There is much more to say, but it must wait for my review of Broken Circle.

: People often give Bungie a free pass on the muddle the story was through
: H1-H3, including the novels. Contradictory, tangential, ephemeral, and
: sometimes nonsensical. Also, entertaining.

Yes.

I'm reluctant to agree with the "Free pass" part, because the people who accuse other people of giving Bungie a "Free pass" are the ones who like the direction 343i has taken. Bungie wasn't perfect, and they barely salvaged the mess they made with Halo 2's production woes. But they were miles ahead of where 343i is now.

: The Covenant as a whole is a myth. A non-starter. An impossibility. It is a
: hegemony that should have split along stratifications as soon as H3 ended.
: The Covenant "loyalists" or whatever they were in H4 need to be
: cast aside completely...they are an anachronism that needs to be left
: behind (haha!) in order to present a more nuanced (and realistic)
: depiction of what the Covenant is (or was): a loosely bound collection of
: 6+ species with entirely different values and goals.

I surmise that species divisions might not be as strong as others, and multi-species organizations would be the norm after the fall of the Covenant.

: This mean complexity. Real, hard complex interactions and messy motivations.
: Tough to do, requiring a huge amount of exposition AND consumer
: patience/commitment. The obvious model would be Martin's Game of Thrones
: universe.

: I ask you, would the Halo universe, post-Convenent collapse, be any less
: Machiavellian?

What are you asking me for? I never read those books! I got ten pages into the first one and fell asleep.

: OK, ok. Acknowledged.

=)

: This is a video game we are talking about. Alright. But
: what about the novels? About the general narratives of the game?

A stable of competent writers could do a whole lot better, yes. But not someone who was hired out of Marvel's wastepaper basket.

That said, I think the topic of what narratives a game could accomplish has to wait for later. It's a big subject, and I only have so little time this weekend.