Halo: Contact Harvest

Halo: Contact Harvest

Author	Joseph Staten
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Halo
Genre	Science fiction
Publisher	Tor
Publication date	October 30, 2007
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	396
ISBN	978-0-7653-1569-4

Halo: Contact Harvest is a novel by Joseph Staten, set in the Halo universe. Staten is a longtime employee Bungie Studios, the developer of the Halo video game series. He directed the cut scenes in the Halo video games and was a major contributor to the Halo storyline. The book was released on October 30, 2007, and is the fifth novel set in the Halo universe.

Set in 2524, 28 years before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved, the novel tells the story of the United Nations Space Command's first encounter with the alien Covenant on the colony world of Harvest. It is an "ensemble piece" covering many different viewpoints, focusing on the young UNSC Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson and containing a major Covenant presence as well.

Plot

The novel begins in the year 2524. Humanity is in the middle of a civil war between the United Nations and Insurrectionists (nicknamed Innies by the UN soldiers). Humans have colonized many worlds, thanks to the Shaw-Fukijawa drive, and the UNSC colony Harvest is one of the most far-flung. Though Harvest itself is only one-third the size of Earth, it is extremely fertile, and serves as the breadbasket of the other colonies. The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) notices strange disappearances of human ships around Harvest, and assumes the Insurgents are attacking the vessels. The ONI pulls Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson and Staff Sergeant Byrne from the frontlines of the war to raise a militia to protect Harvest.

The narration of the book alternates between the Human point of view to that of the alien Covenant. A Kig-Yar vessel is searching for relics left by the Forerunners, an ancient race which they worship, when they come upon Harvest. They are shocked to discover that their instrumentation (a copied Forerunner device called a "Luminator") indicates hundreds of thousands of relics on the planet. A Covenant Unggoy named Dadab, often addressed by his rank of Deacon, is alarmed when he realizes the Kig-Yar shipmistress intends to take the relics for herself, starting with one leaving the planet on a human cargo ship. This ship is actually a trap set by the Humans, with Staff Sergeants Johnson and Byrne onboard. At this point first contact between the civilizations occurs, with the humans killing several of the Covenant boarding party when they entered the cargo ship. Before Johnson can kill the Captain of the Covenant ship, she detonates a suite set up for the methane-breathing deacon, destroying the ship.

Dadab escapes inside a life-pod, along with his friend, Lighter Than Some, a Covenant Huragok. As the ONI and Harvest officials grapple with the thought of hostile alien life, a new Covenant ship arrives crewed by Jiralhanae and rescues Dadab and Lighter Than Some. The Covenant vessel finds a human freighter with peaceful Pictograms drawn on its sides, requesting a peaceful meeting between the Humans and the Covenant. Unfortunately, during that peaceful gathering in an open garden on Harvest, a secondary, under-cover group of Covenant accidentally start a firefight.

While all this is happening, on High Charity, the Covenant mobile home-world, Two San 'Shyuum begin to plot to take the place of the three Prophet hierarchs leading the Covenant. The Prophet of Fortitude and the Vice-Minister of Tranquility seek a third Prophet to help them usurp the throne. They visit the old, supposedly senile Philologist, for blessings and advice. While they wait, the "Oracle" aboard High Charity, a Forerunner AI construct worshipped by the Covenant, suddenly awakens from eons of waiting. This Oracle informs them that the "Forerunner artifacts" found on the Luminator at Harvest (actually the planet's human population) were actually its "Makers", living Foreruners. The prophet of Fortitude realizes that the truth must never be revealed, as this revelation would tear the Covenant apart.

Furthermore, Fortitude comes to decides that he must make his ascent to power as swiftly and quickly as possible, so that he can "Exterminate these Reclaimers", in order to preserve the Covenant. Fortitude and Tranquility decide to include the Philologist into their plans as the third hierarch.

On Harvest, the two A.I. constructs, Sif and Mack, are coordinating the planet's defense, when Mack reveals his secret. He was actually an ONI A.I. that was programmed to serve as a farming A.I. after the planet was successfully colonized. Now that the battle has begun, he allows his military form, Loki, to take over. Mack made Loki promise to protect Sif, a promise Loki promptly breaks by destroying her in order to keep the intelligence she possesses out of Covenent hands. Loki then begins coordinating the evacuation efforts of the colonists as well as the military campaign.

The humans and Brutes are waging a heavy war, with Johnson and his squad of militia heavily out manned and out gunned, being the only military force on this planet. The chieftain was ordered to "glass" the planet (fire plasma cannons at the planet, turning the entire surface to glass) from space, but disobeyed and launched a ground assault in an effort to recover the "relics". The militia tries to keep the aliens busy while evacuating the civilians of the planet. Johnson manages to cripple the Brute Chieftain by crushing his legs with a Warthog LRV he was driving. Loki proves to be an effective military strategist, using the robotic crop dusters he controlled as weapons, destroying an alien dropship. Later, Tartarus, the Brute chieftain's second in command, challenges the chieftain for control of the ship. Tartarus defeats the injured chieftain and assumes command.

During the battle the Unggoy have taken over a human orbital platform connected to a space elevator. The Deacon allows Lighter Than Some to attempt repairs Sif's data centers in an attempt to gain intelligence. This plan backfires as Loki takes advantage of the Huragok's peaceful nature to draw the Jiralhanae ship into a trap. Now only concerned with battle, Loki uses a mass driver to fire two high speed kinetic rounds into the ship, crippling it.

Meanwhile, the civilian population has been loaded into cargo containers and they are lifted up the space elevators to evacuate the planet. Johnson and his squad board the orbital platform controlled by the Deacon and other Unggoy to clear the way for civilian escape pods.

During the battle for the platform, the Deacon, enraged at the death of his friend Lighter Than Some decides to kill all those responsible. Seeing that his plasma pistol only has one shot left, he goes off in search of his prey - Tartarus.

Johnson is fighting a losing battle with Tartarus, now fully outfitted in Chieftain uniform and armed with the Fist of Rukt hammer. Just when he thinks himself finished, he sees the deacon pop out from behind him and fire his weapon straight at Tartarus, destroying the brute's shields. Tartarus, enraged, attacks the Grunt, killing him. Jenkins, a young militia member that has lost his family in the battle, attempts to kill Tartarus alone. He fails, and Tartarus makes his escape. Many civilians of Harvest, as well as Johnson and his team, escape the planet on hundreds of freighters.

The end of the book shows the Prophet of Fortitude, Tranquility, and The Philologist, making their ascent into being the Prophet Hierarchs. They take the names Truth, Regret, Mercy. Truth proclaims an end to the Covenant age of Doubt, and the beginning of the Age of Reclamation.

A subplot of the book deals with the relationship between Sif and Mack/Loki. Both AIs eventually turn rampant and show human emotions of anger and love. Mack fights with Loki for domination of his personality, and eventually Mack (a gentler AI who loves Sif) triumphs. However, he exists only in the farm equipment that is spread across Harvest as it is glassed by the Covenant ship. As the book ends, Mack sends messages to a silent (and destroyed) Sif as his remaining lifelines are hunted and destroyed by the Covenant troops. He says that when he is finally destroyed, the parts of him that remain will be buried in the ground with the remaining pieces of Sif, and they will be together.

External Links

Halo: Contact Harvest Prologue at Bungie.net

References

• http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&cid=12430
• http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/13477/Halo-Contact-Harvest-Officially-Announced/

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