The Halo series has a vast amount of lore that has been expanded upon in other media such as the Halo movies and the books. The humans though are always portrayed as the ultimate good guys trying to overcome the alien and evil Covenant in Xbox’s flagship franchise. But don’t be fooled by their struggles though, the humans have done plenty of bad, too.
Humans Wiped Out A Forerruner Planet To Stop The Flood
Around 100,000 years before the first Halo, humanity had a galaxy spanning empire and had advanced technology capable of traveling the stars. Eventually though, they encountered the parasitic Flood on an unknown planet. To contain the threat, they destroyed the planet killing not only the Flood but its inhabitants, as well.
These inhabitants were the Forerunners and this ended up starting a war with them. Humanity would lose this war and get sent by into the stone age as a result of killing all those people.
Spurred Both Sides Of The Sangheili Civil War
Oh ONI, the ever shady organization that will be seen plenty of times on this list. This time though they are stoking the flames of the civil war waged between the Sangheili, better known as the elites. They did this by supplying the rebels who defyed the Arbiter and landing a team of ONI personnel on a Forerunner ruins, considered sacred and holy by the elites, with Arbiter’s blessing.
This happened after the Covenant war where they were supposed to be allies. But instead they treated their newfound allies with fear behind their backs and instead tried to secretly tear them apart.
Insurrectionists Vs. The UNSC Vs. Covenant Threat
Not everyone agreed with the UNSC’s policies and these people formed a rebellion known as the Insurrection shortly before the Covenant arrive. While some of their goals are understandable but what isn’t understandable is how they continue to fight the UNSC despite the Covenant wanting to wipe out all of humanity.
The UNSC is the best equipped to deal with the Covenant and even then that may not be enough to overcome the Covenant who have the superior technology. But instead they continue to fight the UNSC, making humanity’s best hope fight a war on two fronts. One against alien invaders and another against themselves.
Experimented With The Flood Using Elites As Test Subjects
After the destruction of Installation 04 in Combat Evolved, it was understandable that ONI was curious about the flood which was the reason the Halo ring was destroyed in the first place. But of course, ONI does something evil by using captured Elites as test subjects aboard the freighter known as the Mona Lisa in the comic of the same name.
Taking a page out of Dead Space’s book, the flood gets out of hand and then starts to infect the humans on board, as well. A team of marines is sent to investigate but that only makes things worse as they start gunning down everything including the elites who are unarmed, unarmored and clearly not infected. ONI nearly threatened to undone Master Chief’s and Cortana’s work because it was just a bit too curious for its own good.
Kidnapped Children To Indoctrinate As Spartans
Speaking of Master Chief, it is easy to forget that the ever-loyal and courageous Spartan did not volunteer for his position in the UNSC military. He was one of many kids kidnapped by ONI on the orders of Catherine Halsey for the Spartan II program. These were kids from small colonies that were taken from their family and the only life they had ever known.
If that wasn’t bad enough, they were eventually brainwashed into forgetting about their former lives and loved ones and injected with all sorts of crazy chemicals to enhance their physical abilities, something a lot of them did not survive.
Replaced Those Kids With Clones
The reason these kids’ parents never reported anything out of the ordinary was beacuse ONI replaced the kidnapped kids with clones. The families of the kidnapped children were none the wiser.
These clones also died only a few years after they were implemented by ONI who seemingly succumbed to a sickness from the viewpoint of their families. Not only did they kidnap their kids but led them to believe that their kids died young of a disease while their actual children are now super-soldiers with little to no memory of them should they ever encounter their family again.
Tried To Introduce Extinction-Inducing Crops To The Elites
Back to the distrusting Elites, ONI apparently hated them so much that they tried to introduce a genetically altered version of the elite’s primary food crop. This crop grew faster and could not be processed by either the elites themselves or their cattle. It would eventually overcome the good crops and essentially starve the elites into extinction.
This also happened after the war with the Covenant where a cease-fire had been signed. Instead of trying to build bridges, ONI sought to demolish any hope of trying to befriend the elites by killing what they cannot understand. Starting to understand why Cortana activated all those guardians in Halo 5.
