Prologue

Prologue is the first level of Halo 4's campaign. It does not contain actual gameplay, instead only a cutscene depicting Dr. Catherine Halsey and her thoughts on the SPARTAN-II Program.

Transcript

Open on a line of beds. They are made of plastic, with no sheets, and are enclosed by glass walls. Pan to a boy sitting on one of the beds. His head is shaved and he wears a grey uniform that reads "John". He looks up at his viewer, his eyes showing fear and want of sympathy.

Fade in to a closeup of Halsey's eyes. She seems tired and grave.

• Interrogator: "Tell me about the children."

The interrogator, who is framed in shadow, sits at the other end of their table.

• Interrogator: "Dr. Halsey?"

Halsey looks at her speaker defiantly. He is framed in shadow.

• Doctor Catherine Halsey: "You already know everything."

• Interrogator: You kidnapped them.

Cut to John-117, now wearing a breath mask, lying down on the bed as machines prepare to operate on him.

• Halsey (voiceover): "Children's minds are more easily accepting of indoctrination, their bodies more adaptable to augmentation. The result was the ultimate soldier."

Cut to a SPARTAN-II, now fully armored and being inspected by technicians. He towers over all of them.

• Halsey: "And because of our success, when the Covenant invaded, we were ready."

Cut to a CAS-class assault carrier hovering over a human city. Dozens of aircraft fly out of its launch bay.

Cut back to the interrogation.

• Interrogator: "Dr. Halsey, you're bending history in your favor and you know it. You developed the Spartans to crush human rebellion, not to fight the Covenant."

Banshees bomb the city as civilians runs for their lives.

• Halsey (voiceover): "When one human world after another fell..."

An Sangheili drives his energy sword through a fleeing civilian.

• Halsey (voiceover): "When my Spartans were all that stood between humanity and extinction..."

From up in the sky, a dozen Spartans drop from Pelicans, using their thruster packs to slow their descent.

• Halsey (voiceover): "Nobody was concerned over why they were originally built."

The Spartans land. A Elite snarls aggressively at them. The Spartans take cover and shoot down some of the Sangheili, while the lead Elite calmly steps forward and fires back.

• Interrogator (voiceover): "So you feel in the end that your choices were justified."

Cut to Halsey, who sits forward calmly, clasping her hands.

• Halsey: "My work saved the human race."

• Interrogator: "Do you think the Spartans' lack of basic humanity helped?"

Halsey looks at him worriedly, as the interrogator, now standing, backs away from the table.

• Halsey: "What are you after? The other before you were Naval Intelligence but you, you're something else."

Cut to a Spartan sitting alone in a hangar. His head is drooped and he is speaking to no one. Marines walk past him.

• Interrogator (voiceover): "Records show Spartans routinely exhibited mildly sociopathic tendencies, difficulty with socialization, furthermore..."

Cut to a Spartan fighting a Jiralhanae Chieftain. He leaps agilely, dodging its every blow. Dead Sangheili cover the ground.

• Halsey (voiceover): "The records show efficient behavior operating in hazardous situations. I supplied the tools to maintain that efficiency."

Cut to Master Chief, seeing Halsey hold up a data crystal chip projecting Cortana.

Cut back to the interrogation.

• Interrogator: "Do you believe the Master Chief succeeded because he was, at his core, broken?"

• Halsey: "What does John have to do with this? ...you want to replace him."

• Interrogator: "The Master Chief is dead."

• Halsey: "His file reads 'Missing in Action'."

• Interrogator: Catherine? Spartans never die?

Cut to a Spartan's foot stepping down on a puddle. The Spartan leads a crowd of military personnel. The fighting has stopped but the city is clouded in smoke.

• Halsey: "Your mistake is seeing Spartans as military hardware. My Spartans are humanity's next step..."

Halsey stands up from her chair in determination.

• Halsey: "Our destiny as a species. Do not underestimate them. But most of all, do not underestimate... him."

Cut to black.

Anachronisms

Main article: List of inconsistencies in the Halo series

Several elements in the cutscene are different from how they canonically occurred. The most prominent is that the Spartans are all shown wearing MJOLNIR Mark VI, specifically the heavily modified version Cortana devised for John. Halsey could not have known this variant existed, and she has shown distaste for alterations to "her" armor. Several elements of John's upgraded suit were also not applied to the mainline MJOLNIR models except as attachments, such as the built-in thruster pack the cutscene's Spartans use to slow their descent, which would have been useful to Red Team during their orbital drop at the Fall of Reach. The Sangheili seen in the cutscene have the same physiology and wear the same armor as those from the Covenant remnant, though these may represent an outright retcon rather than artistic license.

The SPARTAN-II augmentation procedures are depicted differently than in the Scanned trailer. In the commercial, the Spartans are built like heavily muscled young adults, whereas in Halsey's memory John looks like a preteen, if not younger. The physiques depicted in Scanned may be more accurate, based on the description of John as having the body of an "eighteen-year-old Olympic athlete" just prior to the augmentations in Halo: The Fall of Reach. Halsey envisioning John with a lighter build could be representative of her guilt, with her imagining the candidates as more vulnerable than they appeared. The surgery and procedure also look different, as the trainees are shown in enclosed chambers while the procedure is done by machine, rather than in an open surgical theater.

Some of the events can be assumed as representative rather than exact. When and where the battle in the city occurred is unclear, but it is likely not meant to be a specific battle; rather, it could be considered a summation of the entire war. Likewise, the scene in which Halsey presents Cortana to John did not occur as such, as evidenced by John's armor and him meeting Cortana by hologram; canonically, as seen in Halo: The Fall of Reach, John met Cortana after she was inserted into his neural interface for the first time. Overall, most questionable aspects of the cutscene could be due to Halsey's embellishment; elements that Halsey could not have known, such as John's unique armor, should be considered mere artistic license.