Halo Wars
Halo Wars is the first Halo game that is not a first person shooter. Not many people know this but the Halo series was origanally created to be real time strategy games. Hhowever the game type was changed to first person shooters and until Halo Wars there wre no Halo real time strategy games. Halo Wars is a real time strategy game set in Halo universe about twenty years before the activites in Halo: Combat Evolved.
Halo Wars tells the story of the ship The Spirit of Fire and its crew as it investigates covenant activity during the early years of the Human/Covenant war. Since the game is a real time strategy game there are opportunities for storytelling beyond one ot two main characters and so the story in Halo Wars is more of an ensemble than any of the other Halo games. The main characters include the Spirit of Fire's captain, James Cutter, a gruff marine sergeant more devoted to his men and mission than orders named John Forge, Professor Ellen Anders who is the resident Forerunner expert, the Spirit of Fire's ship AI, Serina, the members of the Spartan II "Red Team" and a Covenant Elite Arbiter who is a predecessor of the Arbiter in Halo 2 and 3.
The story begins at the Planet Harvest. Harvest is an agricultural colony that has been battled over by humans and the Covenant for years. As documented in the Halo novel "Contact: Harvest" by Halo creator Joseph Staten, Harvest is the planet in which humans first encounter the Covenant twenty seven years before the activities in Halo: Combat Evolved. The Covenant was, as always, searching for Forerunner technology and they found some on Harvest and attacked the humans on the planet as they considered any species living on a Forerunner planet heretics.
The Spirit of Fire is sent to Harvest, now a ruined planet to investigate an increase in Covenant activity. The ship arrives to discover that the Covenant have excavated a Forerunner installation that serves as an interstellar map of all Forerunner installations througout the galaxy. Armed with this information the Prophet in charge of the Covenant expedition that discovered the map foolishly rushed to the site of some of the most powerful Forerunner technology rather than sharing his information with the rest of the Covenant. This is a lucky break for humanity as if the Prophet had shared his information with the rest of the Covenant the full weight of their military would have been brought to bear on both Harvest and the quest to secure the Forerunner weapons, surely leading to the destruction of the Spirit of Fire and humanity. But since the Prophet rushed on alone the Spirit of Fire has a chance to contain the information and keep the incredibly powerful Forerunner weapons out of the hands of the Covenant.
The Spirit of Fire tracks the Covenant forces to a planet called Arcadia, another human colony. The Covenant have initiated ground attacks on the colonists and are desperately searching for the promised Forerunner weapons. Fortunately the Spartan II Red Team is on Planet Arcadia and they add their considerable power and expertise in the battle against the Covenant. In the battle Professor Anders and after learning the next clue to the Forerunner weapons location, escapes the planet.
The Spirit of Fire follows the Covenant forces with Red Team along to an uncharted planet. It turns out not to be a planet though but a massive Forerunner shied world. A hollow shell with a star inside it. The Spirit of Fire accidently activates a Forerunner docking protocal and the ship is pulled into the sphere. Once inside they discover a new enemy. The Flood has infested this installation and now the battle rages on three sides, human, Covenant and Flood. Even the Forerunner devices are against the humans as they attempt to kill them and deny the Flood its "food" which is essentially organic, sentient life.
The Arbiter discovers a fleet of powerful Forerunner starships and while trying to activate them Professor Anders escapes through a teleportation device. Returning to the Spirit of Fire Anders comes up with a plan to destroy the planet and the Covenant, Flood and dangerous forerunner technology with it. She recommends they decouple the Spirit of Fire's faster than light drive and send it into the star in the center of the sphere installation. The ensuing explosion will cause the star to go nova destrying the installation and everything inside.
While setting up the Spirit of Fire's reactor to explode the Spartans and Sergeant Forge are ambushed and the Reactor is damaged. Sergeant Forge volunteers to stay behind and activate the reactor manually and the Spartans along with the rest of the UNSC forces escape in the Spirit of Fire.Just as the Spirit of Fire gets clear Forge overloads the reactor destrying the installation and ending the game. Since the Spirit of Fire no longer has a faster than light drive the crew enter into cryogenic sleep and the ship begins it's slow voyage back to human space. If you complete the game on the hardest level the ship AI Serina wakes up Captain Cutter and informs him that "Something has happened." but we never find out what that something is.