: Since when did the Master Chief sign up with Starlord and Rocket?

: More seriously, since when has the Chief been solely responsible for the
: defense of the whole galaxy? Let's make this clear: That's not a case of a
: man having too much power to be held accountable. It's a case of one man
: not having enough power to do the job. He doesn't have the mobility to
: check on distant reaches of space, he's outgunned by every single faction
: out there, and all he has in his favor is a divine mandate that few know
: about and even fewer believe is real.

I think you've got cause and effect backwards there. I think the intended reading is "the Chief was able to do all this because he had a lot of freedom to move and act, therefore that should be maintained and expanded", as the claim that the UNSC would make or imply.

: -Ooh, I wondered when Petra would show up.
: We need reporters like her in real life. She sounds like she wouldn't take
: waffle from any politician.

Politeness has a place. That place is almost everywhere. That place is hard to find, though, when dealing with someone whose decisions affect the lives of thousands or millions (or billions) of people-- or at least it should be.

: -It's a nice villainous lair that ONI has. The sinister sidewalk of doom is
: nice touch. There's probably an AI tasked with the job of intimidating
: visitors with darkened rooms and suddenly-closed doors and ominous drops
: in temperature.

: ONI HQ shouldn't be like this all the time. Not only does a foreboding
: atmosphere cut down on productivity (Can you say "Hostile work
: environment"?) but employees are going to look around sooner and
: later and wonder "Why does our office look like a James Bond
: setpiece?"

I figured this was the section they let outsiders see so they get that quiet intimidation, and most of the work is done underground or in nondescript but equally protected places that are more like a traditional office building but with a bit more internal privacy (I can't imagine ONI running a cube farm).

: -Has anyone figured out what that scrambled audio is right at the end of #06?
: Is it a message, or FERO, or those deep space anomalies* that Mshak
: mentioned earlier?

That went to something called "Hunt the Signal", which led to the reveal of the box art for Halo 5 (actually a picture somewhat bigger and more inclusive, I think, but at least part of it will be on the box)-- it already ran its course and seems to have been shut down.

: *In the future, I will call these DESPANs, or maybe just Despans or despans.

and you will have people asking what that means if you put it in another thread :)

: And any warm feelings I have for her are gone already. She's going to get
: senators and ONI leadership in the same room by causing panic? Fomenting a
: crisis? Even if we assume that she's a nice person with mankind's best
: interests at heart, and not a creepy amoral wannabe messiah who will order
: hundreds of thousands to die to see those best interests carried out,
: she's not the only one who can take advantage of a crisis. Heck, that's
: the sort of thing that creepy amoral wannabe messiahs excel at.

: This doesn't bode well.

It doesn't bode well, but it doesn't work out the way you think either. I did get a bit of that power-tripping sense and that pro-anarchy sense from her lines, but I don't think that's the main thing going on. Please, catch up, I'd like to hear your thoughts on how it's working out. :)