The Fall of Reach
Page 35
GLancer [1408, 19.07.2552]:
THIS IS JUST HOW MY BRAIN WORKS. I GET HUNG UP ON THIS CRAP AND I CAN’T HELP BUT OVERTHINK IT. THANKS FOR LISTENING
TRIGTECH [1408, 19.07.2552]:
DON’T MENTION IT.
GLancer [1408, 19.07.2552]:
WE’LL TALK.
TRIGTECH [1409, 19.07.2552]:
SURE THING. TALK TO YOU LATER, AND FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, RELAX A LITTLE, THIS IS REACH, WE’LL BE FINE.
\END TRANSMISSION>>
ABOVE TOP SECRET: PRI ALPHA
OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE
WINTER CONTINGENCY DECLARATION SUPPLEMENTAL ORDERS
1. The following numerically identified officers, Headquarters: United Nations Space Command, Reach, Epsilon Eridani System, will execute the following orders before evacuation of system according to Cole Protocol strictures.
Field Officer #345-261b
Field Officer #345-104b
Adjunct Field Officer #311-112b
Field Officer #227-112b
Special Officer #223-212a
• ORDERS FOR FIELD AGENTS FOLLOW
Redact all XNAV and ASTRONAV assets.
* * *
//ORDERS FOR FIELD AGENTS TERMINATE
* * *
BACKGROUND, HISTORY AND DETAILS FOLLOW
You are reading an evacuation order mandated by the emergence of a WINTER CONTINGENCY situation. This particular order is automated and the circumstances surrounding the specific emergence are not detailed here. Please consult EMERG/PUSH/SECURE for more current information.
FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS FOR FIELD AGENTS
All Cole Protocol mandates are in force. It cannot be stressed enough that Cole Protocol mandates include machinery, equipment, records, logs, AND personnel. Every agent on this distribution list has been through SCALED MORALITY TRAINING and should understand the responsibilities entailed.
Cole Protocol measures are useless without sterilization of all triangulation information whether it is stored digitally or organically. As a field agent, this single fact is the most important guideline you should follow.
BACKGROUND
All Astronavigation personnel carry a subdural pulse-coded emitter that is activated by WINTER CONTINGENCY and nullified once aboard a secure vessel or location. They are unaware of this device or its purpose.
You can exploit local GROUNDNET or utilize ONI NAVSPEC to identify and secure these assets. There is no termination date for this order. Once WINTER CONTINGENCY is declared, all assets must be secured or REDACTED until such time as Protocol-mandated rendezvous point is reached safely.
Do not be overestimate the apparent complexity of the (astronav) task. A good Astronavigator can identify and triangulate a very precise point in space using just a few known XNAV Pulsar signatures and any consumer-grade spectrometer or field kit. Our opponents are of course aware of this and have shown interest in such personnel in the past. So far hermetic measures have worked. They are not guaranteed to work forever.
UNSC HIERARCHY
Under the LIMON-NAXLA EXCEPTION you are hereby ordered to ignore or countermand all mission-contradictory orders from ranking UNSC officers below the grade of secure-clear Captain. ONI ranking officers may still issue contravening orders but use your judgment and common sense in applying the EXCEPTION. If the logic of the situation dictates that an advantage may be gained in your mission by following orders then do so. This is not carte blanche for intrabranch insubordination. Superior officers can and will file reports on LIMON-NAXLA EXCEPTIONS. You must also, if possible, clearly assert LIMON-NAXLA privilege to any senior officer giving excepted orders, if the situation provides an opportunity to do so. Otherwise, agent discretion is in play.
//DETAILS/DOC END
FORE WORLD
When Bungie, Eric Nylund, and Microsoft teamed up to create the novel Halo: The Fall of Reach, it was one of those things—an interesting and sudden opportunity—the kind of thing where you simply don’t think about what’s coming next. You react (Eric cranked that thing out in record time) and sit back, or rather, move on to other business. We were launching and supporting not only a game, but an entire business, a console that would go on to be the home base for Halo for another ten years.
The Fall of Reach wasn’t the first novelization of a video game; there had been several, in fact, before that. All had differing layers and measures of success. But Fall of Reach did something unexpected.
I won’t bother talking about sales or success as it relates to dollars and numbers, or bestsellers’ lists, but it reached a level of success that was unprecedented and would continue for years to come with Eric and other authors thriving in this “new” space.
It bridged the invisible gulf between story, universe, game, and imagination. It was a brilliantly executed matrix of material that connected these disparate elements and cohesively pulled it all together, making Halo, a game built on suddenness and mystery, feel immediately like it had been around forever, and that we the player were just tuning in, catching a universe in motion at a particularly exciting moment.
The idea started when Nancy Figatner, then part of the Halo franchise team, and Jordan Weisman (founder of Shadowrun creators FASA, among other things) decided that book publishing was something that Microsoft’s nascent console business ought to be attached to. They worked to find a good publishing partner and writers to germinate the idea, and ended up working with Eric Trautmann, Eric Nylund (of course), and Bungie to begin the novel.
Eric did something remarkable. He fleshed out, in just a few short weeks, a nascent universe that we’ve continued to build on, and continued to connect the dots between those disparate stars, some of which were planted in the Halo firmament in The Fall of Reach.
Reach wasn’t just a piece of deliberate universe-building, but a careful exercise in crisis avoidance. Eric had the challenge of not only creating believable characters with history and impact, but ensuring they didn’t step on the toes of a story that’s still in motion. This is not an enviable task—and it takes a patient, understanding, imaginative type of writer to create grand fiction with those kinds of restrictions.
And yet Eric was somehow able to use those restrictions not as training wheels or prison bars, but rather as a high-tensile springboard from which to launch a whole new aspect of the universe—one grounded in the dirt and blood of the Spartan program as it existed—rather than the mystery and awe of the universe where the Master Chief is the last standing Spartan.
It seems absurd on its face to talk about the scale of those two facets of the Halo universe, but in some ways Fall of Reach is smaller and more personal, while at the same time deeper and denser than the wide-open enigmas and vistas of the game.
Whereas Halo is all about loneliness and exploration, Fall of Reach is about a different kind of journey—that of childhood to adulthood and that of innocence to war, for both its protagonist and the species he champions.
And the process itself was almost as grueling as the Spartan training. Eric had very limited access to Bungie—hard at work finishing the game—and basically had to rely on a large drop of information (the seeds of the fabled story bible) from Jason Jones and Bungie, while his writing partner and co–heavy lifter at the time, Eric Trautmann, consolidated feedback and information from the team and filtered it to and with Eric Nylund. And again, all this in a hypercompressed timeline to take advantage of a narrow window of opportunity.
The book went from conception to final print in a staggering four months.
It was a collaborative effort, but often blindly so. In the riot of noise for the launch of the game, the book took a backseat, but only for a short drive. As the game exploded in popularity, people became curious about the backstory of this deliberately obfuscated protagonist. Putting yourself in the Master Chief’s MJOLNIR boots was probably one of the most satisfying experiences gamers ever had, but curiosity about a universe you’re inserted into, literally midbattle, p
ropelled sales of the novel. And it just continued to sell.
We’ve made a lot of Halo novels since then, with a broad range of writers, and one thing remains the same, from Eric Nylund to Karen Traviss to Greg Bear and beyond: the Halo sandbox of characters, events, and emotions is a perfect playground for prose.
And this is literally just the beginning.
Frank O’Connor
Redmond, WA 2010
NOVELS IN THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING HALO® SERIES
Halo®: The Fall of Reach by Eric Nylund
Halo®: The Flood by William C. Dietz
Halo®: First Strike by Eric Nylund
Halo®: Ghosts of Onyx by Eric Nylund
Halo®: Contact Harvest by Joseph Staten
Halo®: The Cole Protocol by Tobias S. Buckell
Halo®: Evolutions: Essential Tales of the Halo Universe by various authors/artists
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
HALO®: THE FALL OF REACH
Copyright © 2001, 2010 by Microsoft Corporation
Foreword copyright © 2010 by Microsoft Corporation
Originally published by Del Rey, The Random House Publishing Group
All rights reserved.
Interior art by Gabriel “Robogabo” Garza
Microsoft, Halo, the Halo logo, Xbox, and the Xbox logo are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.
A Tor® eBook
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN 978-0-7653-2832-8
First Tor Trade Paperback Edition: August 2010
eISBN 978-1-4299-6873-7
First Tor eBook Edition: February 2011