by jake108 Friday 5th October 2012

‘Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn’ – Episode 1 Recap and Analysis

It’s finally here, a live-action story set within the beloved Halo universe. Running at nearly 20 minutes, the first episode of Forward Unto Dawn was peculiar. Like any new installment into the Halo franchise, we were presented with both familiarity and uncharted territory…

And now for our commentary and analysis:

Forward Unto Dawn starts with the remains of the ship, with the same title, that we last saw Master Chief and Cortana on. If you need a little refresher: The Arbiter, Master Chief, and Cortana were desperately trying to get of the Arc at the end of Halo 3. While the Arbiter moved to the front of the ship to guide it to safety, Master Chief and Cortana elected to catch their breath, thinking they’d be safe. Only half of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn made it through the slipspace portal, leaving Master Chief and Cortana floating in space.

This is made evident when we are presented with both Cortana and Master Chief with Cortana’s distress call loop heard in the background.

The blue hue from Cortana doesn’t last very long, due to her impending rampancy. Though she is long overdue to become unstable, let’s not forget she’s not an ordinary AI. Dr. Halsey used her own brain as a basis for Cortana, making Cortana truly one of a kind.

We enter Forward Unto Dawn’s series with the Insurrectionists as the main enemy to the UNSC. Fans may or may not know that the flashbacks in this series take place twenty years before the Halo events.

After Cortana and Master Chief’s introduction Commander Lasky is seen listening to Cortana’s distress call. For those of you who missed it, it is extremely imperative that you know Lasky is commander of the UNSC Infinity. The UNSC Infinity is the ship that is pivotal to Halo 4’s campaign and plot.

For those of you who saw the E3 demonstration, the UNSC Infinity is also the ship that crash lands on the shield world both the Infinity and remaining half of the Forward Unto Dawn get sucked into. I expect one of the first missions will be involving rescue and recovery of the downed UNSC Infinity. Poor Lasky, first the insurrectionists, then the Covenant, and now super-powered Forerunner Promethean Knights?! This guy can’t catch a break!

After some character development involving Lasky and fellow cadet Chyler Silva, we get an approximate date as to when these flashbacks are occurring:

It’s safe to say the year is 2526. Humanity made first contact with the Covenant on February 3, 2525, making these news articles a little over a year after. It’s not unusual that the UNSC is keeping their skirmishes with the Covies a secret. Still, it’s not going to be much a secret for long.

Towards the end of the episode, we’re treated with a Covenant ship or probe entering Circinius-IV’s atmosphere. If you look closely you’ll see the purple hue around the object.

If that isn’t enough for you skeptics out there, tell me these don’t look like Covie-glyphics:

If there’s anything I missed, feel free to email, tweet, or comment below. I’ll be sure to give credit where credit is due! Until next time, I’ll be getting back to the second thing that matters most to me: My social life.