Yeah, I'm a little weird on that one. With the timeframe as it is, though, Master Chief wasn't even involved yet (although his reputation is legendary!).
Halo: Reach just predates the general Halo series, and Master Chief is not the main character in that game, as the "main character" is a rookie Spartan who joins an established team, and dies at the end of the game no matter what you do!
The general premise of the Reach game-story is a group of five Spartans whose overall endgame is to get the Cortana AI aboard the UNSC
Pillar of Autumn, which then accidentally finds itself at the Halo ring, where the main gameplay takes place.
Thus, this Halo series must be set at least a few months prior to
Halo: Combat Evolved, and may be the lead-up story to how Master Chief 117 wound up aboard the
Pillar of Autumn in the first place.
Interestingly, Master Chief was an order-following loyalist in
Combat Evolved, so I don't know where this is all going.
Oh, and then there's this tidbit: Master Chief and Cortana are first introduced aboard the
Pillar of Autumn immediately following the fall of Reach. How the plot is going to get around this well established bit of canon is going to be interesting, and I'm thinking that, since the previews show Cortana and 117 being introduced during this series, either the writers were told to disregard canon, or this story is going to lead us down the canonical road, which means Flood!
And I'm okay with that.
P.S. Halo fans are a bit like Star Wars/Star Trek fans. Don't be messing with canon!
