[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ROBERTO jh [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] CoRaMo So 343i and Karen Traviss just basically took a giant dump on the hopeful and idealistic ending of Halo 3. Not cool, not cool.[/quote] I didn't realize this community wanted a Disney ending. I'd have expected a longing for a more mature, realistic conclusion than 30 years of bitter hatred being overcome through [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThePowerOfFriendship]The Power of Friendship,[/url] especially since it was overwhelmingly obvious Halo 3 wasn't the end. Dissappointing, to say the least.[/quote] You might want to make sure that your posts aren't one huge contradiction before spouting condescending drivel all over the thread. The alternative is that you either don't understand the meaning of the word "conclusion", or you haven't read Gl & TTW. I'm going to guess it's the former, because in no way are these Aesops that somehow manage to pass as official fiction "concluding" that part of the story from Halo 3 in any way. Rather, they are best summed up as "Start a new fight" and in no way conclude anything from that arc. (Which was actually finished in Bungie's timeline. The UNSC wouldn't have magitech ships that act as nothing more than a permission slip for Humanity to rip off the Imperium of Man...and the Elites tired of the war and the Covenant in general already enough for them to bugger off back to their home world and not bother trying to start a second crusade) Concluding it would be tying up the issues from the war and showing them being resolved or on their way to being resolved. Concluding is not, however, pulling stuff like "Humans = expansionists" (Which makes zero sense anyway) out of thin air and running with it as if it has always been there, to the exclusion of all other context. The conclusion is not the place where you introduce entirely new premises. That...doesn't make any sense. So for a start, these novels are not a "realistic, mature conclusion", because they ain't a conclusion to begin with. Secondly, I love the way in which you imply that the way Travisty dealt with the characterizations in this novel is the one way ticket to a realistic interpretation; almost as if no other equally applicable scenarios exist, for Traviss has spoken and thus it can only have been so. Utter BS. I actually think that this is as unrealistic as the idealism that you denigrate as childish, it's just on the opposite end of the spectrum from idealism. It's a crapsack world full of caricatures and it's just ludicrous. That, and the fact that the only "issues" from the war being given any focus are things that only existed after Glasslands came out; in other words, things pulled from a magic hat designed specifically to create more drama than is necessary, whilst ignoring the pre-existing potential tensions from pre-established canon.