Is The ‘Halo Ring’ in The Book Of Boba Fett a Halo Reference?
One of the best things about the Star Wars shows that you can watch on Disney+ is that they try to expand the entire Star Wars universe to the farthest reaches of the galaxy by introducing a lot of new things that we didn’t see in the previous movies and shows. A good example of that is the structure that looks like a Halo ring in episode 5 of The Book of Boba Fett. But is this Halo ring a reference to the popular Halo games?
The Halo ring structure in The Book of Boba Fett is not a Halo reference. Instead, it is actually a reference to Larry Niven’s 1970 novel called Ringworld, which is also the inspiration for the Halo ring you see in Halo. As such, both Star Wars and Halo borrowed this structure from a classic sci-fi novel.
Of course, there is nothing entirely original about the things you see in Star Wars because a lot of the elements you see in the franchise have been borrowed from other works or have been inspired by them. This is the same case for the ringworld you see in The Book of Boba Fett, as it was also borrowed from a fantastic sci-fi novel, which served as the inspiration for Halo as well.
What Is The Ring Spaced Space Station In The Book Of Boba Fett?
Everyone knows that George Lucas and everyone else working behind the scenes in Star Wars aren’t shy about introducing large structures that are beyond the imagination. We had seen this time and time again since the very first Star Wars film in the 1970s when we were introduced to the Death Star, which is basically a floating base as large as a moon and is capable of destroying planets in an instant.
Of course, since the Death Star, plenty of other megastructures have been introduced. This includes the Cloud City we saw in The Empire Strikes Back and even the Starkiller Base, which is an entire planet that has the capacity to destroy multiple planets in one shot. In short, there are plenty of megastructures that only the fictional technology in Star Wars can build.
Then there is the fact that we were introduced to another amazing megastructure in episode 5 of The Book of Boba Fett, which is just an offshoot episode of The Mandalorian because of how it focuses entirely on Din Djarin.
In that episode, we first saw Djarin completing a bounty mission in what seems like a place for the criminal underworld. After completing the bounty by taking a crime boss’s head, we were revealed to the place where the Mandalorian was at that very moment. The place seemed like a floating ring-like megacity in the middle of space. This was the very first time we were introduced to such a structure in the Star Wars world.
As amazing as this ring-like megacity is, what exactly is it?
For starters, this place is actually called Glavis, which is a station that doubles as a city in the middle of space. This is the first time in Star Wars history that Glavis or anything similar to it has ever appeared. Glavis serves as a home for a lot of different industries, and that explains the industrial aesthetics that the entire station carries. It also doubles as a home for the criminal underworld, which is basically something we got to know better in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.
Is It A Halo Reference?
While Glavis is something that is entirely new to the Star Wars universe, there are some fans of the sci-fi genre who are quite familiar with this ring-like structure. Particularly, fans of the sci-fi Microsoft-exclusive video game called Halo would be familiar with this because they are fixtures in the Halo franchise. Some people even call these ring-like structures Halo rings because of how they were made famous to our generation through the Halo games.
However, given the fact that this ring-like structure is also present in Star Wars through its introduction in The Book of Boba Fett, does it mean that this is actually a Halo reference?
Unfortunately for Halo fans out there, this is not a Halo reference on the part of Star Wars. The truth is that the Halo ring is not a concept that is entirely original to the Halo franchise because this was first seen in a different sci-fi work that was published 50 years ago and three decades before the first Halo game was even released.
Only the true OG sci-fi fans would know about Larry Niven’s Ringworld novel, which was published in 1970. The novel introduced the concept of the ringworld, which is a massive ring-like structure that acts like a colony or habitat for humans in space.
Niven’s Ringworld became so popular that it won numerous sci-fi awards such as the Hugo, Locus, and Nebula. Of course, because of the success of the book, he followed it up with three more novels, namely The Ringworld Engineers (1979), The Ringworld Throne (1996), and Ringworld’s Children (2004).
In a way, Star Wars merely borrowed this concept from Niven’s Ringworld, as this has been one of the most popular concepts in the world of sci-fi. Even Halo simply borrowed the Halo ring from Niven’s books. This means that the Glavis is not a Halo reference but is actually a Larry Niven reference.
If you think that the Glavis is massive, Niven’s Ringworld is a lot bigger. Glavis is probably something that is nearly as big as an entire planet. However, Niven’s Ringworld covers the entire orbit of Earth and is 940 million kilometers in circumference. It is so huge that it can fit three million Earths on its surface area.
Whatever the case may be, the fact is that Star Wars is paying its respects to one of the most popular sci-fi works of the 20th century by borrowing a concept that Larry Niven created in his novels. As such, it is not simply a Halo reference but is referencing something that is far older and much bigger than the ringworlds you can find on any Halo game.
Is There A Connection Between Star Wars And Halo?
As mentioned, the ring-like structure called Glavis is not Star Wars referencing Halo but is actually a reference to Larry Niven’s Ringworld. But is there an actual connection between Star Wars and Halo?
Other than the fact that both Star Wars and Halo borrowed the same concept from Niven, there is no other connection that we can find between these two franchises. That’s because Star Wars and Halo belong to different universes and are owned by different companies.
It would be silly on the part of Star Wars to make a reference to a rival sci-fi universe, which does not only make money out of its video games but also its books as well. Of course, true Star Wars fans know that Lucasfilm also makes money out of its video games and books. As such, referencing a rival would be a bad business decision on the part of Lucasfilm.
