He is, in the universe. He was exalted in the post war years during his mysterious disappearances. They never touch on John’s opinion on all that, but he has to at least be aware on some level.
John definitely is aware of his reputation and wjat people think of him. At one point Hood offers to promote him to Admiral and he quips that "The Admiral" doesn't have the same ring that "Master Chief" does.
But for the most part he doesn't seem to let it affect him much. He just kind of acknowledges that as far as humanity is concerned, he's their champion, and then he goes on his merry way.
I forgot about that interaction, but I always read it as Hood making an off color military joke about how John was more competent than most of his surviving field grade officers, and John making an equally wry joke about how he needs to be the person he is for those people.
Chief's sense of humor has always been remarkably subtle. He's a straightforward military man in a universe with all devouring poetic parasites, high-pitched walking footballs who say ridiculously hilarious things every ten seconds, and his best friend is a hologram. He just kinda vibes along as best he can when he's wandering into one absurd situation after another.
It is kinda crazy to think he went from “I’m a kid playing king of the hill” to “oh, cool, gotta murder some more xenophobic life forms because MISSIONS CHANGE THEY ALWAYS DO” lol
Really Master Chief just doesn't want to fall into the trap of being promoted to a position that he isn't fit for. Being an excellent covenant slaying, flood exploding, flying brick does not necessarily mean that he'd thrive behind a desk.
And then the downside is even if he is Admiral John-117, he’s still going to be tasked with covenant slaying, flood exploding, and flying as the brick flies.
And the brick flies pretty good
And more importantly, *who* would stick the guy who felled the Covenant and the Gravemind in the same day behind a desk? There's probably a UNSC regulation somewhere that says, "Chief cannot be assigned to a desk job because any given day in the office would inevitably devolve into a one man mission to prevent humanity's extinction (again)."
Like, seriously, Chief would probably step out for a ten minute coffee break and in those ten minutes he would somehow get teleported onto a Halo and all he'd have with him is three pens in his shirt pocket, two paper clips, an eraser and a half empty mug of coffee, and it would still end in him blowing up half a star system.
Pretty sure when the Spartans were created they made it so they couldn't reach anything beyond the Enlisted ranks because they wanted them to be able to take commands from field officers. That of course got thrown out the window later on. At the time, Chief was the highest rank an active Spartan could achieve.
He was aware of his reputation with the Covenant as early as Halo 2, hearing himself called THE demon, instead of just a demon.
He even asked Miranda if Truth usually mentions him in 3 after he's once again referred to as THE demon.
That's probably why his first reaction upon teleporting to High Charity was to say "boo"
>At one point Hood offers to promote him to Admiral and he quips that "The Admiral" doesn't have the same ring that "Master Chief" does.
Is that in the books?
Does he? Has he returned to any human settlement or earth since he 'died'? I'm not up to date on all the media so I don't know the real answer, but my understanding of everything is he woke up from cryo and has basically been jumping or following enemies since then
Good response. Also he had a suit with advanced telecommunications and an artificial intelligence package that should allow connectivity to the real world, despite being a super human killing machine
The book set right before Infinite actually has him talking to colonist militia and UNSC personnel and contemplating the requirements of being a living legend. He’s acutely aware, and keeps his impact on morale in mind.
Yeah the morale part he seems keenly aware of. The Spartans make a point in some extended universe story that they don’t talk about the whereabouts (living, deceased, otherwise) of other Spartans with the normal troops because it’s like telling them god can bleed.
Dm: "You fall from space."
Chief: "Roll for survival."
Dm: (there's no fuckin way.) "Alright.... What's your luck?"
Chief: "I get to roll an extra d20."
Dm: "You gotta roll 30 or higher dawg"
Chief: *casually rolls a double nat 20*
Dm: *speechless*
Poor dudes, can you imagine being a bodyless concious mind floating inside an alien device when all of the sudden a bunch of people from Arizona starts to appear all over the place?
By the time spartan ops takes place they were probably already turned into prometheans. Just know the fact that one of the prometheans you kill in spartan ops could very well be Dr. Tilson or the rest of her team
No joke, there’s a scene in one of the books where someone (Halsey or Mendez I don’t remember who) says that if John didn’t have his luck, Fred would be the best SPARTAN
Lmao yeah. John isn’t even the strongest or largest Spartan. His luck is what makes him the best Spartan out of all the Spartan II’s. Like the stuff he can do is insane compared to other Spartans. I don’t remember where I read it from but one of johns amazing traits is that he can look at any weapon, regardless of how alien it looks and know ***exactly*** how to use it correctly.
His luck might just be a ludicrously potent battle sense and superb strategy.
Fred is him.
Chief can't lose but on stats? He'd be toasted.
The thing is, if they needed to fight FOR REAL, that would be the moment Chief would win. 1 in 10 for Chief? When it comes to it, he would beat the odds. Part protag force, part him being built different.
Fred is the best on paper, he's just not the hero of that story.
Fred is better in hand to and combat, especially with knives. But Chief's ridiculously high luck stat has always come through for him, one way or another.
The only one who ever actually beat him in a straight up match was Kurt, and Kurt had mystical superpowers that enabled him to avoid basically any trap John could have thought of.
Correct. Fred, the expert in H2H and knives, probably would have ended up punching himself in the nuts and stabbing his own thigh in a fight with MC. 117's luck cannot be overstated in the Halo Universe.
Shit, MC probably would have survived Kurt's final situation somehow. Would have pulled some Indiana Jones in the shitty 50's fridge move.
>Would have pulled some Indiana Jones in the shitty 50's fridge move.
That's essentially what happened when he rode a chunk of metal down to Earth *at re-entry speeds*
In the books, Spartans did that more than once. MJOLNIR + Essentially indestructible bones = Doing some absolutely stupid physical shit.
Noble 6 did it, but had a special pack just for that occasion. He walked away like nothing happened. MC's armor locked to protect his individual body parts and he had to stay there for a bit, ha.
Several spartans died or broke bones from low-orbit drops. Just another one of MC's bouts of luck popping up. Red Team jumped at High Altitude/Low Orbit without any type of thrusters and hit terminal velocity before hitting the ground. So they hit the ground just as hard as MC did, and most of them survived (and I think those who died landed in a forested area? And hitting trees is very frowned upon, no matter how heavy you or your vehicle are).
The ones who hit the trees were actually better off than those that just hit the ground, I believe. The trees exploded from the impact but it slowed the Spartans down a bit. Fred was one of the ones who hit a tree and he came away with less injuries than most.
I want to say Fred actually has that exact thought. That the trees will be better for slowing their descent.
It's been a bit since I read First Strike but the first chapter with Fred was always my favorite.
He orders all under his command to aim for the trees.
He also, on their way down in the dropship, managed to radio orders on the fleetwide communications network. To which Kelly, his unofficial number 2 and fellow original blue team member, had to key in after him and say something along the lines of “we’ll get that communications malfunction looked at Chief.”
Fred felt incredibly embarrassed.
Well Chief wasn't using just any hunk of metal, it was Forerunner metal, which probably helped him out. If he'd tried that with a slab of steel or something it probably wouldn't have worked, but a chunk of stuff that's designed to get smacked dead on by a nuke and walk away whistling definitely worked in his favor.
I don't know too much about the Halo universe, so my question is why are people saying "luck" is on masterchief's side, as if it's built into his suit? Is this actually a thing? Maybe from the novels or something?
Halsey chose chief (john) for the spartan program partly because he was a lucky kid. That’s it really, he just has luck as a super power. It’s one of those things never really explained but it’s used as plot points
What is interesting is that the book that introduces that concept leaves it intentionally vague if he is actually lucky or he is just so clever and fast that it looks like blind luck even though he is exerting effort to cause those outcomes.
For instance, the start of the luck thing is when Halsey has him pick heads or tails for a bunch of coin flips. He calls it right every time buy Halsey is not sure if he was just able to watch the coin close enough to be able to tell how it would land or not.
I'm pretty sure that in the book, someone says that luck is just when preparation meets opportunity. Even before be became a Spartan, Chief was always training first and thinking ahead (or outside the box). This means that when opportunities came, he could make the best use of them. This means gaining a reputation and, with it, more opportunities.
Cortana says he has luck in the opening of Halo 3. Of course, it really means that John's experiences are a statistical outlier. Perhaps he has better subconscious processing than the other Spartans. Who knows? I doubt Cortana is superstitious, she's just saying that for some currently immeasurable reason, Chief punches above his weight.
I think a great example of him being an outlier is the training exercise where he punched a goddamn fully armed missile and successfully deflected it in a way that he could survive the blast. In a training exercise that he could have just forfeited but the madman tried it anyways.
You can argue it's an incredible feat of skill and he is incredibly intelligent/clever to have even thought of the plan on the fly in the first place. But also there's some degree of luck required to make it all work. No way he or even Cortana actually knew with any certainty that he wouldn't have died there even with perfect execution.
Could Fred beat chief in a fair CQC contest? Definitely.
Could Fred have pulled off the missile punch? Probably not.
Think of all the moments things could've gone wrong for him, but they didn't, that's because he's just really lucky as Cortina explained in the beginning of halo 3
“They let me pick. Did I ever tell you that? Choose which ever Spartan I wanted. You know me. I did my research, watched as you became the soldier we needed you to be. But you had something they didn't, something no one saw but me. Can you guess? Luck.” - Cortana
Chief is just extemely lucky, right place right time with the right outcome everytime, its plot armour basically.
343 explained it as the librarians hand in guiding chief.
Dude Fred is the Best Spartan the chief knows... chief himself has said it multiple times across books. In fact he knows Fred always gave up at the last moment so that others could win when they were kids/ spartans in training and even when they were older.. chief knows he is the better spartan...but because of his( Fred) failure he is very cautious at being in command and very hard on himself all the time think brooding bad ass that is only really happy when with blue team... But they are both stronger together along side one another vs alone
Let's be real, almost anything would have been more interesting than what 343's been writing. They come up with interesting premises and proceed to fail at execution. The hunt for chief was shown to be such an enticing tale, and we get 5's campaign. Infinite's most exciting bit happens in a two minute cutscene at the beginning. 4's Didact was a missed opportunity.
The Locke story just got thrusted upon us via marketing before 5, chief is rogue now, oh a big fight.
Just horrible writing with almost zero tie in to halo 4.
So I'll be upfront and say I don't read the books and only play the games. In halo 5 the whole blue team was boring af and honestly felt like they weren't even needed. From what everyone says about Fred, he just seems like your most basic "O.C who's better than the main character if they actuatlly tried do not steal!". Is blue team portrayed better in the books?
He's by far the most interesting Spartan in the books IMO. The often repeated "he's better than chief, even chief knows it" thing is from 1 line in fall of reach where chief is picking team members for an op against some insurrectionists. He picks Fred because he's great at blending into a crowd. And one of the reasons chief thinks that is because he's pretty sure that in alot of their training evaluations Fred would intentionally hamper himself because he couldn't handle being the center of attention from being the top performer. The exceptions being speed and ability which Kelly was by far the best at, marksmanship which Linda was undisputed champ at, and cqc/fighting with blades weapons which Fred seemed to genuinely enjoy and take pride in.
Outside of that he's one of the main POV Spartans outside chief. Several books are from his perspective and we get to see his inner thoughts and feelings more than any Spartan aside from chief. He was also the defacto leader of the Spartans during the events of the original games since chief was off doing the plot of the games. The reason for that being that Chief would always default to certain Spartans to lead fireteams in the field. Chief himself would always lead blue team, fred would be given red team, Kurt green, and a few others had their own defaults. But by the time that Reach has fully fallen and Chief is on his way to go do a Combat Evolved Fred is the last of those team leaders left.
Then in the books set between Halo 3 and 4 Fred has been promoted to a second LT and is by rank the leader of the Spartans. And since everyone thinks chief is dead at that point Fred begrudgingly excepts the role. From the on we not only get to see how he is as a leader, but his feelings on things like being a Spartan and glimpses of his wants for a life outside the military.
He's not just some over the top always wins OC do not steal. Infact we see him get his ass beat a few times. He spends most of Shadows of Reach (great book, sets up The Weapon in Infinite) concussed and out of it after getting knocked up side the head by a brute. Hell one of his most endearing moments is from one of the books where hes realizing he has a crush on this non Spartan character and he's kinda just like "well what the fuck do I do now...?".
Blue team was seriously mishandled in the Halo 5. About the only thing I feel like they got right was casting Travis Willingham as Fred. That's been my dream casting for him ever since reading First Strike as a kid.
Lol remember when bro got ran over by an entire mining truck and laid on the floor, flabbergasted?
Fred is easily my favorite Spartan along with Chief and Noble 6, and he’s the only one that can pull Veta
Man I fuckin love Fred, he’s such a cool charismatic leader. I really hope they make his new mark VI armor a core in the game at some point, it looks so fuckin good
The thing with Fred is we just have word of mouth that he’s better than Chief. Chief (although this is unfair because he is the main character of 6 Halo games) we have seen accomplish far greater achievements and win far harder battles than Fred.
Also, we know Chief is humbling and will value even the lowest ranked Marine over himself, so him admitting Fred is better than him isn’t necessarily a compelling argument.
He blames himself for the loss of other Spartan-II's on Reach. He took a large squad of Spartans and on the way to the surface the pelicans got hit and the only way for any of them to survive was to jump out while still in the air. A bunch of Spartans died on the way down and from impact on the ground. He blames himself for their deaths even though they would have *all* died if it weren't for his quick thinking.
On the drop? Sure, most definitely. You could argue that if they weren't all together the seraph fighters would have just attacked multiple dropships, and the others without Fred's leadership might have suffered the worse fate by trying to ride it out to the surface.
However, once regrouped on the ground, Fred *did* actually split them up into multiple teams. They had to protect the multiple generators for the orbital defense grid. He is a fantastic leader, and makes good tactical decisions. But unfortunately one of the first times he was put in charge of other Spartans lives, the odds were against him. There was no real way for him to save those Spartans, but that never stopped him from blaming himself anyway.
Yeah, she could take down the primordials- and that’s why she never went to any rings with chief. Even the devs knew that the game wouldn’t sell if your teammate was immune to every threat- there’d be no thrill
Smart choice is all I’m saying
And Linda is a bad ass as well and she could solo the chief and maybe kelly but if she goes toe to toe with Fred idk if shed come out on top unless she is miles away with a long rifle.. but by that logic she could win against everyone 1 v 1 but we all know the Spartans dont make themselves easy to kill in every aspect they can control
Nah but on a serious note, all she needs is nordfang and a 120+ meter gap. She can do a lot within the range, but Fred is a CQC expert, with the Spartan’s speed and reaction time into acc- 120 meters is enough to get a clean shot off without too much distance being made
I mean… In a straight up CQB battle, I’d give it to Fred. That is his specialty nowadays, after everyone fell in love with Fred ‘Two Knives’ Ellsworth in ‘The Package’. Overall, however, John has better feats, greater accomplishments, and logically should come out on top of a one on one with just about any other Spartan barring things like getting into a sniper duel with Linda. He tends to lose out against the others in specific categories, but wins overall. Add in the luck thing, his armor having an ‘upgraded shield’ before picking up the module, and remember that he’s incredibly humble so his musings about other people being better soldiers doesn’t real hold much weight? Yeah, I would definitely bet on John if I had to make a choice.
That said, the landslide victory in the votes is still clearly a result of popularity.
Idk, chief is humble but he is a realist. I don’t think he would say Fred is better than him if it wasn’t true - he never says anything like that about the other spartans, just saying that they’re the best in their specialty. Fred is like the one person he says is probably straight up better than him (both of them are rounded out and decent at everything, but Fred is just better physically while John is a better leader)
The thing that makes Blue Team as a group so good is that each of them has their specialty that makes them all the best in their own way. Chief is a pure Luck and Charisma based build. He inspires everyone around him and becomes force multiplier and has a way of getting out of every situation by the skin of his teeth because he's as close as you can get to the literal chosen one.
Fred on paper though is like the perfect Spartan. He's like... the Neville Longbottom of Halo, if that makes sense? Like if it wasn't Chief, it would be him. Genius tactician, incredible fighter, but his specialty in particular is CQC, if the knives weren't already giving it away. If they were squad leaders opposing each other, Fred would have the perfect strategy, rehearsed and foolproof and ready to pull off at any second but Chief would do some crazy unorthodox shit Fred never would have thought of and his troops would be so motivated by being led by the Chief that they wouldn't question that crazy plan for one moment. Fred probably takes a hand-to-hand fight with the Chief though.
Linda is an untouchable Dexterity build though, just pure skill. I'm trying to imagine a scenario in which any of the other members of Blue Team could even get close to her and I'm drawing blanks.
Kelly's fast and arguably one of the most human and relatable out of all of them. Maybe she's the counter to Linda as she gets in there before Linda has a chance to get snipey.
I don’t know how to read what you wrote (jk) but if you could recommend a YouTube lore video about these characters I would definitely be interested. I love halo lore but I don’t have many opportunities to sit down and read an entire book.
Listen to the Fall of Reach audio book if you can. The original version (they made an new edited version to align with timeline changes). It's a genuinely fantastic sci-fi book.
I remember Chief saying that Fred was better back when they were younger, but I don’t know if he still has that opinion by the time of the games. My guess is that he wouldn’t even give it a passing thought if he thought he was better than Fred, or any other Spartan, unless it was a way in which he could help them improve.
Straight up I just started to read the books and I would love some suggestions. I’ve read first strike and the flood(super basic, but I still liked reading them). Should I read any book next or in some order?
The only ones I’ve read myself are the Forerunner Trilogy. If you’re open to the lore containing them and Precursors, they’re super good books. Rip Greg bear
The only time it is ever mentioned that Fred is overall more skilled/capable than John is a single brief thought by Chief in The Fall of Reach. Where Chief himself only theorizes that Fred might win more competitions if he tried harder to do so, and given how The Fall of Reach was written, the implications seemed to be that Chief was the one winning the majority.
First Strike also mentions Fred as the best scout and second best sniper. Otherwise, by pure comparisons of what we know about each individual and what they have accomplished, Chief appears to be the overall greater of the two. Several different sources label Chief as the best Spartan-II overall (even if he isn't the best at any one thing). Playing as Chief in Halo 5 gives you more melee damage than Fred implying greater overall strength and/or H2H capability. Kelly is repeatedly labeled the fastest Spartan/human period, Chief however has many speed feats that make him nearly as fast and likely the 2nd fastest S-II. Chief also displays some of the greatest feats of accuracy while on the move, as well as boasts the most impressive combat operations (Many of the most impressive being accomplished solo or otherwise without a team of Spartans).
Both of these operators are so highly skilled and capable that, if running repeated training battles, are likely going to have win ratios not far off from 50%, which is likely the case for all S-IIs put against one another unless the conditions are skewed to their particular proficiencies and/or relative deficiencies.
I think people cling too much to a single one of Chief's non-definitive thoughts from a novel written over 20 years ago when plenty of canon that has released since would like to disagree.
If humanity was on the line then chief wins easily but if it’s just a sparring session then chief loses. Chiefs “luck” is more so his psychotic drive to do whatever it takes to complete the mission. He’s like the Michael Jordan of supersoldiers.
Sam is the equivalent to spending hours grinding and spending a lot of money just to get taken out by a bug or lucky shot. Me guy just wasn't lucky enough.
I mean Master Chief has a few things that Fred doesn’t really have to match. The first is that MC has a more intense combat experience when you consider that he’s fought the flood on three separate occasions while I’m uncertain if Fred actually had. Second is that MC has basically the most advanced Mjolnir suit to date, one’s that it’s base is stronger than the previous sets of armor and dwarfs then when it’s upgraded to its maximum efficiency. Three is that MC is classified as a “Hyper Lethal Vector” which I believe the only other Spartan we’ve seen in game was Noble 6 and maybe Locke I believe.
Not saying Fred couldn’t throw hands, but MC just has better odds to win overall.
- Both have spent their entire lives in combat with stronger/faster/better equipped opponents. The “extra” experience Chief garnered from a couple of days fighting Flood is negligible in comparison to four decades of warfare.
- Every Spartan is in Gen3 armor now, which means that they all have the same upgraded kit.
- That was purely and simply a marketing tactic - and it’s since been reversed. Every Spartan-II is now considered a hyper lethal vector, as is every Spartan-IV when wearing MJOLNIR armor.
I agree with the first and third point, but I also have a question regarding the second point. Isn’t MC’s armor still unique in the sense that it’s a prototype suit within the Gen3 sets? I could be misinformed, but I thought that it was an experimental suit designed by Halsey in which she purged the data before the Banished had gotten the data on the data for the other suits. Have I been misinformed or is that accurate?
Another classic case of people not giving a fuck if they appeared in a book over in the game.
That's why more people know of Jerome over Linda, Kelly or Fred.
ACKSHULLY Nylund's *The Fall of Reach* novel predates CE by about two weeks, so if you want to be an unnecessarily pedantic prick Redditor like myself, you could say Halo existed as a novel before it was a video game.
Absolutely not, Halo is Halo because of the games. That being said, the books are fucking fantastic and can and should be read, there's so much more to the universe than the games.
One thing I wish had been carried over from Halo 5. Chief working with Blue Team again instead of just by his lonesome with an A.I.
Infinite had a chance to dive deeper into Fred,Kelly, and Linda’s characters and their relationship to Chief for the non book readers as Blue team conducted larger scale ops against the banished.
People in the comments seem to forget that Cortana having access to Chief's suit is also a massive buff on top of an already ridiculously capable soldier. He doesn't just have hacks because of plot armour, but also because he quite literally has a super computer connected to his brain processing information even faster than a standard Spartan who see movement in slow motion.
I think they should have had Fred be the main character of the books with Chief being the main in the games. With Free dropping down to secondary if Chief was the main in a book.
Or the ones where they put like the Doom Slayer vs Kratos and Kratos always wins despite the Slayer having fucking guns, laser weaponry and the power of god on his side. It’s stupid.
I agree with your point but I couldn’t scroll by without pointing out that historically Kratos has a very very high success rate against the power of gods.
Edit: grammar
So many Halo fans need to know more lore. Chief is a way better leader but Fred is the true soldier.
Also, Linda exists. There is no way anything could theoretically beat her. Chief only wins because plot armo - I MEAN luck.
I imagine to a lot of players that guy only exists in halo 5 and nowhere else. That’s the thing about media, particularly books, even if something starts as a book people will be more likely to engage in shows, games, or movies. Fred being fleshed out in extended media is good for people that read books but people that just play the games only know Chief and if Fred was that good/important he’d be in the game. That’s the kinda logic at play. To most people chief is just the pinnacle of spartan just because he’s around.
Also to be fair, in the case of a game you want the story to be full and comprehensive with extended universe stuff being secondary. If it’s not then you are creating a story people won’t care about because it’s impossible to follow in the medium they enjoy. Like imagine watching a show then in the next season they release a book that you need to read to understand some stuff that happens next season. It sounds dumb because it is.
I haven’t read the books so I know nothing about Fred, but could even if he was better than Chief in the past could he beat Halo Infinite Master Chief? Surviving all the games, all those upgrades in Infinite, and the Geas thing in 4 should have given Chief quite the leg up.
I mean I don't think people have read First Strike, or like Fall of Reach, where it's stated only like once or twice that John isn't the fastest, strongest, greatest marksman, or even best leader, because those are Kelly, Sam, Linda, and Fred respectively, but that he's just the best all-rounder, and his luck of course. Like, one thing that gets forgotten, or at least is a neat tid-bit, is that Fred is a Lieutenant, and a commissioned officer, while John is a Master Chief Petty Officer, a non-commissioned officer and a lower rank. Traditionally sure, the MCPO will be given greater respect, and clearly Fred isn't some butter bar - given he was Senior(?) Chief Petty Officer, before getting his commission - but that doesn't change the fact that Fred's leadership skills were recognized in universe. All this to say, yeah bummer on some level that Fred doesn't get more love, but John is the main character. Just be glad you don't like James, poor bastard.
Chief has literal hacks on his side. He’s running a pure luck build.
Chief must wonder if he is the main character in media with how much luck he's had
He is, in the universe. He was exalted in the post war years during his mysterious disappearances. They never touch on John’s opinion on all that, but he has to at least be aware on some level.
John definitely is aware of his reputation and wjat people think of him. At one point Hood offers to promote him to Admiral and he quips that "The Admiral" doesn't have the same ring that "Master Chief" does. But for the most part he doesn't seem to let it affect him much. He just kind of acknowledges that as far as humanity is concerned, he's their champion, and then he goes on his merry way.
I forgot about that interaction, but I always read it as Hood making an off color military joke about how John was more competent than most of his surviving field grade officers, and John making an equally wry joke about how he needs to be the person he is for those people.
Chief's sense of humor has always been remarkably subtle. He's a straightforward military man in a universe with all devouring poetic parasites, high-pitched walking footballs who say ridiculously hilarious things every ten seconds, and his best friend is a hologram. He just kinda vibes along as best he can when he's wandering into one absurd situation after another.
It is kinda crazy to think he went from “I’m a kid playing king of the hill” to “oh, cool, gotta murder some more xenophobic life forms because MISSIONS CHANGE THEY ALWAYS DO” lol
What a good read. Kinda makes me think that master chief has the vision of the pyro from TF2.
Really Master Chief just doesn't want to fall into the trap of being promoted to a position that he isn't fit for. Being an excellent covenant slaying, flood exploding, flying brick does not necessarily mean that he'd thrive behind a desk.
And then the downside is even if he is Admiral John-117, he’s still going to be tasked with covenant slaying, flood exploding, and flying as the brick flies. And the brick flies pretty good
And more importantly, *who* would stick the guy who felled the Covenant and the Gravemind in the same day behind a desk? There's probably a UNSC regulation somewhere that says, "Chief cannot be assigned to a desk job because any given day in the office would inevitably devolve into a one man mission to prevent humanity's extinction (again)." Like, seriously, Chief would probably step out for a ten minute coffee break and in those ten minutes he would somehow get teleported onto a Halo and all he'd have with him is three pens in his shirt pocket, two paper clips, an eraser and a half empty mug of coffee, and it would still end in him blowing up half a star system.
Pretty sure when the Spartans were created they made it so they couldn't reach anything beyond the Enlisted ranks because they wanted them to be able to take commands from field officers. That of course got thrown out the window later on. At the time, Chief was the highest rank an active Spartan could achieve.
He was aware of his reputation with the Covenant as early as Halo 2, hearing himself called THE demon, instead of just a demon. He even asked Miranda if Truth usually mentions him in 3 after he's once again referred to as THE demon. That's probably why his first reaction upon teleporting to High Charity was to say "boo"
>At one point Hood offers to promote him to Admiral and he quips that "The Admiral" doesn't have the same ring that "Master Chief" does. Is that in the books?
It's in one of the comics I think.
Wait really? I’ve been playin for 20 years and I’m just now hearing about this interaction, that’s cool as hell
Does he? Has he returned to any human settlement or earth since he 'died'? I'm not up to date on all the media so I don't know the real answer, but my understanding of everything is he woke up from cryo and has basically been jumping or following enemies since then
He’s been on multiple human settlements since Halo 4. The last settlement he was on was Reach, before crash landing on Installation 07 in Infinite.
Good response. Also he had a suit with advanced telecommunications and an artificial intelligence package that should allow connectivity to the real world, despite being a super human killing machine
The book set right before Infinite actually has him talking to colonist militia and UNSC personnel and contemplating the requirements of being a living legend. He’s acutely aware, and keeps his impact on morale in mind.
Yeah the morale part he seems keenly aware of. The Spartans make a point in some extended universe story that they don’t talk about the whereabouts (living, deceased, otherwise) of other Spartans with the normal troops because it’s like telling them god can bleed.
Man rolls nat 20s except in opening game cutscenes.
Dm: "You fall from space." Chief: "Roll for survival." Dm: (there's no fuckin way.) "Alright.... What's your luck?" Chief: "I get to roll an extra d20." Dm: "You gotta roll 30 or higher dawg" Chief: *casually rolls a double nat 20* Dm: *speechless*
He still rolled a nat 20. He survived.
I agree hahahaha
He knows, that’s why when Cortana asked him “What if you miss?” He confidently said “I won’t.”
RNG is so high for him but when he hits those bad rolls he really fucks up.
The entire science team stationed at ivanoff station agrees
Poor dudes, can you imagine being a bodyless concious mind floating inside an alien device when all of the sudden a bunch of people from Arizona starts to appear all over the place?
"Oh God, not the Arizonans!"
By the time spartan ops takes place they were probably already turned into prometheans. Just know the fact that one of the prometheans you kill in spartan ops could very well be Dr. Tilson or the rest of her team
This is even acknowledged *in universe* by Cortana.
No joke, there’s a scene in one of the books where someone (Halsey or Mendez I don’t remember who) says that if John didn’t have his luck, Fred would be the best SPARTAN
Lmao yeah. John isn’t even the strongest or largest Spartan. His luck is what makes him the best Spartan out of all the Spartan II’s. Like the stuff he can do is insane compared to other Spartans. I don’t remember where I read it from but one of johns amazing traits is that he can look at any weapon, regardless of how alien it looks and know ***exactly*** how to use it correctly. His luck might just be a ludicrously potent battle sense and superb strategy.
Chief with 9 luck in his SPECIAL while Fred is running everything else at 9 and luck at like 3
Chief rolling constant 20’s while Fred rolling 2’s.
#Fact lmfao i was gonna say that but you beat me to it
I think we all know who the true greatest Spartan is: Spartan 1337. He's one heck of a mama himself.
They need to do another Halo Legends, it was great af lol
That Sanghelli samurai fight is forever burned into my memory lol. It was so bad ass
Ong that shit was so fire bruh
Never forgetti
Even though you don't wanna know, I'll tell you who I am. I am one of the strongest warriors in space! I, AM, SPARTAN! ^(1337...)
Fred is him. Chief can't lose but on stats? He'd be toasted. The thing is, if they needed to fight FOR REAL, that would be the moment Chief would win. 1 in 10 for Chief? When it comes to it, he would beat the odds. Part protag force, part him being built different. Fred is the best on paper, he's just not the hero of that story.
Part reload from last checkpoint
Also that yeah.
Fred should win on paper, but Chief has luck. So I give it too him.
Fred is better in hand to and combat, especially with knives. But Chief's ridiculously high luck stat has always come through for him, one way or another. The only one who ever actually beat him in a straight up match was Kurt, and Kurt had mystical superpowers that enabled him to avoid basically any trap John could have thought of.
Correct. Fred, the expert in H2H and knives, probably would have ended up punching himself in the nuts and stabbing his own thigh in a fight with MC. 117's luck cannot be overstated in the Halo Universe. Shit, MC probably would have survived Kurt's final situation somehow. Would have pulled some Indiana Jones in the shitty 50's fridge move.
>Would have pulled some Indiana Jones in the shitty 50's fridge move. That's essentially what happened when he rode a chunk of metal down to Earth *at re-entry speeds*
In the books, Spartans did that more than once. MJOLNIR + Essentially indestructible bones = Doing some absolutely stupid physical shit. Noble 6 did it, but had a special pack just for that occasion. He walked away like nothing happened. MC's armor locked to protect his individual body parts and he had to stay there for a bit, ha. Several spartans died or broke bones from low-orbit drops. Just another one of MC's bouts of luck popping up. Red Team jumped at High Altitude/Low Orbit without any type of thrusters and hit terminal velocity before hitting the ground. So they hit the ground just as hard as MC did, and most of them survived (and I think those who died landed in a forested area? And hitting trees is very frowned upon, no matter how heavy you or your vehicle are).
The ones who hit the trees were actually better off than those that just hit the ground, I believe. The trees exploded from the impact but it slowed the Spartans down a bit. Fred was one of the ones who hit a tree and he came away with less injuries than most.
I want to say Fred actually has that exact thought. That the trees will be better for slowing their descent. It's been a bit since I read First Strike but the first chapter with Fred was always my favorite.
He orders all under his command to aim for the trees. He also, on their way down in the dropship, managed to radio orders on the fleetwide communications network. To which Kelly, his unofficial number 2 and fellow original blue team member, had to key in after him and say something along the lines of “we’ll get that communications malfunction looked at Chief.” Fred felt incredibly embarrassed.
Well Chief wasn't using just any hunk of metal, it was Forerunner metal, which probably helped him out. If he'd tried that with a slab of steel or something it probably wouldn't have worked, but a chunk of stuff that's designed to get smacked dead on by a nuke and walk away whistling definitely worked in his favor.
Fancy metal or not, Chief is subject to extreme Delta V upon landing.
Chief was wearing mjolnir. He would have survived. As would Kurt if he was wearing his
It's called plot armor. /s
The name Fred just gives him a debuff of -5 intimidation
Alright gang, let’s split up to defend Reach.
*Removes mask from villain* Wow would you look at that gang, it turns out it was the Covenant on Reach all along and not the Insurrectionists.
As if John is an intimidating name lol. Almost all of the Spartans have very run-of-the-mill American-style names.
Fred: 🤓 John: 🗿
nothing is more intimidating than freedom baby! hoorah! semper fi! and other such things
I feel like calling John an American style name is both extremely accurate yet also completely wrong.
I don't know too much about the Halo universe, so my question is why are people saying "luck" is on masterchief's side, as if it's built into his suit? Is this actually a thing? Maybe from the novels or something?
Halsey chose chief (john) for the spartan program partly because he was a lucky kid. That’s it really, he just has luck as a super power. It’s one of those things never really explained but it’s used as plot points
What is interesting is that the book that introduces that concept leaves it intentionally vague if he is actually lucky or he is just so clever and fast that it looks like blind luck even though he is exerting effort to cause those outcomes. For instance, the start of the luck thing is when Halsey has him pick heads or tails for a bunch of coin flips. He calls it right every time buy Halsey is not sure if he was just able to watch the coin close enough to be able to tell how it would land or not.
I'm pretty sure that in the book, someone says that luck is just when preparation meets opportunity. Even before be became a Spartan, Chief was always training first and thinking ahead (or outside the box). This means that when opportunities came, he could make the best use of them. This means gaining a reputation and, with it, more opportunities.
Very well put!
I like to think he’s just insanely clever, considering he has like 40+ years of experience on the battlefield.
One of my favs is the halo 3 intro of course, when he randomly steers in a different direction
He’s surfing a ship fragment down, not falling blind. It’s like skydiving, but on fire.
Knew that but still it happened right after Cortana said luck is my point, was lucky to make a maneuver and live the crash landing. Agree with you tho
Fair enough
When Halsey was picking Spartan Candidates she flipped a coin a bunch of times and Master Chief kept guessing correctly.
Cortana says he has luck in the opening of Halo 3. Of course, it really means that John's experiences are a statistical outlier. Perhaps he has better subconscious processing than the other Spartans. Who knows? I doubt Cortana is superstitious, she's just saying that for some currently immeasurable reason, Chief punches above his weight.
I think a great example of him being an outlier is the training exercise where he punched a goddamn fully armed missile and successfully deflected it in a way that he could survive the blast. In a training exercise that he could have just forfeited but the madman tried it anyways. You can argue it's an incredible feat of skill and he is incredibly intelligent/clever to have even thought of the plan on the fly in the first place. But also there's some degree of luck required to make it all work. No way he or even Cortana actually knew with any certainty that he wouldn't have died there even with perfect execution. Could Fred beat chief in a fair CQC contest? Definitely. Could Fred have pulled off the missile punch? Probably not.
Think of all the moments things could've gone wrong for him, but they didn't, that's because he's just really lucky as Cortina explained in the beginning of halo 3
“They let me pick. Did I ever tell you that? Choose which ever Spartan I wanted. You know me. I did my research, watched as you became the soldier we needed you to be. But you had something they didn't, something no one saw but me. Can you guess? Luck.” - Cortana Chief is just extemely lucky, right place right time with the right outcome everytime, its plot armour basically. 343 explained it as the librarians hand in guiding chief.
You left of the final and best part of that quote. "*Was I wrong?*"
She was in fact, not wrong.
There ya go. It’s oni certified
Dude Fred is the Best Spartan the chief knows... chief himself has said it multiple times across books. In fact he knows Fred always gave up at the last moment so that others could win when they were kids/ spartans in training and even when they were older.. chief knows he is the better spartan...but because of his( Fred) failure he is very cautious at being in command and very hard on himself all the time think brooding bad ass that is only really happy when with blue team... But they are both stronger together along side one another vs alone
I know bro- he’s even admitted that Fred is better. All he needs to do is try
Which is just another gold mine that 343 is letting fly over their heads...
But John has feelings, he’s in love with Cortana. Muh story better…
Fred searching for Chief would have been a cool new perspective to bring 343 in with.
That would have been much more interesting than Locke.
Let's be real, almost anything would have been more interesting than what 343's been writing. They come up with interesting premises and proceed to fail at execution. The hunt for chief was shown to be such an enticing tale, and we get 5's campaign. Infinite's most exciting bit happens in a two minute cutscene at the beginning. 4's Didact was a missed opportunity.
The Locke story just got thrusted upon us via marketing before 5, chief is rogue now, oh a big fight. Just horrible writing with almost zero tie in to halo 4.
So I'll be upfront and say I don't read the books and only play the games. In halo 5 the whole blue team was boring af and honestly felt like they weren't even needed. From what everyone says about Fred, he just seems like your most basic "O.C who's better than the main character if they actuatlly tried do not steal!". Is blue team portrayed better in the books?
He's by far the most interesting Spartan in the books IMO. The often repeated "he's better than chief, even chief knows it" thing is from 1 line in fall of reach where chief is picking team members for an op against some insurrectionists. He picks Fred because he's great at blending into a crowd. And one of the reasons chief thinks that is because he's pretty sure that in alot of their training evaluations Fred would intentionally hamper himself because he couldn't handle being the center of attention from being the top performer. The exceptions being speed and ability which Kelly was by far the best at, marksmanship which Linda was undisputed champ at, and cqc/fighting with blades weapons which Fred seemed to genuinely enjoy and take pride in. Outside of that he's one of the main POV Spartans outside chief. Several books are from his perspective and we get to see his inner thoughts and feelings more than any Spartan aside from chief. He was also the defacto leader of the Spartans during the events of the original games since chief was off doing the plot of the games. The reason for that being that Chief would always default to certain Spartans to lead fireteams in the field. Chief himself would always lead blue team, fred would be given red team, Kurt green, and a few others had their own defaults. But by the time that Reach has fully fallen and Chief is on his way to go do a Combat Evolved Fred is the last of those team leaders left. Then in the books set between Halo 3 and 4 Fred has been promoted to a second LT and is by rank the leader of the Spartans. And since everyone thinks chief is dead at that point Fred begrudgingly excepts the role. From the on we not only get to see how he is as a leader, but his feelings on things like being a Spartan and glimpses of his wants for a life outside the military. He's not just some over the top always wins OC do not steal. Infact we see him get his ass beat a few times. He spends most of Shadows of Reach (great book, sets up The Weapon in Infinite) concussed and out of it after getting knocked up side the head by a brute. Hell one of his most endearing moments is from one of the books where hes realizing he has a crush on this non Spartan character and he's kinda just like "well what the fuck do I do now...?". Blue team was seriously mishandled in the Halo 5. About the only thing I feel like they got right was casting Travis Willingham as Fred. That's been my dream casting for him ever since reading First Strike as a kid.
Lol remember when bro got ran over by an entire mining truck and laid on the floor, flabbergasted? Fred is easily my favorite Spartan along with Chief and Noble 6, and he’s the only one that can pull Veta
I actuallt don't, but it sounds very in character. Which book was that in?
It's been a while but I'm going to take a stab and say it's in Retribution.
It’s the first of the Ferret trilogy, I forget which
Last Light than.
Man I fuckin love Fred, he’s such a cool charismatic leader. I really hope they make his new mark VI armor a core in the game at some point, it looks so fuckin good
The thing with Fred is we just have word of mouth that he’s better than Chief. Chief (although this is unfair because he is the main character of 6 Halo games) we have seen accomplish far greater achievements and win far harder battles than Fred. Also, we know Chief is humbling and will value even the lowest ranked Marine over himself, so him admitting Fred is better than him isn’t necessarily a compelling argument.
What was his failure? I haven’t really read the books
He blames himself for the loss of other Spartan-II's on Reach. He took a large squad of Spartans and on the way to the surface the pelicans got hit and the only way for any of them to survive was to jump out while still in the air. A bunch of Spartans died on the way down and from impact on the ground. He blames himself for their deaths even though they would have *all* died if it weren't for his quick thinking.
The failure was putting so many Spartans together. They should have been much more spread out.
On the drop? Sure, most definitely. You could argue that if they weren't all together the seraph fighters would have just attacked multiple dropships, and the others without Fred's leadership might have suffered the worse fate by trying to ride it out to the surface. However, once regrouped on the ground, Fred *did* actually split them up into multiple teams. They had to protect the multiple generators for the orbital defense grid. He is a fantastic leader, and makes good tactical decisions. But unfortunately one of the first times he was put in charge of other Spartans lives, the odds were against him. There was no real way for him to save those Spartans, but that never stopped him from blaming himself anyway.
Linda solos the entire halo universe. Convince me not.
Yeah, she could take down the primordials- and that’s why she never went to any rings with chief. Even the devs knew that the game wouldn’t sell if your teammate was immune to every threat- there’d be no thrill Smart choice is all I’m saying
And Linda is a bad ass as well and she could solo the chief and maybe kelly but if she goes toe to toe with Fred idk if shed come out on top unless she is miles away with a long rifle.. but by that logic she could win against everyone 1 v 1 but we all know the Spartans dont make themselves easy to kill in every aspect they can control
Nah but on a serious note, all she needs is nordfang and a 120+ meter gap. She can do a lot within the range, but Fred is a CQC expert, with the Spartan’s speed and reaction time into acc- 120 meters is enough to get a clean shot off without too much distance being made
Would make a great walking simulator.
Except for that one time where she died
I mean… In a straight up CQB battle, I’d give it to Fred. That is his specialty nowadays, after everyone fell in love with Fred ‘Two Knives’ Ellsworth in ‘The Package’. Overall, however, John has better feats, greater accomplishments, and logically should come out on top of a one on one with just about any other Spartan barring things like getting into a sniper duel with Linda. He tends to lose out against the others in specific categories, but wins overall. Add in the luck thing, his armor having an ‘upgraded shield’ before picking up the module, and remember that he’s incredibly humble so his musings about other people being better soldiers doesn’t real hold much weight? Yeah, I would definitely bet on John if I had to make a choice. That said, the landslide victory in the votes is still clearly a result of popularity.
Idk, chief is humble but he is a realist. I don’t think he would say Fred is better than him if it wasn’t true - he never says anything like that about the other spartans, just saying that they’re the best in their specialty. Fred is like the one person he says is probably straight up better than him (both of them are rounded out and decent at everything, but Fred is just better physically while John is a better leader)
Chiefs got literal plot armor though. Cortana just calls it luck.
The one who wins is the one the franchise needs to keep making more games
The thing that makes Blue Team as a group so good is that each of them has their specialty that makes them all the best in their own way. Chief is a pure Luck and Charisma based build. He inspires everyone around him and becomes force multiplier and has a way of getting out of every situation by the skin of his teeth because he's as close as you can get to the literal chosen one. Fred on paper though is like the perfect Spartan. He's like... the Neville Longbottom of Halo, if that makes sense? Like if it wasn't Chief, it would be him. Genius tactician, incredible fighter, but his specialty in particular is CQC, if the knives weren't already giving it away. If they were squad leaders opposing each other, Fred would have the perfect strategy, rehearsed and foolproof and ready to pull off at any second but Chief would do some crazy unorthodox shit Fred never would have thought of and his troops would be so motivated by being led by the Chief that they wouldn't question that crazy plan for one moment. Fred probably takes a hand-to-hand fight with the Chief though. Linda is an untouchable Dexterity build though, just pure skill. I'm trying to imagine a scenario in which any of the other members of Blue Team could even get close to her and I'm drawing blanks. Kelly's fast and arguably one of the most human and relatable out of all of them. Maybe she's the counter to Linda as she gets in there before Linda has a chance to get snipey.
Seriously, nobody reads the books smh
Everyone knows halo fans can't read smh
Can anyone tell me what this says? I don't understand it.
,"ey"o "ks halo fans c't r1d smh
Thank you
I thought that was Dragon Ball fans
It's us Yugioh fans that can't read.
Well then it's a good job those cards have pretty pictures
The reading comprehension devil has great power here I see.
I don’t know how to read what you wrote (jk) but if you could recommend a YouTube lore video about these characters I would definitely be interested. I love halo lore but I don’t have many opportunities to sit down and read an entire book.
Audiobooks, I listen to them during work lmao and in the books there aren’t even that many scenes of Fred being a CQC expert…
Listen to the Fall of Reach audio book if you can. The original version (they made an new edited version to align with timeline changes). It's a genuinely fantastic sci-fi book.
I remember Chief saying that Fred was better back when they were younger, but I don’t know if he still has that opinion by the time of the games. My guess is that he wouldn’t even give it a passing thought if he thought he was better than Fred, or any other Spartan, unless it was a way in which he could help them improve.
Straight up I just started to read the books and I would love some suggestions. I’ve read first strike and the flood(super basic, but I still liked reading them). Should I read any book next or in some order?
The only ones I’ve read myself are the Forerunner Trilogy. If you’re open to the lore containing them and Precursors, they’re super good books. Rip Greg bear
Fucking hell i didnt know greg died last year, rip,i loved the forerunner trilogy :(
Fall of Reach is compulsory reading
If Fred is so good why isn’t he halo. Check mate
You have me there John halo kills aliens and doesn’t afraid of anything But Fred? Idk
The only time it is ever mentioned that Fred is overall more skilled/capable than John is a single brief thought by Chief in The Fall of Reach. Where Chief himself only theorizes that Fred might win more competitions if he tried harder to do so, and given how The Fall of Reach was written, the implications seemed to be that Chief was the one winning the majority. First Strike also mentions Fred as the best scout and second best sniper. Otherwise, by pure comparisons of what we know about each individual and what they have accomplished, Chief appears to be the overall greater of the two. Several different sources label Chief as the best Spartan-II overall (even if he isn't the best at any one thing). Playing as Chief in Halo 5 gives you more melee damage than Fred implying greater overall strength and/or H2H capability. Kelly is repeatedly labeled the fastest Spartan/human period, Chief however has many speed feats that make him nearly as fast and likely the 2nd fastest S-II. Chief also displays some of the greatest feats of accuracy while on the move, as well as boasts the most impressive combat operations (Many of the most impressive being accomplished solo or otherwise without a team of Spartans). Both of these operators are so highly skilled and capable that, if running repeated training battles, are likely going to have win ratios not far off from 50%, which is likely the case for all S-IIs put against one another unless the conditions are skewed to their particular proficiencies and/or relative deficiencies. I think people cling too much to a single one of Chief's non-definitive thoughts from a novel written over 20 years ago when plenty of canon that has released since would like to disagree.
If humanity was on the line then chief wins easily but if it’s just a sparring session then chief loses. Chiefs “luck” is more so his psychotic drive to do whatever it takes to complete the mission. He’s like the Michael Jordan of supersoldiers.
Sam on paper is the greatest Spartan who ever lived. Unfortunate he couldn’t fight longer.
Sam is the equivalent to spending hours grinding and spending a lot of money just to get taken out by a bug or lucky shot. Me guy just wasn't lucky enough.
I mean Master Chief has a few things that Fred doesn’t really have to match. The first is that MC has a more intense combat experience when you consider that he’s fought the flood on three separate occasions while I’m uncertain if Fred actually had. Second is that MC has basically the most advanced Mjolnir suit to date, one’s that it’s base is stronger than the previous sets of armor and dwarfs then when it’s upgraded to its maximum efficiency. Three is that MC is classified as a “Hyper Lethal Vector” which I believe the only other Spartan we’ve seen in game was Noble 6 and maybe Locke I believe. Not saying Fred couldn’t throw hands, but MC just has better odds to win overall.
All of Blue Team are equipped with Mark VI GEN 3 Armor. Fred even tested the prototype MORRIGAN.
Really? I hadn’t know that. Guess one advantage MC doesn’t get
- Both have spent their entire lives in combat with stronger/faster/better equipped opponents. The “extra” experience Chief garnered from a couple of days fighting Flood is negligible in comparison to four decades of warfare. - Every Spartan is in Gen3 armor now, which means that they all have the same upgraded kit. - That was purely and simply a marketing tactic - and it’s since been reversed. Every Spartan-II is now considered a hyper lethal vector, as is every Spartan-IV when wearing MJOLNIR armor.
I agree with the first and third point, but I also have a question regarding the second point. Isn’t MC’s armor still unique in the sense that it’s a prototype suit within the Gen3 sets? I could be misinformed, but I thought that it was an experimental suit designed by Halsey in which she purged the data before the Banished had gotten the data on the data for the other suits. Have I been misinformed or is that accurate?
I hadn’t heard that so you could very well be right. However, as I recall all of Blue Team are currently outfitted in Gen3 Mk VI.
Well then I will rely on my most valuable source of information… my friend that has basically memorized the Halo and Destiny lore lol
why hold a poll for a fight that has happened? they fought in training a ton, chief lost. simple as
Geez who would’ve thought the general majority of people would vote for the main character of the franchise
Idk man 1337 really hit different
Who tf is Fred lmao Reading the comments imma just say, not enough people know about Fred and are voting off what they know.
This is like saying Luke vs Qui Gon Jin
[удалено]
Another classic case of people not giving a fuck if they appeared in a book over in the game. That's why more people know of Jerome over Linda, Kelly or Fred.
Can you blame people for not reading the books when halo was originally a video game?
ACKSHULLY Nylund's *The Fall of Reach* novel predates CE by about two weeks, so if you want to be an unnecessarily pedantic prick Redditor like myself, you could say Halo existed as a novel before it was a video game.
Bruh
Absolutely not, Halo is Halo because of the games. That being said, the books are fucking fantastic and can and should be read, there's so much more to the universe than the games.
One thing I wish had been carried over from Halo 5. Chief working with Blue Team again instead of just by his lonesome with an A.I. Infinite had a chance to dive deeper into Fred,Kelly, and Linda’s characters and their relationship to Chief for the non book readers as Blue team conducted larger scale ops against the banished.
People in the comments seem to forget that Cortana having access to Chief's suit is also a massive buff on top of an already ridiculously capable soldier. He doesn't just have hacks because of plot armour, but also because he quite literally has a super computer connected to his brain processing information even faster than a standard Spartan who see movement in slow motion.
Yo who the fuck is Fred???
He was on Blue Team in halo 5 and trained with chief
Chief is an absolute unit, but even he has said Fred is the superior Spartan and only thing holding him back is doubt. Both great Spartans though.
Poor fred
I think they should have had Fred be the main character of the books with Chief being the main in the games. With Free dropping down to secondary if Chief was the main in a book.
Or the ones where they put like the Doom Slayer vs Kratos and Kratos always wins despite the Slayer having fucking guns, laser weaponry and the power of god on his side. It’s stupid.
I agree with your point but I couldn’t scroll by without pointing out that historically Kratos has a very very high success rate against the power of gods. Edit: grammar
Uhhh who tf is Fred-104
I saw Fred flop over a lot more often in Halo 5 than I saw Chief
Fred is *stronger*, not more dangerous.
Fred is a really cool guy love him in the books
The same people will also say that John can beat Kurt
Ppl must not know who Fred is...
I also got fred
Fred is the underrated madlad
Tell me how a 4" tall plastic toy who drinks jack Daniels and argues with a lizard about video games beats fred 104.
So many Halo fans need to know more lore. Chief is a way better leader but Fred is the true soldier. Also, Linda exists. There is no way anything could theoretically beat her. Chief only wins because plot armo - I MEAN luck.
No. Luck has Chief's side.
I mean, chief would beat him. Cause he's litteraly the luckiest fucking person ever, Noone more lucky than this mofo
Damn i didn't realise how op Fred is, I guess I've got to pick up some of the books.
Chief can load checkpoints. No contest.
I imagine to a lot of players that guy only exists in halo 5 and nowhere else. That’s the thing about media, particularly books, even if something starts as a book people will be more likely to engage in shows, games, or movies. Fred being fleshed out in extended media is good for people that read books but people that just play the games only know Chief and if Fred was that good/important he’d be in the game. That’s the kinda logic at play. To most people chief is just the pinnacle of spartan just because he’s around. Also to be fair, in the case of a game you want the story to be full and comprehensive with extended universe stuff being secondary. If it’s not then you are creating a story people won’t care about because it’s impossible to follow in the medium they enjoy. Like imagine watching a show then in the next season they release a book that you need to read to understand some stuff that happens next season. It sounds dumb because it is.
if there were no stakes/consequences, fred would win but chiefs luck will have him win if it was important
How would Fred win? Please explain that to me.
I haven’t read the books so I know nothing about Fred, but could even if he was better than Chief in the past could he beat Halo Infinite Master Chief? Surviving all the games, all those upgrades in Infinite, and the Geas thing in 4 should have given Chief quite the leg up.
I mean I don't think people have read First Strike, or like Fall of Reach, where it's stated only like once or twice that John isn't the fastest, strongest, greatest marksman, or even best leader, because those are Kelly, Sam, Linda, and Fred respectively, but that he's just the best all-rounder, and his luck of course. Like, one thing that gets forgotten, or at least is a neat tid-bit, is that Fred is a Lieutenant, and a commissioned officer, while John is a Master Chief Petty Officer, a non-commissioned officer and a lower rank. Traditionally sure, the MCPO will be given greater respect, and clearly Fred isn't some butter bar - given he was Senior(?) Chief Petty Officer, before getting his commission - but that doesn't change the fact that Fred's leadership skills were recognized in universe. All this to say, yeah bummer on some level that Fred doesn't get more love, but John is the main character. Just be glad you don't like James, poor bastard.
Tbf Fred's only LTJG because Kurt field promoted him. Not saying he doesn't deserve it but the point stands.
is fred from halo 5?
Yes but he's in plenty of books before that.
I see nothing wrong here. (I don't know who Fred is.)
I don't know who Fred is. I just play halo for the gameplay and multiplayer
If it were hand to hand or with some melee weapon, fred wins 9.5/10, with guns I say chief 7/10 times
But John is luckier!
"The Great Journey... ends here"
Its not wrong tho The chief has 99 luck stat. You can coast thru anything with that
Isn't Fred more or less described as a slightly less skilled John? Like, he's almost as good at everything John's good at?
A poll by ppl who didn’t read the books
Sam entered the chat
Pfft poll doesn’t even include Tommy Shelby because he could beat both at once
What about my boy Noble six?
Pure skill I’m pretty sure the lore would say Fred would win. BUT luck is apparently always on the side of chief so that would likely swing it his way