I read through your response and honestly I’m not sure if you read my whole document. I admit I didn’t clarify some parts you addressed but there’s a lot of things I responded too in this response beforehand. I will respond to this paragraph by paragraph, there will be some repetition from me.
Papa Nier said:
I think you're underselling how Halo's universe works and the kind of feats we’ve seen. Just because relativistic speeds seem out of place at first glance doesn’t mean they actually break the setting.
At first glance, it looks out of place, and it’s simple why. Only two other things the UNSC has even has relativistic feats (The Spartan Laser and Infinity MAC) and I would argue the more I scrutinized the other feats for Chief the more it looked even more out of place. I would argue at best one can theoretically maybe make Chief high hypersonic not from any direct feat but through the nature of his tech, but even that is iffy.
Papa Nier said:
You mention that only about 16% of Spartan feats are relativistic, suggesting these are outliers. But Halo deals with tech that’s way beyond what we’d consider "normal," especially Forerunner and Covenant tech. In a universe like this, where aliens and AIs manipulate reality itself, having rare high-end feats makes perfect sense. Spartans aren’t always moving at light speed, but when they're up against some of the most advanced tech in the galaxy, they can be pushed to that level.
The Forerunners shouldn’t be mentioned here as far as I’m concerned because what they can do is simply irreplicable and is rightfully considered godlike by the Covenant and UNSC. The Covenant could only create crude mockery of Forerunner weapons using superheated plasma, not proper hard light weaponry. The Covenant and UNSC are, at the very least, exist in a scale in Halo where physics does matter and isn’t as beaten up behind an alleyway as literal godlike races like the Forerunners are.
Let’s actually discuss the Covenant, since you are lumping them with the Forerunners as bearers of technology ‘far beyond what we’d consider “normal.”’ It is beyond what we would consider normal due to the advances in material sciences and atomic physics they’d have over us, but it doesn’t break physics. Superheated plasma weaponry is impractical in real life, that is for sure, but all the principles involved aren’t breaking physics. Electromagnetic fields holding together plasma isn’t that extreme either; it’s out of our capabilities to the level the Covenant does it sure but it’s not something that breaks physics in theory too. Pinch fusion is just very efficient tritium fusion. All the gravity manipulation can be explained by Gravitons which may or may not exist and even if they don’t exist in real life, their existence in Halo doesn’t undermine the rest of physics. The only unrealistic part of antimatter bombs is how much anti-matter is needed to mass-produce them. Even with slipspace, it is noted that causal paradoxes and defects occur and that’s why ships going through slipspace have to go through a form of causal reconciliation to fix the inevitable consequences of bypassing typical classical or even relativistic physics.
And irregardless of how possible or impossible Covenant technology actually is under our understanding of physics, how much of it actually travels at relativistic to almost light speed? At the ground level, most plasma, needle, and all brute tech is pretty damn slow. The Carbine is at most hypersonic (So 1715 m/s), the Beam Rifle is 3657 m/s (I’ll get to that), and Focus Rifles, while fast and apparently use magnetic accelerators, have no statements to endorse them being actually relativistic. The only things I can more confidently say are likely relativistic are pulse lasers and energy projectors, and the smallest thing to use one of either are Covenant Gunboats which use Pulse Lasers and also are 50 meters long in size and are primarily exoatmospheric, aka not the average ground level technology
And it’s not like any of this should matter when it comes to Forerunners, need we remember what Guilty Spark said about Chief’s armor?
"These Sentinels will supplement your combat system. But I suggest you upgrade to at least a Class Twelve combat skin. Your current model only scans as a Class Two, which is ill-suited for this kind of work."
~343 Guilty Spark in The Library
Don’t even bother trying to compare Spartans to Forerunner warriors
Papa Nier said:
Take a look at some specific examples: In Halo: The Flood, Chief dodges Forerunner Sentinel beams, which are pretty much at light speed. In Halo: Evolutions, Spartans are intercepting shots at hypersonic+ speeds. And don’t forget the scene in Fall of Reach where Chief deflects a Scorpion missile with Cortana’s help. These aren't random moments of coolness; they’re legit feats showing just how far the combination of Spartan augmentations and advanced tech can go, especially when you throw Cortana into the mix.
The very reason I am discussing this is because of statements like in The Flood or panels from Blood Line or Escalation. They are the only times a Spartan apparently reaches relativistic speeds. Also, there is a hell of a difference between relativistic speeds and the next two things you list, both of which I mentioned and gave a speed range.
For the Halo Evolutions Beam Rifle interception feat, I’ll start by pointing out that beam rifles are definitely only 3657 m/s. The light speed number given by Halopedia appears to be misinformation because apparently no source actually promotes that beyond the fact that it’s a particle beam weapon, however both the Bungie site and the 343i era Halo 4 Essential Visual guide give credence to the lower number, with Bungie giving 3657 m/s and the H4EVG saying it merely travels at hypervelocities (Aka hypersonic). In fact, the 2011 Halo Encyclopedia only gives the Beam Rifle a velocity of under mach 2. I doubt this is correct, Encyclopedia has many errors, but it shows the developers never considered it light speed. Given that, it’s been long calced at 731.4 m/s because the feat entails Chief crossing ten meters what a Beam Rifle could cross in fifty. It appears Jackals are very quick to react so I think this is a roughly accurate calc.
The Scorpion Missile was explicitly a cap/limit for Chief’s speed:
“They moved together. He shifted his muscles and the MJOLNIR—augmented by his link to Cortana—moved faster than he’d ever moved before. His leg tensed and pushed him aside; his left arm came up and crossed his chest.”
It is also stated to be 10x faster than him:
“The missile was fast. Faster than he was ten times over.”
At a reasonable end, it looks like a Hellfire Missile which goes at around mach 1.3 or 445 m/s. The fastest anti-tank missiles currently made are the Lockheed-Martin Lockheed Martin LOSAT which is 1500 m/s. The fastest cruise missiles appear to be Zircon missiles which are mach 8 (2744 m/s), but there is no reason an anti-tank missile needs to be that fast given it’s for tanks, not fast moving aircraft and that fact wouldn’t change in the 26th century; so 1500 m/s is still the highest realistic limit.
They are legitimate feats, but the issue is that there is simply a world away from hypersonic and relativistic. Like take the Beam Rifle, it’s 3657 m/s right? And Chief is only ⅕ of that in the feat involving the Jackal Sniper? That’s way slower than light, same with the Scorpion Misisle. This isn’t even a matter of “he just needs to push harder,” he could push himself to go 1000x faster and he still wouldn’t reach a tenth the speed of light. The gap is enormous.
Papa Nier said:
You also argue that Halo's setting doesn’t support physics that would allow Spartans to reach these speeds. But Halo has been pushing the limits of physics for years.
The issue is, for the most part, all the technology used for the Spartans is an open enough book. And the little we do suggests they do not. I will get to it.
Papa Nier said:
Slipspace tech lets ships move faster than light, completely bending reality.
Halo allows for some liberties and suspension of disbelief for the story to work. That is different from breaking the story by suggesting Chief can ignore everything legitimately established regarding Physics in Halo.
Papa Nier said:
Forerunner technology is designed to manipulate matter and space. So when Spartans encounter things like Sentinel beams, reacting at near-light speeds is just part of the deal.
Non Sequitur?
Papa Nier said:
MJOLNIR armor literally moves at the speed of thought and enhances reaction times to insane levels, especially with AI support. Combine that with Cortana’s calculations, and dodging a near-light-speed beam isn’t out of the question.
The Speed of thought is only 120 m/s. Even taking the reaction speed of 5 milliseconds and suggesting that Spartans are 62.5x faster than 250 millisecond human reaction times, that’s still 7500 m/s which while high hypersonic, isn’t remotely relativistic, and I’m being real 7500 m/s is an absolute stretch of stacking multipliers it’s unfounded to believe his reactions just work like that. Also, again, we have a feat with Cortana using Chief’s armor which required a lot of effort and it was to intercept and slap away a missile moving between 445 and 1500 m/s. These feats don’t warrant justification for relativistic reactions..
Papa Nier said:
Also, Halo ships are stated to accelerate so fast they can liquefy their passengers without proper dampening. This shows that extreme physics already exist in the Halo universe, so it’s not like these feats are out of place. They’re part of the tech and lore we've already seen.
We know the acceleration of Halo ships. The fastest acceleration found amongst their ships only reaches thousands of gees. That would liquify humans, but spartans with titanium armor and energy shielding and a generally far denser bone structure can deal with it Apparently there are feats which reach tens or hundreds of thousands of gees, but nothing more extreme than that, and absolutely nothing compared to the accelerations a relativistic spartan would entail. I will get to it later, but I don’t think you understand the astronomical disparity between the acceleration of Halo ships and what would be needed for Chief to quickly react at relativistic speeds.
Papa Nier said:
While most Spartan feats are in the subsonic to supersonic+ range, it doesn’t mean the occasional high-end feats are a contradiction. Spartans operate at whatever speed they need in any given scenario, but when they face serious threats, like Forerunners, they rise to the occasion. Chief dodging near-light-speed beams while fighting enemies at supersonic speeds isn’t weird; it reflects the variety of challenges they face. Saying that it "breaks" the setting ignores the fact that Halo often bends its own rules when it comes to tech and storytelling.
It would be one thing to believe that Spartans if they really forced themselves can reach hypersonic speeds, but it absolutely is a stretch to suggest they can move at speeds tens of thousands of times above that “if they just push harder” like it’s a matter of how much chi they put in.
In fact, let’s ask what would cause it?
Spartans without their armor are clearly not theoretically relativistic because they always did these sentinel dodging beams in a suit and the books say they peak at 20 millisecond reactions. Any good feats involved are like blitzing a soldier or aim-dodging bullets.
So it must be the armor then? From the Polymerized lithium niobocene? That is stated to boost reflexes and can kill unaugmented people using it, but nothing is saying it flash liquifies them from sudden acceleration. In fact, apparently according to the Halo: Combat Evolved: Sybex Official Strategies & Secrets guide (I can’t find any pdf scans of it), it only boosts reflexes by 5 times.
The Reactive Circuits? Once again it just makes them react at the speed of thought as you put it. Speed of thought is only 120 m/s. Even taking the reaction speed of 5 milliseconds and suggesting that Spartans are 62.5x faster than 250 millisecond human reaction times, that’s still 7500 m/s which while high hypersonic, isn’t remotely relativistic. The gap between 0.1c and 7500 m/s is several dozens of times larger than the gap between this theoretical 7500 m/s and the lowest calced speed I got for Spartans of 32.84 m/s.
Perhaps the fusion reactors? Master Chief’s Mjolnir suit is powered by a microfusion reactor that, like with most UNSC reactors, likely uses Deuterium and Helium 3 and can last 15 years. At 0.1c, he’d require a kinetic energy of 48.697 megatons of TNT. There is no way the microfusion reactor can output that energy, let alone in a reasonable amount of time. Once again, for reference, even if it took the full 15 year lifespan of the microfusion reactor to do the feat it would be around 430 megawatts at the absolute lowest end. Yet he is clearly not using all 15 years worth of reserves just to dodge some Sentinel Beams, so let’s assume it takes just a minute, well that would require a power output of 3.396 petawatts, which should be obviously ridiculous. The Covenant’s largest space stations use 512 terawatt Pinch Fusion reactors that have to be as large if not larger than the apartment complex-sized ones we see CAS Assault Carriers have in the Cairo Station end cutscene, and Pinch Fusion is far more powerful and efficient than the fusion the UNSC utilizes, so there is simply no way you can actually say a microfusion reactor for Spartans just so happens to be more powerful than Covenant space stations and assault carriers, and all just to justify spartans being able to achieve relativistic reflects
There is no technology here that has realistically shown Spartans can reach relativistic speeds. The niobocene enhances reflexes 5-fold but nothing suggests to relativistic levels, the reactive circuits is “speed of thought” which is only 120 m/s, and the micro fusion reactor would need an output greater than a 30 kilometer Covenant space station's D-T fusion reactors to allow Spartans to reach relativistic speeds in short bursts.
Papa Nier said:
When you say Newtonian physics should limit Spartans from hitting these kinds of speeds, I get it. But let’s not forget the kind of tech the Spartans use.
As I said above, There is no technology here that has realistically shown Spartans can reach relativistic speeds. The niocebene enhances reflexes but nothing suggests to relativistic levels, the reactive circuits is “speed of thought,” and the micro fusion reactor would need an output greater than a 30 kilometer Covenant space station's D-T fusion reactors to allow Spartans to reach relativistic speeds in short bursts.
Papa Nier said:
Energy shields, plasma weapons, MAC cannons, and Slipspace tech all defy regular physics.
MAC cannons are literally just upsized coil guns. They aren’t really possible in our current time simply because of the amount of energy it would take (Kilotons to gigatons) but consider that they are powered by giant fusion reactors. And I did some quick math and it isn’t even an unsustainable amount of deuterium involved, just a big amount that the UNSC can easily harvest from Gas Giants, or hell even Earth alone is theoretically enough.
Plasma weapons are impractical but don’t defy physics. Most of the principles involved do work (Frank O’Connor’s nonsense in one random message board notwithstanding) in real life just not as practically as shown in Halo. No basic physics are broken.
Same with Energy Shield. Real principles, real physics, just not as practical in real life as in Halo.
Halo takes liberties, at the higher levels it adds new crazy shit, but it never starts from the get-go throwing Physics out the window like 40K.
Papa Nier said:
Spartans have survived some of the most insane situations, including HAVOK nukes (30 megatons), and keep going.
There are two feats that involve a Spartan being anywhere near the vicinity of a nuclear explosion, and only one of them is actually likely tanking any of the energy.
1. They did take some energy from a nuclear bomb in Halo: Silent Storm. However it wasn’t a HAVOK nuke, it was a Fury-class tactical nuke which is only 1 megaton. Furthermore, due to the light atmosphere of the moon they were on the shockwave was basically non-existent and they would only be facing the threat of thermal radiation:
“John approved. Because Seoba had only a trace atmosphere, the shockwave of a Fury one-megaton thermonuclear device would barely be noticeable from a half kilometer away, and both Spartan Mjolnir and ODST space-assault armor was already shielded from EMP. So they would need to worry only about the heat blast, which could be avoided by simply hiding behind something . . .”
The thermal radiation at 1 megaton is 11.3 calories per square centimeter, I calculated the energy Chief tanked to be about 595 kilojoules, nothing too extreme.
2. The HAVOK nuke in Halo 4 wasn’t even something that Chief survived on his own. At the very least Cortana seems to have locked him around a hardlight shield, but furthermore she appears to have teleported him away from the epicenter too:
Cortana: "Most of me is down there. I only held enough back to get you off the ship."
So I do not believe these feats are really usable to prove how the Spartans could survive extreme scenarios such as a nuke. The best feat from a spartan without any ambiguity or contradiction in the context (The Wraith feat didn’t appear to be the full level of damage as they were in a perpendicular tunnel so the level of damage didn’t flash vaporize the marines, implying Chief wasn’t hit with flash vaporizing mini-sun levels of energy. The Fuel Rod Gun feat used for Chief has in that very same scene those fuel rods not even destroy a “thick tree.”) was from Halo: Uprising where Chief tanked a point blank plasma grenade and I got that to be triple digit megajoules, nowhere near megatons, kilotons, or even tons of tnt. Also all of this is unrelated to feats of speed.
Papa Nier said:
And Cortana boosting Chief’s reaction time means he’s moving at a level far beyond just “enhanced human.”
And once again, that ‘level far beyond’ still peaks with what was shown with the Scorpion missile, where again the missile was only 445-1500 m/s.
Papa Nier said:
For advanced tech like Beam Rifles or Sentinel beams, Spartans are written to keep up because they have to, not because it’s a flaw in the narrative. It’s all part of the stakes in Halo.
I said with the Beam Rifle it doesn’t particularly demand much to dodge it because they’re more solidly 3657 m/s than not, so feats involved end up being supersonic+ (Which is where I have Spartans).
As for the Sentinel Beam, once again there is nothing contradicting the idea that they are just intercepting them before they actually fire. Sentinels aren’t warriors; there's nothing to suggest they have high level bullet timing millisecond reactions like Prometheans or proper Warrior Servants do, so a spartan with low milliseconds can see where they’re about to aim and move accordingly.
Papa Nier said:
At the end of the day, Halo isn’t about sticking perfectly to Newtonian physics. It’s a world where AIs live in armor, soldiers can block anti-tank missiles, and ancient Forerunners manipulate space-time. So if Chief has to go relativistic for a moment, especially with Cortana’s help to dodge a beam or block a missile, it doesn’t break anything. It just raises the stakes.
I don't see what's too strange for armor that has cybernetics and Neural links (something we're in the process of making right now) to house AI.
Blocking the anti-tank missile is a bit ridiculous, it stretches Newtonian physics to its limit but it doesn't fundamentally break the setting. Spartans with their enhancements and implants and subsonic to supersonic+ reactions can likely do that and it won't be too physics breaking.
Forerunners, again, should be out of the equation because they are simply on another level to the UNSC and you can’t remotely scale UNSC marines to what the full force of the Forerunners could do. Also most of their space-time manipulation is Slipspace (Once again a whole new added thing that’s an answer to limits to Newtonian and relativistic physics, but doesn’t actively nullify them in a normal setting).
Again, there is a world of a difference between deflecting a hypersonic missile and dodging a laser. The Scorpion Missile caps at most like 1500 m/s most likely, probably slower, which would be tens of thousands of times slower than dodging a laser. It isn’t unbelievable for Spartans with low millisecond reactions to interact with and even deflect a supersonic missile. It is unbelievable for Spartans with low millisecond reactions to dodge lasers.
Papa Nier said:
Master Chief doesn’t spend his time moving at light speed. But in those crucial moments where it matters, like when dodging Forerunner lasers, he’s capable of pushing beyond normal limits. Those feats aren’t outliers, they’re proof of what Spartans can really do in the universe Halo has built.
Pushing past limits doesn’t suddenly mean he can go thousands of times faster. We have statements where it’s told he is being pushed to his limits and it mentions his tendons straining and other similar things. There is no such statement or suggestion for the Sentinel Beam feats where the Spartans kinda just do the feat without a sense of struggle. Compare that to the feat for the Scorpion Missile, it’s made very clear this is his hard limit and he can’t pass it any further without Cortana’s help.
Papa Nier said:
These relativistic moments fit the scale of Halo's technology and story. Chief, with Cortana’s aid, can absolutely hit these extremes when necessary, and that just adds to the universe’s depth.
They absolutely do not fit with the scale of Halo, specifically the UNSC or Covenant’s technology or story. For reference, here are UNSC field weapon speeds:
M6 Magnum: 427 m/s
M41 Vulcan: 887 m/s
MA5 Assault Rifle: 905 m/s
SRS99 Sniper Rifle: 1000 m/s
M68 Gauss Cannon: 13,700 m/s
M99 Stanchion: 15,000 m/s
M6 Spartan Laser: 299,792,458 m/s
Notice how none of the ground weapons aside for the literal laser don’t even approach relativistic speeds? When it comes to UNSC weaponry, Chief has only really consistently dealt with weapons in the velocity range of the Magnum to Assault Rifle, or ~400-1000 m/s. For comparison, here is the speed of UNSC MACs:
Charon Frigate MAC: 30,000 m/s
Erőd-class SMAC: 11,991,698.32 m/s
CR-03 MAC: 74,948,114.5 m/s
So to say Chief with relativistic speeds fits with UNSC tech is to suggest Chief is perfectly capable of outspeeding the MAC Cannons used to destroy 1700-5300 meter Covenant Capital ships. That is absolutely ludicrous.
Papa Nier said:
Why should Halo be constrained by real-world physics when we allow other sci-fi franchises to operate with even more extreme feats? Should we start doing the same for Mass Effect, Star Wars, Warhammer 40k, Doctor Who, and Star Trek.
“Why should Halo be constrained when other sci-fi franchises have more extreme feats”
Because… Those other verses constantly have more extreme feats from the get go?
I don’t know too much about Mass Effect, but as far as I’m aware (And I know this will be brought up again), ME is fairly grounded. Their weapons fire very light projectiles at sub-relativistic speeds to have equivalent energy.
Star Wars isn’t even Sci-Fi, it's a space opera science fantasy. It never gives the pretense of being scientifically realistic when the Force is the literal binding force of the universe and not simply an additional dimension like Slipspace.
Warhammer is the same as Star Wars but even more ridiculous. Halo gives the pretense of having scientific grounding, 40k is the same story where Space Marines have multiple hearts and stomachs through surgery and can mass-scatter people by moving too fast as they have nanosecond reactions, who have nuclear grenade launchers, where psionics is literally a normal occurrence in the verse, and where one of the major factions can make their vehicles go faster by painting it red because they think red goes faster.
Doctor Who is even more ridiculous than either. It changes what type of grand unified physical theory it uses showrunner to showrunner, book to book, This is a verse where humans have nukes in the zettatons, where Sontarans have hand grenades that blow up galaxies, the Human Empire could blow up galaxies to fight the Cybermen.
Star Trek I know less about so I cannot comment on it. Doesn’t change my point that you simply cannot compare Halo or Mass Effect to the likes of Star Wars, Warhammer, or Doctor Who.
Papa Nier said:
Mass Effect, we have Commander Shepard at large building level with physical strikes, at least wall level+ with standard mass accelerator weaponry, city block level+ with high explosive rounds, multi city block level with high explosive grenades and Biotics, and at least multi city block level+ to town level with heavy weaponry. His speed is massively hypersonic+.
Arguably a red herring and also, as I mentioned before, a false equivalence. Halo isn’t Mass Effect and Mass Effect isn’t Halo. I will not bother discussing this but irregardless their speed comes from the fact that even their small arms fire is hypersonic to sub relativistic due to how they work and this is established in verse. For comparison, small arms in Halo are still basically comparable to ours in real life. Through this, with feats I don’t know of because I haven’t played or read any of ME, Shepard can attain far faster feats than Chief could on average. Chief only attains these feats from one thing, and in all other cases is nowhere near this..
Papa Nier said:
If Mass Effect can have these high-end feats without breaking its setting, why should Halo be restricted?
Because its setting establishes from the beginning that they have weapons with high kinetic velocities offset with having light projectiles. This allows characters who react to them naturally have higher speeds than what you’d typically find in Halo. If Shephard had random feats putting him very close to the speed of light unrelated to how fast the bullets and projectiles he presumably dodges, I’d be just as suspicious.
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