I don't know if you guys have read any Iain M. Banks, but I've always believed Halo was directly inspired by Consider Phlebas - the first of the Culture books [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consider_Phlebas[/url] Not only is it a brilliant read, but you can see just how influential this book is to Bungie/Halo: It centres around a holy war: Idiran-Culture War The Idiran race are essentially the Covenant (more so the Elites) Ship naming conventions - Also, I don't know if you guys know this, but Bungie take their naming conventions directly from Mr. Banks [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_(The_Culture)[/url] Which is no bad thing ;-) I've never read Ender's Game (though I know there is a game - on the original Xbox - based on it) but I shall order it now from Amazon!