: Yeah, the adversity in Halo 4 felt off, and an aspect the writer didn't
: mention is the huge, clumsy and incredibly contrived foil in the shape of
: Captain Del Rio. For much of the game, Chief's struggle isn't against
: unstoppable hordes, or doomsday weapons, or ancient terrors, but...
: bureaucracy .

: "Look, Captain, it's the hero who saved Earth a few years ago!"
: "Throw him in the brig, because reasons"

: My emphasis on bureaucracy.

You know what's kind of weird? On some level, I sympathize with Del Rio. Scary robot monsters are scary, especially when they can teleport behind your front lines and kill you directly. Or teleport into Engineering and kill everybody. Or teleport into some dark corner of Infinity and start shooting up vital machinery.

You've gotta get out of here, man! And who is telling you different? Well, on the left you have a tempermental AI that is clearly in the early stages of rampancy. On the right, you have an aging supersoldier who hasn't checked in for four years, and has had said AI jacked into his head since he landed on Requiem.

Is Del Rio a quivering imbecile who shouldn't be in charge of a lemonade stand? Oh, certainly. My reaction would have been less "Give me that AI chip so I can destroy it" and more "Sequester her from the Infinity's network, then we can talk." But given the circumstances, I don't think that C&C's war record is sufficient to risk the Infinity on their say-so.

Conversely, I think that the Chief's record of duty and loyalty to the UNSC makes the "Has the Cheif gone rogue?" promotion for Halo 5 laughable. Especially when he was only out of contact with the Infinity for about a day before they went into panic mode.