: I know I am going to sound like an asshole for saying this, but you do
: realize Halo 4 is basically setting the stage for an inevitable test that
: if overcome will be evidence that mankind is capable of inheriting the
: responsibility of the Mantle from the Precursors.

No, I don't know that. I still know basically nothing about the Precursors, and I don't care to, even if the next Forerunner book will apparently go into that.

: The books do not portray the Didact anything in the way of an ancient evil,
: or truly evil for that matter. In fact he held great respect for mankind,
: in the way that two great general/warriors/opponents admire and
: acknowledge the talent of each other. The Didact is simply stubbornly
: possessive of The Mantle's teachings and responsibilities being solely the
: duty of the Forerunners, not to be shared with other races. Even when it
: was discovered that ancient humans weren't conquering worlds and greedily
: expanding their nation, but simply running and dealing with the Shaping
: Sickness, he still considered their defeat to be punishment for humans
: ignorantly thinking the Mantle's responsibility was theirs alone to uphold
: and not kneeling before the Forerunners for help.

So he's not such a bad guy, he's just a racist, a Forerunner-supremacist if you will... awesome.

: I believe the actions the Didact took are a compromise with his wife.
: Something like, if humans can not stand up to a single forerunner weak
: from a 100,000 year slumber, with only a fraction of his true potential to
: wage war, then they will at least serve as warrior-servants to do battle
: with whatever the Precursors set forth to bring their cold and logical
: ideals of unity to our galaxy. Inclusion of the Didact's personality and
: inner turmoil dilutes his indubitable will to wipe out man.

You know what else it does? It makes him seem like an actual person and not a caricature.

: The Didact spent all the time observing Infinity, letting John live, and scanning
: our technology rather than just outright obliterating all who stood as an
: obstacle before him because he was infuriatingly trying to understand why
: humans were the ones deemed worthy successors. Add on fear from the
: knowledge he gained in his conversation with the Primordial and you have a
: foe that is far to self-conflicted to be a heartless evil hellbent on eradication of
: all life.

That's all well and good, but the game didn't give me that impression. The manual couldn't because it didn't exist. The previous game didn't give me that impression. The Halo 4 terminals had me thinking he at least respected humanity until about terminal 7 when he starts acting, well, evil.

: With all that in mind, a mindless, terrifying opponent was not even meant to
: be 343i's intent with Halo 4. However, to say a threat was never felt is
: absolutely ridiculous. I guess that since America and Russia never saw
: large bloodshed from squaring off against each other the Cold War never
: really seemed like a threat to anyone. The possibility of total ruination
: of not just all of mankind but the entire world itself wasn't at all
: distressing for all world leaders and their people.

It's not about them. In real life, it would be about them, but this is a video game, so it's about the player. If you can get the player to care, or maybe even just communicate that world leaders etc. are worried and and distressed, that's fine, but if not it's all a bunch of empty sound and fury.

: The 'magic' that saved John was not so. I would say that the hard light
: emitters that create the bridge were quickly converted to create a hard
: light shield around the Master Chief and also phase him out of the
: dimension momentarily.

um...
: and also phase him out of the dimension momentarily.
what?

: Similar to the tech used in, Halo: Primordium, in which to save Halo 07 from
: obliteration sections of the ring were covered in hard light shields and 'phased out'
: to avoid being damaged. A similar explanation for John's survival really is not far
: fetched at all.

I don't know how plausible or possible this "phasing" is, if it can even happen (I'm leaning towards no). I do know "hard light" itself is very far-fetched though, so any way you slice it's ridiculous.