John-117
John-117, the Master Chief, is a Spartan-II supersoldier from the Halo universe, a world far outside Zootopia's. He is the protagonist of "What If... the Fight Was Finished?", the W-Series What-If episode in which he and his AI companion Cortana fall through an anomaly and crash-land on the outskirts of Sahara Square.
Background
John was taken at six as one of a class of children who were selected, replaced so that nobody came looking, trained, and then augmented. He remembers his mother only in pieces. A war took the rest of his life: twenty-seven years against an alliance bound by a faith that had named his species an affront, beginning with the burning of the colony Harvest. He helped stop the rings from firing and stopped what would have consumed the galaxy afterward, and one of the enemy's commanders, the Arbiter, fought beside him at the end. When the portal home collapsed and cut his ship, the Forward Unto Dawn, in half, the bow carried the Arbiter home and the stern drifted into the dark with John in cryo. He told Cortana to wake him when she needed him. He does not know what became of his squad, Fred, Kelly and Linda.
Personality
John says as little as a moment allows. He arrives expecting a fight, keeps looking for the heavy weapons and the aircraft that should be coming, and accepts only slowly that this world is not sending them. He could hurt anyone on the street, and he spends the episode making sure he doesn't.
Series History
W-Series
What If
The What-If episodes are alternate timelines and do not affect the main continuity.
In "What If... the Fight Was Finished?", Cortana wakes John when an anomaly opens ahead of the drifting stern, and they escape the breaking ship in a damaged Longsword that she brings down in empty sand on the outskirts of Sahara Square. Nobody at the crash site shares a word of his language. He points Luther back from the burning wreck, reaches to move him clear, and throws him across the sand. The pack's rounds stop against his shields until Pawbert runs in unarmed and covers his husband, and John lowers his gauntlet, steps back, kneels, and helps the wolf up.
He stands inside the cordon through the night while the city's police face the crowd instead of him, a ZFD medic leaves water, and Pawbert keeps watch from a bollard. At dawn, with the language Cortana has learned off the city's broadcasts, his first words go to Pawbert, and he apologizes to Luther for using too much force. The city treats him as a guest and makes the pack his guide. He takes the armor off, lets the pack see his face, and builds Cortana a portable rig on a warehouse bench. At the mansion he tells the pack about the war and about being taken at six. When thieves hit the warehouse that holds his armor, he borrows Luther's backup pistol on Luther's conditions, stops the moment Luther tells him to, and hands the gun back unfired. That night he and Cortana plan a trip to the Rainforest District, and he asks her to wake him when she wants to go.
Key Relationships
Cortana
Cortana is the voice in his helmet, then the light on his belt, and the one he goes to sleep trusting to wake him. On this world he asks her what she wants to do with the time she has left, and he promises to take her.
Pawbert Pawthorne
Pawbert puts himself between John and his husband with nothing in his paws, and that is what stops John. He keeps watch on the stranger all night without asking anything of him, and John's first words in a language anyone here understands are for him.
Luther Pawthorne
John throws him in the first minute and apologizes at dawn. By the next night Luther trusts him with a pistol and two conditions, and John keeps both.
Trivia
- "Wake me when you need me" is John's last line in Halo 3 (2007), and the episode closes by turning it around.
- "I need a weapon." is the Master Chief's line to Sergeant Johnson in Halo 2 (2004), Cairo Station.
- The Halo games never show John's face; Halo 4's Legendary ending shows only his eyes.