Guard Duty is a Halo-based machinima comedy web series created by Syp The Mighty and Revoltge, premiering on December 22, 2023. The series features an ensemble cast starring Intro-Mind, Ella Rhee, Xanthe Folan, Syp, and Blankslate as a dysfunctional crew of soldiers stationed on Outpost Black Out over five-hundred years in the future. As a fan work, Guard Duty is loosely set in the world of Halo in which the series is also filmed.
Rat's Nest is an upcoming prequel installment to the Guard Duty series. It will air sometime after Season 1 in 2024.
Guard Duty is a Halo-based science fiction comedy machinima web series created by Syp The Mighty, airing from January 5, 2012 until July 31, 2023. This is the original series continuity before Guard Duty was relaunched in 2023, centering on disgruntled security guard Geff Rodrigo and his fellow soldiers on Outpost Black Out whose lives change forever upon Geff signing them up for the "SPARTAN-IV Program".
When Guard Duty was relaunched in 2023, this series began being referred to as Guard Duty Classic.
Syp was largely inspired by the popular Halo machinima series Red vs. Blue when producing Classic Season 1. When developing Classic Season 2, Syp intentionally avoided rewatching Red vs. Blue as she sought different inspirations particularly in adult animated series Archer and Harley Quinn as well as sitcom Always Sunny in Philadelphia and the 2021 film The Suicide Squad. For Season 1, Syp largely maintained those same influences in addition to Parks & Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, while Revoltge was influenced by animated series Legend of Vox Machina and RWBY among various anime series.
Though obviously non-canonical to the Halo video games as a fan work, Guard Duty seems to occur sometime after the events of Halo 4 whilst being filmed within the Halo 3 engine. This is true in both Classic and the Relaunch continuities.
While Miller was voiced by Syp The Mighty in the first four episodes of Season 1, Blankslate took over the role in its fifth episode and will additionally dub over the lines for those episodes in the season's planned At The Movies re-release.
Before the development of Classic Season 2, various attempts at rebooting the series were attempted between 2012 and 2022 including:
A reboot that Annoyances was to be the first episode of that was originally made while Syp was part of machinima group Firelight Studios to be set entirely on Outpost Black Out. Six episodes were written for this version, with Revoltge co-writing the first two episodes, structured like a sitcom. This version was scrapped upon Syp's departure from Firelight Studios, with Revoltge never being part of the group to begin with.
A second reboot that Question and Bagels were made to promote. This version was fully written, with 10 episodes, and would have had a completely different plot with more mystery elements. This alternate version only had two episodes written, with little plot. When Syp took an extended hiatus from video making to focus on her own original webcomics, this version was scrapped.
A third reboot while Syp was part of a sketch comedy group 06 Media, with fellow members Dagnarrow and Dazalaras to star with her. This version was also fully written, with 19 episodes, once again with a completely different plot that would have saw Jace Casper as part of the main group instead of June in addition to Jones from Major Malfunction as a sixth guard. When 06 Media went on an indefinite hiatus, this version was scrapped.
Various unmade versions including a pilot for a fourth reboot set earlier in the timeline of when the guards first meet, an original live action comedy short for 06 Media featuring Geff and Jace, an original webcomic reboot part of Syp's Space Comics series, and an original stop-motion reboot using figures hand-crafted by Syp. All of which would be scrapped upon the production on this season.
See Also
Halo, the video game series in which Guard Duty is based and filmed within
Sandguardians, a Halo-based machinima series created by Intro-Mind that shares much of the same voice cast and is considered to take place in the same world as Guard Duty
