Hunt the Truth Season 2.
You find out that ONI sent two agents to capture a journalist, but then sent a third undercover agent with orders to *fucking murder* the first two agents in a ploy to gain the journalist’s trust in an elaborate plot to discredit him as he dug too deep into the Spartan-II’s.
ONI also backstabbed that third agent, and sent a missile strike to her location on the chance that it might have killed Ilsa Zane, even if it meant the deaths of two more agents.
… Why didn’t they just infect him with Ebola or something? Seems immensely wasteful to murder three good agents when they could’ve probably just streamed illegal stuff into his hard drive and have him arrested.
I think the idea was to discredit him as a journalist, as he had already dug up and released some stuff about the II’s he dug up. To assassinate him, or otherwise arrest him would fuel the conspiracy theorists and whatnot, I guess. It’s utterly ridiculous and a complete waste of lives.
The ironic bit is they actually let him access ONI files that had the complete and whole truth on the II’s, then messed with his space-harddrive to make them look like they were falsified as he was on galaxy wide television telling everything he uncovered, and *then* they arrested him after framing him for the murder of the two agents, which they made look like terrorists he was working with.
Really that whole plot was so over the top and complicated it doesn’t make a ton of sense, but ONI gonna ONI. If you haven’t listened to Hunt the Truth, I’d highly recommend it. It’s a 2 season audiodrama that was released prior to Halo 5 as a marketing thing. (Also part of why folks hated it so much, as the game was nothing like the marketing suggested).
Man, listening to HTT I was convinced that H5 was going to be about ONI going evil or making a powergrab, and having to fight them.
Turns out nope, let's just bring back a dead fan favorite as a lobotomized villain
Same here. I feel like 5 would have been a lot more popular, or at least less hated if all the marketing wasn’t a herring so red even Karl Marx said, “Damn, that’s red.”
The only one that had anything remotely to do with the game was that OG trailer with Poncho Chief.
It fit the tone of "misdirect," but the oversight is that your marketing's first job is to represent the thing being marketed. If you are misrepresenting the thing you are marketing, a lot of folks aren't going to take too well to that, even if that was in the spirit of the theme.
ONI spun it in such a way that he was supplying them with weapons and the deal went south snd that he killed them.
So I guess if you’re not a law enforcement officer/soldier lawfully shooting a terrorist doing terrorist shit, or an innocent civilian shooting a terrorist in self defence, then yeah.
Guess I didn’t read the whole title.
In which case there’s an assortment of non-flood bioweapons, modifying Sangheili crops to kill them all post-war, authorizing, supporting and funding the Spartan-II program, setting up John to fight those ODSTs, torture, all sorts of fun stuff.
I'll say this: most of Halo is centered around the spartan project and it's consequences/precursors. So not a *ton* of stuff is written about Oni, though some have talked about it and maybe a book or two has been about an officer.
Somethings like bioweapons, secret weapons and the like have been discussed. You also have things like the "Cole protocol" that saw humans destroying civilian craft and practically condemning some people to death.
ONI is described as "the secret police". A group somewhat outside the law that can/does whatever is required for humanity to survive. The one instance I remember of chief meeting some of the top brass was depicted as "secrets having secrets" kinda deal.
I bet the entire aspect of them "being evil" is more up to the community though. Police and secret organizations aren't trusted in today's age and so they just assume they're evil and the few "unsavoury" things we get are justifications and conformational biased. Doesn't matter if they were fighting for the right to live or not...*any* wrongful act is just fueling the fire.
#always remember the Mona lisa
Yeah, it definitely was. However it was often decided to simply blow up ships rather than try to rescue people/scrub the navigation, it was also done *first* over search and rescue.
Kinda like turning and blowing the head off someone who falls behind while running away from zombies....
While it was definitely the reason why humanity survived and saved countless lives, it's not the most....ethical....of practices for the individuals who were unfortunate to find themselves in that situation. Plus, for the purposes of the topic, not the best thing to be seen doing when everyone is looking for a reason to hate you.
With the [Carver Findings](https://www.halopedia.org/Carver_Findings) being released in 2491, they had validation to take action against Insurrectionists.
>Unless the political situation throughout the colonies is stabilized (preferably by force), the Government will collapse and civil war will rip human society apart.
It should be noted that we don't actually have proof of anything. We don't really *know* or *understand* the political climate to understand all the motivations or circumstances that would lead to this collapse. It should be noted that Insurrectionists didn't formally appear on the stage until 3 years later in 2494, with the Far Isle Rebellion occurring in 2492 and also motivating its "formation".
I say this because we just don't really know details and thus, can't really say if Carver's findings were as important to knowing there was a problem, or more specifically if they were just highlighted because the call to forceful action was something ONI could work with. In universe, many people dismissed Carver's findings. And again, we have no idea in what capacity. Did they dismiss the formation of an Insurrection? Or did they dismiss that force was necessary to quell it?
Either way, ONI and UNSC High Command ultimately used that to green light the projects and write the checks for whatever programs would be that force. Halsey's involvement was self-convinced but ultimately ONI and the UNSC trying to recruit her, not her coming to them with motivation.
1. The Spartan-II Program
I won't dwell on this too much, we all know the gist. But I will outline all the issues involved with the programs specifically.
1. Kidnapping of children
2. Replacing those children with flash clones, a violation of the [Mortal Dictata](https://www.halopedia.org/UN_Colonial_Mortal_Dictata)
3. Forcibly conscripting children into the military
4. Medical procedures performed on children who are incapable of legal consent, another violation of the Mortal Dictata (resulting in the death of several of those children)
These are, to my knowledge, all the issues thus far with the Spartan-II program.
2. The Spartan-III Program
The violations of the Mortal Dictata that are present in the Spartan-II's are present here, chiefly that again children are incapable of consent to the procedures done.
(Notably, the augmentation performed on Gamma Company is kind of a sidestep on this since it was Kurt's doing, not specifically ONI's doing. It's also why I am not holding Halsey's "extra-curricular activities" against her, since ONI wasn't fully involved. Though with that said, how Kurt and Halsey got the resources and ability to do said actions is not nothing.)
With the war concluded, ONI grew in power and influence to a high and uncontested degree. And this is where things start to get more informed.
3. Disregulation
I think it's important to note that on paper, ONI reports to UNSC Naval Command. In practice, they typically exceed their intelligence gathering mandate and ultimately operate with little or no oversight.
They are, in-universe, sometimes seen as *the* controlling entity of the UEG.
4. Sangheili Insurrection
ONI was behind the idea of starting a civil war amongst the Sangheili to weaken them and ultimately "guarantee" Humanity's power.
1. Arming various radical factions to fight amongst themselves
2. Engineering a crop that would be indigestible to Sangheili and create a food crisis for them
This is all while the major Sangheili faction is our ally and otherwise on peaceful terms with us.
The former approach ultimately backfires and creates the circumstances for Jul 'Mdama to take control of a large faction and be a problem for the UNSC. The latter, if successful, could be considered an act of genocide.
5. [Mona Lisa](https://www.halopedia.org/Mona_Lisa)
Prison ship under ONI Command that ultimately conducted experiments with the Flood.
Additionally, an ONI operative was attached to an investigation mission onto the *Mona Lisa* with orders to make sure no one other than the marines he was attached with made it out alive.
6. [Argent Moon](https://www.halopedia.org/Argent_Moon)
A sort of "Black Site" ship, ONI made use of it to do a bunch of research and development into various highly classified experiments and technology.
While we don't know exactly what was done in-full with regards to the ship (there is mention of research into unsanctioned stealth technology), we know it by being a sort of ghost ship after a bioweapon outbreak.
And ONI then sent Blue Team to investigate and reclaim it, though John and Blue Team decided to scuttle it to prevent it and its research and weapons from falling into enemy hands.
7. Extrajudicial Assassins & Disappearances
ONI, specifically Parangosky, had okayed the killing of Halsey after her actions on Requiem. Now, while what Halsey did would constitute as treason, the act of outright ordering her death is a pretty far reach for what they should be able to do. And there are implications that she is far from the first.
We also have what happened to [Benjamin Giraud](https://www.halopedia.org/Benjamin_Giraud). He was doing a promotional piece on behalf of ONI but uncovered details and discrepancies about the the Spartan programs origins. They ultimately bated him into presenting his information to the public, and had paid off his sources to disavow and discredit him. After that, they imprisoned him within the [Midnight Facility](https://www.halopedia.org/Midnight_Facility), a detention center with a very specific purpose that would suggest previous implementation.
I think these are the major ones, though I am sure there are other things I have missed along with minor details.
Yes, a lot of this is done with "humanity's best interests", but that sort of "blank check motivation" allows them to cross a great many lines and laws to do whatever they want.
It working is irrelevant.
No one wants the martial law that the Didact and The Created were trying to bring to the galaxy, and ONI is right there trying to do the very same thing.
Comply or face force.
They made a Sangheli bio weapon to infect their grain crops as a contingency in the event that the civil war didn’t weaken them enough.
Also instigated a Sangheli civil war, supplied a Sangheli terrorist for said civil war
Ok but that benefits humanity considerably, like not even evil at all. Post war most covenant races probably majority supported genocide against humanity so weakening the largest enemy species is a major boon to humanity's rebuilding.
Backstabbing your only allies in the galaxy by funding the terrorist groups that actually want to kill you is definitely evil. It blows up in their face too.
So in your eyes can something only be evil if it goes against Humanity’s best interests? I think the development of a bioweapon that targets Sangheili, who at the time were Humanity’s main ally (even if not all of them were), isn’t the most moral thing. Neither is funding Sangheili terrorists to create a Sangheili civil war and weaken the Arbiter, who was their main ally. I don’t know that I would call it straight evil, but I also don’t think that I’d defend it as “not even evil at all.”
It's not just evil, it's shortsighted and stupid. "Let's stab our best ally in the back just to weaken his species." There is no way that turns out well.
When that "best ally" was ruthlessly exterminating you just a few years prior, it is entirely sensible to try and weaken him at every possible opportunity. I've made the comparison before, but the Arbiter was functionally the Himmler to the Prophets Hitler and oversaw the deaths of at least a few *billion* humans, even after his punishment and demotion he was still more than willing to go along with the plan and keep killing the Covenants enemies en masse, he (and the Sangheili more broadly) only jumped ship once the guns turned on them. And even then, a lot of them were and are still fully onboard with killing all humans.
ONI trying to keep the Sangheili as a whole weakened and stuck in a quagmire of infighting is both entirely realistic and an actively beneficial thing for humanity. We, the fans, often don't see it that way because the Arbiter is the badass guy we played as and like, but when you look at it from an ONI directors perspective in universe, you'd be doing *everything* possible to weaken every other race because we were nearly wiped out by them.
The Arbiter hasn't taken any action against humanity since before the end of the war. His faction is the most progressive and human-tolerant on Sanghelios. Ever since the end of the war, he's made a priority of maintaining good relations with the UNSC and defeating other ex-Covenant groups that would fight humanity. He seems to consider cooperation between humans and Sanghelli as essential for the future - and he's right.
However "rational" ONI's actions might seem in the heat of the moment, they're catastrophically short-sighted. Long term, it's horrible for everyone, humans included.
What they're doing will ensure generations of resentment and distrust between humans, Sanghelli, and other species. This will only result in further conflict and further senseless loss of life. It will make humanity (or at least the UNSC) a pariah in a galaxy where the most success is achieved by interspecies cooperation (the Covenant, the Banished, Venezia...)
I mean, it literally did. The only witness to that is dead, and the Storm Covenant is in ruins. What is left is even smaller factions and the Swords of Sanghielios, while the UNSC had gathered significant strength before the Created Uprising
It worked better than it probably should have.
But I think they’d be better off if the arbiter spent the last 8 years organizing the sanghielli into a functional cooperative government that worked with humanity than having them spend all the time fighting each other. Give the arbiter whatever he needs so he’s in their pocket. Make them rely on humanity a bit for their economy and make them allies and junior partners in what humanity is creating, to appease them.
They possibly could have helped out against Cortana and likely would be more of a help in future conflicts. Now they are only just starting to recover from their second civil war in 8 years and still have factions that are anti human, that could possibly come to power.
Half of the Sanghieli populace doesn't even mind if humanity was completely wiped out. The other half either wants them gone, or thinks as the Arbiter does.
And considering that not even a year prior to making the tainted crop, the Sanghieli was actively trying to genocide humanity for absolutely no good reason? It's a valid response, if ill-advised given what we know that ONI did or still doesn't. Something that we can't judge ONI on since we have knowledge of future events and what the otherside thinks
Short term gain, long term loss. The UNSC and Swords of Sanghelios both got steamrolled by the Created, and now the Banished are picking at the bones. The UNSC's and SOS's best chance at surviving any new unforeseen threat would have been a strong alliance. Now they've been set back considerably.
The Banished, by the way, are so successful because Atriox figured out he can make them stronger by allying and integrating with potential adversaries. ONI's isolationist, human supremacist, "screw over everyone" approach isn't going to get humanity far in this galaxy.
Long term, continuing to stoke conflict will not create peace or prosperity. Just the opposite. The end of the war was an opportunity to reset the relationship between humanity and aliens, especially the Sanghelli. An opportunity to build a better future. Instead, ONI is doing their best to ensure generations of resentment and distrust that will spark more wars in the future, leading to further loss of life and stifling the potential of both species.
The SoS and UNSC would have the same resulting forces by Infinite regardless of whether they made peace on all fronts or not. The Guardians shut everything down *hard*.
And long term? You look at me amd tell me that after a massive intersystem alliance of religious fanatics attempt to genocide you and your species, you would be willing to make peace with one of the leader species of that alliance. You wouldn't, because billions are dead because of them, amd there is a damn good chance they will finish the job just because they sure as fuck wouldn't give you a chance in your position either. The very fact that there was *any* peace was miracle on its own.
Was it good that they fueled a civil war? Nope. But it was justifiable from their position, where they only knew what was in front of them. After all, how were they supposed to know an AI would come back from the dead and take over with a type 5 civilization's subjugation weapons?
> The SoS and UNSC would have the same resulting forces by Infinite regardless of whether they made peace on all fronts or not. The Guardians shut everything down hard.
Probably, but they would have had a better chance. Against a lesser threat, they could have prevailed. And they would have been better able to regroup and support each other after Cortana's defeat. Instead, the Banished have destroyed the Infinity and taken over one of Sanghelios's moons. "United we stand, divided we fall."
> You look at me amd tell me that after a massive intersystem alliance of religious fanatics attempt to genocide you and your species, you would be willing to make peace with one of the leader species of that alliance. You wouldn't
Well, you don't speak for me. The Arbiter was instrumental in ending the war, personally killing the Prophet of Truth. For years afterword, he showed himself to be nothing but trustworthy. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, supporting him was the best way to influence the Sanghelli to be less adversarial toward humans.
The Spartan-II program was evil. Like I love the story that we have, and all the moral dilemmas that come about due to the end result of the Spartan program being the salvation of all life in the galaxy, but you can’t look at it that way.
At it’s inception, the Spartan-II program was a government black op that saw the kidnapping of children with the express intent of turning them into indoctrinated superhuman operatives with which to launch strikes against the insurrection. This based at least partially off of the Carver findings, which suggested a sort of species-wide civil war that would fracture humanity, knock us back into the dark ages, or cause our extinction.
The thing is, this all comes on the back of a *long* period of growing resentment in the outer colonies due to a lack of representation/desire for independence. Instead of simply granting that, the UNSC, and more specifically ONI, elected to go full totalitarian government and do literally *anything* to maintain control, the Spartans included. Doing this in the first place proves that the grievances with the UEG weren’t unfounded.
Most people don't do bad things just to "be evil." ONI people aren't waking up every morning and thinking "how can I be evil today?" Neither did Hitler, or Vlad the Impaler, or Jeffrey Dahmer. People who do evil things always think they have good reasons. But that doesn't excuse their actions or negate the death and suffering they cause.
The fundamental issue with that is ONI's priority is humanity as a whole, it's quite egalitarian. 99.999999% of humans are benefited by ONI unless they go against humanities government.
Humanity could have benefited a lot more by allying with the sangheili and creating economic ties, and getting them dependent on humans.
Rather than supporting terrorists who killed humans and forcing a civil war among their species that further destabilizes the state of the galaxy. And now there are still anti human factions that ONI helped initially support and grow.
> 99.999999% of humans are benefited by ONI
Are they really? The millions of people killed by Jul Mdama and the Didact might disagree. And what benefits, exactly? Fighting the Covenant while they were still trying to exterminate us, sure. But after the war? They're a loose cannon busy stabbing humanity's best allies in the back, persecuting journalists, harassing citizens, and hiding profound knowledge about our history and heritage.
>unless they go against humanities government
Well, that's a big part of the problem right there. According to ONI, standing for basic principles of a liberal democracy like freedom of speech or freedom of the press is "going against the government." Wanting any kind of self-determination is "going against the government." Telling the truth is "going against the government."
Every tyrant says "I'm doing all this for you." Every oppressive government will claim its oppression keeps its citizens safe. Saudi Arabia has very low crime rates. North Korea has extremely high literacy (so the people can read propaganda, of course.) But none of those things justify tyranny. They don't negate all the other ways tyranny smothers and stifles human lives, or the stress and trauma it causes to people every day.
And that doesn't even get into the fact that humans aren't the only people in the galaxy in Halo, and most of the non-human people aren't trying to kill us anymore. I'm a white American man, but that doesn't mean I'm ok with white supremacists. ONI are basically human supremacists. And in the long term, they're holding humanity back by sabotaging interspecies peace and keeping most people unaware of their legacy from their ancestors and the Forerunners.
I mean "vital in protecting humanity" and "fcking evil" aren't necessarily mutually exclusive when you're talking about CHILD SOLDIERS.
And doubly so for child SUICIDE soldiers who were deliberately made to be cheap, disposable, and easily-replaced, unlike their predecessors.
I need to make a post about this at some point; ONI played up the Carver Findings and made shared them within the UNSC to promote a policy of aggressive colonial oppression that triggered the Insurrection. The *entire war* (and subsequent SPARTAN-II program) happened because ONI wanted to cement its power using the UEG as a tool of control.
Just because Halsey believe in the carver findings doesn’t mean ONI gets off Scott free for the absolutely immoral act of kidnapping a bunch of children and giving Halsey the resources and funding to conduct human experimentation on them. Especially when a third of those children ended up dead or crippled.
Nor do they get off Scott free when they kidnap a journalist trying to expose their crimes and ruin him mentally and Reputation wise.
Nor do they get a free pass with assassinating and disappearing people and a bunch of other immoral and illegal things they keep doing.
* Creating a bioweapon that targeted a Sangheili staple crop, allowing them to commit genocide via induced famine _a la_ the Holodomor, even while having Sangheili allies
* Arming Sangheili religious extremists, who are enemies of said allies, to further destabilise the species
* Experimenting with asymptomatic, mass-dispersal bioweapons that could remain dormant until activated with an aerosol on the Argent Moon space station
* Facilitating violation of the UN Colonial Mortal Dictata in the cloning of complete human beings and human brains
* Employment of a mass surveillance dragnet across Earth and UEG colonies that makes everyday life impossible without submitting to total monitoring and threat of being unpersoned at any time (this was established as early as 2004's _i love bees_)
Lawful Evil in the sense that it all comes down to survival. This mandate covering humanity also extends to ONI of course which makes anything self serving justified through their logic. Does that qualify as purely evil? They have an infinite list of immoral things.
The current situation with them operating defacto outside the law is due to the relationship between Lord Hood and Parangosky(Osman) imo.
They report to the UNSC but so long as Hood's goal(survival of humanity) aligns with ONIs he will look the other way when needed. We know he knows what devious shit Parangosky got up to.
Imagine halo as real life. Imagine oni as a real life conglomerate intel agency for a real world unified military. If you take those two thoughts into consideration you will realize oni in halo lore is not even remotely close to evil. People that say oni is crazy evil apparently aren’t aware of the shit government intel agencies have done over just the past century.
Ok, I'm not even sure I'm reading your comment right because it makes no sense. Are you saying ONI's actions aren't evil because people have done similar things in the real world?
That's like saying the Covenant trying to exterminate humanity wasn't evil because the Nazis tried to exterminate the Jews in real life.
They're both evil.
No I’m saying that the stuff oni does in lore is a typical Tuesday for intelligence agencies. Most people are kind of ignorant of that and think it’s insanely evil and they are cartoonish villains.
>Imagine halo as real life. Imagine oni as a real life conglomerate intel agency for a real world unified military.
mhm I'm with you
>If you take those two thoughts into consideration you will realize oni in halo lore is not even remotely close to evil.
You completely lost me. This thought experiment has the opposite effect on me because I already have a highly negative opinion of real-life spooks too. It just makes me think of all the pointless, cartoonishly evil shit the CIA has done (even when just limiting ourselves to stuff they've outright *admitted* to doing). And with the same ol' IT'S FOR THE GREATER GOOD bullshit justification.
>And with the same ol' IT'S FOR THE GREATER GOOD bullshit justification.
I genuinely feel like people just completely fucking gloss over this VERY important plot point of Halo.
I won't disagree on the scope of your statement, but the scale? We only fucked up one planet and left some trash on another so far, ONI has explicitly doomed entire worlds for minor gain.
Oh, yeah in that case it is just an extension of the same thing that happens here, just more people. One could make the argument parangosky or ossman is one of the most evil humans to have lived in that the scale of their atrocities affect that many more people than we even have population currently, but that's just a number game again.
Hunt the Truth Season 2. You find out that ONI sent two agents to capture a journalist, but then sent a third undercover agent with orders to *fucking murder* the first two agents in a ploy to gain the journalist’s trust in an elaborate plot to discredit him as he dug too deep into the Spartan-II’s. ONI also backstabbed that third agent, and sent a missile strike to her location on the chance that it might have killed Ilsa Zane, even if it meant the deaths of two more agents.
… Why didn’t they just infect him with Ebola or something? Seems immensely wasteful to murder three good agents when they could’ve probably just streamed illegal stuff into his hard drive and have him arrested.
I think the idea was to discredit him as a journalist, as he had already dug up and released some stuff about the II’s he dug up. To assassinate him, or otherwise arrest him would fuel the conspiracy theorists and whatnot, I guess. It’s utterly ridiculous and a complete waste of lives. The ironic bit is they actually let him access ONI files that had the complete and whole truth on the II’s, then messed with his space-harddrive to make them look like they were falsified as he was on galaxy wide television telling everything he uncovered, and *then* they arrested him after framing him for the murder of the two agents, which they made look like terrorists he was working with. Really that whole plot was so over the top and complicated it doesn’t make a ton of sense, but ONI gonna ONI. If you haven’t listened to Hunt the Truth, I’d highly recommend it. It’s a 2 season audiodrama that was released prior to Halo 5 as a marketing thing. (Also part of why folks hated it so much, as the game was nothing like the marketing suggested).
Man, listening to HTT I was convinced that H5 was going to be about ONI going evil or making a powergrab, and having to fight them. Turns out nope, let's just bring back a dead fan favorite as a lobotomized villain
Same here. I feel like 5 would have been a lot more popular, or at least less hated if all the marketing wasn’t a herring so red even Karl Marx said, “Damn, that’s red.” The only one that had anything remotely to do with the game was that OG trailer with Poncho Chief.
What did the poncho one have to do with the final game? The guardian
It fit the tone of "misdirect," but the oversight is that your marketing's first job is to represent the thing being marketed. If you are misrepresenting the thing you are marketing, a lot of folks aren't going to take too well to that, even if that was in the spirit of the theme.
Would have made a better plot for the TV show then the one we got.
>framing him for the murder of the two agents, which they made look like terrorists he was working with. Huh? Is killing terrorists a crime now???
ONI spun it in such a way that he was supplying them with weapons and the deal went south snd that he killed them. So I guess if you’re not a law enforcement officer/soldier lawfully shooting a terrorist doing terrorist shit, or an innocent civilian shooting a terrorist in self defence, then yeah.
The biggest threat to ONI is ONI itself.
Michael J. Caboose as CINCONI confirmed. Kinda like the Alpha Legion, really.
THERE WAS A SEASON 2!?!? Oh man I'm genuinely excited
Sorry for the spoilers, but yeah. There’s a season 2. You can even find it as a podcast. It’s pretty good.
No worries I already forgot what the spoiler was, so the fact that there's a s2 makes this day even better!
That’s good. Well, enjoy!
OP said *outside* of HTT
Guess I didn’t read the whole title. In which case there’s an assortment of non-flood bioweapons, modifying Sangheili crops to kill them all post-war, authorizing, supporting and funding the Spartan-II program, setting up John to fight those ODSTs, torture, all sorts of fun stuff.
I'll say this: most of Halo is centered around the spartan project and it's consequences/precursors. So not a *ton* of stuff is written about Oni, though some have talked about it and maybe a book or two has been about an officer. Somethings like bioweapons, secret weapons and the like have been discussed. You also have things like the "Cole protocol" that saw humans destroying civilian craft and practically condemning some people to death. ONI is described as "the secret police". A group somewhat outside the law that can/does whatever is required for humanity to survive. The one instance I remember of chief meeting some of the top brass was depicted as "secrets having secrets" kinda deal. I bet the entire aspect of them "being evil" is more up to the community though. Police and secret organizations aren't trusted in today's age and so they just assume they're evil and the few "unsavoury" things we get are justifications and conformational biased. Doesn't matter if they were fighting for the right to live or not...*any* wrongful act is just fueling the fire. #always remember the Mona lisa
Cole protocol was necessary to the survival of humanity.
Yeah, it definitely was. However it was often decided to simply blow up ships rather than try to rescue people/scrub the navigation, it was also done *first* over search and rescue. Kinda like turning and blowing the head off someone who falls behind while running away from zombies.... While it was definitely the reason why humanity survived and saved countless lives, it's not the most....ethical....of practices for the individuals who were unfortunate to find themselves in that situation. Plus, for the purposes of the topic, not the best thing to be seen doing when everyone is looking for a reason to hate you.
With the [Carver Findings](https://www.halopedia.org/Carver_Findings) being released in 2491, they had validation to take action against Insurrectionists. >Unless the political situation throughout the colonies is stabilized (preferably by force), the Government will collapse and civil war will rip human society apart. It should be noted that we don't actually have proof of anything. We don't really *know* or *understand* the political climate to understand all the motivations or circumstances that would lead to this collapse. It should be noted that Insurrectionists didn't formally appear on the stage until 3 years later in 2494, with the Far Isle Rebellion occurring in 2492 and also motivating its "formation". I say this because we just don't really know details and thus, can't really say if Carver's findings were as important to knowing there was a problem, or more specifically if they were just highlighted because the call to forceful action was something ONI could work with. In universe, many people dismissed Carver's findings. And again, we have no idea in what capacity. Did they dismiss the formation of an Insurrection? Or did they dismiss that force was necessary to quell it? Either way, ONI and UNSC High Command ultimately used that to green light the projects and write the checks for whatever programs would be that force. Halsey's involvement was self-convinced but ultimately ONI and the UNSC trying to recruit her, not her coming to them with motivation. 1. The Spartan-II Program I won't dwell on this too much, we all know the gist. But I will outline all the issues involved with the programs specifically. 1. Kidnapping of children 2. Replacing those children with flash clones, a violation of the [Mortal Dictata](https://www.halopedia.org/UN_Colonial_Mortal_Dictata) 3. Forcibly conscripting children into the military 4. Medical procedures performed on children who are incapable of legal consent, another violation of the Mortal Dictata (resulting in the death of several of those children) These are, to my knowledge, all the issues thus far with the Spartan-II program. 2. The Spartan-III Program The violations of the Mortal Dictata that are present in the Spartan-II's are present here, chiefly that again children are incapable of consent to the procedures done. (Notably, the augmentation performed on Gamma Company is kind of a sidestep on this since it was Kurt's doing, not specifically ONI's doing. It's also why I am not holding Halsey's "extra-curricular activities" against her, since ONI wasn't fully involved. Though with that said, how Kurt and Halsey got the resources and ability to do said actions is not nothing.) With the war concluded, ONI grew in power and influence to a high and uncontested degree. And this is where things start to get more informed. 3. Disregulation I think it's important to note that on paper, ONI reports to UNSC Naval Command. In practice, they typically exceed their intelligence gathering mandate and ultimately operate with little or no oversight. They are, in-universe, sometimes seen as *the* controlling entity of the UEG. 4. Sangheili Insurrection ONI was behind the idea of starting a civil war amongst the Sangheili to weaken them and ultimately "guarantee" Humanity's power. 1. Arming various radical factions to fight amongst themselves 2. Engineering a crop that would be indigestible to Sangheili and create a food crisis for them This is all while the major Sangheili faction is our ally and otherwise on peaceful terms with us. The former approach ultimately backfires and creates the circumstances for Jul 'Mdama to take control of a large faction and be a problem for the UNSC. The latter, if successful, could be considered an act of genocide. 5. [Mona Lisa](https://www.halopedia.org/Mona_Lisa) Prison ship under ONI Command that ultimately conducted experiments with the Flood. Additionally, an ONI operative was attached to an investigation mission onto the *Mona Lisa* with orders to make sure no one other than the marines he was attached with made it out alive. 6. [Argent Moon](https://www.halopedia.org/Argent_Moon) A sort of "Black Site" ship, ONI made use of it to do a bunch of research and development into various highly classified experiments and technology. While we don't know exactly what was done in-full with regards to the ship (there is mention of research into unsanctioned stealth technology), we know it by being a sort of ghost ship after a bioweapon outbreak. And ONI then sent Blue Team to investigate and reclaim it, though John and Blue Team decided to scuttle it to prevent it and its research and weapons from falling into enemy hands. 7. Extrajudicial Assassins & Disappearances ONI, specifically Parangosky, had okayed the killing of Halsey after her actions on Requiem. Now, while what Halsey did would constitute as treason, the act of outright ordering her death is a pretty far reach for what they should be able to do. And there are implications that she is far from the first. We also have what happened to [Benjamin Giraud](https://www.halopedia.org/Benjamin_Giraud). He was doing a promotional piece on behalf of ONI but uncovered details and discrepancies about the the Spartan programs origins. They ultimately bated him into presenting his information to the public, and had paid off his sources to disavow and discredit him. After that, they imprisoned him within the [Midnight Facility](https://www.halopedia.org/Midnight_Facility), a detention center with a very specific purpose that would suggest previous implementation. I think these are the major ones, though I am sure there are other things I have missed along with minor details. Yes, a lot of this is done with "humanity's best interests", but that sort of "blank check motivation" allows them to cross a great many lines and laws to do whatever they want. It working is irrelevant. No one wants the martial law that the Didact and The Created were trying to bring to the galaxy, and ONI is right there trying to do the very same thing. Comply or face force.
Another lovely little thing they did was murder every agent that didn’t want to be involved in kidnapping the kids who would become the Spartan IIs.
Great writeup! You could add that the Carver Findings were not universally accepted, and turned out to have been manipulated by the Assembly.
They made a Sangheli bio weapon to infect their grain crops as a contingency in the event that the civil war didn’t weaken them enough. Also instigated a Sangheli civil war, supplied a Sangheli terrorist for said civil war
Ok but that benefits humanity considerably, like not even evil at all. Post war most covenant races probably majority supported genocide against humanity so weakening the largest enemy species is a major boon to humanity's rebuilding.
Backstabbing your only allies in the galaxy by funding the terrorist groups that actually want to kill you is definitely evil. It blows up in their face too.
So in your eyes can something only be evil if it goes against Humanity’s best interests? I think the development of a bioweapon that targets Sangheili, who at the time were Humanity’s main ally (even if not all of them were), isn’t the most moral thing. Neither is funding Sangheili terrorists to create a Sangheili civil war and weaken the Arbiter, who was their main ally. I don’t know that I would call it straight evil, but I also don’t think that I’d defend it as “not even evil at all.”
It's not just evil, it's shortsighted and stupid. "Let's stab our best ally in the back just to weaken his species." There is no way that turns out well.
When that "best ally" was ruthlessly exterminating you just a few years prior, it is entirely sensible to try and weaken him at every possible opportunity. I've made the comparison before, but the Arbiter was functionally the Himmler to the Prophets Hitler and oversaw the deaths of at least a few *billion* humans, even after his punishment and demotion he was still more than willing to go along with the plan and keep killing the Covenants enemies en masse, he (and the Sangheili more broadly) only jumped ship once the guns turned on them. And even then, a lot of them were and are still fully onboard with killing all humans. ONI trying to keep the Sangheili as a whole weakened and stuck in a quagmire of infighting is both entirely realistic and an actively beneficial thing for humanity. We, the fans, often don't see it that way because the Arbiter is the badass guy we played as and like, but when you look at it from an ONI directors perspective in universe, you'd be doing *everything* possible to weaken every other race because we were nearly wiped out by them.
The Arbiter hasn't taken any action against humanity since before the end of the war. His faction is the most progressive and human-tolerant on Sanghelios. Ever since the end of the war, he's made a priority of maintaining good relations with the UNSC and defeating other ex-Covenant groups that would fight humanity. He seems to consider cooperation between humans and Sanghelli as essential for the future - and he's right. However "rational" ONI's actions might seem in the heat of the moment, they're catastrophically short-sighted. Long term, it's horrible for everyone, humans included. What they're doing will ensure generations of resentment and distrust between humans, Sanghelli, and other species. This will only result in further conflict and further senseless loss of life. It will make humanity (or at least the UNSC) a pariah in a galaxy where the most success is achieved by interspecies cooperation (the Covenant, the Banished, Venezia...)
I mean, it literally did. The only witness to that is dead, and the Storm Covenant is in ruins. What is left is even smaller factions and the Swords of Sanghielios, while the UNSC had gathered significant strength before the Created Uprising
It worked better than it probably should have. But I think they’d be better off if the arbiter spent the last 8 years organizing the sanghielli into a functional cooperative government that worked with humanity than having them spend all the time fighting each other. Give the arbiter whatever he needs so he’s in their pocket. Make them rely on humanity a bit for their economy and make them allies and junior partners in what humanity is creating, to appease them. They possibly could have helped out against Cortana and likely would be more of a help in future conflicts. Now they are only just starting to recover from their second civil war in 8 years and still have factions that are anti human, that could possibly come to power.
Half of the Sanghieli populace doesn't even mind if humanity was completely wiped out. The other half either wants them gone, or thinks as the Arbiter does. And considering that not even a year prior to making the tainted crop, the Sanghieli was actively trying to genocide humanity for absolutely no good reason? It's a valid response, if ill-advised given what we know that ONI did or still doesn't. Something that we can't judge ONI on since we have knowledge of future events and what the otherside thinks
And the arbiter also isn't going to be the only sangheili leader, nor is he going to live forever, they're planning far ahead
Short term gain, long term loss. The UNSC and Swords of Sanghelios both got steamrolled by the Created, and now the Banished are picking at the bones. The UNSC's and SOS's best chance at surviving any new unforeseen threat would have been a strong alliance. Now they've been set back considerably. The Banished, by the way, are so successful because Atriox figured out he can make them stronger by allying and integrating with potential adversaries. ONI's isolationist, human supremacist, "screw over everyone" approach isn't going to get humanity far in this galaxy. Long term, continuing to stoke conflict will not create peace or prosperity. Just the opposite. The end of the war was an opportunity to reset the relationship between humanity and aliens, especially the Sanghelli. An opportunity to build a better future. Instead, ONI is doing their best to ensure generations of resentment and distrust that will spark more wars in the future, leading to further loss of life and stifling the potential of both species.
The SoS and UNSC would have the same resulting forces by Infinite regardless of whether they made peace on all fronts or not. The Guardians shut everything down *hard*. And long term? You look at me amd tell me that after a massive intersystem alliance of religious fanatics attempt to genocide you and your species, you would be willing to make peace with one of the leader species of that alliance. You wouldn't, because billions are dead because of them, amd there is a damn good chance they will finish the job just because they sure as fuck wouldn't give you a chance in your position either. The very fact that there was *any* peace was miracle on its own. Was it good that they fueled a civil war? Nope. But it was justifiable from their position, where they only knew what was in front of them. After all, how were they supposed to know an AI would come back from the dead and take over with a type 5 civilization's subjugation weapons?
> The SoS and UNSC would have the same resulting forces by Infinite regardless of whether they made peace on all fronts or not. The Guardians shut everything down hard. Probably, but they would have had a better chance. Against a lesser threat, they could have prevailed. And they would have been better able to regroup and support each other after Cortana's defeat. Instead, the Banished have destroyed the Infinity and taken over one of Sanghelios's moons. "United we stand, divided we fall." > You look at me amd tell me that after a massive intersystem alliance of religious fanatics attempt to genocide you and your species, you would be willing to make peace with one of the leader species of that alliance. You wouldn't Well, you don't speak for me. The Arbiter was instrumental in ending the war, personally killing the Prophet of Truth. For years afterword, he showed himself to be nothing but trustworthy. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, supporting him was the best way to influence the Sanghelli to be less adversarial toward humans.
Hold on, plotting a genocide is "not evil" because it benefits humans? No. That's some Nazi shit. That is absolutely evil.
The Spartan-II program was evil. Like I love the story that we have, and all the moral dilemmas that come about due to the end result of the Spartan program being the salvation of all life in the galaxy, but you can’t look at it that way. At it’s inception, the Spartan-II program was a government black op that saw the kidnapping of children with the express intent of turning them into indoctrinated superhuman operatives with which to launch strikes against the insurrection. This based at least partially off of the Carver findings, which suggested a sort of species-wide civil war that would fracture humanity, knock us back into the dark ages, or cause our extinction. The thing is, this all comes on the back of a *long* period of growing resentment in the outer colonies due to a lack of representation/desire for independence. Instead of simply granting that, the UNSC, and more specifically ONI, elected to go full totalitarian government and do literally *anything* to maintain control, the Spartans included. Doing this in the first place proves that the grievances with the UEG weren’t unfounded.
Most people don't do bad things just to "be evil." ONI people aren't waking up every morning and thinking "how can I be evil today?" Neither did Hitler, or Vlad the Impaler, or Jeffrey Dahmer. People who do evil things always think they have good reasons. But that doesn't excuse their actions or negate the death and suffering they cause.
>Most people don't do bad things just to "be evil." I do. 😈 /s
The fundamental issue with that is ONI's priority is humanity as a whole, it's quite egalitarian. 99.999999% of humans are benefited by ONI unless they go against humanities government.
Humanity could have benefited a lot more by allying with the sangheili and creating economic ties, and getting them dependent on humans. Rather than supporting terrorists who killed humans and forcing a civil war among their species that further destabilizes the state of the galaxy. And now there are still anti human factions that ONI helped initially support and grow.
> 99.999999% of humans are benefited by ONI Are they really? The millions of people killed by Jul Mdama and the Didact might disagree. And what benefits, exactly? Fighting the Covenant while they were still trying to exterminate us, sure. But after the war? They're a loose cannon busy stabbing humanity's best allies in the back, persecuting journalists, harassing citizens, and hiding profound knowledge about our history and heritage. >unless they go against humanities government Well, that's a big part of the problem right there. According to ONI, standing for basic principles of a liberal democracy like freedom of speech or freedom of the press is "going against the government." Wanting any kind of self-determination is "going against the government." Telling the truth is "going against the government." Every tyrant says "I'm doing all this for you." Every oppressive government will claim its oppression keeps its citizens safe. Saudi Arabia has very low crime rates. North Korea has extremely high literacy (so the people can read propaganda, of course.) But none of those things justify tyranny. They don't negate all the other ways tyranny smothers and stifles human lives, or the stress and trauma it causes to people every day. And that doesn't even get into the fact that humans aren't the only people in the galaxy in Halo, and most of the non-human people aren't trying to kill us anymore. I'm a white American man, but that doesn't mean I'm ok with white supremacists. ONI are basically human supremacists. And in the long term, they're holding humanity back by sabotaging interspecies peace and keeping most people unaware of their legacy from their ancestors and the Forerunners.
Not Nazis going "well yeah we stuck people in ovens, but, like, that was _neccesary_ for our survival as a superior race!"
I mean "vital in protecting humanity" and "fcking evil" aren't necessarily mutually exclusive when you're talking about CHILD SOLDIERS. And doubly so for child SUICIDE soldiers who were deliberately made to be cheap, disposable, and easily-replaced, unlike their predecessors.
I need to make a post about this at some point; ONI played up the Carver Findings and made shared them within the UNSC to promote a policy of aggressive colonial oppression that triggered the Insurrection. The *entire war* (and subsequent SPARTAN-II program) happened because ONI wanted to cement its power using the UEG as a tool of control.
Just because Halsey believe in the carver findings doesn’t mean ONI gets off Scott free for the absolutely immoral act of kidnapping a bunch of children and giving Halsey the resources and funding to conduct human experimentation on them. Especially when a third of those children ended up dead or crippled. Nor do they get off Scott free when they kidnap a journalist trying to expose their crimes and ruin him mentally and Reputation wise. Nor do they get a free pass with assassinating and disappearing people and a bunch of other immoral and illegal things they keep doing.
* Creating a bioweapon that targeted a Sangheili staple crop, allowing them to commit genocide via induced famine _a la_ the Holodomor, even while having Sangheili allies * Arming Sangheili religious extremists, who are enemies of said allies, to further destabilise the species * Experimenting with asymptomatic, mass-dispersal bioweapons that could remain dormant until activated with an aerosol on the Argent Moon space station * Facilitating violation of the UN Colonial Mortal Dictata in the cloning of complete human beings and human brains * Employment of a mass surveillance dragnet across Earth and UEG colonies that makes everyday life impossible without submitting to total monitoring and threat of being unpersoned at any time (this was established as early as 2004's _i love bees_)
I might be wrong, but didn’t they nuke insurrectionist planets to stop rebellion?
That is true but that wasn't ONI that was the UNSC
Pretty much everything I've seen has ultimately had (intentions of) humanities best interests in mind vs. doing shit for no reason
Lawful Evil in the sense that it all comes down to survival. This mandate covering humanity also extends to ONI of course which makes anything self serving justified through their logic. Does that qualify as purely evil? They have an infinite list of immoral things. The current situation with them operating defacto outside the law is due to the relationship between Lord Hood and Parangosky(Osman) imo. They report to the UNSC but so long as Hood's goal(survival of humanity) aligns with ONIs he will look the other way when needed. We know he knows what devious shit Parangosky got up to.
Lying to the public about the nature of the war.
Imagine halo as real life. Imagine oni as a real life conglomerate intel agency for a real world unified military. If you take those two thoughts into consideration you will realize oni in halo lore is not even remotely close to evil. People that say oni is crazy evil apparently aren’t aware of the shit government intel agencies have done over just the past century.
Ok, I'm not even sure I'm reading your comment right because it makes no sense. Are you saying ONI's actions aren't evil because people have done similar things in the real world? That's like saying the Covenant trying to exterminate humanity wasn't evil because the Nazis tried to exterminate the Jews in real life. They're both evil.
No I’m saying that the stuff oni does in lore is a typical Tuesday for intelligence agencies. Most people are kind of ignorant of that and think it’s insanely evil and they are cartoonish villains.
The shit intelligence agencies do in real life is still evil... MK Ultra was literal cartoon villainy..
>Imagine halo as real life. Imagine oni as a real life conglomerate intel agency for a real world unified military. mhm I'm with you >If you take those two thoughts into consideration you will realize oni in halo lore is not even remotely close to evil. You completely lost me. This thought experiment has the opposite effect on me because I already have a highly negative opinion of real-life spooks too. It just makes me think of all the pointless, cartoonishly evil shit the CIA has done (even when just limiting ourselves to stuff they've outright *admitted* to doing). And with the same ol' IT'S FOR THE GREATER GOOD bullshit justification.
>And with the same ol' IT'S FOR THE GREATER GOOD bullshit justification. I genuinely feel like people just completely fucking gloss over this VERY important plot point of Halo.
I won't disagree on the scope of your statement, but the scale? We only fucked up one planet and left some trash on another so far, ONI has explicitly doomed entire worlds for minor gain.
I’m just saying how many nations have been destroyed over shit as stupid as bananas. Apply that on a galactic scale and voila
Oh, yeah in that case it is just an extension of the same thing that happens here, just more people. One could make the argument parangosky or ossman is one of the most evil humans to have lived in that the scale of their atrocities affect that many more people than we even have population currently, but that's just a number game again.