Visionary Nexus Network

You may be wondering why there was no post last Saturday. Well, someone decided to release Halo Legends episodes every two weeks now. I saw no announcement of this anywhere, so I don’t even. Know why, that is.

I thought the Arbiter armor was metallic gray? Seems like that ain’t real gold, and that everything about this short is cheap.

In any case,  this short apparently takes place during the early days of the Covenant Empire, when the Sangheili-San ‘Shyuum (Elite-Prophet) alliance was formed. Yet, there’s Hunters and Grunts featured. I’m not sure, but I’m certain those weren’t subjugated by the Covenant until much later. Say, centuries later. Well, technicalities aside.

An oversized moon reflects upon a still pond. Somewhere, an astronomer is crying, when he shouldn’t. As Unskippable any genre-savvy fellow would inform you, everybody knows the moon is bigger in Japan… Land of the Mooninites.

The current Arbiter, Fal, after ignoring warnings of a trap by “the Boatman”, has a swordfight with half a dozen fellow Elites. There are flashbacks in the midst of said fight, which conveniently reduces the fight scene budget by half and moves the scene to a daydreaming Fal sitting with his wife, Han. And I’ll tell you right this instant that she looks like what Cleopatra would’ve looked like were she in the movie Antz. Seeing himself in inevitable danger, he suggests she leave to save herself. Naturally, she refuses stubbornly.

After training with some of his troops on his suspiciously-looking samurai robes (hakama and everything, just to remind you this 3D clusterfuck was animated by an anime company) a servant pleads to Fal not to go against the Prophets. He counters that the Sanghelli/Elites were great before the Covenant, and that their honor has been subverted by a thirst for power. One of Fal’s fellow Elites, Haka, takes this opportunity to attempt to usurp Fal’s leadership and become head of the clan. In cooperation with the Prophets, of course. Also, he wears a full set of samurai armor. Groovy.

The aforementioned flashbacks are related to Fal’s service to the Prophets, and his rebellion against the Covenant. He declares the Great Journey, the central theme of Covenant religion, a lie. For this, the Prophets declare the once-honorable rank/title of Arbiter to be “a mark of shame”, which pretty nicely explains the origins of the Arbiter mythos. While he fights a Covenant army by himself, the servant from before betrays Fal for Haka, by leading the latter to Han. While Fal brutalizes said army, his wife is likewise brutalized (offscreen) by the servant and Haka’s troop. After much reluctance, the servant kills her, and the Arbiter returns home to that horrific sight. With this, he sets off to accept Haka’s challenge.

After a short exchange, there is an even shorter duel which probably lasted less than 5 seconds. Yes, the titular duel for which this story was named for was short and anti-climatic as all hell. It got so cheap in the end that I thought my stream froze because the overuse of several still shots were that poorly done. There’s no need to explain the duel; it’s the classic “we’ll decide this in one blow” you see practically everywhere. But I’ll do it anyway, for one reason in particular.

After said poorly done still shot, Fal gushes a massive, so-ridiculously-looking-it’s-hilarious fountain of purple alien blood grape juice. Seconds later, the camera shifts angle so we see Fal’s sword, too, has dealt a fatal blow to Haka. As the cliché continues to unveil, they both fall and die. Insert sad music and credits. Yup, that’s all.

TL;DR: Cliché samurai short story IN SPACE! With aliens.

Conclusion: This short presents us with the origins of the Arbiter mythos and finally solves the mystery of whether Egyptian ant alien chicks are hot or…wait, that’s not it.

In the heyday of the Covenant Empire, the Arbiter was a heretic who underwent a suicide mission to redeem himself in the ultimate sacrifice for the Great Journey. As one can see, it was originally a rank of prestige, until an early Arbiter was branded a heretic, and so his armor has since been symbolically donned by subsequent Arbiters to save the Covenant from great crisis. In that aspect, it’s a great origin story (God knows I can be a bit of a sucker for that trope), but the lack of plot and memorable characters, as well as its poorly-written story weigh it down significantly to nothing remarkable. It seems to me that, sadly, this trend will follow in each of the Halo Legends episodes as they come.

Whether you like the three two average fight scenes or not, this is nothing but a cliché storm reminiscent of samurai fiction, including an Orient-inspired soundtrack to go along with it. Don’t bother; it’s a waste of 15 minutes of time better spent elsewhere, like matchmaking in Halo to have a teabag party with a bunch of 12-year-olds (and what is this?), which is, ultimately, what this is all about.

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