Easter Eggs You May Have Missed In Halo Episode 1

Let’s take this in roughly chronological order. Merely seconds into the premiere episode of “Halo,” we open on a desert planet (although, thankfully, one that doesn’t resemble the sand dunes of Tatooine or Arrakis, for a change!) called Madrigal. The Outer Colony world appears to be run solely by Insurrectionist humans currently rebelling against the tyranny of the UNSC. But why would anyone choose to live on such a hostile and seemingly desolate planet? Well, that’s where the deuterium comes in. 

Look, I never did well in chemistry class, so be aware that I’m hardly an expert in this specific area. Having said that, the real-world equivalent is known as “heavy hydrogen,” a stable isotope of hydrogen that apparently exists in Earth’s oceans. This roughly lines up with the on-screen description of Madrigal as a “heavy water extraction” world, whose chief resource is deuterium.

Why does any of that matter? Oh, only because this just so happens to serve as the main fuel source for Covenant starships in franchise lore. This is established in the Eric Nylund novel, “Halo: The Fall of Reach,” which essentially tells the origin story of the Master Chief and his Spartans leading up to the opening moments of the original game, “Combat Evolved.” In the episode, it’s made (somewhat) clear that rebel-run refineries make the planet a valuable commodity for humanity (“Madrigal, the galaxy’s highest concentration of heavy hydrogen,” as Kwan Ha explains … right before using some of it to get high) and, as we may learn in next week’s episode, could very well lead to some political upheaval in the wake of the Covenant attack that kicks off the story. 

We don’t appear to have seen the last of Madrigal just yet, or the exploitation of its natural resources. We can safely bet on this playing a larger role in the coming weeks.