: We - the player - are the Master Chief. We didn't watch, or read, or hear
: about the exploits of some distant hero. Rather we lived it - we ARE the
: hero. We leaped the maw over and over and came out alive time and again.
: We saved the world again and again.

: So when they throw a word like 'Traitor' around it feels like they're
: pointing the finger at us. This journalist isn't talking about someone
: else: they're talking about us, what WE did.

: The journalist was there (supposedly) for one moment, but we were there for
: the rest. We held the weapon, loaded it, aimed it, pulled the trigger and
: we made those events happen. We don't need corroboration or confirmation:
: we remember it ourselves! We did the best we could in the circumstances
: and we came out on top. Excuse me if I feel like I don't need someone to
: tell me how to interpret what happened in my life.

That's one of the problems with turning a shell into a proper character.

: Where is this going? My mind leaps to possibilities like trying to paint the
: previous 4 games as UNSC propaganda simulations, or as misremembered
: dreams, or delusions of a psychopathic Master Chief, or painting the Chief
: as a unknowing puppet of some other agent like ONI or the Didact or some
: Forerunner or precursor or something.

: Which would just seem like a cheap trick. Trying to re-write history.
: Completely incongruent with the central gameplay themes of power-fantasy,
: wish-fulfillment and badassery.

This is clearly a story/gameplay division thing. Like it or not (personally I tend to go with "not", because I like idealism in my escapism), the story has been dark and brutal from the beginning, and rewriting history is an act of violence against facts. It really seems like we're headed towards rewriting of history. In-universe it seems like rewrites happen based on this, the Halo Graphic Novel, and some other clues. The treatment of a whole host of things ranging from the Halo 3 terminals, up to as large as pretty much everything about Reach, down to something as minor as the Prophet Hierarchs' office in High Charity and the wrong textures in Halo Anniversary, make it clear that the story as presented to the player (AKA canon) isn't set in stone either.

: Or is it something the MC allegedly did after the events of Halo 4?
: "YOU - dear player - are going to be a traitor!" Well sorry, we
: don't remember that bit because it hasn't happened yet! I'm sure I will
: have very good reasons, too! Feels a little... Minority Report.

It doesn't have to be after Halo 4, they (and by they I mean ONI, because who else would it be?) can allege stuff about whatever time period they want, that's the beauty of allegations, and of having a stranglehold on the media. Remember the diorama? No, you don't, because ONI says it didn't happen... any more... or whatever the status of that is, I'm not sure, the point is it would make a good example of a fabrication within the universe.

: Where would such a situation even get us? Kill another alien to prove our
: innocence? The thing we've been doing this whole time anyway. It's not
: as if we're going to bust into ONI, hose the place down with bullets, hack
: into their computer systems and expose the mis-information to clear
: ourselves, are we?

Maybe a big enough and credible enough threat would work? There I go with the idealism again.

: Humans are allies in Halo! Well... except for that one time in Combat
: Evolved, and that one time in ODST... and all the time we spend shooting
: each other in multiplayer... hmm.

In the first game, really? I don't remember that.

: Well if they can make the combat against humans interesting (something Halo
: never tried to develop AI for previously), it could present a worthwhile
: thematic payoff. Something that comments about how allies aren't always
: the ones that look like you, and enemies aren't necessarily ones that look
: different- ya know, racial harmony and all that. Especially if the Arbiter
: comes back into the game to provide an ally among the aliens again.
: Although as I understand it, we will be playing as a black man as well -
: Agent Locke?

: Think we'll get to fight against Spartan IVs in campaign and show them what a
: real Spartan can do!? :D

: Wow - totally argued myself into a 180 on this. Could honestly be
: interesting. I think maybe it is just a timing of the accusation of
: traitor, and the previously unknown source of it?

There's not much to go on, but I have a good feeling from the first audio log, I think even if I don't like the direction they go with the story it should be engaging.

: But I wonder how that Forerunnery birdy thing in the teaser trailer ties in.
: Maybe just an angsty side-path to provide extra things to shoot at.
: Something to prove that Master Chief is far too valuable to try and mark
: as 'traitor' and cast out?

My hunch is still that someone was like "fuck, we forgot about Mendicant Bias, quick, put him in the next game somewhere".