Halo (series)/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

 * The ending of Halo 3. Literally: Master Chief didn't die, he's just MIA.
 * The Covenant of Halo. When this troper read about them over at Halopedia, he just thought of the species divide as a form of state-sponsored racism that only depended on how had they been absorbed into the Covenant, with some influences from theocracies. After having read a few articles on Medieval Society and Culture, and suddenly having discovered the similarities with them and the Covenant (the social castes of religion, combat, and manual labor -- Including the fact that Knights tended to view commoners as unimportant, bringers of neither shame or glory when killed), it made this troper admire Bungie's storytelling even more.
 * One may imagine that the concept of the ODST shares a bit of similarity to HALO jumpers (a high-altitude aerial insertion; to say the physical requirements are strenuous might be understating it a bit: see the article on That Other Wiki for details). Halo... HALO. Whoa.
 * In all of the Halo games, human vehicles are sandy/snowy, depending on locale, while the Covenant vehicles are all...purplish. Why would the Covenant make their main methods of transportation so visible? To them, it's the color of fear. Why? Elite blood is purple.
 * A lot of the weaponry and vehicles of the UNSC look drastically underpowered and unprotected compared to modern versions. For example, compare the UNSC's Warthog to today's Humvee, or the Falcon to a Chinook helicopter. Halo's vehicles feel like a step backward, until you consider how powerful Covenant weaponry is. A Humvee's door may protect from bullets, but plasma weapons will just boil right through them. The added protection isn't worth it, thus the same budget that could build one Humvee is instead used to build four Warthogs, paying the price of less protection in exchange for increased firepower. Seems callous, but this is the same UNSC that authorized the SPARTAN program.
 * In the Falcon's defense it's more along the lines of an up-armed and faster future version of a Blackhawk, Huey, or Little Bird. If anything, the Chinook is a present-day analogue to the Pelican
 * Also keep in mind that, by the later parts of the series, we're seeing the end results of a twenty-seven year-long war of attrition; Halo Wars shows that the UNSC had a lot of really kickass, high-end weaponry in 2525, whereas by 2552 they're down to a scant few colonies, Reach, and Earth. This is showing in their limited armory.
 * Also don't forget that open-topped vehicles are safer when it comes to weapons that can penetrate vehicle's armour anyways, while exploding, and projectiles of overheated plasma certainly will cause explosive vapourization of materials. The thing is, in atmosphere the energy of explosion will be mostly lost with the shokwave going away from target, while in enclosed premisions it will crush soft personnel first and find a way out of hard vehicle's case second. This is exactly the reason why it's not uncommon to see infantry riding on top of APCs instead of traveling inside in warzones - in latter case it's just one anti-vehicle mine or a hit of RPG or something, and entire crew is dead. Thus, using Warthogs instead of Humvee-like vehicles is really justified.

Fridge Horror

 * Halo. Specifically, the Human-Covenant war. The casualties are never really covered in the games... but Bungie have released statistics. Remember when Miranda Keyes says "casualties from the initial bombardment were... extreme" in Halo 3, referring to Truth's bombardment of Earth? Well, it turns out that this bombardment meant that there were only 200 million humans left on Earth by the end. Less than the population of America. And Earth wasn't even fully glassed - whereas around 70 planets were, many of them major colonies like Reach. You know what this means? Dozens of billions of humans have been killed in the Halo universe. Soldiers, civilians, children. All mercilessly eradicated by a beam from space so powerful, it turns the surface of the planet to glass. It reminds This Troper or pouring water into an ant's nest, in the most horrifying way possible... doubly so when you realise that's what we must seem like to the xenophobic captains of the Covenant ships. At the end of the war, we - people like you and me - may very well be on the verge of extinction.
 * This last entry provides its own supply of fridge horror. Fridge horror is something that happens after the fact - so you're saying, at first, the slaughter of trillions of people didn't seem like such a big deal?
 * No. It's Fridge Horror because you never find out the death toll in the games. When you do look it up, you look again at the games, in a different light - and they seem that much scarier. Is that not the definition of Fridge Horror?
 * That's not the closest we've got. In real life, when the Toba supervolcano erupted, humanity was slapped down to 10,000 - less than the population of a small town. And yet look at us now - six billion people. I'm pretty sure humanity would be able to fight back from extinction... but the killcount's still horrible.
 * Let's not forget the fact that the portal on Earth allowed the Covenant to get to the Ark, so of course they had to go to Earth first... so how do you think High Charity got there?
 * Word of God has started the human death told is around 20 billion; the remaining human population by the time of the war is 80-100 billion.
 * Remember that above Brilliance point about the UNSC sacrificing protection on its vehicles in exchange for greater numbers and increased firepower? It started with 800 colonies, the majority of which have got to be producing as much as they can. And it's not enough. The Covenant must be huge to keep winning against that.
 * The Covenant isn't covered by the Geneva convention or the Hague, meaning humanity can use prohibited weapons like poison gas and hollow point bullets. Again, it's still not enough.
 * Spartan-III Alpha and Beta Companies each numbered 300-strong. Additionally, an unknown number of the most talented trainees were reassigned to more elite units like Noble Team and Headhunters. These 600+ Spartan-IIIs are sent on high-stakes suicide missions where they are all but completely annihilated, and their sacrifice only nets a brief delay in the Covenant advance.
 * Really, nothing is enough until the Elites realize that humanity isn't the enemy and ally themselves with the UNSC. It's really a moment of both fridge brilliance and horror. Humanity at its best is doing little against the Covenant. Then after the events of Halo 2, the Elites, the biggest and the best the Covenant has to offer, come to the realization that the Prophets are leading everyone to slaughter and the humans, who've they've been conditioned to hate for 30 years, are actually similar to them and they have no reason to continue fighting them. And as such, the human-Elite alliance forms, and pretty soon the Covenant is all but annihilated. Hell, by the end of Halo 3, the Arbiter and the Chief, each the best of their respective race, are practically best friends, to the point of the Arbiter risking his own life to save a man who, a couple weeks ago, he was trying to kill, jumping into the Flood-infested High Charity with a flamethrower and fending off hordes of Flood to ensure the Chief gets out of there safely. One could argue it was because he knew the knowledge Cortana contained was far greater than his own life, but I believe it was The Power of Friendship. I guess this should probably be in the CMOA section, but whatever.
 * Hey, you know that awesome, deep baritone Sangheili who kicks ass and takes names, Arbiter Thel 'Vadam? Guess who