: While "I hate you for killing my dad (even though he was already Flood
: food and you did it to save the universe)" would have been a bit
: tired and cliche, I have always been a fan of exploring the less-than-nice
: side of the UNSC in something other than the novels,

Ok. We've had the Kilo 5 trilogy, Halo 4, Halo 5, what must be a dozen pieces of media that turned ONI into Cerberus. And now we have the Edgar-suited pile of shit that's called the Halo TV show. All it's proven is that the only writer capable of exploring the shady side of the UNSC while telling a good story was the OG Eric Nylund. And you can tell that because later writers had to retcon extra evil shit into existence, like when Traviss dismissed Halsey's Journal as being written by a madwoman who makes up her past as she goes along. Or 343i making Halsey rant about her Spartans being the next step in Human evolution.

There's intelligent questions that can be explored such as "How much corruption can exist before a government is illegitimate" or "Is it really worth ruining the lives of a fat fraction of your population just because your computer models say that this will avert billions of deaths" or "When you're fighting for survival, is it worth trading lives for time?"

343i hasn't been able to acquire talent that can ask those questions intelligently. At best they make fools of themselves with characters like Del Rio. At worst, we get absolutely cringeworthy ass-covering like "The Master Chief had sex with a prisoner of war he'd just met because... um... uh... to show that he is in touch with his humanity."

That's what's so nice about Infinite. It's not a smart story, and I'd venture that it's not even a great story. Pretty cookie-cutter even if it has a few shining moments of greatness. But at least it's not trying to demoralize me.

: and I think having a
: main character who is at odds with Chief would have been an interesting
: wrinkle for 2, especially paralleling the Arbiters' own navigation of the
: politics of the Covenant (I guess we kind of got some of that in 4 with
: Del Rio, but he mostly just seemed like a guy in over his head and it
: wasn't exactly a dynamic I think we as players were supposed to care about
: except in that someone's stopping Chief from Doing What Needs to Be Done,
: and jeopardizing Cortana.)