During Reach's early development, I made the original proposal to have George sacrifice himself in orbit and then have the covenant fleet show up, giving the unspoken implication that "You sacrificed your best guy and barely made dent. You can't win this war".
But my original pitch was "You leave Jorge in the Covenant bridge, he locks the door and is defending this room to ensure the ship stays on course, and the player runs back to the hangar and jumps" (all in game), we'd then transition to a first person cinematic while the player was falling.
The story team pushed back with a counter-proposal insisting Jorge get this monologue. I didn't agree at first so we debate/argued/etc. That happened a lot. In the end, it was the right choice (I was wrong), and it made the moment so much better.
That was the cool thing about old school Bungie. All the best moments were an amalgamation of proposals and counter-proposals, to ultimately arrive at the best version of the idea.
My 9/11 for Deadliest Warrior was when George Washington defeated Napoleon in the field because Washington knew “guerrilla tactics”.
Though it was understandable how 6’3 Washington could also just beat Napoleon to death with his bare hands