: Halsey said that each of her Spartans could have been an Alexander the Great
: - a great martial leader. We could have done with a few dozen of them
: during the Covenant war. Instead her foot soldiers won land skirmishes
: until the cruisers came in and glassed the planet.

Some of them could have, true. Though I wonder how you can discern things like force of personality and charisma from a person's DNA. Would Soren and Osman have climbed out of the crappy foster care system they were found in?

: What Halsey did wasn't nice. She actually did kidnap those children - it's
: not something that Travis made up or lied about.

: And Travis did NOT cover up ONI's involvement - she made particular mention
: of it.

Then why did Parangosky have no knowledge of the clones?

: I'm pretty sure that Travis isn't a fan of Halsey but I bet she's glad Halsey
: the character exists. I bet it's been fun writing for her.

I get the feeling that writing Halsey was a chore for Traviss, though she loved writing characters reacting to Halsey.

: Have you considered that those people who went along with her are now
: vilifying her because that's how they distance themselves from what they
: did or what they allowed to happen? They could be putting their guilt into
: Halsey and then hate her. She is a scapegoat.

The reason why I love Moral Dictata is because she finally comes out and admits that, yes, Halsey is a scapegoat. There's hundreds if not thousands of people who should have spoken up about the Spartan II project, and none of them did.

I just wish that this had been the focus of Glasslands, not Moral Dictata. I agree that the Spartan II project was immoral, but the character assassination was obtuse.
"Halsey only started the Spartan II program out of curiosity. She wanted to see what she could do." Traviss said.
And the fans pointed out that, no, her journal laid out her reasons for what she was doing.
"Oh, her journal isn't reliable," Traviss explained. "Halsey rewrites her own reality as she goes."
And the fans said that characterization is incompatible with what we've seen of her.
"Well, I never read the previous fiction because I can't remain objective."
Mission failed, Traviss. Mission already failed.

Moral Dictata also succeeds because it's a story about characters dealing with the ramifications of the Spartan II project. What came before felt like the message came first, story came second.

And I loathe message fiction.

: I think that the Arbiter cast his own guilt onto Truth and then killed him. I
: think that Mendez and the others are doing that with Halsey.

Mendez is the weak link in your argument. His arguments were so asinine, he shouldn't have made them with a straight face. And if he did, Halsey should have rhetorically hammered him into the ground like a tent stake.

But he did, and she didn't, because Traviss couldn't be bothered back then to properly research what the Spartan Project was all about.

: It lets them
: think of themselves as good people who were just lead into evil by Halsey.
: They don't need to blame themselves; they can just blame Halsey.

Hmm... now, what would an outsider think of this? Wouldn't someone who was never involved with ONI, let alone the Spartan II project, see the hypocrisy for what it is?

We have a character that serves the role of the neutral outsider. His name was Vaz Beloi, and he spent pages and pages of angsting about how a monster like Halsey could exist and how immoral the Spartan II project was. But he never makes the leap to the conclusion that, you know, maybe his new employer* is a soul-sucking monstrosity.

*ONI, not just Parangosky or Osman

: Everyone has a bias. Travis is not pro Halsey :-) But her characters are not
: just her sock puppets.

Oh, hell yes they are. It's only until Moral Dictata that they become something more.

: I don't like her and I think that she was meant to be liked

You don't dedicate two AA games and several comic book lines to a character the audience is supposed to hate. She's 343i's answer to Westley Crusher.

: 343 could make more use of her as an
: antagonist or as someone who has an epiphany than

I can see her as a decent antagonist.

If she has an epiphany, I hope it's sometime during the thirty seconds after she's thrown out the airlock without her helmet.

: simply as a likable
: minor character.

She's not supposed to be a minor character, unless the Arbiter or Noble Team are considered minor characters.