: 2) When and why was the Master Chief declared dead on Meridian? Frankly, the
: whole "Master Chief is a traitor" angle doesn't make much sense
: given the timeline we're presented with in the final game. The whole thing
: happens so fast that it makes very little sense for ONI to write him off
: like that. He goes AWOL aboard the Argent Moon, then goes straight to
: Meridian where he boards the Guardian and departs for Genesis. Infinity
: rushes to Sanghelios ASAP and sends Locke out to board the Guardian at
: Sunaion. Then Locke becomes BFF with Chief. That doesn't give ONI a whole
: lot of basis to decide that the Chief MUST BE a traitor. I realize he had
: been taking missions against direct orders to rest, but the UNSC didn't
: seem to have a problem with that since the Infinity is clearly playing
: along at Argent Moon; ONI even wrote off Master Chief's insubordination as
: a "predictable consequence of his nature". So why do they
: suddenly decide that he must be a traitor now, and why does this new
: development merit a falsified public declaration of his death?

I imagine that, given the sheer number of recent Spartan defectors (Zane, Scruggs, Mickey, Rudolf Schein) ONI probably has an automatic protocol. Then again, nobody has accused ONI of acting entirely rationally in recent years.

I also have to wonder, will the revelation that the Chief isn't actually dead, when he (presumably) starts kicking Cortana off human worlds, come as a shock to the populace? It'll be the second time he's come back from the dead to save humanity. You know what they say: third time's the charm...