Episodes 01
“Contact”
One night while on his way home from picking up groceries, Nathan Brown’s self-driving car malfunctions and crashes, leaving him mortally wounded. While in the hospital with his vitals rapidly dropping, his wealthy girlfriend Ingrid Kannerman suggests his consciousness be uploaded so that they can still be together. Nathan hastily agrees and goes through the uploading process. At first everything seems fine and Nathan is happy with his new afterlife, until he realizes the many restrictions involved. Nathan is ready to end it all by jumping into a torrent stream and committing “virtucide” until stopped by Nora Antony, his human handler who helps him cope with this new life. As she leaves her desk at the end of her shift, a file folder containing a corrupt memory file of Nathan’s remotely opens and certain files are deleted.
Episodes 02
“Unbound”
In a flashback, a young John catches Soren, a fellow Spartan, fleeing and allows him to escape. In the present, John takes Kwan and the keystone to the Rubble, an Insurrectionist base carved out of a series of broken asteroids. There, they reunite with Soren, who is now an Insurrectionist leader. On Reach, Halsey faces scrutiny over John’s actions but promises a solution to the problem. Captain Keyes dispatches Silver Team to bring back John, the keystone, and Kwan. On High Charity, the surviving Elite from Madrigal reveals to the Prophets and their ward, a human named Makee, that John activated the relic; despite hesitance from the Prophet of Mercy, Makee insists that she can recover the keystone herself. Back on the Rubble, Soren introduces John to Reth, a deranged hermit who was once held captive by the Covenant. Reth forces John to reveal his ability to activate the keystone and hints that it leads to an alien superweapon of unparalleled destructive power. Shaken by the experience, John leaves Kwan with Soren and surrenders to Silver Team. He is consoled by Halsey, who promises a new beginning for him and awakens a flash clone of herself to create Cortana.
Episodes 03
“Emergence”
In a flashback, a young Makee is discovered and inadvertently rescued from torture by the Covenant whose Forerunner device reacts to her. In the present, Makee leads a raid on a UNSC corvette in an attempt to find the location of the Madrigal keystone. With the ship’s data erased, Makee travels to Madrigal where the keystone was originally discovered; she leaves transmissions of her orders behind. On the Rubble, Kwan convinces Soren to take her to Madrigal to reunite with Insurrectionists loyal to her father in exchange for a payment of deuterium. On Reach, Parangosky orders Miranda Keyes to study the keystone behind Halsey’s back. Halsey completes the procedure of creating Cortana and places her in John’s brain via a neural implant. Cortana, following Halsey’s instructions, helps John remove a pellet that suppresses his emotions. After John explores some of the cityscape on Reach, he returns to base and touches the keystone again, where he has memories of his parents, his home on Eridanus II, and drawings of the Madrigal keystone and a complementary keystone. Convinced that the second keystone is located on Eridanus II, John and Halsey travel to Eridanus II to investigate.
Episodes 04
“Homecoming”
On Reach, Kai-125 removes her emotional suppressor pellet and helps Miranda analyze the Madrigal keystone; Kai and Keyes discover that the keystone is related to a “Sacred Ring” that the Covenant call “Halo”. On Madrigal, Kwan discovers her father’s former allies refuse to help, fearing the Covenant and new UNSC-supported governor Vinsher Grath. Soren’s ship is discovered and confiscated; Kwan goes to her aunt for help and learns of a mystical tribe that may have answers for her. Soren and Kwan escape Grath’s troops and head for the spaceport to leave the planet. On Eridanus II, John, Halsey, and Cortana examine John’s old home and find numerous drawings of the Forerunner keystones. After using Cortana to help recreate his home, John has memories of the location of the second keystone, but also his childhood and a visit from Halsey while his parents were alive.
Episodes 05
“Reckoning”
On Madrigal, Soren ties up Kwan while he goes to find a way off the planet, but Kwan frees herself and steals Soren’s pistol and vehicle. On Eridanus II, the UNSC is preparing to secure the keystone and take it back to Reach. As the UNSC is testing the keystone, it releases energy that alerts Makee and the Covenant to its location. As John continues to question his past, he touches the keystone and has clear memories of Halsey and ONI troops kidnapping him as a child and replacing him with a flash clone of himself; in a rage, he attempts to kill Halsey before Cortana disables him using their mental link. As John awakens and contemplates his newfound knowledge, a Covenant corvette arrives and launches a surprise attack. Despite the efforts of Silver Team, the UNSC suffer heavy casualties, Kai is severely wounded, and the Covenant successfully retrieve the Eridanus II keystone and withdraw. As the Covenant corvette escapes the planet, a drop pod containing Makee is left behind.
Episodes 06
“Solace”
The surviving UNSC forces of the Eridanus II mission return to Reach. The UNSC takes Makee into their custody; although she claims to have been a prisoner of the Covenant, the UNSC does not trust her, considering that the Covenant are not known to take human prisoners. When John interrogates Makee, she reveals that they are both “blessed” with the ability to activate Forerunner technology. Makee says the likely location of the second keystone is a Covenant holy planet in the Aspero star system. Due to John and Kai’s behavior following their removal of their emotional suppressors, Parangosky replaces Halsey as leader of all ongoing ONI projects with Miranda. John confronts Halsey and learns the true origins of the Spartan program: kidnapping and conscripting children to serve as supersoldiers, replacing them with terminally ill flash clones to alleviate suspicions, and subjecting them to augmentations with risk of deformation or death; John shares this with a recovering Kai. When John tests the Madrigal keystone once more, despite warnings of the possible ill effects it has on his health, he and Makee simultaneously have arrhythmias and seizures, while also sharing a vision of being on a Halo ringworld together.
Episodes 07
“Inheritance”
While Soren, having returned to the Rubble, engages in space piracy against the UNSC, Kwan ventures into the deserts of Madrigal to track down a reclusive tribe of mystic nomads, hoping for answers about her family’s true purpose. The mystics reveal that when Kwan’s ancestors settled on Madrigal, they were charged by a Forerunner AI with protecting a Forerunner portal that resides somewhere on the planet. Kwan is rejoined by Soren, who came back in order to fulfill his promise to John to look over her, just before the outpost is surrounded by Vinsher Grath and his troops, looking to kill Kwan for the threat that she poses to his power. Despite being heavily outnumbered, Kwan insists upon fighting back. While Soren holds off Grath’s forces, Kwan detonates the outpost’s power supply. The explosion kills Grath and his men; Kwan then pays Soren with money recovered from the outpost’s supplies to honor their original deal. The two part on amicable terms, with Kwan determined to continue her mission and find the portal and take her position as its protector.
Episodes 08
“Allegiance”
John begins to view Makee as a potential ally following their shared visions of the Halo, despite the continued doubts of the UNSC as to her loyalty. John learns the Covenant seek the Halo rings to begin their transcendent “Great Journey”. John is able to convince the UNSC to let Makee test the keystone under Miranda’s supervision. John and Makee have sex; noting John’s kindness and similarity to her, Makee begins to reconsider her loyalties. Halsey initiates remote protocols that disable all comms within the UNSC base and places Spartans Riz and Vannak under her direct control, ordering them to capture John, Makee, and the keystone; Cortana chooses at the last second to warn John instead. Riz and Vannak restrain Kai and attempt to fight John, and Miranda uncovers transmissions of Makee leading the attack on the UNSC corvette. After UNSC troopers restrain and taser her (bringing back memories of her youth), she reaffirms her loyalty to the Covenant, frees herself, and touches the keystone, sending shockwaves throughout the UNSC base, before saying her goodbyes to John via another shared vision.
Episodes 09
“Transcendence”
While Makee escapes Reach, Silver Team enters into a standoff that is only defused when Captain Keyes arrives and reveals to Vannak and Riz the truth about the Spartan program. Kai helps to apprehend Halsey, but Miranda realizes that the “Halsey” that was captured was actually a flash clone of the real Halsey, who secretly escapes from Reach. With Cortana’s help, John deduces the location of the Covenant planet, Raas Kkhotskha, and leads Silver Team on a mission to recover the Forerunner keystones. On Raas Kkhotskha, Silver Team engages Covenant forces. When John is overwhelmed, Makee activates the combined keystones in order to generate a blast to save John, generating a star map leading to Halo, and inadvertently locking John into stasis. When John tries and fails to talk Makee down using another shared vision, Kai frees John from his trance by shooting Makee, shutting down the keystone before it can show Halo’s location. After John takes a fatal hit, Cortana assumes control of John, rescues Silver Team, and escapes with them and both of the keystones. As they depart, Kai asks John if it is really him behind the helmet, but he only glances at her, wordlessly.
