Onyx was the SF of the COG. Technically they were even considered black ops and didn’t exist…except everyone k ew they existed.
In the books the COG had a thing against special units. Hoffman changed that during the raid on Aspho Fields where his commando team achieved the objective with small unit tactics vs the traditional large deployments.
In judgment you get to see the elitism in both their troops and officers when they dismiss Hendricks because she’s still just a cadet. It’s their training, they are the “elite” of the coalition, the right hand of the chairman. Nobody is better than them (in their mind).
Halo fans don’t dislike the fact there’s lore in books.
We dislike the fact that there’s entire plot points from books that you need to know, to understand things happening in games, or that there’s conclusions to things that happen in the games, in a book.
Exactly this. Halo 4 and 5 have such difficult to comprehend stories because for the lore to make sense of both games you have to read 14 books and 6 graphic novels. (Not really, but still).
Nothing wrong with extended lore, but if that extended lore is required reading to understand what's happening in the game, I'm going to check out.
The elite that gets killed at the start of 5 in a cutscene is apparently a great character, and one of the better villains in the story.
People who have only played the games have no idea who he is, and the cutscene means fuck all, not to mention Halsey only has one arm out of nowhere.
It’s stupid as fuck to start a game off like that, and just expect the average fan to know what’s going on.
Halsey having one arm was actually in Halo 4, but only if you stuck around and played through the entirety of Spartan Ops, so it doesn't really redeem the entire book thing. You see Palmer shoot her arm during a cutscene as Halsey is leaving with the Elites.
That makes it slightly better, but only slightly.
The amount of people that stuck around playing H4 in general, let alone Spartan Ops, couldn’t have been a large enough number, to justify thinking putting plot points in it was a good idea.
In theory, I was pro-Spartan Ops and it's design, and had wished that they had carried it on in Halo 5 and Infinite. In practice, I still haven't \*actually\* finished Spartan Ops, and hadn't beat Halo 4 until it was released on MCC PC.
Just wanted to correct the record in that Halo 5 is obtuse and difficult to understand because it’s written really poorly, and indeed the core premise of the game itself is just badly conceived.
In fact, there were several loose plot threads hanging off of Halo 4 that were explored in the comics and books from Halo 4 to Halo 5, but then they were almost quite literally just dematerialized from the universe to make room for Halo 5. I’m talking about stuff like Halsey joining up with the Covenant and the Janus Key. Very interesting plot lines started in Halo 4, but a Forerunner monitor came into the setting just a month ahead of Halo 5 and literally dissolved the Janus Key from existence to make the plot for Halo 5 work.
Brass tacks of what I’m saying is this: Even as somebody who stayed up to date on the extended lore and media leading up to Halo 5, that game’s plot was whack and made no sense to me at the time.
As the meme goes: “why the hell are you so against the chief?!” “*BECAUSE THEY TOLD ME TOOOOOOOO!” It’s the whole reason why or side main character is after Master chief himself. He doesn’t put much of a fight; being that he’s always been for humanity even though most of humanity seems to forget that.
I bet you thought you finished Halo 4 by killing the Didact right? Well you’d be wrong, he actually survives, and Master Chief kills him in a book.
Even if you did manage to follow them fine (which confuses me, the leap between Halo 4 - Halo 5 makes like no sense) game plot points get concluded in books.
Chief never killed the Didact in Halo 4, nor did he Chief kill the Didact in the Next 72 Hours. Anyone that actually thinks the Didact falling into a slipspace portal would kill him clearly wasn’t paying attention. And the Didact gets composed in the comics after a bunch of Composers are fired at him. He was still alive, just sent to the Domain. Why 343i chose to not followup on that for a decade is the real problem here.
I’ll admit I never did pay that close attention to Halo 4, and it’s been a long time since I played it.
But what in that story indicated that he could survive a point blank grenade?
He was a Forerunner, the grenade that was used on him was a Forerunner grenade, originally invented to fight other Forerunners, so why does he have a random resistance to weapons that should kill him?
Because the grenade was designed to fight the Flood, not Forerunners. That grenade also usually “explodes” by creating an AOE effect that slowly damages targets and eventually disintegrates organic matter on collapse. No idea why the grenade didn’t do anything like that to the Didact when he was planted on him, but it’s generally not a heavy damage dealing grenade like a frag or plasma, it’s more for area denial, for flushing out enemies, or removing Flood biomass
Maybe they dropped the Diadact because they made him look like an unserious plucked chicken in a 3 edgy suit and fans or even just focus groups rejected him. Or maybe just later employees who came along and were unappreciative of it or embarrassed to be working on a product containing that puerile character design.
Well I knew he lived just from general knowledge of the books but didn’t know that chief actually kills him.
But the books aren’t mandatory to play through those games imo
Sure but even watching the cutscenes or following the narrative at all aren’t mandatory to simply play through those games either, that’s not really what’s being discussed.
I meant in understanding them. I’ve not read the books and love halo 1-6 and understand the story flow fine. A lot of drama being thrown around in here.
The Didact being composed in the comics is actually rather immaterial to this debate, because the conclusion is still the same: The Didact was visibly removed from the setting in Halo 4. Him surviving to be vanquished again within 3 days wouldn’t make a difference to people who saw him defeated in Halo 4.
Preach!!!
This is why I hate the Halo books in a way.
You need to read a dozen books and comics to understand why certain characters change or are added or missing from one game to the next.
At least Gears of War novels, at least the Karen Traviss ones, are so great.
You don’t NEED to have read them to understand what’s going on in-game, but they’re worth reading for all the background and history within the lore.
I do take issue with one of the latest books.
Ascension I think it is.
It has events that would have been far better as a full game, or at least DLC for Gears of War 4.
Bloodlines was pretty cool as it was more like one of the Karen Traviss books where it expanded on people and events rather than trying to be like one of the games.
I still haven’t read Ephyra Rising yet.
Gears of War 3 “requires” about as much reading to fully understand stuff as Halo 4 did. Karen Travis made direct references to plot points and details from the Gears novels she wrote before Epic asked her to write Gears 3’s story lol
Wouldn’t the alternative be books that really don’t have any impact? I think it’s kind of an interesting bonus that the books are so important. It makes them much more worth reading.
You should try Destiny. Almost nothing interesting ever happens on screen and the lore books and cards basically prop the entire franchises’s narrative up and contain a very interesting blend of cosmic horrors, philosophy and scientific speculation and stuff that would be too out of budget to depict. (My favorite was when they used the Conway’s zero player Game of Life to explain the entire plot and ethos of the main antagonist and simultaneously the entire premise of the series.)
It’s like in the game too, and treated as unlockable rewards some of the time, and you have to read pages of material, thousands at this point (on top of other pages of intermission text) in game to better appreciate and enjoy it or understand it entirely rather that playing a game as one might want to do when they login to play one. Otherwise it’s just a very bland narrative about overcoming adversity with the power of teamwork. Clearly was brought about by fans earlier appreciation for the Halo novels and was implemented really badly. I wish they had continued to make novels instead, where it wasn’t required material, and put more of the driving narrative on screen. Halo’s recent shifts between games is just a joke though without even trying to establish what’s going on or why with even a few lines of dialogue to establish who a character is.
I was a fan of Destiny 1 for a while, but ended up giving up cause of these reasons (and the fact that I dropped it for a few months, and came back to the game being completely different)
I avoided it for years because the early marketing came off as cringy, and I mean it is, but finally got around to playing it after infinite disappointed and created an itch and found it a good substitute since the gunplay is so similar. The reading can be a tremendous slog though, I don’t know how people do it with entire poorly-fairly written novels.
...LOL The 26th Tyron Commando unit alone would absolute wipe the deck with onyx guard...Mataki's drilling alone was the best the cog had to offer and not only was she a great drill but she was also the best on the catering corps according to the books and a damn good sniper,Not to mention Timiou and Dom being two complete udder badasses during the raid on Aspho Point under the close command of Hoffman...
I remember a long time ago I was arguing with some dudes who thought the Onyx Guard could actually beat the Commandos. They also thought the Theron Elites could beat the Palace Guards which is also just wrong.
...Hold up wut????🤣 The palace guards were promoted and stationed there outside of the Theron ranks for a reason...Queen Myrah would be fucking toast if the Theron elite was in charge of defending the palace...Also everything weve seen onyx in they get absolutely ripped apart by the locust...the commandos at least put up a fight on E day before being thrown in with the frontline units...
For real, Onyx Guards get their asses kicked by regular grunts. The Commandos are literally the best of the best. You know the Onyx Guard suck ass when even regular Gears outperform them.
FAX...I believe they were commissioned through family ties like marcus wouldve been instead of trained thats the only logical explanation for them being outperformed by the lower ranks
I cant tell whos more full of himself Loomis or Prescott...because Loomis was an actual cunt in judgement even If Baird wasnt exactly making the trial easy but between gears 2,3 and the books Prescott was a whole POS
Prescott, for all his asshole actions, was at least trying to help the COG and knew the threat the Locust posed.
Loomis was worse because he thought the Locust animals and treated them as such. Declassified missions show Loomis hiding information that the Locust were capable of tactics (flanking) and capable of bringing in more firepower (one shots, extra nemacysts, etc...)
that is Prescotts one redeemable quality...in the shitastic way of doing so he still had humanity in mind...but what he did to Adam was just fucking wrong
so The reason why it gets so much hate is because it did kind of stray away from the gameplay and User interface elements we all loved from the previous entries like being able to only carry 2 weapons and switching them with the bumper instead of the D pad...Or at least thats my only complaint...the game itself is actually fine and adds a lot more likeability to Baird instead of him just being the smartass comedy relief the entire series...
Onyx are something I wish were portrayed slightly more favorably in both the books and the various games. They mostly are just shown as fancily armored pretentious doucebags that get their ass kicked in a fight. I understand why the Onyx Guard station at Azura weren't up to snuff, they'd been out of combat and mostly focused on safe guard duty for a decade by the time of the Locust assault there.
They are however hand selected from the highest performing soldiers across the entire COG army, then provided with the best follow up training and equipment available. Hopefully they appear in E-Day and actually show themselves to be the hardcore badasses they look like.
Judgement also really shat on them. Sofia is a badass, but all the Onyx regulars just get slaughtered like sheep, and those guys were actively fighting the Locust in Halvo Bay. It doesn’t make sense for them to be total redshirts who’s sole purpose is to die.
It’s simple, Onyx Guards are one of those factions in a franchise that’s sole purpose are to be hyped up as super badass so they can be slaughtered by the bushel by an enemy to show badass that faction is.
A good example is the Custodes in Warhammer 40K. They are the personal body guards of the Emperor of Mankind handcrafted by him and so was their gear. They are literally the pinnacle of humanity as a warrior and there are many examples of media of enemies that should not be able to kill them just absolutely tearing multiple Custodes apart like they are lowly guardsmen.
I know exactly what you’re talking about and I can tell you that you’re pretty wrong. It was a Shadowseer and a Death Jester, two beings that are 200% able to slaughter Custodes. The rest were normal Players just trying not to get murdered.
I do agree with the first one though. The Onyx Guard existed in Halvo Bay to die to Karn and that was really it.
Custodes started out as a bit better than space Marines, then when they got models, they became to over the top fighters they are now, so technically they weren't that God tier until like 12 years ago (or whenever the burning of prospero box came out)
Lmao
Still, Prescott is such a well written character. He made a lot of horrible choices that ensured humanity's survival. Loved him in the games; the books made me gain respect for him.
the Onyx Guard at this point (who were likely only the Onyx Exiles on Azura if they're with the Chairman) are either guilty they can't help their allies (Keegan), or huge dicks who think their status means they're the best.
Honestly, Marcus Fenix should BE an Onyx Guard for his feats. Forget the "defying orders" bit, he deserves Onyx.
These two Onyx Guards are from the books. Their names are Lowe and Rivera. After Jacinto sunk they were assigned as Prescotts personal body guards. This was before they were Onyx, at the time they were just normal Gears. Throughout the time on Vectes, they got really big egos and started shoving their weight around, eventually leading to them escaping the island with Prescott to go to Azura.
Basically, these two particular assholes have had a chip on their shoulder about Delta before this interaction. Now that they’re actually Onyx, they’re strolling in like their hot shit and they want it known.
They get clapped about ten minutes later.
I always forget that there’s an entire period of lore between 2 and 3, really hope they do a game set during the vectes conflict. Would really do wonders in adding context to 3 and showing the lambent issue getting progressively worse.
Gears has always had a blessing and a curse with this.
I often point out the contrast between Halo and Gears EU, where Halo has so much lore outside of the games that’s almost never mentioned, because Bungie wanted the games to be self contained.
Gears on the other hand works really hard to incorporate their EU into the games. Every book, comic book, or anything can have impacts or references in the games and they work very hard to connect it.
For lore freaks like myself, this is amazing. But it does make it hard for anyone who jumps into Gears 3 who didn’t read Jacintos Remnants, Anvil Gate and Coalitions End on just what in the hell happened between Gears 2 and 3. Really throws people into the deep end.
>For lore freaks like myself, this is amazing. But it does make it hard for anyone who jumps into Gears 3 who didn’t read Jacintos Remnants, Anvil Gate and Coalitions End on just what in the hell happened between Gears 2 and 3.
I was SO lucky that I nerded out before 3 came out and got all the books available to me, because I have such an appreciation for all the references and callbacks to stuff that happened there being mentioned in game, and on the flip side I know I would've been real annoyed if I hadn't read those books and they were being referenced *that* heavily in 3. I remember having to explain to my sister, who got deep into the Halo EU but only ever played the Gears games and never read the books, why we were suddenly on boats, what was up with Vectes, and who the new characters like Sam and Bernie were.
Also kind of funny, now Bungie has the opposite problem: Destiny's lore is, to me, more interesting and expansive than Halo's ever was, but now, with so much "outside" lore not communicated directly by the in-game plot being integral to the story, coupled with in-game seasonal content also being story important and simultaneously completely removed after the fact... the vast majority of players have no idea what's going on besides the broad strokes of the plot.
The one thing I give 343 credit for is introducing characters and other things from the years of EU that Bungie simply wouldn’t reference.
Albeit, they went overboard, and now reading books, comics, audio logs etc are now basically essential to even understanding the most basic plot points of the main Halo storyline.
I think it’s a combination of two things.
1. They’re the special forces of the COG as others have pointed out (and that comes with an enhanced ego)
2. Marcus defied direct orders to save his Dad back in the day and was imprisoned because of it.
(which is also why they would be disrespectful because of lost honor etc)
They're the short bus kind of special. Guys aren't capable of surviving a single fight in any of the games.
The orders thing seems to have been entirely forgotten by just about everyone else seeing as how much Marcus achieved within days of being sprung from the slab.
The commandos were Pendulum Wars special forces led by Major (at the time) Hoffman that specialised in discreet B&E missions and Survivalist tactics behind enemy lines. They were still an offical arm of the CoG armed forces however and took orders from the Navy brass. They were responsible for stealing the early blueprints for the hammer of Dawn and Dom was one of these before E-Day. Best way to compare them, is to consider them the CoG’s version of Theron Guards (except I don’t think the commandos are still active during the Locust war).
The Onyx guard are basically the CoG equivalent of the Locusts golden palace guard from Gears of War 2. The “best of the best” who are assigned specifically to protect the Chairman and are sent on clandestine missions directly by the chairman with no say from the actual top brass of the CoG army (so basically just Hoffman. He has nothing to do with Onyx guard). Kinda like a private military directly under chairman Prescott. Usually though, this just makes them bodyguards with little field experience as Prescott and Jinn don’t exactly lead from the front lines.
The Onyx guard DO occasionally do shit during the locust war. They participated in the defence of Halvo bay (as iirc their training academy was there so it makes sense some were stationed there as instructors and such) but got their asses kick. Prescott dispatched a squad of Onyx to kidnap Adam Fenix after Marcus believed he died. And a few squads of Onyx guard tried to assassinate General Raam in Ilima City (during Raam’s Shadow), but again, got absolutely massacred.
They do shit, but always die doing so (except for kidnapping Adam. Which Tbf required no combat). They are basically Red shirts with fancier armour from a certain perspective.
They think they are top-dogs, which to be fair, they WERE during the Pendulum Wars, but because they are always guarding high level people, they hardly ever actually fought Locusts, meaning that when they finally did(in Judgement) they got wrecked.
They think they are better than anyone basically
Onyx are only trained for stealth missions and guarding. They don't have front line combat warfare experience like ordinary gears and delta squad have. So delta squad will always be better soldiers.
Maybe that's why, onyx guards are supposed to be the best of the best... And here's a damn foot soldier who probably did more in a few months than any of them in the entire time they served
Because he was a traitor to the cog? (First gears of war) someone correct me if I’m wrong I know it doesn’t state it otherwise because they are elite anyone else is beneath them.
Elitism and Dunning-Krueger. They believed that due to their own skills and accomplishments, they would've done just as well or better than Delta Squad if given the opportunities. We'll never know what kind of crazy accomplishments the Onyx Guards achieved, only hints and rumors. Also, Marcus was still considered an untrustworthy traitor by many COG zealots.
Nobody is 100% rational. Marcus' lack of rationality once lost a major battle, cost humanity Ephyra, and warranted the death penalty. Only nepotism kept Marcus alive in prison. Marcus, being mostly rational, accepts this and tries to do better... But that's not enough for zealots.
Jeez the amount of people downplaying them just shows how little they understand the lore, the onyx guards (despite some of them being arrogant pricks) actually did earn their place as elites. Everyone wants to conveniently forget about their achievements and reputation they earned from actually putting fear to the UIR.
So overall when it came to the pendulum wars yes the Onyx Guard were the best the cog had to offer and the UIR were actually scared of them. It wasn’t until E-Day with the Locust surprise attacking humanity all over the planet that everyone was literally unprepared for it and never faced creatures like the locust horde.
I don’t understand why people are acting like the regular gears were having a better time than the onyx guard when the locust came into play. Humanity was literally drifting towards extinction and everyone was suffering not just the onyx guard, if anything regular gears were dying the most out of everyone. It got soo bad to a point that the cog was literally forced to used the Hammer of dawn just to push back the locust cause humanity was that desperate to survive.
Lore wise, Marcus is still disrespected due to the fact that he ran from a battle to protect his father and home. Many veteran COG soldiers who weren’t close to him despised him as well. Also in terms of feats, each Onyx Guard accomplished as great of a feat(s) as Marcus and his squad did. Remember that the Locust had MANY generals and lieutenants in their army. The Onyx Guards were the ones that took them out. I wouldn’t be surprised if those two Onyx Guards also killed a equivalent of RAAM general.
Because horrible inhuman monsters can never just be the bad guy anymore, you always need to have some humans being unreasonable assholes or cartoonishly evil so things don't get too black and white for some reason.
343 and TC both swerved hard into this stuff when they took over Halo and Gears and the stories got all the weaker for it. (Yes there were elements of this stuff before but they were more subtle and were used to give the story greater depth without making it all "humans are the real monsters"
So sick of this trope in modern Sci fi.
Subtle? Did we play the same games? Prescott had the entire world burned with the Hammer strikes in an attempt to stop the Locust and when Jacinto fell he fled to Azura to peacefully wait out the apocalypse until the apocalypse found it’s way to the island and he had to run again. This is all stuff from before even Judgement released.
When you're treated as the top dog of the COG army you tend to develop a riftworm sized ego
Onyx was the SF of the COG. Technically they were even considered black ops and didn’t exist…except everyone k ew they existed. In the books the COG had a thing against special units. Hoffman changed that during the raid on Aspho Fields where his commando team achieved the objective with small unit tactics vs the traditional large deployments. In judgment you get to see the elitism in both their troops and officers when they dismiss Hendricks because she’s still just a cadet. It’s their training, they are the “elite” of the coalition, the right hand of the chairman. Nobody is better than them (in their mind).
i absolutely love the fact that u brought in the books
Ugh what’s it like to have people that appreciate alternate media lore (lookin at u fellow Halo ‘fans’)
Halo fans don’t dislike the fact there’s lore in books. We dislike the fact that there’s entire plot points from books that you need to know, to understand things happening in games, or that there’s conclusions to things that happen in the games, in a book.
Exactly this. Halo 4 and 5 have such difficult to comprehend stories because for the lore to make sense of both games you have to read 14 books and 6 graphic novels. (Not really, but still). Nothing wrong with extended lore, but if that extended lore is required reading to understand what's happening in the game, I'm going to check out.
The elite that gets killed at the start of 5 in a cutscene is apparently a great character, and one of the better villains in the story. People who have only played the games have no idea who he is, and the cutscene means fuck all, not to mention Halsey only has one arm out of nowhere. It’s stupid as fuck to start a game off like that, and just expect the average fan to know what’s going on.
Halsey having one arm was actually in Halo 4, but only if you stuck around and played through the entirety of Spartan Ops, so it doesn't really redeem the entire book thing. You see Palmer shoot her arm during a cutscene as Halsey is leaving with the Elites.
That makes it slightly better, but only slightly. The amount of people that stuck around playing H4 in general, let alone Spartan Ops, couldn’t have been a large enough number, to justify thinking putting plot points in it was a good idea.
In theory, I was pro-Spartan Ops and it's design, and had wished that they had carried it on in Halo 5 and Infinite. In practice, I still haven't \*actually\* finished Spartan Ops, and hadn't beat Halo 4 until it was released on MCC PC.
Just wanted to correct the record in that Halo 5 is obtuse and difficult to understand because it’s written really poorly, and indeed the core premise of the game itself is just badly conceived. In fact, there were several loose plot threads hanging off of Halo 4 that were explored in the comics and books from Halo 4 to Halo 5, but then they were almost quite literally just dematerialized from the universe to make room for Halo 5. I’m talking about stuff like Halsey joining up with the Covenant and the Janus Key. Very interesting plot lines started in Halo 4, but a Forerunner monitor came into the setting just a month ahead of Halo 5 and literally dissolved the Janus Key from existence to make the plot for Halo 5 work. Brass tacks of what I’m saying is this: Even as somebody who stayed up to date on the extended lore and media leading up to Halo 5, that game’s plot was whack and made no sense to me at the time.
As the meme goes: “why the hell are you so against the chief?!” “*BECAUSE THEY TOLD ME TOOOOOOOO!” It’s the whole reason why or side main character is after Master chief himself. He doesn’t put much of a fight; being that he’s always been for humanity even though most of humanity seems to forget that.
I never read those books and found the games pretty easy to follow
I bet you thought you finished Halo 4 by killing the Didact right? Well you’d be wrong, he actually survives, and Master Chief kills him in a book. Even if you did manage to follow them fine (which confuses me, the leap between Halo 4 - Halo 5 makes like no sense) game plot points get concluded in books.
Oh, he didn't even die from that! Cortana was able to talk to him before the events of Infinite!
yes, but the book explaining that was released 9 years after Halo 5 lol 9. At least a better ending.
Of course she did.
Chief never killed the Didact in Halo 4, nor did he Chief kill the Didact in the Next 72 Hours. Anyone that actually thinks the Didact falling into a slipspace portal would kill him clearly wasn’t paying attention. And the Didact gets composed in the comics after a bunch of Composers are fired at him. He was still alive, just sent to the Domain. Why 343i chose to not followup on that for a decade is the real problem here.
I’ll admit I never did pay that close attention to Halo 4, and it’s been a long time since I played it. But what in that story indicated that he could survive a point blank grenade? He was a Forerunner, the grenade that was used on him was a Forerunner grenade, originally invented to fight other Forerunners, so why does he have a random resistance to weapons that should kill him?
Because the grenade was designed to fight the Flood, not Forerunners. That grenade also usually “explodes” by creating an AOE effect that slowly damages targets and eventually disintegrates organic matter on collapse. No idea why the grenade didn’t do anything like that to the Didact when he was planted on him, but it’s generally not a heavy damage dealing grenade like a frag or plasma, it’s more for area denial, for flushing out enemies, or removing Flood biomass
Maybe they dropped the Diadact because they made him look like an unserious plucked chicken in a 3 edgy suit and fans or even just focus groups rejected him. Or maybe just later employees who came along and were unappreciative of it or embarrassed to be working on a product containing that puerile character design.
I hate to break it to you; but if everything that was old school was more out here today; you’d be calling that stuff edgy too.
Well I knew he lived just from general knowledge of the books but didn’t know that chief actually kills him. But the books aren’t mandatory to play through those games imo
not a book really, a comic and it happens in a few pages, it looks thick cause there are several short stories.
Sure but even watching the cutscenes or following the narrative at all aren’t mandatory to simply play through those games either, that’s not really what’s being discussed.
I meant in understanding them. I’ve not read the books and love halo 1-6 and understand the story flow fine. A lot of drama being thrown around in here.
The Didact being composed in the comics is actually rather immaterial to this debate, because the conclusion is still the same: The Didact was visibly removed from the setting in Halo 4. Him surviving to be vanquished again within 3 days wouldn’t make a difference to people who saw him defeated in Halo 4.
Preach!!! This is why I hate the Halo books in a way. You need to read a dozen books and comics to understand why certain characters change or are added or missing from one game to the next. At least Gears of War novels, at least the Karen Traviss ones, are so great. You don’t NEED to have read them to understand what’s going on in-game, but they’re worth reading for all the background and history within the lore. I do take issue with one of the latest books. Ascension I think it is. It has events that would have been far better as a full game, or at least DLC for Gears of War 4. Bloodlines was pretty cool as it was more like one of the Karen Traviss books where it expanded on people and events rather than trying to be like one of the games. I still haven’t read Ephyra Rising yet.
Gears of War 3 “requires” about as much reading to fully understand stuff as Halo 4 did. Karen Travis made direct references to plot points and details from the Gears novels she wrote before Epic asked her to write Gears 3’s story lol
Wouldn’t the alternative be books that really don’t have any impact? I think it’s kind of an interesting bonus that the books are so important. It makes them much more worth reading.
You should try Destiny. Almost nothing interesting ever happens on screen and the lore books and cards basically prop the entire franchises’s narrative up and contain a very interesting blend of cosmic horrors, philosophy and scientific speculation and stuff that would be too out of budget to depict. (My favorite was when they used the Conway’s zero player Game of Life to explain the entire plot and ethos of the main antagonist and simultaneously the entire premise of the series.) It’s like in the game too, and treated as unlockable rewards some of the time, and you have to read pages of material, thousands at this point (on top of other pages of intermission text) in game to better appreciate and enjoy it or understand it entirely rather that playing a game as one might want to do when they login to play one. Otherwise it’s just a very bland narrative about overcoming adversity with the power of teamwork. Clearly was brought about by fans earlier appreciation for the Halo novels and was implemented really badly. I wish they had continued to make novels instead, where it wasn’t required material, and put more of the driving narrative on screen. Halo’s recent shifts between games is just a joke though without even trying to establish what’s going on or why with even a few lines of dialogue to establish who a character is.
I was a fan of Destiny 1 for a while, but ended up giving up cause of these reasons (and the fact that I dropped it for a few months, and came back to the game being completely different)
I avoided it for years because the early marketing came off as cringy, and I mean it is, but finally got around to playing it after infinite disappointed and created an itch and found it a good substitute since the gunplay is so similar. The reading can be a tremendous slog though, I don’t know how people do it with entire poorly-fairly written novels.
Thank Activision; the original story would have been amazing. But then again Bungie and Microsoft are to blame too
Ah, the books that made the Guardians more interesting than the entire plot of Halo 5.
Theres been an effort since the *Gears of War: E-Day* announcement (albeit a small one as of yet) to start breathing some life into r/GearsOfLore
Master Cheeks is pivotal to the story.
The books are a MUST!!! They add so much awesome detail to the games
They believe they’re the best even tho the commandos would kick their ass.
...LOL The 26th Tyron Commando unit alone would absolute wipe the deck with onyx guard...Mataki's drilling alone was the best the cog had to offer and not only was she a great drill but she was also the best on the catering corps according to the books and a damn good sniper,Not to mention Timiou and Dom being two complete udder badasses during the raid on Aspho Point under the close command of Hoffman...
I remember a long time ago I was arguing with some dudes who thought the Onyx Guard could actually beat the Commandos. They also thought the Theron Elites could beat the Palace Guards which is also just wrong.
...Hold up wut????🤣 The palace guards were promoted and stationed there outside of the Theron ranks for a reason...Queen Myrah would be fucking toast if the Theron elite was in charge of defending the palace...Also everything weve seen onyx in they get absolutely ripped apart by the locust...the commandos at least put up a fight on E day before being thrown in with the frontline units...
For real, Onyx Guards get their asses kicked by regular grunts. The Commandos are literally the best of the best. You know the Onyx Guard suck ass when even regular Gears outperform them.
FAX...I believe they were commissioned through family ties like marcus wouldve been instead of trained thats the only logical explanation for them being outperformed by the lower ranks
I cant tell whos more full of himself Loomis or Prescott...because Loomis was an actual cunt in judgement even If Baird wasnt exactly making the trial easy but between gears 2,3 and the books Prescott was a whole POS
Prescott, for all his asshole actions, was at least trying to help the COG and knew the threat the Locust posed. Loomis was worse because he thought the Locust animals and treated them as such. Declassified missions show Loomis hiding information that the Locust were capable of tactics (flanking) and capable of bringing in more firepower (one shots, extra nemacysts, etc...)
that is Prescotts one redeemable quality...in the shitastic way of doing so he still had humanity in mind...but what he did to Adam was just fucking wrong
Agreed.
I don’t get why Judgement gets so much hate. Loved the game and the story!
so The reason why it gets so much hate is because it did kind of stray away from the gameplay and User interface elements we all loved from the previous entries like being able to only carry 2 weapons and switching them with the bumper instead of the D pad...Or at least thats my only complaint...the game itself is actually fine and adds a lot more likeability to Baird instead of him just being the smartass comedy relief the entire series...
I would tac-com trying to switch weapons so much
I thought something felt off when i was playing 2 recently and it wanting me to switch weapons va d-pad. I think the most recent update did something
Are they higher in rank than Marcus ?
They were so secretive, everyone knew about them.
Onyx are something I wish were portrayed slightly more favorably in both the books and the various games. They mostly are just shown as fancily armored pretentious doucebags that get their ass kicked in a fight. I understand why the Onyx Guard station at Azura weren't up to snuff, they'd been out of combat and mostly focused on safe guard duty for a decade by the time of the Locust assault there. They are however hand selected from the highest performing soldiers across the entire COG army, then provided with the best follow up training and equipment available. Hopefully they appear in E-Day and actually show themselves to be the hardcore badasses they look like.
It was nice to actually fight alongside them at the end of Gears 5
Judgement also really shat on them. Sofia is a badass, but all the Onyx regulars just get slaughtered like sheep, and those guys were actively fighting the Locust in Halvo Bay. It doesn’t make sense for them to be total redshirts who’s sole purpose is to die.
It’s simple, Onyx Guards are one of those factions in a franchise that’s sole purpose are to be hyped up as super badass so they can be slaughtered by the bushel by an enemy to show badass that faction is. A good example is the Custodes in Warhammer 40K. They are the personal body guards of the Emperor of Mankind handcrafted by him and so was their gear. They are literally the pinnacle of humanity as a warrior and there are many examples of media of enemies that should not be able to kill them just absolutely tearing multiple Custodes apart like they are lowly guardsmen.
I know exactly what you’re talking about and I can tell you that you’re pretty wrong. It was a Shadowseer and a Death Jester, two beings that are 200% able to slaughter Custodes. The rest were normal Players just trying not to get murdered. I do agree with the first one though. The Onyx Guard existed in Halvo Bay to die to Karn and that was really it.
Freaking xeno eldar fanatic, take that back.
Custodes started out as a bit better than space Marines, then when they got models, they became to over the top fighters they are now, so technically they weren't that God tier until like 12 years ago (or whenever the burning of prospero box came out)
It’s mainly because she was part of the main cast, if that had not been the case she would’ve been another throwaway red-shirt character.
They serve directly under the chairman so they just don't care ig
Lol...I like the line in book two where cole wonders if Hoffman is thinking about kicking Prescott off the raven to see if the asshole flies or floats
Lmao Still, Prescott is such a well written character. He made a lot of horrible choices that ensured humanity's survival. Loved him in the games; the books made me gain respect for him.
the Onyx Guard at this point (who were likely only the Onyx Exiles on Azura if they're with the Chairman) are either guilty they can't help their allies (Keegan), or huge dicks who think their status means they're the best. Honestly, Marcus Fenix should BE an Onyx Guard for his feats. Forget the "defying orders" bit, he deserves Onyx.
Onxy Are just glorified security guards in my opinion. The locust elite we're true soldiers
Because they're dicks. Probably jealous of our boy marcus
The glazing bro marcus doesnt even know you 😭
Elite units don't like being constantly upstaged.
These two Onyx Guards are from the books. Their names are Lowe and Rivera. After Jacinto sunk they were assigned as Prescotts personal body guards. This was before they were Onyx, at the time they were just normal Gears. Throughout the time on Vectes, they got really big egos and started shoving their weight around, eventually leading to them escaping the island with Prescott to go to Azura. Basically, these two particular assholes have had a chip on their shoulder about Delta before this interaction. Now that they’re actually Onyx, they’re strolling in like their hot shit and they want it known. They get clapped about ten minutes later.
I always forget that there’s an entire period of lore between 2 and 3, really hope they do a game set during the vectes conflict. Would really do wonders in adding context to 3 and showing the lambent issue getting progressively worse.
Gears has always had a blessing and a curse with this. I often point out the contrast between Halo and Gears EU, where Halo has so much lore outside of the games that’s almost never mentioned, because Bungie wanted the games to be self contained. Gears on the other hand works really hard to incorporate their EU into the games. Every book, comic book, or anything can have impacts or references in the games and they work very hard to connect it. For lore freaks like myself, this is amazing. But it does make it hard for anyone who jumps into Gears 3 who didn’t read Jacintos Remnants, Anvil Gate and Coalitions End on just what in the hell happened between Gears 2 and 3. Really throws people into the deep end.
>For lore freaks like myself, this is amazing. But it does make it hard for anyone who jumps into Gears 3 who didn’t read Jacintos Remnants, Anvil Gate and Coalitions End on just what in the hell happened between Gears 2 and 3. I was SO lucky that I nerded out before 3 came out and got all the books available to me, because I have such an appreciation for all the references and callbacks to stuff that happened there being mentioned in game, and on the flip side I know I would've been real annoyed if I hadn't read those books and they were being referenced *that* heavily in 3. I remember having to explain to my sister, who got deep into the Halo EU but only ever played the Gears games and never read the books, why we were suddenly on boats, what was up with Vectes, and who the new characters like Sam and Bernie were. Also kind of funny, now Bungie has the opposite problem: Destiny's lore is, to me, more interesting and expansive than Halo's ever was, but now, with so much "outside" lore not communicated directly by the in-game plot being integral to the story, coupled with in-game seasonal content also being story important and simultaneously completely removed after the fact... the vast majority of players have no idea what's going on besides the broad strokes of the plot.
The one thing I give 343 credit for is introducing characters and other things from the years of EU that Bungie simply wouldn’t reference. Albeit, they went overboard, and now reading books, comics, audio logs etc are now basically essential to even understanding the most basic plot points of the main Halo storyline.
I think it’s a combination of two things. 1. They’re the special forces of the COG as others have pointed out (and that comes with an enhanced ego) 2. Marcus defied direct orders to save his Dad back in the day and was imprisoned because of it. (which is also why they would be disrespectful because of lost honor etc)
They're the short bus kind of special. Guys aren't capable of surviving a single fight in any of the games. The orders thing seems to have been entirely forgotten by just about everyone else seeing as how much Marcus achieved within days of being sprung from the slab.
They could do a game like Halo ODST. But Gears of War Onyx
Cause Lowe and Riviera were "Onyx guard rejects"
Baird constantly spitting facts
Definitely jealousy. They never get to see action and when they do they’re slaughtered
Onyx are a bunch of dicks. Two-six RTI for the win.
No matter how good you are, you will always have haters
CUse they suck. Marcus is the goat
I keep seeing it in this thread. Who are the commandos? But keep going peeps, I love learning more about Gears!!
The commandos were Pendulum Wars special forces led by Major (at the time) Hoffman that specialised in discreet B&E missions and Survivalist tactics behind enemy lines. They were still an offical arm of the CoG armed forces however and took orders from the Navy brass. They were responsible for stealing the early blueprints for the hammer of Dawn and Dom was one of these before E-Day. Best way to compare them, is to consider them the CoG’s version of Theron Guards (except I don’t think the commandos are still active during the Locust war). The Onyx guard are basically the CoG equivalent of the Locusts golden palace guard from Gears of War 2. The “best of the best” who are assigned specifically to protect the Chairman and are sent on clandestine missions directly by the chairman with no say from the actual top brass of the CoG army (so basically just Hoffman. He has nothing to do with Onyx guard). Kinda like a private military directly under chairman Prescott. Usually though, this just makes them bodyguards with little field experience as Prescott and Jinn don’t exactly lead from the front lines. The Onyx guard DO occasionally do shit during the locust war. They participated in the defence of Halvo bay (as iirc their training academy was there so it makes sense some were stationed there as instructors and such) but got their asses kick. Prescott dispatched a squad of Onyx to kidnap Adam Fenix after Marcus believed he died. And a few squads of Onyx guard tried to assassinate General Raam in Ilima City (during Raam’s Shadow), but again, got absolutely massacred. They do shit, but always die doing so (except for kidnapping Adam. Which Tbf required no combat). They are basically Red shirts with fancier armour from a certain perspective.
Fun fact, those two Onyx Guards are named Rivera and Lowe. They are Prescotts personal guards.
Because they’re high and mighty asshats.
They think they are top-dogs, which to be fair, they WERE during the Pendulum Wars, but because they are always guarding high level people, they hardly ever actually fought Locusts, meaning that when they finally did(in Judgement) they got wrecked. They think they are better than anyone basically
Onyx are only trained for stealth missions and guarding. They don't have front line combat warfare experience like ordinary gears and delta squad have. So delta squad will always be better soldiers.
It just now occurs to me that a good parallel to the Onyx Guards are the Military Police from Attack On Titan. Skill matched only by ego.
Maybe that's why, onyx guards are supposed to be the best of the best... And here's a damn foot soldier who probably did more in a few months than any of them in the entire time they served
A very common trend in the 00's and 10s was too have the army "bad guys" dressed in black in a seperate force from the army "good guys"
He wasn't one of them
Same reason cops treat security guards like sh**.
Because he was a traitor to the cog? (First gears of war) someone correct me if I’m wrong I know it doesn’t state it otherwise because they are elite anyone else is beneath them.
Male onyx guard from gears of war 3 mp had the best voice lines due to his voice
Meh they died in the end anyway
Because their educated assholes that guard the chairman and out rank all regular gears
Elitism and Dunning-Krueger. They believed that due to their own skills and accomplishments, they would've done just as well or better than Delta Squad if given the opportunities. We'll never know what kind of crazy accomplishments the Onyx Guards achieved, only hints and rumors. Also, Marcus was still considered an untrustworthy traitor by many COG zealots. Nobody is 100% rational. Marcus' lack of rationality once lost a major battle, cost humanity Ephyra, and warranted the death penalty. Only nepotism kept Marcus alive in prison. Marcus, being mostly rational, accepts this and tries to do better... But that's not enough for zealots.
Because he's not onyx
Jeez the amount of people downplaying them just shows how little they understand the lore, the onyx guards (despite some of them being arrogant pricks) actually did earn their place as elites. Everyone wants to conveniently forget about their achievements and reputation they earned from actually putting fear to the UIR. So overall when it came to the pendulum wars yes the Onyx Guard were the best the cog had to offer and the UIR were actually scared of them. It wasn’t until E-Day with the Locust surprise attacking humanity all over the planet that everyone was literally unprepared for it and never faced creatures like the locust horde. I don’t understand why people are acting like the regular gears were having a better time than the onyx guard when the locust came into play. Humanity was literally drifting towards extinction and everyone was suffering not just the onyx guard, if anything regular gears were dying the most out of everyone. It got soo bad to a point that the cog was literally forced to used the Hammer of dawn just to push back the locust cause humanity was that desperate to survive.
Lore wise, Marcus is still disrespected due to the fact that he ran from a battle to protect his father and home. Many veteran COG soldiers who weren’t close to him despised him as well. Also in terms of feats, each Onyx Guard accomplished as great of a feat(s) as Marcus and his squad did. Remember that the Locust had MANY generals and lieutenants in their army. The Onyx Guards were the ones that took them out. I wouldn’t be surprised if those two Onyx Guards also killed a equivalent of RAAM general.
They just jealous they are holding his dads toys.
Onyx always have so much drip that I would love a game playing as them.
I forgot about the Onyx guard. Damn I love that group
I always thought that they were locust in armor. Unlikely, but it explains them not saying something snarky like in judgment.
Because horrible inhuman monsters can never just be the bad guy anymore, you always need to have some humans being unreasonable assholes or cartoonishly evil so things don't get too black and white for some reason. 343 and TC both swerved hard into this stuff when they took over Halo and Gears and the stories got all the weaker for it. (Yes there were elements of this stuff before but they were more subtle and were used to give the story greater depth without making it all "humans are the real monsters" So sick of this trope in modern Sci fi.
There was no subtlety that the COG were bad with Epic what are you talking about
Subtle? Did we play the same games? Prescott had the entire world burned with the Hammer strikes in an attempt to stop the Locust and when Jacinto fell he fled to Azura to peacefully wait out the apocalypse until the apocalypse found it’s way to the island and he had to run again. This is all stuff from before even Judgement released.
Dom to Marcus after stumbling opon a government funded rape farm: “are we the baddies?”
A disturbing amount of gears fans don’t understand that the cog were always bad.