Spartan Powers in the Halo novels: Fact vs Propaganda

(While I'm sure this theory has a snowball's chance in hell of being canon, my friend brought this up as an interesting theory that can explain why the Spartans are stronger in the novels than they are in the anime, games, and live-action Halo media.)

My friend had an interesting idea that he shot by me one day, when we were talking about Spartan abilities in Halo: he noted that there was a large discrepancy in terms of Spartan abilities between the novels and the visual media. (live-action, games, anime) We were talking about it for a bit, until he finally proposed an idea: considering that the UNSC already uses the Spartans for propaganda, and considering the fact that they would lie to their own people to the point where they would claim that “Spartans don’t die, they’re just missing in action.” His idea suggested that the Halo novels where Spartans exhibit abilities not shown in the games, anime, or live-action media are propaganda by the UNSC, that the novels themselves might be in-universe documents that are ONI’s interpretation of the events. Of course, the two of us want to make it clear that this is just a theory, not canon.

Canon-wise, 343 says everything is canon, which is a complete mess when in the novels, Spartans can exhibit abilities that far outstrip their video game, live action, or anime portrayals. Bungie in the old days just considered the games to be the only things that mattered in the canon, and they retconned things left and right whenever they felt like it(like with Halo Reach’s depiction of the Invasion of Reach not being the same as the novel version). But with 343 making everything canon, this does throw a massive monkey wrench into the whole idea of Spartan abilities. Mostly because in the novels, they’re capable of superhero level feats, but in the visual medium, (games, anime, live-action) they’re portrayed as merely souped-up soldiers who still screw up and die.

I remember a Halo fan debating me on the durability of Spartans, and as he (or she) went in to claim that the Spartans are durable against all sorts of weapons, all I can think of is this one scene in Halo Legends where a female Spartan was shot by a Needler and she died. I remember when people told me to my face that in the novels, Spartans can go as fast as 30-60 miles per hour, and all I can think of was another episode from Legends where a Spartan was too slow and she got her head caved in with a Brute Chieftain’s gravity hammer instead of just diving away with the ODST about to get hit. Or how, in the difficulty of Heroic, which Bungie set as the difficulty all Halo games were meant to be, as a Spartan, I always had to rely on cover and my shields and armor were nothing but a stop-gap solution. I thought Halo Legends was much more faithful to the games when compared to the books, since there’s less of a power discrepancy outside the obvious joke episode. Even in the crossover with Dead or Alive, the Spartan there was a mighty fighter, but not near-invincible by a long shot.

Now, this is a bit of a pickle, especially for a Halo fan as myself, who is in the middle of writing a story about Spartans. Do I make my Spartan be superbly superhuman, like those in the novels? Or do I make them more down-to-earth and reliant on their skills and fortune, like the Spartans from the games and the anime? Do I make it so that my Spartan waddles into battle, not with a gun, but with a katana, and she evades enemy fire while slicing through them like crazy, or do I make it so that she has to rely on cover, good aim, and tactics, like in the games? I mean, I’m even trying to shoot a Halo movie of my own using the campaign theater, and I’m trying to play it as the godlike Spartan, but to add tension, I had to bump up the difficulty so the enemy aren’t just morons waiting to be killed-I have to make it so that the enemy actually looks smart and brutal so my Spartan winning over them looks like an achievement. But it kinda breaks the illusion of the godlike Spartan when the Spartans that do survive in higher difficulties fight more like a cover-seeking, third-person-shooter protagonist rather than some super-ninja who’s closer to Deathstroke or Batman in terms of fighting baddies.

It’s not like the Jedi where they had different levels of mastery. You can say that a Jedi that died like a scrub fighting robots had a lower skill level than the mainstay Jedi cast in Star Wars, or you can say that a Jedi that exhibits powers above those shown in the movies were Jedi that had decades to hone their powers in meditation and training. Spartans aren’t like the Jedi who have different skill levels and rankings, from Padawans (scrubs) to Jedi High Councilors (super elites). There are even Jedi who are strong in the Force, and can surpass a Jedi of a higher rank by sheer power or skill. But unlike the Jedi, the Spartans don’t have much difference in training, armor, or abilities. They were all given the same modifications, the same armor, the same training. Some might exhibit different abilities, like Spartan Linda-058’s ability to shoot different targets almost instantaneously, but for the most part, unlike the Jedi who are exposed to different masters and different stimuli that elicits different progression paths for each pupil, the Spartans were a trained military force that were programmed to be similar, made to be similar, and practically educated in the same program with a singular goal in mind. Much unlike the Jedi, who are just given a general order of keeping the peace but then performing different tasks that may or may not even involve combat at all.

So the power discrepancies between the books and the visual medium when it comes to Spartans becomes somewhat jarring. Some Spartan IIs can run up to 30 miles per hour. Master Chief in the books can run up to 60 miles per hour. If he can do that, then there’s no need for Warthog jeeps or Ghost speeders at all. Just have Chief hoof it and add boosters to his legs. Mission accomplished. Yet the games and other visual mediums like live-action shows show him in need of vehicles to be even as fast as 60 mph. Hence why my friend’s theory actually works wonders in plugging up this plot hole. The levels of super-saiyan strength that the Spartans exhibit were propaganda, while the visual medium portrays them more down-to-earth. Which would make total sense and plug up this canonical screw-up.

When the novels were creating feats for Spartans that were above the games, it was back then when Bungie was in charge, and Bungie didn’t give two wet farts about what was going on in the books. The games mattered to them, and that was all. The novels can give Spartans superhuman powers because it didn’t matter to Bungie, who just made Spartans more down-to-earth in the games. Then, when 343 Industries came in and made everything canon, suddenly, it was a mess. Novels that gave Spartans superhuman abilities were now in the same canon as with media that gave Spartans realistic abilities or quick and mundane deaths. To put this in perspective to the average Halo player, it’s like a universe which was playing the games in Easy and Normal difficulty were suddenly the same as one that was playing it in Heroic or Legendary. Anyone who played the games knows the difference between those sets of difficulty levels. Or, in anime terms, it’s like as if the same Goku who struggled against fighting a robot in Dragonball was the same Goku who can fight gods of destruction on an even level. Which, is, of course, stupid. The Goku that fought Beerus weathered more trials, tribulations, and fights when compared to his pint-sized earlier version. That’s why he’s stronger.

To which we then come to ONI and the UNSC government, which already had a history of lying through their teeth when it came to the Spartans. To keep up morale back home, the UNSC turned these black-ops supersoldiers into icons and heroes, and to keep up the charade of the Spartans being immortal and undefeated paragons of strength, the government lied to the populace and stated that “Spartans never die, they’re just missing in action”. When I first heard that line, I thought it was some kind of honor for the Spartans to be spoken of that way. That yes, Spartans do die, but the fighting spirit they engendered onto others lives on, so they are just technically “missing in action” when they die. It seemed like a form of respect. Then I realized that it was EXACTLY what ONI wanted to say quite literally: that the Spartans can’t be killed, they’re just missing in action when they drop off the grid. So basically, we have a government that’s capable of lying its ass off to the populace and has already had a vested interest in building the Spartans up as unbeatable heroes. They already lie their asses off when it comes to the Spartans, what with them saying that no Spartan truly dies, they’re just MIA. So, would it really be that much of an exaggeration if the government publishes books about what happened in current events that bumped up the feats of the Spartans and made them look like gods?

No, it wouldn’t be that much of a step up. You’re already making them into immortal death machines. Why not add some extra superpowers while you’re at it to make them look even more invincible? And this wouldn’t be the first time a novel from a game series became an in-game, in-universe item. Mass Effect Ascension, a novel in the Mass Effect series, was already given an in-game codex entry by the actual game, meaning that the novel itself exists in the Mass Effect game universe as a novel that the main character, Commander Shepard, can even purchase:

“Written by human author Drew Karpyshyn, the popular military-historical novel Ascension focuses on several lives warped or destroyed by the human-survivalist cult Cerberus. Following the Citadel attack of 2182 and the accelerated rise of human influence in the galaxy, Cerberus instituted Ascension, a secret biotics program aimed at producing a super-human warrior. Biotics prodigy Gillian Grayson, a 12-year-old autistic girl, suffered for the sins of her father, a secret Cerberus operative and red sand addict. Paul Grayson was ensnared in a web of criminality involving a quarian traitor and extending to Saren Arterius, the geth, and a terminal threat to the quarian flotilla. Having fled to the Terminus Systems with his daughter after exposure of Cerberus's link to Ascension, Grayson was pursued by Gillian's teacher, scientist Kahlee Sanders, initiating a chain of tragedies that demonstrated Cerberus's nearly-unlimited power and boundless ambition.”

The same goes for the next novel, Revelation:

“Revelation is a popular military-historical novel by human writer Drew Karpyshyn that dramatizes human conflicts and political expansion following the 2148 discovery of the Prothean mass relay on Pluto and the beginning of human galactic exploration. In 2165, years before his rise to political prominence, Lt. David Anderson was a young veteran of the turian war, investigating the destruction of top secret military research station Shanxi. Every scientist stationed at Shanxi had been slaughtered except Kahlee Sanders, who'd disappeared with secret files making her Anderson's prime suspect. The book traced Anderson's dangerous investigation of Sanders, which included run-ins with Blue Suns mercenaries and a krogan bounty hunter. The investigation uncovered illegal research into AI, and forced Anderson into an alliance with human-hating turian Spectre Saren Arterius, who would eventually enter into a genocidal collaboration with the geth.”

If Mass Effect can have that, why not Halo? The authors of these books can be the same as Drew Karpyshyn and be in-universe writers writing about current events. And of course, if such books are published in human space, the government can pay off the authors to add a few…...changes, changes that would make the Spartans stronger than they are in the visual mediums of Halo.

So while I’m sure that this theory will in no way be canon(and the people who are intense Spartan fans would no doubt fight it all the way through) this theory gives us a possible explanation as to the power discrepancies of Spartans, when they transition from the visual medium to the written word.

Just some food for thought, that’s all……