BUNGiE.net admin Shishka
The Fall of Reach, The Flood, and First Strike are official books. Yes, Bungie had say in their writing Yes, the writers did some of their own work nothing was published without first receiving Bungie's approval.
However, what you fail to realize is that the books act as flavor for the hardcore. Guess what? Out of the millions that have bought and played the second Halo, only a tiny handful have actually READ these books. As such, it'd be unwise to reference the books directly in the game, as the reference would be obscure and misunderstood by the majority of players
The books enhance the games, not the other way around.
The mistake in your thinking is that Halo 1 doesn't "reference" anything that happened in The Flood. It's the other way around. And, Halo 1 didn't reference anything that happened during Fall of Reach, just as Halo 2 didn't reference anything that happened in First Strike.
Something I must point out, now that this thread has grown...
The Cortana letters are not canon. They're a relic of a time when the first Halo wasn't even a first person shooter, yet. I suggest you do not read too deeply into them to find secrets about the games- there's nothing there to find
Halo Story Page: Would the books make the cut?
Joseph Staten: The books are, for better or worse, part of the canon. In the future we may choose to revise or flat-out ignore some of the less appealing ideas (Johnson's biological immunity to the Flood, for example), but folks should treat them as defining elements of the Halo universe.
However, what you fail to realize is that the books act as flavor for the hardcore. Guess what? Out of the millions that have bought and played the second Halo, only a tiny handful have actually READ these books. As such, it'd be unwise to reference the books directly in the game, as the reference would be obscure and misunderstood by the majority of players
The books enhance the games, not the other way around.
The mistake in your thinking is that Halo 1 doesn't "reference" anything that happened in The Flood. It's the other way around. And, Halo 1 didn't reference anything that happened during Fall of Reach, just as Halo 2 didn't reference anything that happened in First Strike.
Something I must point out, now that this thread has grown...
The Cortana letters are not canon. They're a relic of a time when the first Halo wasn't even a first person shooter, yet. I suggest you do not read too deeply into them to find secrets about the games- there's nothing there to find
Halo Story Page: Would the books make the cut?
Joseph Staten: The books are, for better or worse, part of the canon. In the future we may choose to revise or flat-out ignore some of the less appealing ideas (Johnson's biological immunity to the Flood, for example), but folks should treat them as defining elements of the Halo universe.
See? Many have no knowledge of other Spartans, let alone the books. Why do all the book readers think everybody reads them?
Discuss:
-other Spartans and why they won't be in
-the idiots on bungie.net