A fantastic self contained story

Legacy of Onyx is a fantastic self-contained story within the Halo storyline, and whilst at first, I didn't like the perspective of it being from that of a regular civilian teenage girl, I quickly grew to enjoy that as it shed a whole new light on the Halo ongoing plotline.
We were given the vision of the galaxy, the war, the budding political species alliances and how to deal with the past from a young woman who is destined to be amongst those who carry her people forward in time.

So as a self-contained story, I found it fantastic! The characters were well fleshed out and well performed. The descriptions were clear and easy to envisage. The setting flowed quickly but at a good pace.

But there were issues that I had to ignore as that "self-contained story" progressed. I describe it like that because if you absolutely link it to the other stories like how it is meant to be, then certain pieces don't match up with established cultures and facts.
Many things, I felt, happened the way they did for the sake of plot and the possible appearance in Halo 6 or whatever other novel precedes that.

1) The Forerunner portals. The UNSC and ONI had already discovered the MASSIVE weakness that these portals presented to Onyx from the escape of Jul and his rise to power as the new leader of the Covenant.
I simply could not understand how using a battalion of Spartans, Marines, and a whole bunch of Huragok, that the UNSC and ONI had not extensively explored the portal network already. Nor had they even attempted (apparently) to block off the portal which they were very aware of that Jul had escaped through.
I turned a blind eye to this ongoing annoying point though, since to me it felt like clear set up for the Servants to position alongside the Banished as the next major Covenant-like faction to fight against in next Halo title.
But even still, that raises issues... There must only have been a few hundred Servants left at the end... What kind of threat are they meant to pose to anyone?

2) Which leads onto the next point expanded in the Epilogue.
Durol(Dural?) is told of the Forerunner Warship stationed on one of the planets within Onyx by his Huragok who is not native and even states that it is still learning the Onyx systems within the story. This warship will clearly be present in some form to heighten the nature of the threat of the Servants in a future Halo title, but it goes against common deductive knowledge.
It is known within Halo Canon that Huragok prefer to work with Human's over Sangheili due to better treatment, and as such tend to work a whole lot more efficiently(from all references I've seen/read), and yet the Huragok who are native to Onyx but happily put themselves within Human control do not know of this ship? Or communicate about it with their wards?
This just seemed ridiculous to me... Prone to Drift proved he had an inquiring mind and was an especially good problem solver, and was very quickly able to work out how to dismantle the Guardian, and yet after years and years living in Onyx didn't know of the Forerunner ship?

3) UNSC/ONI presence. Onyx is easily the most important site within UNSC control in the whole Halo universe. And yet they are so poorly reinforced that a relatively small force of fanatic Sangheili are a major threat.
How is it that the UNSC can commit a larger, more lethal, and more prepared fighting force to a single ship (Infinity) than they can to the most important physical and easy to build on site in all of Human discovery?

4) UNSC presence + The Portals!
It's reinforced multiple times how incredibly vast Onyx is, and how tiny the Human/Sangheili settlement is, and how small-a-space they've secured.
But they know of the portals, they have Huragok who can activate them, they have the forces to occupy each portal they discover/link to, and as such, they have the capability to explore and secure huge areas of Onyx's surface.
This point, to me and I'm sure to many others, seems absolutely obvious. So as a reader, this being obvious, how could it not be to the in-canon military minds in charge?
I felt it was this way purely for the plot to be able to progress and introduce the Servants into Onyx to be a threat at all, but it took a lot of effort to ignore seeing that as a big flaw in the story.

5) The last point that I feel negatively impacted the story - The depth of the allied Sangheili characters.
The insight we got into these characters was new and refreshing, and it showed in many ways that they aren't all that different than Humans, emotionally and psychologically speaking.
But I feel that the story stopped short of going as in-depth into their thoughts and behaviours as it could have. Showing their inner thoughts (in some way) of not just being allied with Humanity, but contemplating Human expression/freedom of character choice would have done so much to broaden their character horizons.
I feel this was touched on more with the Unggoy than the Sangheili.

But those points aside that I had to try to not let bother me throughout the story - It's a well written, well narrated, and well-delivered story that clearly sets up a lot of things for whatever comes next.
It's kindled the fire to want to jump right back into the Halo universe in Halo 6 (whenever that comes out) or in whichever story comes out next.

My thanks to Matt Forbeck for writing another fantastic addition to the series, to Scott Brick for an excellent narration, and to the folks are 343 for captaining the Halo universe forward.

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2 people found this helpful

Like Harry Potter, only no magic and set in 2558

Really fun Halo book and a fantastic performance by the readers. Hoping for a direct sequel.

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