I'd actually argue that Halo is one of the most prescient franchises for politics in our era.
The Left would have taken it as the materialist and rational humans taking on the evil christian fundamentalist zealots, but it's way worse than that. Especially with Halo 2's plot.
Halo 2 is about a crisis of faith in every single character, in every single faction, and for every single faction. Fundamentally, the Covenant is a Cargo Cult of ancient alien technology that they don't understand, but have weaponized. The Arbiter's crisis of faith is the main storyline, and his crisis of faith in himself, and his confrontation with The Gravemind (effectively: Original Evil), brings him into a crisis of faith in his cult, where he realizes all of the institutions and social ordering he's literally fought for all his life is actively betraying him and murdering his own nation of people to bring about the end of the galaxy so that only specific political elites may survive.
I feel like this is basically what we're all trapped in: an entangled gunfight for both power and survival as the Fabian Socialist order starts to inevitably collapse and fail. We're not just trying to survive because if we don't secure power, we'll sink with the ship. If we achieve power, but fail to survive, it won't be worth it. Meanwhile, our enemies are basically interested in furthering the disaster due to incompetence and zealotry, or they are just blowing up everything so that they can survive for themselves.
I'd actually argue that Halo is one of the most prescient franchises for politics in our era.
The Left would have taken it as the materialist and rational humans taking on the evil christian fundamentalist zealots, but it's way worse than that. Especially with Halo 2's plot.
Halo 2 is about a crisis of faith in every single character, in every single faction, and for every single faction. Fundamentally, the Covenant is a Cargo Cult of ancient alien technology that they don't understand, but have weaponized. The Arbiter's crisis of faith is the main storyline, and his crisis of faith in himself, and his confrontation with The Gravemind (effectively: Original Evil), brings him into a crisis of faith in his cult, where he realizes all of the institutions and social ordering he's literally fought for all his life is actively betraying him and murdering his own nation of people to bring about the end of the galaxy so that only specific political elites may survive.
I feel like this is basically what we're all trapped in: an entangled gunfight for both power and survival as the Fabian Socialist order starts to inevitably collapse and fail. We're not just trying to survive because if we don't secure power, we'll sink with the ship. If we achieve power, but fail to survive, it won't be worth it. Meanwhile, our enemies are basically interested in furthering the disaster due to incompetence and zealotry, or they are just blowing up everything so that they can survive for themselves.