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Someone please explain the story of Halo 1 + 2 to me, given that it's mostly a blur now and my memory has gone to shit. I'm looking for the games only, nothing stated nor implied in any books or anything.
This Flood-Brood-Elite-Covenant-Whatever shit is too confusing to remember.
I beat Halo 2 last night, disappointed that I couldn't get the last prohpet as I'm sure everyone else was and realized I had no fucking clue what just happened, except that the big little shop of horrors guy was Flood.
(What an awful line. Flood-infested dropships start falling from the sky and it's irrevocable proof that the gravemind "tricked" the main characters, when in reality everyone would die if halo was activated anyway, so some trick there.)
The only other things I can remember are: The self-contained fact that the elites and brutes fought in the end, which I could not care about at all, and that the Covenant attacked Earth (Kinda) without knowing it was Earth. I wonder if they were going for the Ark, since it's (barely hinted) that the Ark is on Earth. But there was no damn reason for them to land on Earth besides that. All they did was drive some ghosts and a Scarab around and then jet out.
I actually started it again to help me remember what happened.
Halo 2
Ark + Covenant + Flood = omg LAWL
The Master Chief is this totally awesome robot who crash lands on a planet that is shaped like a Halo, he finds out that the Halo is really a very powerful gun from some other smaller robot that lives in his head. A bunch of aliens are really pissed off at him because he's so awesome. And they fight, then a bunch of zombies come and totally fuck shit up. He meets a floating robot that fucks him over by trying to use the planet gun, so they blow up their old ship that they dont need anymore to destroy it. Then he goes to Earf and the Aliens are still pissed off because their details keep popping in during cutscenes. Then the aliens get pissed at eachother because some are more awesome then others, and the smart aliens find a key to all the planet guns but cant activate it because humans. All of the guns can be activated at the Arc, which is on Earth, so... Then the game ends.
The thread title says "Spoileriffic" hence, no need for Spoiler Tags.
Which ones are the Covenant again?
Fucking a. The strempf of your synopsis is unrivaled.Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
Everyone in the Covenant rebels against everyone else and the Arbiter kicks their asses.
The prophets are really stupid and ineffective, so the prophet of truth runs off to activate all the Halos.
Master Chief does the same thing he did in Halo.
Gravemind manipulates everyone.
You get a clearer idea of what's going on 2nd play, like most games with a bloaded story. I found it a bit much to handle at first, since I didnt get the full politics of things. It's alot more fun the second time, less so on Heroic.
How about an explanation of who those people/things are?Quote:
Originally Posted by sethsez
Oops. Fixed.Quote:
Originally Posted by MVS
So who are:
Brood:
Flood:
Covenant:
So forth?
Okay, here goes, as concise as possible:
The UNSC ship "The Pillar of Autumn" is getting pummeled by a covenant armada that followed them as they fled from Reach, some planet far away. They came out of warp speed near a space installation called Halo, and were forced to crash land there after their ship was battered into submission.
For the rest of the first Halo, Chief and Cortana continue to find out new things about Halo and the Covenant's relationship to it. Apparently, to the Covenant, the Halo(s) have significant religious value to them.
You battle the covenant for control of Halo, only to discover that Halo houses the deadly Flood - a micro-organism that can assimilate other lifeforms easily. Guilty spark, the caretaker of Halo, attempts to have Chief activate Halo to combat the Flood. Chief is unaware that the function of Halo is to eradicate all life in the galaxy, so that the Flood have no hosts to feed upon, and subsequently die.
Too late to realize this, both the human and covenant forces become consumed by the threat. Cortana and chief see no other solution but to blow Halo to smithereens. They return to the Pillar of Autumn, override the engines and sail out on fighter ship just as Halo gets blown into pieces.
I'll put up Halo 2 in a little bit.
The Arbiter = the guy who lead the Covenant in the first Halo (y'know, the ones who got owned by Master Chief).
Gravemind = big plant thing that leads the Flood
Master Chief = the marine from the first two Dooms.
The prophets = religious alien nuts
Covenant = main enemy of the humans
Flood = dumb zombie-esque aliens introduced halfway through Halo that really, really suck
Covenant?
They are the first aliens from Halo? The little things on the ship, etc?
Mostly because, like Halo 1's second play-through, you don't dick around trying to figure out where to go, and you know which weapons to grab to kick full ass on the first try.Quote:
Originally Posted by DjRocca
did we really need yet another halo thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by MVS
covenant=the aliens you spend the entire first game killing....are you dumb or something?
Yeah. They're the only enemies for the first half of Halo.Quote:
Originally Posted by MVS
LOL! IBTNQuote:
Originally Posted by sethsez
Is teh Ark still being kept at the same government warehouse at the end of Raiders?
Okay, now that makes complete sense. Thanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by ViciousJazz
Halo 2 Gravemind :: Soul Reaver Eldar
i like how you have NO CLUE of this during the first game at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by sethsez
You see a previous thread on the story for Halo 1 and 2?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonmaster Dyne
The answer to that question would be the same to the answer of the question: Does dyne do anything other than bitchragfest?
The covenant are a society of alien creatures that organize themselves by religious castes. They're all from different worlds, but are united under this one religion led by the Prophets.Quote:
Originally Posted by MVS
They crusade against the Humans because the prophets dictate them to, under the guise that the humans are against "The Great Journey," which is just a euphamism for activating all the Halos and killing just about everyone.
We are unaware if the prophets know this.
He wasn't important during the first game. He was just some generic Elite. He didn't actually become anyone worth a damn plot-wise until he became the Arbiter in the second game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonmaster Dyne
i just think its funny how you start a thread like this but if anybody else would do it you'd point them to other websites and/or call them dumb.Quote:
Originally Posted by MVS
and bitchragfest yourself. 90% of your posts today so far are bitching about one thing or another and not at all contributing to the threads in any manner.
I think it's funny how you are wrong.
That, and you suck.
9 times
Back to the explaining of Halo 2 (along with what the books cover pre/post halo?), please.
i understand that but i think its dumb how a pivitol character that led the assault in the first game is basically just made up, for the sake of the 2nd games story.Quote:
Originally Posted by sethsez
Arbitor is a new character introduced in the second chapter of the Halo story, no big deal.
Then I imagine you hate any sequel that attempts to broaden the scope of a series.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonmaster Dyne
Halo was told entirely from Master Chief's perspective. He never met or knew about the leader of the Covenant's army, so it was never brought up. This is pretty much par for the course for any sci-fi or fantasy series... if the original story has about 3 important characters, you can't just depend on those 3 forever. You have to create new ones. Besides, it's a pretty logical conclusion that the Covenant forces were being led by someone, so he didn't exactly come out of left field.
The only person I know who read them all is Andy, hopefully he'll jump in and enlighten us.Quote:
Originally Posted by MVS
Alls I know is there's a prequel to Halo called the Fall of Reach, which is the lost battle that the Pillar of Autumn jumps away from blindly at the beginning of Halo.
If you're really getting into the story, check out the .wavs at ilovebees, they have a whole self contained story set in the Halo universe. It's pretty entertaining (and fucking huge).
I'm not a total moron, but after a while, playing game after game, it can be really easy to forget who is who, what is what, and so on. I can't count the amount of RPGs I've played where after beating it, I couldn't remember the name of a single town I went to, NPC player I met, or even the name of the main end boss.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonmaster Dyne
Is that set between Halo 1 and 2, or at another time, the wavs I mean?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mzo
They start before Halo 1 starts and end before Halo 2 begins, I think.
Ok. I'll give them a listen tonight.
I'll take a stab at Halo 2's summary:
The Elite Covenant who was in charge of the protection of the first Halo was held on trial for failing to do just that and sentenced to death. Instead of being killed he is instead given a new task (presumed quite suicidal) to stop a heretic Covenant and is given a powerful suit of armor and dubbed Arbitor.
At the same time the forces of Earth are under assault from invading Covenant forces. Master Chief kicks a bunch of ass in space and rides a ship down to Earth to whoop more ass, which he does quite well. A Covenant ship space-jumps on the planet (which in turn annihilates the nearby city) and Master Chief + the marine leader from Halo + Keyes' (the captain of the Pillar of Autumn) daughter all follow close pursuit and end up in the presence of another Halo. There they go and kick a lot more ass.
The Arbitor beats the crap out of the heretic and is then ordered to go to this new Halo to stop the "Demon" (Master Chief) and get the key needed to activate Halo. There everyone runs into another batch of the annoying and retarded Flood and the Arbitor continues forward until he finally obtains the key. He's then double-crossed by the Prophets that lead the Covenant and the Brutes (big ape creatures) that took the place of the Elites at the sides of all the Prophets because of the Arbitor's failure on the first Halo. They take the key + Keyes' daughter with them and toss the Arbitor down a pit.
Both the Master Chief and the Arbitor have been snagged by an overgrown Little Shop of Horrors/Legacy of Kain Elder God-like plant creature which resides within this Halo, and sends them both off in different directions in search of the key for reasons unknown (if they are given I lost it in the terribly garbled voice recording that plagues the whole game, shame I didn't turn on subtitles sooner). The Arbitor is given the truth behind Halo during this and combined with the betrayal decides to change who he's fighting.
The Arbitor teams up with the marine commander from the first Halo to battle the Brutes and get the key back. The Brutes need Keyes' daughter to activate the key (humans are called "Reclaimers" for some reason) but end up doing it themselves which sends out a call across the universe for all the many Halos spread everywhere to prepare for remote activation from the Ark.
Master Chief is chasing down another Prophet and ends up leaving Cortana (his all-pupose helper computer program) behind in a Covenant structure while blasting off towards Earth to protect it. The huge leafy god reappears and asks Cortana for information, a conversation we don't get to see because that's the end of the game.
They don't specify what or where the Ark is, but it seems pretty obvious to me that it's either on the Earth or is the Earth (supported by humans being called Reclaimers).
Any questions?
Makes total sense now, thanks.
All covenant are created awesome, but some are more awesome than others.Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
I just ordered the trilogy on amazon, so I'll have read them by sometime next week.
While we're on the subject of story, what the hell was the plot twist people kept saying we may or may not like? I don't think there was any point in the game where I felt like some revelation just happened.
Playing as the arbitor.
Playing as Raiden.
...Oh. Um, well then. Not sure I'd call that a plot twist or anything, but whatever.
Which was totally fine. I liked the sneaking. I still don't know how the Sergeant survived Halo. he jokes that it's "classified". Last time you saw him he was hugging an elite--was that the Arbiter?Quote:
Originally Posted by Opaque
I thought he was immune to the Flood due to some type of exposure to a crate full of plasma grenades.
I swear I read that in a magazine or something and did not make it up.
Can anyone confirm this?
One big nagging question... How the hell do elites eat? They have no bottom jaw to hold things in, their food would just fall out... do they tilt their head back 180 degrees or something?
The smaller Covenant have to chew it for them and regurgitate it down their throats like birds do. I personally think the entire Halo story is a bit lame, but their games are off the charts so I don't complain.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bacon McShig
membrain, airplane, insane, propane, la fontaine, Frasier Krane.
Well, I haven't read the books, but the first game was pretty good story-wise, the revelation of what the Halos really did was a pretty cool little plot twist. The universe was somewhat believable sci-fi until that friggin' deus ex machina Gravemind showed up in 2 and batted the that aspect clear away.Quote:
I personally think the entire Halo story is a bit lame, but their games are off the charts so I don't complain.
Gravemind doesn't bother me that much because at least it somewhat establishes why the Flood are so dangerous. The Halos always seemed a bit overblown for enemies that could easily be taken down with a shotgun.
Heres a brief summary (but not so brief) of the entire storyline, including parts from the books, MechDeus summed up Halo 2 pretty well so Ill skip that. There is a little bit to read and im typing fast so dont mind the typos:
Book- Fall of Reach:
Explains how the master chief and his team of spartans were created. they were selected as children for their abilities by the government and hand picked by a Dr Halsey. the government kidnaps them and replaces them with clones. the real kids are genetically enhanced and trained to be soldiers and are given the mjolnir armor. the armor enhances their reflexes and strength and has the shield technology and a personal atmosphere. these spartan kids become the baddest thing on the block and tear up every other soldier and mission they are given. Dr Halsey is their mentor and a "mother figure"
The covenant comes in to fullfill their "great journey" and humans are in the way so they naturally will destroy anything in their way. The covenant is made up of different alien races who used to be at war with each other, but have now made a pact, based on a religious belief, to work with each other and fulfill their destiny (whatever it may be, the "great journey")
The main types of covenant so far are Grunts, the little guys that squeal, they wear gas masks and breath methane) they are the foot soldiers. The Jackals (the taller field soldiers) they are the officers and battle leaders. The Hunters (the massive aleins with the big guns) they travel in pairs and are the most lethal.
Reach is a Human planet with the Humans mightiest military base and weapons. This is wehre soldiers are trained and sships and weapons are made, and where militarty headquarters is. There are super Magnectic accelerator guns, that are able to take out ships with a single shot. The covenant somehow finds out the location of Reach and launches an attack on the planet. The Spartan soldiers are split up into several groups. one group is sent to Reach to protect the power generators for the Super MAC guns. Another stays in space for the fight.
Pretty much what happens from that point is The planet gets taken over the space battle is lost mostly due to the covenant having powerful plasma weapons, and the master chief (the only surviving spartan at this point) along with a ship crew led by Captain Keyes barely escape with a space jump (think of warp speed or jaunting). when a planet is lost the covenant usually glass the entire surface with plasma fire until everything is dead
end Book 1
Book 2 The Flood- Same story as the first Halo game but more in depth:
The ship with the master chief on it that escaped was following the jump coordinates of a previous covenant ship. They end up at Halo
They have to crash because their ship is badly damaged and out of energy. The master chief is able to take an Artificial Intelligence AI and use it in his Mjolnir Armor suit. He has to protect the AI from falling into the covenant hands, or they might learn the location of earth, and may learn all of the Humans defense secrets, strategies, etc. He takes the Ai from the Pillar of Autumn (the ship he was on). This AI is named Cortana, she ends up helping him unlock devices and covenant technology along the way. AIs each have their own personality and are created by mapping the brain of a Human, AIs generally have a 7 year lifespan
The other surviving members of the ship, 200 or so in total, spread out and try to find other survivors and a way off the planet.
The covenant kidnap Captain Keyes to try and get him to divulge the location of earth. Master Cheif saves Captain Keyes by rescuing him from a covenant ship.
The chief finds the conntrol center of Halo after finding the schematics and uploads the AI Cortana into halo's system. She finds out the the Captain Keyes might have gone to a dangerous place and sends master Chief to find the Captain.
The Captain and his crew unlock/free the Flood. The flood are parasites that feed on living organisms. They drain the brain power of the host then take over the host body.
There are 3 major different forms of the flood. The infection form - the little bubble thingys that pop, these are the things that take over the hosts. depending on the physical abilities of the host it will either turn into a Carrier form or a Combat Form. A carrier form replicates the infection forms and hatches new ones. The combat forms are used as defense and attack other hosts using melee or weapons.
Master Chief starts killing the flood and tries to escape. He notices the flood not only kill Humans but they also Covenant. He meets up with guilty spark who says he need the Cheifs help to stop the flood. He helps guilt spark retrieve the Index (the key to start the flood control) and they go back to the control room where Cortana is.
Cortana tells Cheif he has been tricked and if the use the Index it will destroy all life in the universe. The reason being that the only way to truly control the flood is to wipe out their food source, and the only way to do that is a big boom
They decide to destroy halo instead and they will do that by blowing up the reactor core on the wrecked Pillar of Autumn. Cheif downloads Cortana, and they realize they need Captain Keyes neural implant to kick off the desruct sequence on his ship.
They trace the implant back to a covenant ship and Keyes life signs show he is still alive. Keyes ended up being infected by the flood and the cheif has to punch a hole through keye's head to get the implants.
The get back to the Autumn and initiate the countdown, but the guilty spark takes over the ship and stops it. The cheif has to manually destroy the reactors on the ship by creating an explosion in the ractors exhaust. he does this, and narrowly escapes off the ship and off of Halo before it blows up.
End Halo 1 and the 2nd book
book 3 - First Strike (after halo 1 but before halo 2)
The master cheif is floating in space near halo by himself on a ship that cant do a SlipSpace jump. So pretty much he is screwed if he doesnt figure a way out because human planets are too far away for normal flight. He finds one other small ship that escaped and has about 5-6 people on it, but it cant do a jump either. They rescue a few lifepods from the area that were ejected before the crash with lifesigns in them.
onboard is one soldier who was attacked by the flood, but they rejected his host. ends up he had some type of disease that messed with his neural signatures and the flood couldnt latch on to take him over. The cheif in the book has to decide wether one mans life is greater than the whole. if he tells the Navy about this condition they may chop the soldier in experiments.
The covenant ships start appearing because halo blew up. Te master cheif decides to try and take over a covenant ship. Cortana having been inside the halo construct downloaded all of the covenant information. she can now decipher covenant transmissions and technology.
They end up taking over a nearby covenant ship. The ship is odd though and only has a few covenant warriors on it. the ship is mainly full of the engineer covenants. theses engineers have tentacles and can tfix or create technology like it is nothing. Ie ship/armor repairs etc.
Coratna is uploaded into the ship, and discovers a convenant AI is present. This is weird because the covenant didnt have this technology previously.
They decide to go back to the planet Reach to see if there are any survivors. there is still a big covenant fleet there which is strange and the covenant has not destroyed the whole planet yet. they pick up a signal from the planet that is human survivors.
Several spartans and commanders have survived. the covenant is drilling down into the planet core for some reason. Another group of spartans survived as well and were holed up in the core of the planet, so they have to be saved too.
The Bad AI is able to transmit to the other ships that it has been breached. Cortana tears it apart and learns that it was a copy of a Human AI. She also learns she has found some code to be able to copy herself if neede be, but each copy will have bugs that are unforseen.
they discover a crystal that glows purple. dr Halsey takes the crystal. The covenant break through and find them, but will not shoot towards the crystal. They start referring to it as the "holy Light"
Master Cheif and the other rescuers save the day and hijack a covenant dropship and start to take off. cortana is able to use the covenants weapons now (plasma cannons) she makes them better by finding a flaw in thier aiming sequence and is able to take out a bunch of the fleet. The master cheif and crew rendevous with cortanas ship and they jum out of there.
When they try and jump through slipspace the crystal starts glowing brightly and emits radiation. it puts them in a bubble. the crystal distorts not only space but time as well, in essence allowing time travle. They have to fight instead of jumping and they win.
Skipping a bunch of chapters...
Cortana is able to decipher radio transmission that the Covenant has found out where earth is and are staging an attack and are meeting up at a nearby planet.They have rescued an Admiral whos first objective is to warn Earth. the cheif wants to go to the planet where the covenant are gathering and take them out there ass it may be their only chance and the covenant will least expect it.
Dr halsey kidnaps a spartan and they leave in some spaceship p[ossibly to earth.
cortana duplicates herself for the cheif so that one of her cvan head back to earth with the admiral. Cheif gets dropped off with several other spartans. Cortana determines that they can blow a power generator on the planet and cause its destruction.They get on the planet. Initiate the desctruct sequence.
we learn about the Prophets (the spiritual leaders of the covenant) and the brutes (the gorilla like protectors of these leaders)
The cheif and his spartans escape the planet, the Admiral is hiding behind a moon with his ship. It ends up they wouldnt have made it ito earth in time anyways to prevent the attack.
dr halsey had one of the marine destroy the "holy light" crystal after she took off. she feared the Humans would not use it for the right purposes.
The admiral decides to draw the covenant ships towards the planet. he uses a piece of the crystal over a transmission to the covenant saying in essence "come and get it". the cheif and the other crew wait behind the moon. The admiral flys right over the reactor and the covenant ships follow. The prophets promised anyone who could captuere the "holy light" great rewards.
The reactor goes off and takes out the Admiral and 95% of the covenant fleet. Nearly 500 ships.
master Cheif and crew head back to earth with the news.
End Book 3 start halo 2 the game
left out lots, they really are great sci-fi books highly suggested to anyone interested. the ilovebees storyline ties in with the purple crystal artifact and time travel
this was teh sergeant i mentioned in the section of Book 3 that the covenant spat out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Korly
Now ends my longest most boring post in TNL history. Please BTN
BTW- I was watching Return of the Jedi Saturday, and GraveMind = Sarlaac Pit
Holy shit you must have a lot of free time.
Regardless, interesting read and gives some new insight, thanks.
Humans were likely the Forerunners, or descendants of same - the Earth (or something on it) is their 'Ark' (of the Covenant, ho ho) that they used the survive the 'Flood'.Quote:
Originally Posted by MechDeus
How everything actually turns out is unknown, because the story ended so abruptly in Halo 2.
The Gravemind was used incredibly poorly. It is concievable that they intended to place a longer section with it in the game, providing more explanation to the Arbiter and Master Chief, and aligning their goals temporarily. As it was, the Gravemind was a magical Deus Ex Machina used to TELEPORT Master Chief to the Covenant city of High Charity. El Lamo.
There are NUMEROUS Bible references scattered throughout the game (go search for some fun quotes about the number 7 in the Bible, as well as the references to same in the game, including the number of Halos, etcetc), but I don't feel like harping on them anymore, kind of cheesy.
That still doesn't explain how he survived an entire planet exploding--from the cutscene it didn't look like he had enough time to board a ship or use an escape pod, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Korly
But that alien grabbed his ass.
And if anyone wants that story, I can go into that if I think it through. The ILoveBees arc is a little confusing, but it does have some great pieces like the existance of the SPARTAN 1.0's and the AI time travel.Quote:
left out lots, they really are great sci-fi books highly suggested to anyone interested. the ilovebees storyline ties in with the purple crystal artifact and time travel
ShootQuote:
Originally Posted by Sl1p
Ok. Let me listen back through a bunch of pieces. I'll get a summary up tonight.
Yeah, I never really picked up on how Durga ended up in the past so that'd be a good read Slip
Going way back to Mech's post, wtf is up with Human Reclaimers? And why are the covenant fighting the humans in the first place?
How did they expect to make Halo turn out without a human in the first place? And when did they figure out needed one?
I guess you can refer to 343's comments in Halo when he calls Master Chief "Reclaimer." Okay, that makes some sense. But I maintain that the Covenant are dumb fucks.
The covenant only hate us because humans seem to interfere with their "Great Journey."
Humans are called "reclaimers" because obviously, they died off, respawned over thousands and thousands of years, and came back to their lost technology. Guilty Spark's been hanging around for quite a while now.
I find it completely inconceivable that life, given the ability to re-evolve, would wind up at humans in any form again.
Then obviously "The Ark" AKA Earth, contained a way to preserve human existence in some form, if even at the genetic level. Humans came way before the covenant, and they also invented the Flood, so I imagine that they would have the means to preserve their species somehow.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowutopia
Either that or the forerunners were human LIKE, but not exactly like the humans we are now.
I feel foolish. It makes good sense. Missing "The Ark" reference was pretty dumb. Once I start reading the books I'll actually start thinking about the story instead of throwing out stupid comments.
Suddenly I want to watch the Eva series again.
Eva was indeed a mindfuck at times. It was a large part of my last 2 years of High School. Good stuff, I've seen it about a billion times.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowutopia
The relation to Halo is similar at times, I'll agree.
Actually, DNG explained that I believe. "Durga" was an AI aboard the UNSC ship, Apocolypso. I may be totally off (DNG might be able to piece it together), but the Apocolypso was taken down by a Covenant fleet, on it's way to Earth at the same time the Chief and Cortana attempted the slipspace jump with the crystal. Durga was fragmented, split into pieces. Part of her crash landed in the current time, year 2050 onto one Jersey Morelli's datapad. The other part crash landed in our current time, 2004 onto an internet server, hosting the website ILoveBees.com.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr-K
Durga came with two programs. The SPDR and the Pious Flea. In the event that Durga was damaged, the SPDR's job was to repair her, kind of like a defragging program in a way. The intentions of the Pious Flea, I don't believe we ever found out. In any event, the Durga that crashed in our time was rampant. Under control of the Pious Flea, she destroyed the SPDR and began transmitting outwards from the server (See: The payphones).
Eventually, in both times, she heard a voice. The Sleeping Princess. The Princess was the better half of Durga you could say. You see, Durga is a smart AI, just like Cortana. Smart AI's are just built, manufactured like other AI's. Their systems are built on the flash clones of human brains. For the most part, dead humans, since the procedure is highly risky. Smart AI's can think independently. In terms of the way they can think, they're practically human. The only difference is that they can fix their emotions to the way they want it and they they don't have the memories of their former host.
That last part is odd. The voice that Durga heard, The Sleeping Princess was in fact, her past. The Sleeping Princess was the child that had been left behind. That girl was Melissa, one of the children choosen for the SPARTAN II program. She was one of the unlucky ones who didn't make it through the program.
Through transmitting and gathering herself in our time, Durga collects herself in her time, and through her new friends, eventually links together a chain of events that lead up to the Covenant attacking approaching Earth on November 4th, 2050.
And I left out a lot of stuff and managed to just end up rambling but hey, now you know the story of Durga.