Halo: How Would Liberals React to this Event?

In Halo: Combat Evolved, players are introduced to the character known only as The Master Chief - otherwise known as SPARTAN-117. Clad in his green armor, he wages a one-man (sometimes twenty-man, as he meets up with allies) battle against a loose organization of aliens known as the Covenant. While the initial battles seem relatively straight-forward as the Covenant fail to be fleshed out, it is in the second installment, Halo 2, that the reality of the situation begins to set in.

In the first title, Master Chief foils a plot by the Covenant to activate a sentient made object known as a Halo, which a small robot informs him would destroy all life in the universe. In a display of gunfire, zombie killing, and popping of small balloon like creatures, Master Chief succeeds in destroying the Halo object along with the planet it surrounded, destroying a major outpost and saving Earth from a viral species known simply as The Flood.

With no dialogue to speak of with the Covenant, it is easy to assume that these creatures bent on the destruction of Earth are maniacal, bloodthirsty, godless monsters. In fact, to accentuate just what humans think of these beings, their races are assigned names such as Elites, Grunts, Jackals, and Brutes based on their social status and uses on the battlefield.

In the sequel to Halo: Combat Evolved however, a series of cutscenes and dialogue begin to explain the position of the Covenant a bit more. The Halo was seen as a proverbial Mecca to the theocratic Covenant. It was their path to salvation - without it, they would never be able to ascend with the "Forerunners". As the plot continues, the Covenant inadvertently stumble upon Earth, assail it, and one of their ranks is promoted to the rank of "Arbiter", a title that carries with it an intended suicide mission.

The Arbiter is sent to silence a heretic calling into doubt the beliefs of the Covenant - acting as a direct challenge to the authority of the Prophets. When he learns that the Halos are not actually part of a spiritual ascension but are rather super weapons intended to deprive The Flood of food, he attempts to spread this information. The Arbiter is then ordered to be executed, resulting in a massive fallout between the factions, splitting the entirety of the Covenant into a frantic civil war.

In the midst of this, Master Chief continues to assassinate Prophets and threaten Covenant holy sites that they adamantly regard as their source of salvation.

This ushers a curious question: how would modern day, anti-war, liberals respond to just such a similar situation?

It would not be difficult to imagine, especially in a United Nations format, a protester standing in parliament, declaring that the failed foreign policy of the current premier was the reason for the hatred between Covenant and Mankind.

"A war against an idea such as that held by the Covenant cannot be defeated," the man, or woman, would say, "this is a futile war, with tensions spurred by the belligerence of our tone."

Would it seem impossible to imagine a neo-MoveOn.org assailing the human naming standard for the Covenant races. It would not be a far cry for them to protest the manner in which the large "brutes" are unfairly categorized as unintelligent and violent, how the grunts are seen as little more than cannon fodder by Earth's Terran forces.

What kind of trouble would Master Chief get into?

It is conceivable that the plot of Halo: Combat Evolved would be the equivalent of an American special forces unit being trapped behind enemy lines in the Middle East, only to destroy the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque. Following into the next title in the series, the United Nations do something even more unthinkable:

With the religious factions of the Covenant breaking down into civil war, as Halo 3 demonstrates, Earth directly involves itself in backing one of the factions. Indeed, the Elites, the primary antagonizers of the conflict, receive direct aid and military backing by the U.N. forces. As both sides wage a destructive conflict, emanating in torture, killings, destruction of property, and the risk of utilizing weapons of mass destruction in the form of the Halos, it seems entirely likely that the U.N. forces would receive staunch criticism for the part they play in keeping the conflict going.

"This is a religious civil war that the U.N. has no right getting involved in, let them fight it out," the websites and protesters would say, not wanting to get Earth blood involved.

One has to wonder just how the game would have turned out with Operation: Iraqi Freedom rules of engagement, and modern liberal applications of "whose an enemy" and "putting diplomacy first".