What are Dr. Halsey’s real motives in Halo?

One of the most fascinating parts about Halo’s overarching story, be it in the games or the TV series, is that there’s no one true villain.

Sure, the Covenant takes the crown for being religious lunatics who believe destroying all life is the right step into the afterlife. But even the UNSC and the Insurrectionists are quite brutal and morally corrupt in their own ways. 

If there’s one character in particular whose intentions we cannot get a read on, it’s Dr. Catherine Halsey. Although she’s aiding the UNSC to “save the universe” so to speak, her ways of science are far from ethical.

Does this mean she has an ulterior motive?

Dr. Halsey, both in the Halo games and the TV show, is an incredibly intelligent but morally gray character with no ulterior motives other than advancing her knowledge and capabilities in the scientific field.

She is known to break ethical codes for the “greater good” in scientific progress.

Without Halsey’s Spartan-II program, the UNSC (and the universe, at large) would have no way of stopping the Covenant from decimating all of existence. For a long time, her super-soldiers were everyone’s last hope. In fact, Master Chief being able to single-handedly avert major crises is a sign of her genius.

Of course, making Spartans itself was not all cupcakes and rainbows, despite Halsey’s maternal connections to them. Halsey resorted to kidnapping children, making clones that were prone to dying, putting kids through painful trials, and stealing their childhood to make them emotionless warriors.

But we have to remember that this “cost” of saving the universe was not just Halsey’s doing; it was also approved by the UNSC. While Halsey is of use to the UNSC now, she should watch her back in case they ever betray her when she’s of no value to them.

You don’t have to love Dr. Halsey, but the one commendable aspect about her is that at least her scientific achievements don’t come with the maniacal goal of wanting to make herself super powerful and/or all-controlling.

Imagine you love doing something, like painting or playing a game, and that’s the one thing you’d like to do all your life with no limits. That’s what science is to Halsey: the next level of Candy Crush she absolutely needs to solve.

If we’re returning to the question of who’s the real villain in Halo—Halsey sure isn’t the villain, but not only is she super intriguing but also smart enough to make herself a threat to those who come in her way.

About Halo

Halo is an American live-action sci-fi television series based on the Halo video game franchise. It is developed by Steven Kane and Kyle Killen for Paramount+.

The series follows a 26th-century war between the United Nations Space Command and the Covenant, a theocratic-military alliance of several advanced alien races determined to eradicate the human race.

The series stars Pablo Schreiber, Natascha McElhone, Charlie Murphy, Jen Taylor, Shabana Azmi, Bokeem Woodbine, Kate Kennedy, Natasha Culzac, Yerin Ha, and Bentley Kalu.