It is, but since the existence of an FTL communications network and multi-species communities have been established, it would be nice if the implications of those would be examined as well. Technologies never exist in a vacuum. They always have an effect on the society around them.

And that idea has always been at the core of science fiction -- how would things change if this or that thing were different from our world, whether that means the introduction of a new technology or contact with alien cultures. It's too often, however, (especially in popular SF) that writers just throw in concepts like an FTL comm net or multi-species planets and never really follow through with their wider implications.

: I think you're a bit uncharitable in your description of them telling the
: same story over and over, though. The books have examined a lot of what
: we're talking about with cross-cultural exchange. The stuff about using
: Waypoint and the mechanics of how people communicate in the colonies was
: only ever first explored with 343 and "Hunt the Truth".

There's some examination into that and some works do it better than others, but it's still maybe 80-90% of media that keeps recycling the same UNSC-Covenant (or UNSC-Innies) shtick. The very existence of a "Covenant" that's outwardly indistinguishable from the original thing right down to its name in the post-war era is symptomatic of that.

The more serious and interesting exploration of cross-cultural integration tends to be relegated to peripheral content, like Canon Fodder articles. And even when it happens, it's usually just general and vague statements in the vein of "human and Sangheili weaponsmiths work together to forge new implements of war". I'd like to see more of the nitty gritty details of how these things are worked out in practice, you know?

I'd also argue that HtT didn't really even dip into the mechanics of cross-colony communications. The network is just there, it's basically like the internet but in space, and none of the implications of that are seriously elaborated on.