What It Means To Be Human In Halo

foreign video games since before I could read I have this goofy memory of playing Pokemon Silver and knowing I'd picked Cyndaquil because they were the best starter but I'd pressed the wrong button because I couldn't read and ended up in the nickname menu now I was what you call a gifted child so I knew that one of the words on screen must have been Cyndaquil like what do you want to nickname your Cyndaquil but I had no idea what that particular mysterious array of moon runes would have been so I just chose a word and matched the symbols and hoped and then a day later my brother laughed at me because I had a Cyndaquil named nickname and for a while that's what video games were to me different Pokemons I'm something of a gen 3 purist myself different Mario Karts and Mario parties and Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced objectively the best game ever made and then at some point my taste for games evolved uh Combat Evolved that is I don't remember the first time I played Halo but I do know how much of my life the series ended up consuming it was the first game series that I ever got good enough at to enjoy being good at thanks reach but it was also the first game series that was like adult and it was the first time in games that kid me experienced adult themes like death and War and because I was a kid I didn't take any of it seriously obviously but I grew up over time and Halo grew up too and while that didn't make everyone happy honestly I love every Halo game I've ever played but if I had to pinpoint one Halo game that I loved the most one Halo game that I think defines the franchise and its core themes it would have to be the one that has the least to do with the main story it would have to be the gritty boots on the ground Noir spin-off featuring not a Spartan fire team or incredible views on an alien planet but the Dark Lonely Backstreets of new Mombasa it would have to be ODST I think we need to establish why ODST is such a standout and to do that we need to establish what Halo had been up to odst's release the first thing the world would see if Halo was the E3 trailer 23 years ago and the music oh chills genuine actual chills Halo has always been the best in the business when it comes to the soundtracks but beyond the music so much of it recognizable even though it isn't always used in its now expected placing like the flood theme being used for this Elite this trailer does so much to set the next two decades in Chain of groundwork for this franchise is going to be we open on a small structure with two aliens these are Elites by the way overhead two flying machines called banshees take to the skies to start the patrol the elites chatter back and forth this will be the patrol that finds them they say but they don't shatter for long because one goes down hard and the second follows quick we scan the Horizon and zoom cut to this handsome devil the drop zone is clear I repeat the drop zone is clear with the benefit of hindsight we can recognize him as the master chief AKA John Halo but he won't have his iconic voice provided by Steve Downs until the final release of Combat Evolved around a year later Mr Halo announces the drop zone is clear and we get eyes on the rest of the team six Marines one Pelican that's the very cool flying machine and one warthog that's the car even though it kind of looks more like a puma we watched them explore some alien landscape before arriving to their destination and we get our first exposure to the key theme that Halo embodies humanity is at War and we're losing we've got six Marines in one vehicle versus an equal number of Elites and six Vehicles including one much much bigger a wraith fun fact this red one in the background is a specter and despite being in the trailer for the first game it wouldn't actually show up until Halo 2 and that's a neat intro for another theme in these games Covenant vehicles uh the aliens are called The Covenant are typically named after ghosts or ghostly adjacent things we've got wraiths specters Phantoms banshees and even ghosts whereas the UNSC that's us by the way are typically named after animals we've seen the Pelican and the warthog but the roster is rounded out by things like the scorpion tank the little mongoose ATV and the half jet half helicopter Hornet the idea here is that the Covenant are placed in line with the idea of supernaturality they're somewhat Untouchable not able to be fully understood whereas the UNSC and the humans are more grounded working adjacent to things that are physical things that are near to us that we have interaction with just like man of old used animals to survive the dark and crew will Knight modern man uses animals to push back against the greatest Knight it's just that these animals are less insectoid and more the 66 tons of high explosive spewing divine intervention type back with our boys we see the format that the UNSC is forced to use Ambush guerrilla warfare winning any fight comes at a cost and we have to be ready for that we're on such a back foot that we don't even know what we're looking for all we know is that the Covenant got here first and that can't be good which yeah is another theme one that we'll see explored in the opening lines of the first game humanity is at War and we're losing in fact we can never really win we can only lose on our own conditions that's another theme sacrifice and it's one we'll see explored in every single game there is no Halo story without sacrifice without losing oneself for the recklessly hopeful idea that someone else won't be lost and the final theme is that they won't be lost that at the end of the day some scrap of us will remain and as long as that scrap remains we've never lost we're only losing most of the game sees us playing as John Halo known actually in the games is just Jon or Sierra 117 or the master chief were put in his shoes and that comes with some heavy responsibility because we're a Spartan but we're also the only Spartan despite Jon's appearance as an unkillable super soldier it's important to know that we weren't always the only Spartan by the time of the game though We're All That Remains and there's tradition in lore that Spartans never die they only go missing never killed in action only missing in action not lost only losing Spartans in Halo have a complicated existence because the only one we know about is tasked with being the final line between the Covenant and the obliteration of the human race even though his and the origin of all Spartans was to be used to put down human rebellions in distant non-compliant star systems and colonies despite this Spartans and Jon specifically have become a sort of trump card a kind of power play if Jon is on the field that's the only time we can win and he always wins in Combat Evolved he's the only one to survive the drop pod onto the ring he's the one to gather the scattered scraps and put together some kind of hole he's the one to uncover The Mystery of the flood and Humanity's role in The Grand Design of unfathomably old Ancient Aliens he's the one to fight through Untold Horrors to do the hard things and Escape catastrophe in Halo 2 he's the one to keep the station safe both the Athens and the malta are lost but the Cairo is kept safe because Jon is on that station and he doesn't just keep the station safe he's the one to give the Covenant back their bomb something only he could do something that's celebrated in so many different ways from the use of the soundtrack to the visual design and attention given to the scene he's the one to take the fight to the surface to combat the Scarab and follow the fleeing Prophet one of the covenant's high leaders to Delta Halo he's the one to storm High charity the capital of the Covenant and he's the one to finish the fight in Halo 3 he's the one to keep earth safe to be the first one onto the ark into that brave unknown and he's the spearhead for all of the operations done there he's the one to stop the Rings from firing to save not just Humanity but all of the Galaxy he's the power play he's the one that wins he's the one that we know if he's on the field we haven't lost and we're certainly not losing [Music] which is why I think it means so much in ODST that he's not there because ODST gives us the one thing John never could a genuine perspective what it means to be human in this war we open in low orbit over the city of New Mombasa the war has finally come to Earth the Covenant have only scratched to the surface but if you've played Halo 2 you'll know the basic story for this time frame after all we open only an hour or two after John gave the Covenant back their bomb there's one Covenant Ship left that made landfall and that's for us to clean up who's us you ask great question thank you it's really Charming how you help me do Segways US is an ODST team oh uh ODST stands for orbital drop shock troopers they're not Spartans but they're sort of a spec ops equivalent for the UNSC this team along with a bunch of others are gearing for a special drop the plan is to infiltrate the Covenant Ship hovering new Mombasa Covent ground forces are pulling back to under the ship so the timeline might be pretty tight our team is made up of Romeo Dutch and Mickey 1 2 and 3 as well as rookie assumingly the new guy to the crew 4 and in walks Buck he's the leader and number five with a new not quite number six Veronica she's from The Office of Naval intelligence Oni so she's like really [ __ ] in charge once she walks into a room which is why once the entire platoon of ODSTs drop she can suddenly call in Audible and change all their trajectory this throws off the ODSTs but matters are about to get worse because the cruiser is about to jump if we really wanted to get into it we could discuss the way that faster than light travel works in the Halo Universe between UNSC Shah fujikawa drives and the covenant's own slipstream technology but all you really need to know is that using one in atmosphere doesn't really do great things for property value it also doesn't do great things for people that may or may not be essentially Free Falling directly into that property devaluing Blast Zone pod hits us we lose control we get hit again and everything goes black and then the game starts we're in the dark we have no direction we have no objective and we're alone and that's actually kind of a really big deal for a Halo game because we've never been alone before whenever we play as Jon we're joined by Cortana a sort of incredibly special AI companion capable of well honestly whatever the story needs her to be capable of and if we're not joined by her we're joined by the weird flashing pulsing memory of her and if we're not joined by the weird flashing pulsing memory of her we're joined by the Arbiter who's basically John's cooler older cousin that grew up in a different area code but now they chill don't worry about him too much this is the only time I'll mention him in this essay and I do so only to really drive home loneliness is new to Halo the first level of ODST sees us navigating the burnt out streets of a Thai or dying City burnt out wreckages litter the streets smoke fills Every Breath You Take terrifying aliens lurk in the shadows it's basically what Fox News wants you to think San Francisco is now ODST is a very dark game literally and metaphorically and we can deal with the literal part by switching on our visor am I going to talk about the metaphorical part I'm making a video about space or a space adjacent medium to explore aspects of the human condition of course I am come on you've seen my Stellaris video turning on our visor we get the ability to pierce through these Shadows a little better and we see that our enemies are outlined in red now we don't have an objective or even a map but there's this really neat idea in game design or Gameplay at least that states if you encounter enemies you're going the right way and ODST has a neat little example here on using that there are three main combat encounters each one taking you deeper into the city each one taking you in a very specific Direction and while those fights give you the direction you're otherwise lacking those fights also present combat in a very new light whenever you play as Jon or even the Arbiter sorry I lied earlier actual last time you have energy shields for your armor every time you take damage it drains a little bit of your shield and when you haven't taken damage for a set amount of time the drained portion of your Shield recharges but ODSTs do not have shields once you take damage you're hurt indefinitely you don't have the same level of self-sufficiency you need to seek out or stumble upon first aid stations scattered throughout the city that haven't already been spent by civilians fleeing the conflict oh yeah that's another thing we haven't seen before I mean the Halo games have seen Combat on Earth before but when it comes to civilians then ah then I'm getting ahead of myself the rookie that's us by the way we're him fights his way through the streets we don't have a clear Direction only following betrayal of bad guys our only real objective are only real hope is to try and link up with our Squad but comms are silent and it's been hours since we landed they could all be dead by now and we could be too if we're not careful because this is the first Halo game that makes us understand the perspective of what it means to be a human in this war the rookie cries and screams and breathes heavy in a way that feels foreign to the series he hurts we hurt and once the fight is over that hurt doesn't just go away it stays with us unless we can drag ourselves back to our feet and keep moving find some kind of Solace and accept that when we get hurt again the next time sometime soon we'll have to do that all again the first thing we see highlighted that isn't red is this Payphone interact with it after clearing the area and will be contacted by the superintendent who's a rather unique AI that controls the bulk of the city's services and utilities now in Halo up to this point AIS have been a close friend their tools designed to help Humanity but we often consider them companions as well and while this sometimes comes in the form of a curvy of voluptuous blue woman that sits in your head and calls you stud muffin even in the case of the superintendent which is much less a pretty woman and much more a city-wide motherboard with two count them two 40 90s to run all of the doors and ticket services and whatnot it's still personified by this little face emoji that reacts and cutscenes to what it sees and because AIS like to help the superintendent will give you a map of the local area and that map will show you the basics of what sections of the city are available to you essentially you can get a notion of where you're supposed to go because the superintendent will show you where you can't go the city has been evacuated but the superintendent is still there and it's been watching it saw you and your squad all touch down and it will help us as the rookie navigate the city and relocate our Squad with that in mind let's talk about how this game actually works there are two stories in this game and the way we interact with them is heavily informed by the themes of this game we start as the rookie alone in the streets of New Mombasa and if you're willing to work with and pay attention to the superintendent we can find six different items left behind in some way by our Squad we can follow their Footsteps in little ways and we figure out the mystery of where our Squad is what the new Captain's sudden change of plan was and how to fulfill that new objective one of the neat things about ODST is that while there is a sort of chronological order to finding all of these items if you really wanted to explore around you can collect them in any order I typically follow the chronological order and that's how I'll be telling the story but I've always had a lot of respect for ODST for giving the player that much freedom and Trust after the pay phone the first objective is upstairs on a building overlooking a plaza it's a helmet Captain dare's helmet specifically and it's in pretty rough shape take a moment to ponder the helmet and will enter the first level of the game Sergeant Buck has had a bit of a rough Landing but as far as Landings we know about go I'd rather be upside down on the ground than right side up four stories high one of the very human elements in this game is the mini story between buck and dare specifically this Mission isn't the first time they've met that much is clear but it really seems to be the first time they've spoken since some form of romantic connection fell apart it seems like dating is hard when you're an Oni spook and your partner is constantly getting dropped into combat zones from low earth orbit but just because it's hard doesn't mean they don't want it so the whole time you're fighting through the streets is bucked recovering the scraps of our Squad and working to get back out of the city buck and dare have their own little mini story a sort of will they won't they which makes no sense to have during a covenant landfall over the human home world and that's exactly why it works so well I can't imagine a more human thing than I know we're being invaded by aliens but I need to know if you love me great danger has a way of bringing the important things to the Forefront of one's mind and sometimes the most important thing is another person dare suddenly go silent crying that the Covenant have found her drop pod that she's been stuck inside it malfunctioned during the blast or the subsequent crash landing and buck races to its location after clearing the Covenant from the site and tearing open the pod door we find that dare's pod is empty and she's missing as Buck Ponders this a member of the Covenant sneaks up on him but is quickly dispatched by Romeo in a rather perilous turn of events it seems that this alien was some sort of suicide bomber perhaps as once it dies a whole cluster of plasma grenades scattered the area and detonate destroying dare's helmet and throwing it across the plaza right into this window where it's later found by the rookie from there Buck makes the call to bail on dare's last minute Mission change the new objective is to collect the scraps of his Squad and get out of the city but with the city being such a mess calms are unreliable it's time to get above the street level and out of the soup back to the rookie we move on towards our next Beacon and as we walk I want to talk about the soundtrack for this game specifically as well as halos in general now if you've played Halo you're probably familiar with because probably the most iconic little riff in gaming soundtrack history I genuinely can't think of a more instantly identifiable tune than unless you want to pull like Tetris or something and while is pretty much the sound bite for Halo there's loads more tunes that you'll immediately know as Halo The Core theme and identity of what makes a Halo soundtrack a Halo soundtrack is really really well defined and recognized it's metal it's heavy Rock it's defiant it's angry it's high energy and it's all utterly dripping with that I dare you to [ __ ] try me energy [Music] but it can also be soft which I think is sometimes delightfully unexpected and personally some of my favorite work there's the tune a walk in the woods from the original Combat Evolved that pulls these bass forward synths somber and melancholic themes and in Halo 3 you can find the siege of Madrigal which I almost can't listen to because it makes me sad in ways I've never had words for that doesn't stop me from loving it completely though and these themes these quieter hidden away notes and tunes make up a sort of underlying identity for the Halo soundtrack as a collective whole and in ODST this under layer is given headliner attention while the squad still retains the classic Halo rocking guitar themes the rookie and his quiet lonely walks are gently wrapped in sad melancholic blues and saxophones it's a soundtrack personalized just for him to represent his station as alone and Left Behind it's essentially the equivalent to all of those post-rock Mega playlists which all have completely nonsensical but completely understandable titles like it is one of those nights where if you ask me to explain what that meant or the emotion that came along with it I would never have the words for it but I don't think there's ever been an emotion I felt more clearly and I feel that emotion so present in every step of the rookies journey and it gives a whole new personality and identity to what Halo is I'm out of words to just say I like it a lot and that's okay because we're at our next Beacon this Beacon gives us the next level and it's the one that feels I think the most recognizable as Halo kind of like the developers are giving us a gentle reminder that yeah this game feels different but don't worry we still know what we're doing driving this message home Dutch our POV for this level starts with a Spartan laser and takes a leadership role to help guide a bunch of Marines through a nature reserve it's a level that feels distinctly Halo mirroring all the way back to the first Halo game and the mission where Master Chief takes charge of collecting the Marines scattered across the Halo installation the objective for this level is twofold clear the Covenant positions set up through the reserve and find a way back into the city now up to this point odst's big theme has been a little subtle turkey needs to find his Squad dare needs Buck's help Buck needed the sniper support from Romeo ODST is about people needing people but if we really want to see this theme in the flesh this is the level for it the game teases the idea of self-reliance a little bit via the use of that aforementioned Spartan laser the reserve is filled with Covenant heavy armor like wraiths as well as positions defended by towers and turrets but the laser will make quick work of these the issue stems from the problem that there's way more things to use the Spartan laser on than the Spartan laser has shots for but you'll have enough shots to clear out the first Arena and help defend the Marines within it from there well it's time to mount up now this is one of my favorite levels in ODST and maybe one of my favorites in Halo in general and it's also the one that best hammers home what I think ODST is really all about you can beat the level alone on foot without taking the warthog full of Marines and ripping Through The Preserve and drifting through Covenant positions and splattering bad guys but the game will constantly beat you over the head demanding you pay attention to it as it yells in you in size 72 bolded impact font this would be easier with friends and that's what ODST is all about the acceptance of oneself as not the island not the trump card but that we are at our best we're at our most capable when we're with people that we can rely on when we all choose to lift together not to be a single person putting the world on our back and when you really start looking for it this game is utterly filled with this theme chock full of it bursting at the seams with camaraderie teamwork and genuine [ __ ] care for people and it'll get to you in a serious way the level after The Preserve for example sees Dutch making contact with Mickey followed by the two of them making contact with some of new mambasa's local police department local PD has been trying to hold the Oni office on the outskirts of town but it's become clear that it's only a matter of time before the office is lost so the new plan is to blow the whole thing and ensure that the Covenant can't access any of the intelligence stored there the plan is to lose on our terms now unless you're Airborne the only office only has one way in one way out and quite frankly we'd all be a lot happier taking that number down a notch armb explosives blow the bridge take a few Petty shots and fall back because the Covenant are fully capable of being Airborne it's time to defend the hills up against Covenant forces being air dropped at the base of the Hill it goes well for a few waves but ammo starts running low and it's clear that Newman boss's finest were never really trained for how to handle a covenant Invasion which is why once a brute Chieftain drops onto the field it's time for a final retreat except that not everyone makes it inside it doesn't take long for the people left behind to be killed that's a special kind of violence that things like brute Chieftains are really good at and while I never really thought too much about the deaths of the Marines or ODSTs and other Halo games here I found myself genuinely upset torn between wanting to go out and help and recognizing that it's also a game that I need to do certain actions to progress the story and knowing that those two things were opposites but in a game so full of The Human Experience a story is so defined by the base human need to support and be supported by other humans knowing that even in here in the realm of fiction I'd let down some people in the greatest way possible I'll fully admit I got a little mournful there isn't a lot of time to sit in that emotion though Covenant forces are cutting through the door and they're coming in through the landing pads on the back we don't have to hold the building forever just long enough for the final explosives to be set and once that's done it's a final Retreat to the rooftop and a final fire fight to secure a landing zone for an nmpd Pelican once on board an officer lets the two know that buck has been trying to reach them and offers a flight to Buck's location which makes finding Buck really just so much easier and hey we're starting to get the band back together I mean the rookie hasn't even woken up in his pod yet at this point but hey four out of five ain't bad and like Romeo says to Buck's credit he's not a big fan of leaving anyone behind but it's clear he's lost people before replacements it's many years into the war who isn't it anyways just before Dutch and Mickey leave the signal range they blow the whole building another loss on our terms the next Squad level sees us back with buck in Romeo and it's time for our level as the final member of the squad did you notice how we get one level as each member ODST has some fantastic attention to detail if that's the kind of thing that dungeons your dragons want another example right here in this cutscene Romeo fires three shots from his sniper when we cut to his POV he's only got one round left in the chamber and even when we gain control of Romeo for ourselves he's still just got that one round left before a Reload Loki the game kind of screws you over just to maintain continuity but nothing dungeons my dragons more than maintaining continuity plus you'll be able to pick up plenty more sniper ammo from these guys right here hey do you mind if I ramble about these guys right here for a moment because they've got a lot of sniper rifles for a seriously Close Quarters range between the basic layout of the room Marines inside the desk dead Covenant outside the desk this feels like a real sort of Last Stand room which if you've done some exploring as the rookie you'll know is a pretty common thing in new Mombasa these days but what I love about these Last Stand rooms is that they're always presented it is defiant with corpses of brutes or other aliens usually in a number equal to or greater than the humans they ended up killing Defiance and a loss on our terms and I think that's represented in an incredible way with these guys right here because the sniper rifle in Halo is a really formidable thing provided that you have the spacing and distance to handle it which these guys did not have but they still had the chance to get a single shot off and I love that because it tells the story of a group of guys who knew they were going to die knew that before they fired a second round they would be dead but that first shot at this range a minimum of one alien Invader per rifle is going home in a mop bucket take the ammo they never got to use and move onwards Dutch and Mickey were inbound in that Pelican but they were chased off by some banshees this level sees us scooting through the skyscrapers of new Mombasa to get to their crash site a landing pad on a building right nearby I hope you don't mind Heights there's no chance we're flying out on this Pelican but right now the bigger problem is defending the crash site thankfully we've got a bunch of friends and an ample supply of high-powered explosives which the combination and subsequent appropriate application of really Saves the Day until they drop another Chieftain now you don't get to fight this Chieftain he's relegated to cut scene bad guy but I'm kind of okay with that because it gives the game the chance to show off what they want this guy to look like to feel like in regards to our people in regards to just people because we've seen multiple times what Spartans are capable of doing to brutes with hammers whether that be Cal 141 and the babysitter or be it jerome092 in Halo Wars Spartans are the power play after all but ODSTs aren't Spartans what they are is a team and it takes all four of them together in some way to get the win and it's not a clean win Romeo takes a serious hit collapsing one of his lungs and with the Pelican out of commission it's back down to street level hope the elevator works it's night by the time they get down and if your internal clock is working you'll probably realize that the rookie must be down on the streets around the same time unfortunately bucks now got to make a call get out of the city with three including one he almost lost or Risk Everything trying to find rookie or dare chooses to bail and honestly I don't blame him I find the burden of choosing which lives to save and which to give up on entirely unenviable the plan is just to walk out of the city via the train tunnels underneath the city but that won't get them too far something big broke during the blast and Waters filled the tunnels we're down to one option left the pilot of this Phantom is asleep at the wheel which means it's dead simple for Mickey to slip in and slit a throat making ODST I believe the only Halo game where we actually use a phantom as the UNSC this level is honestly a real blast and a bit of a power fantasy but if we're being totally honest that's about it which is totally okay after a whole game feeling like you're on the back foot a little jaunt to sort of metaphorically give the Covenant back their bomb so to say feels really good and right as they're on their way out of the city Buck makes a realization Mickey turn around find a safe place to set us down what I lost something now I know where to find her can I tell you a secret something between Just the Two of Us I have no [ __ ] clue how Buck figured out where dare is maybe it's because I got a touch of baptism and sometimes I miss subtle details and words or don't get their meanings correctly but y'all I think bug might just be built different new orders find a safe place to put the Phantom down because Buck is going after dare coincidentally the rookie just found the sixth Beacon which unlocks the data Hive which means the rookie is going after day or two now the data Hive is a kind of special level it's the end of Rookie's Journey Through the new Mombasa streets and it's the first time since the drop that the rookie has met another person not there not yet but this an MPD officer who demands that Virgil let him down into the lower levels to which the superintendent replies no huh Virgil interesting if we save this officer he'll help us clear the tunnels up until this part right here where we jump down to the next level and the superintendent suddenly locks him out it's a little uncomfortable hearing him die as the buggers rip him apart and that might be accentuated by the superintendent cheerfully exclaiming that crime doesn't pay huh following the path further we meet two more interesting people one we do meet Veronica who has been down in the data Hive trying to secure the superintendent's data she's having a bad time because some idiots blew up the only office above her so the bugger Hive is going completely nuts but if you can push through the hive and clear out the area around the final door the superintendent will unlock the final door for you and you'll meet Virgil who's an alien specifically he's one of those weird suicide bomber aliens of which Veronica will quickly mention they're a slave race the Covenant keep called Engineers they're a sort of biological supercomputer something people like Veronica have only seen a handful of times the info on them is lockdown type but one thing we can say with near certainty is that they hate the Covenant just about as much as we do and this is the part where I admit I've lied to you because ODST doesn't just tell two stories it tells three and if you don't mind I'd still like to tell you the third one circuits now open with pride the story of Sadie and Virgil is a story that isn't just what it means to be a human in this war it's a story about what it means to be a civilian in this war to see the world ripped apart to see that Devastation approach you to know that you cannot fight against it and to move into it anyways because there's still someone trapped inside it's a story of The Reckless hope that someone else won't be lost it's a story distinctly human her full name is Sadie and Asia the daughter of one Daniel and Asia and we can learn her story by paying attention to audio logs that the superintendent will direct us to as we prowl the streets of New Mombasa as the rookie you see the superintendent doesn't want to help us just because it's an AI and AI is like to be helpful the superintendent wants you to know about the endacious we first meet Sadie at a train station minutes before the Covenant invasion of new Mombasa and she's buying a ticket to magongo the town at the end of the line notable to Sadie for housing a significant UNSC recruitment office right as the train is about to depart however the superintendent will shut down the train for an emergency stop and Sadie will Express frustration and Virgil a little required backstory Daniel and Deja works on adjacent to works with in some way the superintendent it's never made clear his exact role but what matters right now is that after his wife was killed years ago he wanted to make sure that nothing could ever harm Sadie so he wrote a special little AI code that he named Virgil and slipped it into the superintendent's main code when no one was looking Virgil's programming was to keep Sadie safe and to use the superintendent's control over the city functions to help do so as a result Sadie has grown up her entire life with this special mechanical friend who whenever Sadie addresses it engages in my favorite Trope in the world which is when a robot responds to normal people not with words but with little quips and quotes from pre-made media play I'm 19. now what's best about Virgil is when you as the player realize then that it hasn't been the superintendent guiding the rookie around the city it's been Virgil specifically watching and directing us not just to our Squad but through Sadie's own steps and we should get back to Sadie because the Covenant just invaded now Sadie should be in a great position here on the outskirts of town on a train to a remote City miles from the violence but her father is still in the city central working right underneath where the Covenant just landed and so Sadie makes the most human decision and thusly the only real decision she could make she's going back for her dad and we're able to come along for the ride via the audio logs that Virgil makes and if we choose to go along for that ride we'll find that the third story is by far the most human of the three because this is when we finally talk about civilians in Halo there are a lot of civilians in Sadie's Story Each with their own special little role to play Sadie's story if you've noticed the name of the logs mirrors The Nine Circles of hell and we even have our own little Virgil to guide us through them but because of all of those characters it's difficult to pinpoint the most significant I mean there's Kinsler the primary antagonist in Sadie's story which is impressive given the current state of New Mombasa as being under siege from genocidal aliens and yeah like Kinsler plays a whole real big deal in her story large enough to bleed over into the rookie story so we should talk about him Kinsler is the police commissioner for new Mombasa Kinsler is also a predator and he views Sadie in a very predatory light kind of a it's the end of the world no one will notice one missing girl vibe Vibe Sadie refuses to give in to him and when Kinsler understands that Sadie's goal is to save her father he begins working to hinder her Quest as punishment if I had to pinpoint anything in ODST that wasn't like Triple S tier best in show quality it would be Kinsler he's predatory for the sake of being predatory but not in any sort of moving way he just feels a little flat but Sadie also introduces us to Mike an officer working under Kinsler who betrays him and helps Sadie escape from her first encounter with Kinsler once Mike understands kinsler's intentions Mike and her part ways after they fight over Sadie's need to move deeper into the city though he does return to Aid her soon after the split because it's the right thing to do and there always has to be someone to do the right thing he'd kill some brutes hunting her by ramming them with his car it's important to recognize here that while Kinsler is the worst person Sadie meets he's not the only person that she meets and plenty of those encounters are encounters with people who are deeply deeply flawed people that like Kinsler somehow have the idea of trying to use the Covenant landfall to their own selfish Advantage moving through the streets Sadie encounters an Old Woman Who rather than flee the conflict has taken the chance to smash apart machines in a casino stating that if the world is ending she wants her money back and she gets it but only has a few moments to enjoy it before those aforementioned brutes get her and despite these characters is not particularly moving or as objectively terrible people I honestly really like that they're still included because this is a game about humans and sometimes humans can be really quite [ __ ] towards the end of Sadie's Story Once Kinsler understands he can't win he orders the execution of her father Daniel not so fun fact the officer we meet in the data Hive is the rookie is one of kinsler's goons sent to make sure other officers once Kinsler lost contact with finished the job heartbroken and only convinced by the words of Virgil and Mike Sadie finally flees the city if you're still wondering this AI Virgil is the same Virgil as the alien we found as the rookie remember these aliens the engineers are a sort of biological supercomputer it's basically downloaded all of Virgil's and the superintendent's data into its own brain that's how it's known where to guide you and even that it should guide you in the first place and all of these things all of these elements I think are significant both for how they tell their own story while also informing the story of the rookie one of the audio logs for example includes a woman working at the nmpd police station and you can overhear a conversation she has with Veronica dare but the most important part of Sadie's story at least from the perspective of this essay is the story of Jonas do you really want us to be enemies or would you rather have a nice kebab zaidi meets Jonas as she moves closer to the city center where hordes of desperate people are moving in the opposite direction fleeing the same place she has to move towards but Jonas isn't fleeing he's giving away food because Jonas is a butcher with a specialty for kebabs kebabs that he's giving away freely to any person fleeing the conflict during a brief conversation Sadie tries to convince Jonas that he needs to flee the city but there's just one problem Jonas works with food all day he also happens to love food and he loves it a lot so much to the point where he weighs in at in his own words 800 pounds he explains to Sadie that even if he could move on his own down to a bus depot or to the Waterfront to catch a bus or a boat he would take up at least five seats and he knows he is not worth five seats and so instead of trying to flee he has accepted that he will die and in doing so he has tried to make the end of the world as easy as possible for the people that happen to pass by him and I love Jonas not just for this but for being the only person in Sadie's story that refuses to doubt her because when Sadie says she's heading into the city center where the fighting is the worst he doesn't try to dissuade her he simply tells her to take his second kebab everything about Jonas is everything Halo is self-sacrifice and The Reckless utterly Reckless hope that via that self-sacrifice someone else won't be lost all wrapped bundled up in the support of others however he can do it back with the rookie and with buck and dare and with the alien Virgil secured it's time to move a final fight along the highway and a holdout at the nature preserve's front Gates while we wait for Mickey and the boys to arrive in the pelican and once they're here we're done out of the city for a final time if you stick around for the epilogue it's implied a little that Virgil the engineer plays some significant role in helping the unse push back against the Covenant but it's never really brought up in any certain way in any other game at least not that I know of and I think that's okay because what I feel ODST did what ODST wanted to do was just tell some very important stories for the sake of telling those stories and I think these stories are so important because for all of my love of Halo for all of my love of its music and its designs and its actions for all my love of punching an old alien man to death in his dumb alien wheelchair for all of my love of giving the Covenant back their bomb for all my love of all of the things Halo has been very little of what it has been has been human Halo 4 tried at least and I think that's Court why I love it so much and infinite took a stab at it as well but it's one thing to try and find out what being a human is and another thing entirely to experience what being a human means especially in a world like this because being a human means at its very core other humans rookie tells us a story of self-reliance a story of loneliness and isolation and the desperate insistent human emotion the otherwise Indescribable sense of will to just keep going to drag yourself over the finish line or just until you can find someone to help drag you there the squad tells us a story of camaraderie of human connection the complications of being together in hard times and the undeniable value that another human life has during times of struggle and pain that going back for another that giving in to that sense of Reckless hope is always the right thing and someone always has to do the right thing Sadie tells us a story of humanity across the scope from its very worst to its very best that we will lose both on our own conditions and with no control that sometimes the only thing to do is Embrace The Reckless hope that someone else will be okay Combat Evolved and Co puts me in the boots of what I want to be the very best of us the Safeguard the Jack of all trades the island the one who makes everything okay but ODST puts me in the boots of what I am lonely and alone pushing forward one step at a time never knowing my direction never knowing my opposition until suddenly they're there and it reminds me that in that darkest night I can be my own power play that someday I'll look back at my greatest challenges and wonder what I was ever worried about that when things get too hard I'm not alone I just need to find the ones who I know are near me they'll support me and I'll support them and sure we might be losing for now but we know how this story goes one step at a time together and soon all this mess will be behind us believe it or not this was supposed to just be a quick thing to throw together to fill space between now and September 26th which if everything has gone right should be tomorrow at least tomorrow from the perspective of when this video has gone live if you've been around this channel for a bit you know that I have a bit of a thing for cyberpunk 2077 and I've been marking the days off my calendar until the Phantom Liberty DLC comes out if everything has gone well or at least according to plan by the time you're seeing this I'm already working on the script for the next essay unless of course you're one of my incredible patreons over at patreon who got access to this video early and also ad free if that sounds like something you'd be interested in or if you really just like the content I make and want to help me make more of it you should head over to my patreon page and see if there's a tier that works for you thank you

Channel: Thane Bishop

Views: 138,324

Keywords: Halo, Halo: ODST, Halo 3: ODST, Halo Infinite, Video Essay, Space, Video Games, Humanity, Human

Id: VGbXRt3efHU

Length: 45min 57sec (2757 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 17 2023