Dr. Hasley
Last week, Microsoft chose to unload a quick, but very much needed, plethora of news for the Xbox. Most notable to gamers was the announcement of Halo 5: Guardians, the latest installment of the Halo universe by 343 industry, with a slated release window for fall of 2015, as well as some cover art of the game that introduces a unnamed character. The previous title of the series, Halo 4, brought many new plot points that broke from the traditional way that Halo’s narrative path usually pursued. It did this by introducing external Lore and characters from the Halo universe, that had little to no part in the games themselves, but played significant roles in the Halo universe. 343i achieved a successful addition of external content by introducing Spartan Ops; a mission-based cooperative mode in which players work as part of a team of SPARTAN-IVs known as Fireteam Crimson performing various objectives. After completing missions you would get additional cut scenes that added to the plot, post Halo 4. Possibly one of the most recognized characters in the Halo Universe, whom story was extrapolated via Spartan Ops, was Dr. Hasley, best known as the creator of the SPARTAN-II Program and MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor.
The Janus Key given to Hasley
Dr. Hasley played a pretty significant role in Halo 4, but an even bigger on in the Spartan ops when she makes contact and communication from a unknown individual, who, unknown to her, was Jul ‘Mdama, the leader of the Covenant Remnant. This communication leads to her arrest by Captain Thomas J. Lasky for withholding information, this being a very ironic and controversial move by Lasky due to the fact that ONI and the UNSC had withheld information about John-117’s survival and the true origins of the Prometheans’ true nature. Soon after her arrest, a forerunner artifact that was being held within the infinity, caused Promethean Knights begin to teleport through and eventually capture Hasley bringing her to Jul ‘Mdama. This is that part where things get very interesting and start to conceptually build on my working theory of one very strong plot point that has a high potential of use. Once Hasley meets up with Jul ‘Mdama at his base in the Librarian’s chamber, She manages to deactivate a shield, which according to her required a ‘more human touch’, and then runs into a beam which has formed in the Librarian’s artifact and disappears. When she disappears, The Librarian discusses with her about how Halsey must accept her gift so as Humanity remains on the path to reclaiming the Mantle. The Librarian then gifts her with the Janus Key, a device containing a complete catalog of every piece of Forerunner technology in the entire Milky Way Galaxy. Upon taking the key, Hasley is then launched back into Jul ‘Mdama’s clutches where he relieved Halsey of one piece of the Key, not realizing she had the second.
While the events of Dr. Hasley, Jul ‘Mdama, and The Librarian were unfolding, Admiral Serin Osman, current Commander in Chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence, ordered Lasky to have Halsey eliminated should she ever be found again. Commander Sarah Palmer then assigns herself the task of eliminating Halsey. Also during these events, Gabriel Thorne, a volunteered to guard to Hasley, later entered the room containing the artifact after Dr. Hasley’s arrest. Without even thinking, he touched it and was absorbed by it and is transported to Requiem. He was quickly captured by Jul ‘Mdama’s guards and through a course of events was able to break free of captivity and kill his captor, with the help of Majestic. Majestic team and Thorne then are instructed by Laskey to rescue Dr. Hasley. When Thorne comes to rescue Hasley, the timing couldn’t have been worse, as Sarah Palmer arrives to assassinate her. A startled Jul ‘Mdama summons the Promethean Knights to protect him, quickly Hasley tosses part of the Janus key to Thorne, whilst Palmer attempts to assassinate Halsey, but only managed a shot at her shoulder, and quickly thereafter ‘Mdama soon escapes with the help of a Promethean Knight and Hasley in hand. As all these events come to a close, we soon come to see that Hasley viewed the assassination attempt by Palmer to be a complete betrayal to her by ONI and the UNSC and will soon want revenge.
Now bare with me, I am fully aware that all I have done so far is describe the events of the last episode in Spartan Ops, but by doing so I am providing context to why these events are important to Halo as well as Master Chief in the upcoming installment of the series. At first I thought that, based of the trailer, Master Chief was trying to find a way to bring Cortana back, and he could still very much be doing that, but if we remember quickly, at the end of Halo 4 Cortana enters a rare and final state of rampancy, being metastability, the theoretical fourth stage of rampancy, where an AI can be considered fully “human.” She is then later destroyed by the blast of the nuke as she was protecting Master Chief via a shield she creates. Now, if there is a way to bring Cortana back, you better damn well bet Chief is going to purse it, and as far as we now know, He has gone rouge. For what reasons though? That’s the true question on everyone’s mind. If his search is for Cortana, then he will need all the pieces to the Janus key, which would now include finding Hasley and some how getting the UNSC key as well. Once again, this is where I have questions that go unanswered, which is half the fun if you think about it. The real dynamic here is that we don’t know if Hasley knows that Chief has gone rouge, and it could also be inferred that Chief is unaware of Hasley’s recent choice of alliance. Lasky does note at the end of a cut-scene in Spartan Ops that Jul ‘Madma is “keeping her”, but once again, is not aware that it could be by choice in her perspective.
Promethean like construct from E3 2013 trailer
Some thing to also note are that if Master Chief has gone rouge, the list of people he can trust is very much empty, but does allow for the reintroduction to a well know character from our Halo past, The Arbiter, or now know as Thel ‘Vadam. Thel ‘Vadam currently continues to campaign with his fellow Sangheili for an indefinite peace with humanity if I am following the timeline correctly. This also means that he may have a heightened knowledge of were Dr. Hasley and Jul ‘Madma are hiding and quite possibly what they are planning. 343i also has to be hinting at some ancient Forerunner aspect to this game by including Guardians in the title as well. From what we saw at last years 2013 E3, I for one most certainly had millions of questions to ask of the franchise and let my mind wander for months. Could that giant Promethean like construct we saw in the trailer be one of many guardians? If so, would you like to have multiple epic boss battles with massive ancient forerunner guardians?! You can sign me up, that’s for certain.
All this speculation and we haven’t even touched on who’s behind the helmet of our new antagonist! Unfortunately I am completely stumped on this one. Unsure of how this will play out and having no evidence to speculate factually, its all theory on this one, and many you can read about here: https://wethenerdy.com/halo-5-whos-under-the-helmet/. Well that conclude my thoughts and reminders of what could come of this Halo 5: Guardians storyline, but in the end, even in I am wrong, I have full faith in 343 Industries’ ability to provide us with a premium story.
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