mildly woke, but John thinks she is too much of a loose cannon.
Anyway, so now John takes a field trip with his mad scientist mommy and finds out he was kidnapped, mind-wiped, and experimented upon as a child. This makes him go, "meh."
He also finds out he has the power to see visions whenever he touches ancient artifacts. This also makes him go, "meh."
The teammate is a loose cannon, remember? So anyway, John meets up with an alien death cult collaborator that wants to destroy all life in the galaxy. This makes him do the totally rational thing of romancing the traitor, getting laid, and then deserting yet again.
But this time he gets joined by his team of Spartans. They kill a bunch of aliens, and now they might be finally getting around to checking out that alien life-destroying megastructure.
... just kidding. The trailer for season 2 looks to be all about the Fall of Reach.
Which, for the record, could be really interesting. But it also has nothing to do with the story of the first season. So everything you just read might mean exactly nothing.
So maybe the second season will be something of a reboot, and I will not feel pain in watching every poorly-written scene. I doubt it, but maybe.