TRUTH & RECONCILIATION

CHeeeezyy: Are there any other kind of sentient beings (as like if they knew how to make tools and stuff) in the Milky Way galaxy?

A: The short answer is yes, the Forerunners indexed and reintroduced many sentient species into the Milky Way galaxy. The longer answer is that only a fraction of these species have gone on to build tools or achieve even Tier 7 (preindustrial) signature technologies in the millennia following the firing of Halo; of those, only a handful have been encountered by humanity in the Orion Arm region of the galaxy. In fact, not even every species that fell under the yoke of the Covenant have been contacted and catalogued by the UNSC, as the Prophets did not deign many worthy of trading service for salvation within their fleets and the Sangheili kept few records of civil affairs.

The Stag Lord: I've always assumed that in the War Games simulation, the Spartans use their own “real-life” armour configurations and that carries over into the simulation. Can somebody explain if this is the case?

A: Put simply, yes, this is nearly always the case. As highly trained and proficient special forces personnel, Spartans have a great deal of freedom to adjust their kit on a mission-by-mission basis, though their commander and specific task parameters can dictate certain loadouts. During War Games simulations, Spartans are encouraged to cross-train with a variety of different Mjolnir variants. That being said, individual Spartans do often have their favorite kit, and from a real-world narrative standpoint characters are portrayed in the same general set of Mjolnir for visual consistency and recognizability.