A Halo 5: Guardians teaser has been uploaded to the official Xbox YouTube channel. The trailer depicts a bullet with “traitor” etched into it (much like the bullet seen on the #HUNTtheTruth countdown) being fired at Master Chief’s helmet. There’s been a lot of speculation on who shot the bullet, on Reddit and the Halo Waypoint forums.
There’s one person I haven’t seen a theory about yet though – Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey. Dr. Halsey was a praised scientist and has appeared throughout many Halo games, with her last canon appearance being in Halo 4’s Spartan Ops.(Also included in Halo: The Master Chief Collection.) She held considerable authority throughout the ONI, but as she grew older, she began to feel guilt and despair for condemning the SPARTANs to battles which took their lives, and took various extreme measures to protect the remaining of their kind.
These extreme measures, however, lead to her arrest ordered by Admiral Osman, the Commander-in-Chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence. She was then sentenced to execution, in which Catherine Halsey escaped and defected to the alien hegemony, the Covenant Remnant. As she escapes, Halsey activates a Forerunner device to scramble the Infinity, preventing it from leaving a nearby star system.
As mentioned above, her last canon appearance is in Halo 4’s Spartan Ops, where she is called a “traitor” and handcuffed in what she calls her “own ship.” In the campaign opening for Halo 4, Dr. Catherine Halsey is interrogated by an unknown SPARTAN-II member, where she is convicted of indoctrinating children to create the SPARTAN’s, as their bodies were most easily adaptable – where she is again, in this scene, regarded as the antagonist – or rather, the “traitor.”
There’s one word that is consistently appearing, and that’s “traitor.” The same word etched on the bullet in the Halo 5 teaser is the same word that Dr. Halsey is called repeatedly. Her last known role was working for the Elites, and so this would explain a lot. I don’t think Master Chief will die, which is what people seem to think due to the Chief’s helmet being blown into pieces in the Halo: 5 Guardians teaser – I don’t think it’s likely they’d axe a huge character like John-117, who is the image of the Halo franchise.
However, that leads to the next issue.. Halsey has no reason to want Chief dead. John-117 is essentially a son to Halsey, and they’ve formed a fairly solid relationship together. In fact, in the Halo 4 campaign opening, Dr. Halsey seems to become fairly surprised when she learns that the interrogator is conveying that they want to replace the Master Chief, and says he’s irreplaceable, and that her SPARTAN’s saved the human race – and that all her experiments were worth it.
So if Halsey didn’t fire the bullet, then who did? Well that’s just it. My theory is a long shot, but it’s that nobody did. Nobody fired the bullet really. Halsey is relevant, sure, but she didn’t exactly fire it. The word “traitor” etched on to the bullet is something of a representation. “Traitor” is a word used against Halsey frequently, and as the Master Chief has a close relationship with Halsey, this tears apart the “human” side of him, the bullet shattering his reality and his personality rather than an actual bullet – which could be the reason he went AWOL. As I said, it’s a long shot, and I’m likely overthinking, but I’m excited to see what 343 Industries reveal when the #HUNTtheTRUTH countdown ends.
You can see the teaser below.. let us hear your theories!
^Cam @CameronMines
Cam was a regular ICXM contributor in 2015, publishing 30 articles across opinion pieces, Windows and PC, and Xbox news. Their work focused on hands-on reviews, platform commentary, and breaking-news reporting during the Xbox One’s first full year of post-launch coverage, including the early days of Backwards Compatibility and Windows 10 gaming. They post on X as @CameronMines.