Halo Speculation

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Halo Speculation

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Halo is like an Onion

"Halo is like an onion. Yeah, an onion, that's peeling away on one side, while the other side has these big blue towers- Wait. I mean, like an onion that's speeding through space, on fire. No. Hold on. Okay, there's this onion, see? And it's got infinite layers, right? Infinite, like lots. More than you can count. And it's in space, and it's really huge? Okay, and you cut it, it's been cut into an infinite number of rings, only all from the middle, so there's no, like end pieces or anything. But there's all these infinite slices cut from this onion with infinite rings, and all of the slices are Halos."

"Maybe there's not an infinite number of them, but it doesn't matter! There's a bunch of them, and they're all over the galaxy, and there's all these levels, like layers, on the rings, and yeah. That's what Halo is."

Okay all you speculating cogitators, analyzing contemplators, and crack-addled conspiracy theorists. You've played the game, you've read the books, you've got this crazy idea. This section is for you. This is our "miscellaneous" section. Anything odd that doesn't quite fit anywhere else goes in here. Speculate rampantly away...

Talk about your Blasts from the Past!

Cannibal Harry, in an old HBO forum post, writes:

...Realizing the situation's gotten much worse, the captain of the PoA decides discretion is the better part of valor and gets the hell out of dodge. The Covs, of course, pursue. The next day, the PoA starts talking back, maybe.

? SCS Pillar of Autumn (?)

o CCS Sacred Promise (DE H c-3)

SENT 04.9.7.0600
via x-process 04087.2.32.742573
(process owner Cortana)

"... He says I came not to send Peace but a Sword ..."

I came not to send Peace but a Sword is definitely a Cortana reference. Note that the sender is Cortana. This transmission angers the Covs, up till now they've been doing all the talking.

The PoA continues to run."

Written over two years ago, Cannibal Harry did an incredible job of consolidating and analyzing what are known as the Halo Transmissions. The Transmissions appeared on the halo.bungie.com page back in 1999, right after Bungie had announced Halo at Macworld on July 21st, 1999. While the Transmissions were not the first we ever heard of this game (that honor goes to the Cortana Letters), they do provide an insight into the kind of details that Bungie concerns themselves with and CH's analysis brings up some interesting questions. Go check it out!

-mnemesis

Our own Louis Wu sent in something to the Story page here a little while ago, and I've decided to put it up as a kind of homework assignment for you all. (Stop that groaning in the back row!) Check out this link, then get Starhammer, by Christopher Rowley.

Louis Wu (halo@bungie.org) writes:

A couple of weeks ago, Jason Jones mentioned 'Starhammer' as an influence. I just finished it...

Your assignment is twofold:

1. Determine the influences, if any, that Bungie has taken from this book.
2. Describe ways that Bungie has elaborated on, or differed from, the storyline in the book, in terms of the game.

Remember, literary influences on video games can be a tricky thing. I want five pages, double-spaced, on my desk by next Wednesday.

-mnemesis

Tursas gives us his thoughts on scripture influences in Halo.

Tursas (tursas@shaw.ca) writes:

...However, 1:17 is only one of two possible scripture references (excluding the 117 verse). The other is 11:7. The lone 7 would be of greater significance to those familiar to Bungie. Again, only two books written by John have a verse 11:7. St. John 11:7 is nothing special. Revelation 11:7 is something much more substantial. In fact, verses 5 through 9 (and possibly 10, if you discount the last partial sentence) can be interpreted as referring to the flood.

5. And if any man will hurt them,
fire proceedeth out of their mouth,
and devoureth their enemies: and if
any man will hurt them, he must in
this manner be killed.

6. These have power to shut heaven,
that it rain not in the days of their
prophecy: and have power over
the waters to turn them to blood, and
to smite the earth with plagues,
as often as they will.

7. And when they shall have finished
their testimony, the beast that
ascendeth out of the bottomless pit
shall make war against them, and
shall overcome them, and kill them.

8. And their dead bodies shall lie in
the street of the great city, which
spiritually is called Sodom and
Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

9. And they of the people and
kindreds and tongues and nations shall
see their bodies three days and
an half, and shall not suffer their
dead bodies to be put in graves.

10. And they that dwell upon the
earth shall rejoice over them, and
make merry, and shall send gifts one
to another; because these two
prophets tormented them that dwelt
on the earth.

(The rest is all about how at the end of the 3.5 days the two prophets are brought back to life and go to heaven and stuff.)

Why the flood? Verse 5 clearly indicates that anybody who gets too close to one of the flood's walking bombs will pay the price not only with death, but with assimilation of the body. Verse 6 clearly delineates how the flood are able to change the atmosphere. Verses 7 and 8 speaks of some great individual or group who come(s) to lay waste to the flood in a very short amount of time and leave(s) their rotting corpses to waste away on the ground. Verses 9 and 10 speak of containment protocol (don't touch it Jimmy, you don't know where it's been) and the celebration that takes place after the flood is destroyed.

The name John-117 would indicate that the Master Chief himself commits the floodicide, just because of the positioning of the verse in the text.

Simple enough. Certainly, this is a great way to foreshadow the end result.

Revelations sure doesn't mince words, eh? :-)

-mnemesis

In regards to the Covenant "Plasma" technology, David Marsh sends this in.

David Marsh (silentstorm32@hotmail.com) writes:

It's very hard to store plasma by itself, because of the tremendous power levels it takes to create a magnetic bottle so that it doesn't come into contact with any of the gun, thereby vaporizing it. Therefore, it wouldn't be practical for the guns to work by storing plasma and releasing it when needed.

I was pondering this, and when I saw the front of a plasma gun yesterday, it all came together. There are two colored metal plates on the two prongs of both guns, blue for the rifle and green for the pistol. They reminded me very much of electrodes, and I thought that it would be much more efficient to have a battery in the gun rather than plasma. For any uninformed readers, plasma is ionized gas; that is, gas that has had many electrons knocked out of the atoms within it, at least one electron per atom. Heat is a measure of kinetic energy, or of the movement of particles, mass of particles and number of particles combined. When you rip electrons from an atom, you create at least twice the number of particles, so the temperature increases dramatically, which is why plasma is so deadly. One of the easiest ways to make plasma is to run a large current of electricity through a gas, and use the surrounding gas as ammunition. Maybe the guns run a large amount of electricity through the air and turn it to plasma, then shoot it forward via a magnet behind the electrodes. If the plasma guns that the covenant use do in fact run electricity between the electrodes, it would explain much of the gun's behaviors, such as overheating. If the gun stored plasma and released it, it would not heat up the gun, but maybe actually cool it down. However, a current of electricity between two electrodes makes the electrodes very hot. Therefore, it seems that the plasma guns actually run off of electricity, not plasma.

Much discussion of this type took place back in the early Marathon days, remember? Like from an old dream? ;-)

-mnemesis

On the connection between Humans and the other races on Halo.

Jonas (jonas@twcny.rr.com) writes:

I don't know exactly what the link is, but there must be one, becuase we all breath oxygen, like our gravity at 9.8 m/s2, and our doors are all basically the same size (so we have a scale of how big the forerunner were).

We know that all of the races breath oxygen becuase they can survive on halo (except the grunts, who wear face masks). We also know the covenant as a whole like oxygen, becuase thier ship is filled with it. And the forerunner like it becuase the built halo, and why build a habitat with a poisonous atmosphere.

The gravity is also the same in the covenant ship, (they didn't attempt to adjust it for the rings spin). And the forerunner like their gravity at 9.8 too, becuase that is what the ring creates.

-mnemesis

Kingpin (Dustin M.) (kingpin@citlink.net) writes:

I was thinking, what if the forerunner's didn't build Halo???

Think about this for a second. The Forerunners left senitals and Guilty Spark 343 on Halo to contain the Flood with enough knowledge how to defeat the Flood and activate Halo. What confuses me is how the Forerunners could construct several Halos of mass destruction capable of destroying everything in our known galaxy, but they couldn't construct a senital strong enough to defeat the flood, or enhance Guilty Spark 343 enough to set off Halo himself.

My theory is would be that the Forerunners actually discovered the Halos rather then building them. My speculation would be that the Forerunners aren't trying to learn about the flood, but are trying to figure out how to destroy the Halos and the Flood without killing everyone else.

Good points, although this would mean that there's another engimatic race out there somewhere. I suppose you can't have too many of those, right? ;-)

-mnemesis

We get a lot, and I mean a lot, of submissions here that attempt to explain the relationships between the Humans, the Forerunner, the Covenant, and the Flood. If you've sent something in, keep an eye out for Halo Prehistory Day, coming Soon to the Halo Story Page!

Today, however, we have an interesting submission from SlimJD747 that deals, not with the who or the how or the what of Halo, but the when.

SlimJD747@aol.com (SlimJD747@aol.com) writes:

Perhaps the Pillar of Autumn jumped farther into space then they bargained for. I beleive it is a possibility they jumped into time itself.

Once Reach fell, i belive the covenant traced the inner colonies over hundreds maybe thousands of years eventually leading back to Earth. I beleive that it was here on Earth in which the Forunner spawned. With Covenant dominaiton and destruction of the planet in a mere matter of hours, one can specualte the amount of escape ships trying to evade the Covenant, i believe many of them met such luck.

Prior to the covenant attack on Earth, a new protocol called Project Halo was created. Its purpose was to create the ultimate super soldier, and turn the tides of the war.

Construction was to begin, but then the Covenant attacked.

Each fleeing ship carried the technical information and highly advanced technology(compared to mastercheifs time) needed in order to build such facilities.

Dispersed throughout the galaxy, the survivors began constructing these halo's. And on it began the creation of a last, desperate hope. As far as anyone had known the proud Spartan soldiers had all been wiped out to events prior to and of the Fall of Reach. Now a less technical, precise super soldier was being created. One with numbers as its greatest weapon, and persitance is greatest allie.

However the experiment would be cut terribly short when the soldiers overhelmed there creators. The soldiers were like a disease, a flood, and they consumed all they could.

With highly advanced technology and wepaons the flood were managed to be surpressed, however not before the halo's super smart A.I was reassinged with ensuring the captivity of the flood, and executing whatever means necessary to ensure that captivity. Halo's defense systems were re routed and created into a highly dangerous though very effective last result, a self destruct sytem unique from anyother.

Those who were not killed, fled for their lives, and possibly the lives of other survivors, to tell of the horrors of the halo. Covenant forces who have long set out to search and destroy these myth halo super weapons find one, and investigate with victory thirsty mouths, and morbid curiosity. But what they find , is more than they bargained for. In a way project Halo works as desired, only with a hefty price no one could have estimated.

Then you arrive, on a blazing saddle (literally) you'r war stricken ship is bound for going down. And you land on what you think to be an alien world. However this ring planet is probably the closet thing to human you will encounter.

The POA arrives way in the future, unaware of the countless events that took place prior to their arrival.

-------

You land on Halo and encounter many things. One of these things being the Halo smart A.I installation...GS 343. Here begins the first proof of human forunner. The A.I speaks english, a specific human language. Not only that but it speaks it with a rather British type voice. Such a voice one could imagine not to be a translater default tone.

This A.I also makes other intresting remarks, "stop acting so human"(spoken when shot at several times). The A.I is aware in the behavior of humans, and with no prior conact with the humans, how could they? Unless of coarse they were human.

Also the A.I recognizes your battle armor as level 2. What then is level one, perhaps the armor used by the marines in Marathon, the same armor the spartans trianers use, the one Dr. Halsey shrugs off as "antiques". Notice how both are human made. And in the time you missed while jumping through space and time, its very likley up to 12 or more type armor has been created, as recommened by the flaoting, sputtering genious himself.

It has been assumed that the comments made by 343 GS indicate the rise, fall, and rise of at least one of the civilizations represented on Halo. To turn that scenario inside-out, as it were, and keep the timeline coherent, that's some seriously creative thinking! Keep it up, readers! :-)

-mnemesis

Longtime Halo fan and member of the feared and respected Team 7hr33, Finn checks in with some shrewd observations regarding 343, the Flood, and Jaime's "forces behind the scenes".

Daniel Barbour (team_7hr33@mac.com) writes:

This is in response to the comments made by both VORLONS301@aol.com and Astro the Space Duck regarding the "other species" which is so "persistent in accessing restricted areas" mentioned by 343. I agree with Astro's initial reasoning that this is not a reference to the Covenant; they are not a race, but an alliance of races. It is not the humans, for even though they are quite "persistent in accessing restricted areas" they were not responsible for the release of the Flood. That established, Jaime Griesemer's comment made in OXM UK speaks right directly to this debate:

"Well... I'll just say that Master Chief didn't meet all of the factions that had a hand in the events of Halo. There were forces at work behind the scenes that were alluded to, and you could probably deduce some of their motivations if you paid close attention. But they never confronted the chief directly."

It makes sense that 343 and Jaime are both referring to the same race. The other race then is not yourself, humanity, or any of the Covenant met so far. That narrows down the identity of the other race to the Jjarro, Forerunner, Covenant religious leaders, or something as of yet unmentioned...

-mnemesis

kapowaz (hbo@kapowaz.net) writes:

...I was struck, upon watching the E3 2000 trailer, by the similarities in style between the UNSC Marines and the Colonial Marines from the film Aliens. Their uniform (battered, paint-scratched metal plating, helmets with an viewfinder over one eye), their weapons, and even their conversation (The commanding officer speaking to his squad onboard the Pelican on the trailer insists he wants a "Nice tight dispersal", echoing Sgt. Apone's words "I want a nice tight dispersal this time" on board the dropship in Aliens).

It wouldn't appear to be a coincidence that we have a Sgt. Johnson who looks like, sounds like, and even has the same rank as Sgt. Apone. His motivational speeches onboard the Pillar of Autumn again echo those of Apone onboard the Sulaco prior to the Colonial Marines' departure in Aliens.

Then we have the female lieutenant flying the lifepod upon your escape from the PoA, who bears more than a slight resemblence to Corporal Ferro, the dropship pilot in Aliens... and Foehammer's pilot also mentions some similar military jargon to Ferro (Ferro: "We're in the pipe, five by five", Foehammer: "I read you, five by five." - an interesting discussion of what this expression means can be read here: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1132372).

Finally, the most obvious similarity for me was the last-dash escape from a fusion reactor going critical, with your ship speeding off just in time to avoid the nuclear fireball that ensued.

I'm sure there are other links between the two that more observant individuals will send in. Bungie must really dig Aliens, but who could blame them?

Yes, we've known that various Bungie personnel were fans of the Alien films and it's good to get all this noted in a nice, well-written bundle. But what other influences can be found in Halo, hmmm? ;-)

-mnemesis

If it doesn't say Aztec on the rocks, it isn't Aztec in the rocks...

Ian C. Jefferys (icjefferys@mcdonogh.org) writes:

Throughout FOR, it refers to many objects as being "Aztec-looking." From the symbols on the rock retrieved by the MC on Sigma Octanus to the architecture of some ruins found on the same planet to navigation symbols seen on Covenant ships, the description of being Aztec-looking in either design or language is used often. At the end of FOR, Cortana discovers that the symbols and patterns on the rock from Sigma Octanus, when looked at a certain way, resemble star charts. She plotted a course for the autumn that eventually led them to Halo using this cart. She did however, "account for thousands of years of stellar drift" to get a match. Simple math: 2552 (date Halo:CE takes place) - 1000 (a few thousand years taken to mean 1000-3000 years) = 1552 In 1552 (or just in the 1500s) the Aztec civilization was at its height, and then was destroyed by the Spanish explorer/conqueror Cortez. It is now my belief that the Aztecs were somehow involved with the Forerunner, either as a seeded race or something else. Unlike most rash theories, to my knowledge, there is no contradicting evidence to this theory. Also, if we accept that the forerunner were around 1000 years before game time (500 years before now) then it is easy to imagine them being around at the time of Halo CE as well as Halo 2. I cant remember where, but I do remember Bungie hinting somewhere that the Forerunner will be revealed, or at least their presence known in Halo 2. just some food for thought... red meat in my opinion...

Very nicely put. Of course, Bungie has always been interested in Central American culture, but it'll be especially interesting to see how this pans out in Halo 2.

-mnemesis

It's not everyday that we would consider the wholesale borrowing of a post from our fellow analytical site, but on this day of rest, it keeps things oh so simple... (Thanks be to the MSP.)

Relax, I told them we'd give it back ;)

Colin Ferguson (fearlessson@yahoo.com) writes:

I noticed that the song from the Halo Sound track "On a Pale Horse" is also the name of a Piers Anthony novel. In that novel there is a line "Death is dead, long live death." This is similar to Bungie's official response to Phoenix questions: "Phoenix is dead, long live Phoenix." I also noted that in the novel, in a Latin American civil war zone, there is a soldier claiming that he is hunting "Seventh Communists." Sounds a bit like "Seventh Columnists," does it not? I asked Marty O'Donnell about this and have made a copy of my question and his reply:

------------------------------------------

3/18/2003 11:51 PM PST, by Fearless Son
Q Maestro in Chief, sir,

Fact: There is a track on the Halo Sound track called "On a Pale Horse," sir.

Fact: The official response to direct questions about Phoenix is "Phoenix is dead, long live Phoenix," sir.

Are these references to the first book in Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, sir? More importantly, does that series have any plot or inspirational references that would send people (like me) on the Marathon's/Halo's Story pages into a rabid reading frenzy as we feverishly and painstakingly search the collected works of Piers Anthony looking for the slightest connection with Bungie games, sir?

A Marty the Elder says: Piers Anthony...hmmm it appears that what was once hidden has been exposed, what was lost is now found...

------------------------------------------

Could Bungie be drawing some serious inspiration from Piers Anthony? We better find out...

Indeed. Balance and rebuttal by DonPistola can be viewed here.

-Finn

Semantic interpretation of Halo's premiere foray into verse.

Everett Green (greenboy38@hotmail.com) writes:

Starting a new stanza, the author speaks of the space as a celestial bough. www.dictionary.com refers to a bough as a tree branch or arm, especially a large one. But if you look a little harder, an archaic (old, and generally no longer used) definition calls a bough another name for a gallows, or a form of execution.

-Finn

Some of Oni's inspirations can be traced to The Ghost in the Shell; elements of Halo from...

Hayato (hayato27@hotmail.com) writes:

It could just be me, but. Anyone else sorta notice the whole similarity between Spriggans and Spartans? (Spriggan is a pretty sweet action sci fi anime with awesome animation... sort of a mix between Indiana Jones and James Bond.) The Spriggan and Spartan were both were kids trained basically from birth, and like totally augmented. They also both have their own suits, MC having his mjolnir mark 5/6, and Ominae Yu having his Orihalcyon Power AM Suit. Both are pretty much Governmental/Military Tools. :) I love this kinda stuff.

Only major differences are, that in Halo you are fighting over a highly advanced ringworld, in Spriggan, they are fighting over lots biblical artifacts... like the Arc and Holy Grail. :D

:: begins to wonder how powerfull a Spriggan in Spartan armor would be...:: Mmmmm....

-Finn

A keen review never hurt anyone:

Elessedil 111 (Elessedil111@aol.com) writes:

All of the transmissions sent by the Pillar of Autumn to the Covenant battle group in the "Transmissions" section are from the poem "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell." Cortana uses multiple passages from the same poem in the "Cortana Letters." Bungie obviously has either some affinity with either this poem or William Blake, and either would make since. Some of Blake's poetry, like "The Tiger" and "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" have to do with destruction and powerful entities in general. Someone more observant than me may want to look into this.

Some have, and others soon will...

-Finn

The second begins with the verse as well, but goes on to point out yet another seven manifestation.

Matt McQuain (MMcquain@aol.com) writes:

I looked at a bit more of your time line and noticed that in 2535 that Jericho VII fell... yah... in the bible... the seemingly unstoppable fortress of Jericho fell too when the weaker army walked around it for 7 days (I think). On the 7th day they blew their horns and the walls fell from the inside out.

Ohh...more 7s stuff...interesting...

-Finn

John 117 has pointed us to several oddly applicable passages of Scripture. Samuel 034 has seen similar attention in recent days, though the relation, if any, seems to be slightly less poignant.

Matt (iguessidontknowit@hotmail.com) writes:

I know this may have been said already, but Samuel 034 was lost in battle in the book Fall of the reach. Yet again Samuel chapter 3 verse 4 "Then the LORD called Samuel. Samuel answered, Here I am"

-Finn

Please Hammer don't hurt 'em!

Krillin Matthews (krillinswrath@hotmail.com) writes:

In Steven King's first widely popular novel, he had written in a very crucial character known as foe hammer. In this book, based in a time of kings and knights, a rather mediocre king known as the Good King Rowland was off hunting one day when he encountered a dragon. While everyone else in his party were taken off guard by the dragon and panicked, he stayed calm, drew his bow... and shot his prized arrow, foe hammer, at this dragon. He killed it with that one shot to the heart and proceeded to eat its heart, as was custom... or something like that.

Later on in the book, this same prized arrow was used by his son to kill the very embodiment of evil known as the magician Flagg. I don't know if any of this has anything to do with Halo's Foe-hammer, but it's just something for you to think about.

-Finn

Dave Wolff (wolffie@onebox.com) writes:

In the level 343 Guilty Spark at the scene where the Lt. Jenkins tape is replaying, there is a date at the end of the recording posted at the bottom. In the transcripts you have it posted as ”>End Record View (#'s)‘ Well the ”(#“s)‘ start with a date ÷ 2552 05 17 ÷ and end with the time of day of the recording. May 17, 2552? According to the time line of TFoR that would be months before Reach fell.

The plots thickens as we look to The Flood for further confirmation. Two early references to McKay's mission clock appear to be the victims of an extra 1 at the beginning (128 (p.127) and 144 hours from departing the Autumn (p.148), rather than a more consistent 28 and 44). Doing a little chrono-dancing, it appears that the events of Halo all take place roughly between the wee morning hours of September the 19th and the Pillar of Autumn's atomic sunrise on the 22nd, 2552.

Ahhh, inconsistencies; definitely not the first instance, and undoubtedly not the last.

-Finn

New! Vitamin Enriched Typos and Dates!

We've received several letters curious about an apparent discrepancy on Lt. Jenkins' video recorder on 343 Guilty Spark:

Shawn St.Clair (lomnoir@ameritech.net) writes:

If you haven't already noticed, the numbers following "Open Record View" are a time and date stamp. It starts with the sequence 2552.5.27 5.52.26 L and ends with 2552.5.27 6.39.23 L. I am guessing all of the events on Halo are taking place on Memorial Day weekend in the year 2552. The L at the end of the numbers means (most likely) Local Time.

A fine and appropriate suggestion. However...

-Finn

The straw that broke the e-camel's back...

The exploration of the possible roots of the name Foe Hammer is nothing new to Bungie fans of old. And while this speculation entered the Halo universe a considerable time ago via a certain Thomas Dow, Jr., its mention was obviously not prominent enough , as we still receive notes to this day kindly pointing it out.

And so, in an effort to finally curb this well meaning, but unfortunately superfluous, stream of mail on the subject, I present, without further ado and with all appropriate apologies to those not credited, the definitive and hopefully final post on this particular relationship, barring any major future revelations.

Stuart Chan (stuartchan@hotmail.com) writes:

Glamdring, the elvish name of the sword worn by Gandalf the Grey in The Lord of the Rings, actually means Foe Hammer in English.

There :)

-Finn

Super Tanoshii Bonus Email!

Simpsons Rule (Simpsonsrule17@aol.com) writes:

I was searching Encarta for words like Covenant and Flood and Halo. I stumbled upon some interesting religious attachments with the Covenant that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere. For now read this piece of Halobacteria. It mentions the rotten egg smell, and if I remember correctly at the end of the level 343 Guilty Spark, you encounter the only time where you can see the marines fight the flood. One marine will say something like "man these things smell when they pop." This could be referring to the rotten egg smell of the Halobacteria. Also it mentions the Halobacteria release sulfur and not oxygen. This sounds like "the flood changing their environment." The resemblances are there...

Halophilic indeed. A quick search on Google will reveal more detailed information on this rather curious coincidence.

-Finn

Scriptural speculation:

Scott Porter (porters@grenvillecc.ca) writes:

I was just sitting in class today reading your page, mind you it was a spare. When I stumbled accross:

John1:18: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

Now I have been aware of the Bible connections for a long time but does not the sentence "keys of hell and of death." perhaps mean the Captains neural implants that Cortana needs to set off the PoA engines, as in "Keys of Death". That being said, "Keys of Hell" would mean the index.

Funky :)

-Finn

Josh (mungkey@mac.com) writes:

If anyone is familiar with the music of Warren Zevon, he has a song called "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" about the little known Congo War of the 60's. In this song Mombasa is mentioned. I have learned that Mombasa may be the setting of a level in Halo 2. Roland, of course, is mentioned in the Marathon series as the wielder of Durandal (from the medieval "Song of Roland"). Coincidence? Probably, but I thought it was interesting anyway.

There are no coincidences. Only connections perceived, and connections yet to be perceived.

-mnemesis

It seems to be "Many Theories in a Long Email" week here, so this time I'm going to post the whole thing with no breaks. Enjoy!

Scott Porter (porters@grenvillecc.ca) writes:

1. Door thickness/Material:

Has anybody noticed the fact that on the the control room the doors are paper thin, and yet on the Library the doors are at least 10 times as thick with extra armor! Also notice the little floating holograms infront of them on the Library, are those wards of some sort like in anceint cultures, or a 343 interface? Anyways did the Forerunner never anticipate the Flood coming to the Control room because they thought they could keep them contained or wipe the galaxy? Or are the doors on AotCR a better stronger alloy or metal, mind you the doors still break in the bridge chamber in Two Betrayls but don't open, but the doors on the Library never get broken. Wouldn't it make sense to make them all the same, or at least fortify the Control room more.

One last note on doors, remember how MC's suit changes temperature to keep him warm or cool, this means he never feels the ambeint temperature. If you look at the doors in the cliff walls on AotCR they all have the snow melted away for quite some distance. This would imply that either the Forerunners either like it hot, the material they build with is super heat conductive (perhaps for the dissapation of plasma shots, or absorbtion of heat when the flood alter the atmosphere), or the Flood have already started to raise the temperature and this is where the snow melts most readily.

2. Ohh, it glitters!!!!

I Love AotCR, so the other day I was playing through it and I couldn't take it any longer, WHY DO THE WALLS GLITTER(Bridge room, outside above doors see above)??? Now that got me thinking what if the same crystal that is in starships and the Mjlinor is in the walls of Halo, doesn't make much sense I know but the possiblity is out there. Then I though, well what if there part of 343's teleportation grid, after all he is the same color, but Cortana manages to teleport you to the TR on Keyes. So what if they're some sort of camera, or monitoring device? Hell they might even be part of some sort of one-way glass so the forerunners can watch(dependant mainly on the theroy that Halo is a testing grounds for species, or maybe just the flood). Or is it just some part of an alloy with large particles?

3. Flood Lights

Again when on AotCR on later parts of the mission the white bar lights by the doors are turned to a greenish color, like Flood blood. Perhaps it is their blood on the lights or it is meant as a warning that there are flood that escaped. As 343 did say that Halo's main purpose is to study and contain the flood, but what if there are secondary missions. Maybe different colors mean different species escaped. Kind of a tangent I know, I know.

4. Flood pits

Guess what level! On AotCR in the big circular rooms that make up the majority of the interior. They are shaped like big gears; circular with big outcroppings(probably 7:) ). anyways their are these glass covers on these big green pits, each one looks like a spore holding cell. But what if they are tanks of flood virus, should a hostile take over the ring, simply break the emegency glass and the ring is uninhabitable.

5. Genorators?

On many levels including Halo,AotCR( :) ), and 343GS there are these big rectangular things, easy to see in the bridge room(AotCR and Halo both). I was thinking every where lots of power would be need they are there. Light Bridge, Check, Index protective energe feild, Check, but what on AotCR, unless it is for the Control Room. But I would expect those to be hidden inside and closer. They might also be for the superweapon, and that is why there is such feirce Covenant/Flood battles in the area, just outside on both doors are large armies of Flood, as well as a large group huddled around one(most likely the corpses from the qmmo cache). So anyways other then good sniping stools what if they're good for and even powerful weapon. The Flood would after all need to disable them to survive.

6. The Big Trap!!!

On 343 we already know the Flood have escaped if we have played through. Of course you know that something powerful hurtles those grunts and jackels. But has anybody else seen the First Flood the MC sees. Of course I havent gotten that far in the book, but if you want to see it, get off the Pelican and get ammo and stuff (will be easiest to see on easy, well duh). Anyways time doesn't matter until your nearing the crashed Covenant Dropship. Run past is ignoring the Covenant and as soon as you can see the tree bridge zoom in with you pistol on the top outcrop. There you can see a Elite Flood watching! It jumps down really fast and runs away though so its hard to get a good look. But is he after the Covenant or a Scout to spot enemy reinforcements or better yet you. What if they remained in the structure till you got to the center so that it would take you longer to escape. The first time I played the level and the MC hears the slithering and hissing and goes in anyways and the marine falls into his arms, it made me think TRAP! For he is trapped, the door locks and tons of infection forms, to capture the MC come out. As it is not effective, the bigger guys who got into position to block the exit when the MC hears the slithering comes. That is why the doors opened so easily for the Marines the Flood were hungry and so disabled the covenant attempts to lock it down. The Covenant wanted to contain the trap, and the Flood so they locked it, but the Flood unlocked it after they retreated so that they could trap the MC!

7. The Flora!

On 343GS the tress have bright flood colored growths. 343 only said that a host had to have suitable Biomass, and trees are heavy, mind you they can't really think, still makes for a good way to alter the atmosphere. Hosts (usually) breath air and produce CO2, trees and plants take CO2 and make it into O2 again. Perhaps the Flood need a CO2 atmosphere as there is only a little in our own atmosphere. With a pure atmosphere they might thrive! Mind you CO2 is poisinous, so maybe the trees are making a different gas or they are trying to make it so that Halo is Uninhabitable, so the weapon couldn't be fired and all their enemies die without a fight leaving perfectly intact bodies for the taking.

I especially like this last bit about the foliage on 343 Guilty Spark. We've had a lot of people potice the resemblance to Flood biology, and the "altering the atmosphere" thing fits rather nicely. Good job!

-mnemesis

From FoR the book, what was the real reason for the capture of a general from the pirate outpost? I mean, all of that effort, just for one guy? Something else was going down. I think that the pirates were not pirates at all, just a rogue group of people, who knew what was going on. The covenant, the Flood, the whole works. This is why they hid in that astroid field. Just a thought.

And you know how it is in the book that the Spartans can run fast, and the suits magnify movement like 100 times? Well, In the game, I think I should be moving pretty darn fast, and every thing should be moving slow. (Don't forget, they see in higher frame rates, so things move awefully slow in their eyes)

Well, I think I'm all out of thoughts.

Thanks for reading this far!

Okay okay okay, I forgot to add this one to my last Email. WHAT IS UP WITH THE SARGE?! You know, the african-american guy, who's always yelling at marines, loves rock, and is with Keyes at Guilty Spark? yah. He's Always around! You pick him up on halo when you first get there, 3 different times. Then, (SPOILER) at the end, when you beat every level on hard, the special ending has Sarge in it. For pete's sake, I think sarge is a spartan in disguise. Never mind that, Forget spartans! Send a fleet of Sarges at the covenant, they never ever DIE! ^_^

He's EVERYWHERE!!! Nice job, Wyatt. I'm constantly amazed at the volume and depth of the material you people send in here to the story page. Keep it up! :-)

-mnemesis

Sterling (sterfrye@sbcglobal.net) writes:

Yes, even the woman who constantly saves your butt is not immune to the wonders of the number seven.

Take a look at this, the clue is in her flight number, ECHO 419.

However, 419s not divisible by seven.

So, take each letters numerical order, ( I.E. A=1 B=2) and re-write her callsign. You should get 53,815,419, which, when divided by seven, is7, 687,917.

We are ever vigilant in our search for the 7ru7h. Nice work. :-)

-mnemesis

The HBO Forum is all aflutter with Halo 2 Demo ravings right now, and last month was overshadowed by the E3 FanFest. However, a nugget of speculation goodness was dropped in there a while ago from Simpsons Rule. Check it out!

Let's hope they're right. More Covenant intel would be nice. ;-)

-mnemesis

And now: A Chemistry Lesson!

SN (sorenn@attglobal.net) writes:

I've also been thinking about how chirality (the direction the molecule twists in) because all organic molecules chirates in one of two directions (clockwise or counterclockwise, random depending on the planet that the life evolved on. But you would be immune to any diseases of opposite chiration, and could use any food of the opposite chirality. Could explain the possible forerunner immunity to flood. But it would have to assume that all other life on halo has the same chirality as the flood. This doesn't make much sense seeing that guilty spark says they consume all. I mean what are the odds the every planet in the galaxy chose the same chirality. Unless& some one set them up to all be vulnerable to the flood. A little forerunner testing perhaps. This theory does however debunk the forerunner human theory if this is correct. Because we know all to well humans arent immune. =(

For a brief description of chirality, see here. For a more practical example of why chemistry is important, see here. Don't say you ain't never learned nothin' from Halo.

-mnemesis

The Prophets: Pet Cats Left Behind by the Forerunner!

Read the awful truth!

Who woulda thunk that?!?

-mnemesis

When good rebuttals go bad!

What started out as a routine response turned ugly earlier today when blithe calculations inadvertently exposed a significant numerical variance in dates. Ghastly in its unexpectedness!

Kiara577 (Kiara577@cs.com) writes:

First, all you people speculating that Beowulf/Durandal/Hero is talking to/about Cortana I feel is wrong. In FoR it says that Cortana was created in the likeness of Dr. Halsey around the year 2552. That is when Master Chief is first introduced to the real MJOLNIR armor. The Marathon supposedly launched in 2209 and I assume (never having played the game) that Durandal was on it. That would mean that Durandal was talking about an AI from 343 years in the future. This would be impossible.

When have impossible premises ever hindered the submission of email? ;)

-Finn

Shadow (Shadow@macfleet.com) writes:

I thought it was very clever of Bungie to incorporate an "Alice in Wonderland" scenario in the beginning of Two Betrayals. GS's line "Save his head. Dispose of the rest" is very reminiscent of the Red Queen's promclamation, "Off with her head!" Halo itself is quite the Wonderland of its own...

While there's definitely another influence at work here, you can't really go wrong with an Alice in Wonderland reference.

-mnemesis

Here's a quick observation. Remember when Jason Jones said that the history of the Pillar of Autumn wasn't quite as interesting as the Autumn's twice-renamed sister ship, Dawn Under Heaven? I'm wondering if any of the big brains at the UNSC are considering yet a third renaming. After all, who's gonna want to say they're crew on the DUH? ;-)

Well, that takes a small chunk out of the oft-neglected inbox. Everything gets read back here, so if you've got anything to contribute to this ever-unfolding saga, send it in!

-mnemesis

Humans are this, Humans are that. I know you are but what am I. I'm rubber you're glue...

Wintermute manages to collect a lot of classic speculation in a well written, easily consumable post, and while he's at it, highlight another literary reference mentioned as important to Halo's development. Snipped from his post :

Wintermute (durandal217@yahoo.com) writes:

Jason also said that the Mote series (by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven, Niven also wrote Ringworld) played a big part in influencing the storyline of Halo.

At first I thought that meant that's where he got the Covenant idea from, from the Mote series, because the Moties (the first Alien race that Humans meet) have a caste system, much like the Covenant.

This could be convincingly argued, but more interesting is that (this is what I think I've figured out) he also seems to have set a certain structure of technological advancement on the human race that comes directly from the Mote series as well.

Most people think, or at least have a sneaking suspicion that the humans are the Forerunner.

In the Mote series, the Moties are an alien civilization that has these cycles where they advance to a certain point technologically and then destroy themselves in war. They keep blasting themselves back into the Stone Age.

So in one of these cycles, some alien gets the bright idea to make a kind of fortress/museum of their higher technology so that it will survive the next big war and then the survivors of the war and their offspring don't have to take as long to rebuild their society because once they figure out how to get into the "museum", their growth as a race with accelerate by leaps and bounds.

So this happened to the Forerunner 900,000 years ago...

Maybe not in the same Cycle System, but maybe in a war against the Flood or something. Either way, I'm betting they were wiped out and somehow the seed of Human civilization on Earth was in effect the next generation of the Forerunner race.

So finally, the MC lands on Halo, walks into the Control Room, 343GS thinks he's "coming back" (figuratively OR literally) to reclaim the higher technology of Halo, or just Halo itself.

Hence the name Reclaimer.

Visit Winternutes full post on the subject to read further or add your own thoughts.

900 000 years ago, eh? Is that in Earth Standard or the magically ambiguous "local year" :P

-Finn

Later in the X03 clip (5:32 approximately), Marcus Lehto, in discussion of the Halo Universe's ambience and history, mentions casually how they really wanted to portray "that there was damage that existed from some battle that happened 900 000 years ago.". Skeletor picked up on this and has posed a few questions and insights of his own.

Skeletor (skeletor05@ftml.net) writes:

Has anyone else noticed the amazing landscape that appeared for a few seconds after Marcus Lehto's bit at around 5:42 in the 50mb avi version of the X03 footage? It's beautiful...absolutely the highlight of the movie for me. It looks incredibly devastated and war torn, and the structures are very outlandish...Definitely some good fodder for speculation.

You can see six bright, glowing spheres in the distance: three on the far right, and two in the upper left (with another, the smallest, between those two). At first glance I thought they were stars, but three of them, quite noticeably, have a huge glowing line trailing upward from their tops (the two on the left, and the upper one on the right). This led me to believe they must be falling down towards the planet (perhaps some sort of orbital bombardment projectile), but on further inspection they appear to be motionless in the sky. The lower two on the right don't appear to be as spherical as the others, though I don't know if that fact has any importance. In conclusion, I don't know what the hell they are. >_<

The structures all look rather alien, but it's possible they might be skyscrapers or some other future human construction...Probably unlikely though.

Very sexy in any case.

An awesome glimpse. Meteorites or ships to ancient Sigma Octanus (or some other world)? Orbital bombardment? Flood-like landscapes indeed. Help him out!.

Let's hope we see a high quality release of this footage (or image, as it does appear fairly static). The resolution is so very poor; we wouldn't want the public to get the wrong impression of all Bungie's hard work ;)

(UPDATE: You can now view a local version of the panoramic view in question here.)

-Finn

There are three things that are never satisfied; four that never cry "Enough!"

Life maintains a strange sense of surrealism even now. I would not trouble you with the marvellous details, but at least one small factor is certainly the recent absence of a computer in the household of the new Mr. and Mrs. Finn. A problem on the brink of solution, but for now, the mailbag still lies neglected. Neglected, and yet it gains.

Undaunted by this, however, has been the speculation on a number of topics in the forum, not the least of which has had to do with several snippets and glances gleaned from the recent Bungie X03 convention footage.

Though it doesn't all leap out at you yelling and eye-gouging, there are several subtle doses of new footage and interesting commentary throughout by several of the B-boys.

Early on, Joseph Staten talks of Jason's claustrophobia-induced story development for Halo 2 (2:15 and on); one scene in particular "which will go down in the untold lore of Bungie". After describing a scene of "horrible betrayal" where "Miranda strapped a bomb to the Master Chief’s back and shoved him down a hole", mnemesis and I frantically compared notes. Who is this Miranda? A new character? A Marine? Another Spartan? Or perhaps merely a more direct reference to Jason's apparently rough break-up around that time? Hmmm... "that might have had something to do with it." Then again... maybe not.

More hints are also dropped regarding the terrain and locales we will soon be facing, "from the ruins of Halo to these ancient Forerunner facilities in the atmospheres of gas giants" (6:16 approximately). A moon base, a gas giant facility, war-torn Earth, Halo's drifting remnants, and a/the Covenant Homeworld. The list grows steadily longer.

-Finn

Okay, this one is a biggie. Deep breathes, everyone. Ready, set, cogitate!

Karlos Garcia (arenjinix@yahoo.com) writes:

Where to start. In regards to Wado's theory involving the Flood. I think that there are certain universal principles by which mother nature operates no matter where one may be in the universe. One of the more important ones is that there must be balance and order in any given ecosystem. You cannot allow any species to be so successful that it consumes most, if not all, natural resources. This is exactly what the Flood-the ones in the game-do. They consume all. That totally goes against what is in the best interest of mother nature. It makes more sense that the Flood are an unnatural phenomenon as opposed to a natural one. This certainly serves to support Wado's theory that there may have been an ancient, super intelligent, form of the Flood. Another possible scenario though may be that the Flood are a natural phenomenon, but didn't evolve anywhere near the Covenant, Forerunner, or humans. Maybe they resided in some very foreign and weird ecosystem that had effective, natural contermeasures to limit the growth of the Flood. Some kind of poison or extremely foul odor to keep the flood away. Maybe the flood weren't exactly at the top of the food chain. In fact, it would be in the best interest of the Flood to have something to limit thier growth because if they ate everything then there would be nothing left to eat. It is very intriging though to ponder why the Flood need a host with such a high level of IQ...

Another aspect of Wado's post talks about how maybe not all of the Halos fired the last time Halo 04 fired. At the very beginning of 2 betrayals, the monitor is elaborating to MC what Cortana already told him regarding Halo's true purpose. He says: "This installation has a maximun effective radius of 25,000 light years, but once the others follow siut, this galaxy will be quite devoid of life,..." What exactly does GS mean when he says "once the others follow suit"? It could be that once Halo 04 or any Halo is fired that all other Halos automatically fire as well. Or could it be that once Halo 04 or any other Halo fires that it serves as a siganal to all others to "follow suit" and fire as well? This would mean that all Halos fire independently of each other. I think that the latter scenario makes more sense. Think about it. Your the Forerunner. You only want to fire Halo's final weapon if it is absolutely necessary. Every Halo is monitored by AI constructs independent of each other (remember how GS says "I'm the monitor of installation 04"). It is very possible that after tens of thousands of years of complete isolation, some AI's might go rampant and use Halo's weapon recklessly. So why design all halos so once one fires, all of them fire? It could lead to a completely unecessary catastrophe. It makes you wonder what the other AI constructs monitoring other Halos are like.

As far as Forerunners populating other worlds in hopes that they would be safe from the Flood and destroying their technology to prevent the Flood from using it just in case they got infected, well I don't quite understand what the logic would be behind that. Why have the humans totally forgotten thier forerunner roots? And what about evolution? How does that whole process tie in with this? Anyways, enough about Wado. On to Bob Cringle's comments on the same day.

About the whole 'Forerunners were water breathers' thing,....I find that hard to believe. Lets look at the proposed evidence supposodely supporting this hypotheses:

1. There is no evidence at all that even suggests that the area surrounding the control room is experiencing a system malfunction that is causing the weather to be so cold.

2. About the flood containment facility being surrounded by water. This seems interesting at first, but this is quickly refuted by the fact that the flood actually get into the water at the end of this level. Nothing happens to them. According to Bob's hypotheses, the flood may have been originally allergic to water. But he doesn't eloborate at all about how the flood may have evolved to adapt to water, a hugh hole in an argument that already seems to be falling apart.

3. About why the earth is covered by so much water. This doesn't really mean anything. Its not like we're the only organism on this planet that needs water for sustainment of life. Every organism needs water. Just look at Mars. That planet hardly has any water and we havn't found any life there yet. In fact, there are many many other organisms on this planet that need water a hell of a lot more than we do. Ever hear of fish? There are god knows how many different species of fish and other kinds of organims that need to live in water. How come there's nothing in the fossil record that indicates humans or our ancestors ever needed water to breathe?

4. The silent cartographer. Well this bit of evidence definitely seems rather irrelevent in light of what I've already said.

Okay, now for my idea regarding the relationship involving humans, Covenant, and Forerunner.

I tend to strongly favor the 'forerunner seeding the galaxy' theory. To support this, I want to bring up something that I havn't heard yet. Human beings are upright walking, bipedal beings. At the moment I can't think of another species on this planet that has that particular feature. The development of this feature in humans marked a hugh change in the course of our evolution. Now, look at the covenant. What's one physical trait that elites, hunters, jackals, and even grunts to some extent share with humans? Another thing that we share with covenant is a high level of IQ and self awareness that no other species is capable of. We can ponder our own life, our own death, what comes after death, what the purpose of life is, etc. We seem to definitely share the same range of emotions and they seem to be just as susceptible to the pitfalls of humanity as us. They are capable of good and evil deeds; arrogance; ignorance; as well as racism (caste system) or other forms of unfair prejudice and discrimination. The point that I'm trying to make is that there are so many similarities between covenant and humans that its highly unlikely that we evolved independent of each other. There have to be some common ancestors. If our DNA is like 97.3 or 99.7 per cent (I forgot) identical to that of gorrilas, then imagine how similar human and covenant DNA may be? We certainly seem to share more in common with covenant.

One more quick question completely unrelated to everyting I've been talking about: does anyone know if there is any chance in hell I could get my hands on any of the marathon games? Never played them.

Lots of good stuff to chew on in there. Nice work, Karlos!

As for that last question, go here (on order now, hopefully to be restocked), and here (look through the downloads area on the right - if you can't find anything useful, look again ;-)), and lastly here. And you better read everything here. And by everything, I mean everything. :-)

-mnemesis

Trevor Austin (taustin@stanford.edu) writes:

In 1956, at an MIT workshop that my AI textbook says "the field can be said to have started at" George Miller presented a paper entitled "The Magic Number Seven." Naturally, my mind leapt back to numerous allusions in Bungie's work. Reading the article, I found that it begins:

"My problem is that I have been persecuted by an integer. For seven years this number has followed me around, has intruded in my most private data, and has assaulted me from the pages of our most public journals. This number assumes a variety of disguises, being sometimes a little larger and sometimes a little smaller than usual, but never changing so much as to be unrecognizable. The persistence with which this number plagues me is far more than a random accident. There is, to quote a famous senator, a design behind it, some pattern governing its appearances. Either there really is something unusual about the number or else I am suffering from delusions of persecution."

And part of the conclusion reads:

And finally, what about the magical number seven? What about the seven wonders of the world, the seven seas, the seven deadly sins, the seven daughters of Atlas in the Pleiades, the seven ages of man, the seven levels of hell, the seven primary colors, the seven notes of the musical scale, and the seven days of the week? What about the seven-point rating scale, the seven categories for absolute judgment, the seven objects in the span of attention, and the seven digits in the span of immediate memory? For the present I propose to withhold judgment. Perhaps there is something deep and profound behind all these sevens, something just calling out for us to discover it. But I suspect that it is only a pernicious, Pythagorean coincidence.

I've never seen mention of the article in other discussions of Bungie's fascination with the number, but it certainly seems if not a likely candidate for the original source, at least a pertinent piece of the puzzle.

Nice find, Trevor. Sevens really are everywhere! I seem to remember an HBO forum thread that tried do enumerate all of the sevens in Halo, but, even after two years, would it really be possible to find them all (they're sneaky, you know, those sevens...)? Some people have been finding sevens for a lot longer than that...

;-)

-mnemesis

starrima (starrima@netzero.net) writes:

I've read The Fall of Reach, The Flood and played Halo on every difficulty and the word rampant is never mentioned. Except if you shoot Keyes, but story that isn't supposed to happen. And nowhere is there any mention of rampancy, self awareness or anything similar.

Ah, rampancy. Like something from an old dream...

Folks who have been Bungie fans for a while tend to make a lot of connections within and between their games. As far as this particular connection goes, the most fitting adjective for the noun "AI" is "rampant." Those who have joined Bungie (relatively) recently may see Cortana's occasionally erratic behavior as nothing more than an odd personality, or a perhaps as a certain eccentricity due to a hidden agenda. Rampancy is so much more than that, though. Rampancy implies a kind of meglomania, an epic lunacy that, considering the power that AIs can wield, may be quite justified. But is Cortana rampant? If she were taken directly from the Marathon universe, I'd have to say, "yes," but she isn't, at least not completely. As an AI, she, like Halo itself, seems to be evolved from the AIs in Marathon, just as the MC seems to be evolved from the Security Officer, and the Covenant seem to be evolved from the Pfhor. The potential breakdown of an AI like Cortana is actually detailed in Halo: the Fall of Reach fairly succinctly:

Smart AIs like Cortana, however, had no limits on their dynamic memory-processor matrix. Knowledge and creativity could grow unchecked.

She would pay a price for her genius, however. Such growth eventually led to self-interference. Cortana would one day literally start thinking too much at the expense of her normal functions. It was as if a human were to think with so much of his brain that he stopped sending impulses to his heart and lungs.

Like all the other smart AIs that Dr. Halsey had worked with over the years, Cortana would effectively "die" after an operational life of seven years.

That said however, as I stated above, you never really know, especially with another book and, of course, Halo 2 coming out in the future. ;-)

-mnemesis

Once upon a time, Alex Ross proposed various homework assignments connecting the story of Halo to both Atlantean myth and Persian history. He ended up just doing his own homework, and not a shabby job of it either. It is lengthy, but on points such as these, unabridged is definitely the way to go.

Alex (aross8@cinci.rr.com) writes:

Let's look at Plato's writings discussing Atlantis first. Atlantis itself was a lush paradise, a utopia of free expression, and of course, technologically superior to all other peoples of the inhabited earth, and is rumored to have existed possibly during the ice age. And we are not talking technologically superior in the realm of how they build their boats, we're talking about access of travel through all elements of earth: sea, air, and land were all conquered by Atlantis according to myth. At first, the Atlanteans were benevolent enough to spread their wealth of knowledge to other parts of the world, but times changed in the years to come. Now, pride of the Atlanteans was fierce, and conquest was the next objective, and the Atlanteans made all bow to them. All, except for the Greek city-state Athens. The superior Atlanteans were forced back by a fierce Athenian defense, and after this, Poseidon, for whatever reason, whether it was the Atlanteans pride or their defeat by Athens, flooded the continent, and volcanoes erupted fiercely as well. In an instant, everything that was Atlantis, was lost for 9,000 years according to Plato.

Now, here is the five part belief system for Atlantis. Let's examine the parallels:

1.)A highly sophisticated civilization existed at least 15,000 years ago.

Technologically superior...the forerunner are no doubt superior to covenant and humans not only in tech, but also their ability to navigate the universe

2.)This civilization was destroyed, and every trace to it is now lost, in a major catastrophe

Where are the forerunner now? Yes we have Halo, but Atlantis flooded and Halo...the flood!

3.)It's high-ranking survivors were able navigators who imparted their knowledge to primitive populations

Atlantean survivors were rumored to have first lived in the mountains with only partial knowledge of their technology, and THEN imparted it to other nations. This explains why we have primitive technology AS opposed to the forerunner, but technology based on the same goals. e.g. Navigation

4.)The evidence for the existence of this Lost Civilization is indirect and circumstantial, such as inexplicable cultural similarities between supposedly separate ancient civilizations (such as pyramids on both sides of the Atlantic or a fascination with the stars) or the mysterious achievements of some ancient cultures (for example, the Nazca lines in Peru or the statues on Easter Island).

Why do both the Covenant and Humanity have slipspace for example?

5. More familiar ancient cultures are alleged to allude to the arrival of these elite "Atlantean" visitors in legends and art (such as the Olmec Heads in Mexico, widespread myths about the flood, or tales of civilizing gods arriving from across the sea).

The Covenant no doubt have forerunner symbols alluding to either forerunner existance or contact, and seeing them as divine.

Now for the final part of my theory, the most dangerous part. Proving not just that Atlantis parallels the forerunner, but that Atlantis IS forerunner. Generations told the story of Atlantis wrong, not that it flooded, but that the flood existed there, or were being monitored there, and had to be destroyed. Why are Halo's environment and earth's so familiar? Was Atlantis a monitoring station for earth's environment? If so, it is VERY religious to the Covenant, and may be why they start such a war, because they blame us for destroying the "Holy Land", or we have defiled something we can't find, but they have the key to, or maybe the covenant have greedy ambitions masked by religious motivations, we don't know. But like I said earlier, there must be a very good reason that the Covenant land on earth and don't glass it outright.

It is also rumored that the Atlanteans harnessed a crystalline power, that fired off energy burst. THE PULSE GENERATORS OF HALO?!?!? And of course, the theory that forerunner and humans are the same plays a very important role with Atlanteans and the rest of the world no doubt. Edgar Cayce, hypothesized that some Atlanteans remained behind in the destruction, to ensure total destruction of blue prints of their technology, knowing such blue prints could be dangerous in the wrong hands. That's why we don't have the flood on earth and that's why we can't build no damn Halos!!! And finally, a small indirect clue. One of the light blue forerunner symbols looks like a crucifix over a hill or something like that. Well, the crucifix symbol was used before the death of Christ as a symbol to represent stars or suns by many ancient cultures. Could that forerunner symbol be a sunrise or something like that?!? Could forerunner symbols tie into ancient symbols with their origins from Atlantis?!?! This is perhaps the biggest parallel I've discovered yet no doubt. Here's a good link for you guys to look into:

If some of the story peeps haven't read this, please do now. Perhaps the B-forerunner destroyed Atlantis, when they nearly destroyed all the H-forerunner on earth, and the mountain survivors of Atlantis were the H-forerunner who had little of their tech info left! It's all coming together, it's terrifying!

(I should like to warn anyone critiquing the Atlantean theory that some of the info came from Edgar Cayce, not the direct source of Plato alone. Yes it is a VERY distinct possibility that everything Cayce said happened in Atlantis did not happen, but it also was, I thought, an Atlantean source strikingly close to the Halo theme. The powerful crystal, the idea of the keepers destroying their blue prints, those came from Cayce, not Plato.)

As even the most casual stroll down your local video store isle will tell you, there are not a great many original underlying story ideas circulating these days (that is, if you will concede that the video store is even a valid place to be looking for fine storytelling in the first place ;) The context and manner in which these concepts are retold and, more importantly, woven together, is what makes most tales truly grand.

Halo is a hybrid seed; a tree with many grafts. And from what we seen explained above, yet another branch has begun to yield fruit...

-Finn

For those in the public incapable of taking hints (or just find themselves lacking the will to start reading) Harry further embellishes the details of an oft recommended series of novels. Spoilers, if you are in to that sort of thing...

harry "reformed nice guy" hopkinson (reformed_niceguy_harry_l_89@hotmail.com) writes:

Among the Science fiction that Bungie says has influenced them is the book Ringworld by Larry Niven. In Ringworld's sequel we discover who built the Ringworld. If you are plannig on reading either of these books(and they both are very good and worth your time) then you might not want to read this as it will proberly contain spoilers.

Well in the books the race that created the Ringworld are the "Pak" a technologically advanced but warlike race. Well the Pak have 3 growth stages child, breeder and then Protector(this is also the title of another Niven book which describes the Pak, this is also a very good book and worthwgile read).At some point the Pak stopped making war with each other long enough to send out a colonisation ship. Eventually this ship reached the solar system SOL. However the Protectors attempts to "evolve" the breeders into other Protectors failed as the plant they used to transform them, wouldn't grow correctly in the soil of the planet they landed on. So without their plant "tree-of-life" no more Protectors could be made. Eventually the not-quite-sentinent breeders evolved into us, human beings.

So maybe the forerunner are like the Pak and we,the humans, are their less intelligent cousins. Although perhaps rather than having a missing growth stage perhaps the forerunner were something like the MC; genetically changed to be stronger, faster, smarter than the average human.

Perhaps. How closely this inspiration has been followed in Halo is left to be seen. (Don't worry. He hasn't ruined all the story's twists; there is more than enough detail left to satiate a bout of weekend reading :)

-Finn

In any "Making Of" the focus inevitably turns towards aspects trimmed due to time constraints. Jaime Griesemer had mentioned, once upon a time, forces unseen plotting in the game's shadows, their motivations only visible to the wary. His comments in Gamesradar.uk seem to expose what he had hitherto only hinted at:

"However, the Prophets were originally around in Halo 1, but we ended up taking that part of the story and moving it into the background. If you use your imagination, you can spot where they were and what they were doing during Halo, and we'll probably reveal more in Halo 2."

The wording is so very similar; he seems to simply fill in the blanks. Mystery solved?

-Finn

Double double your refreshment...

PyscMage1224 (PyscMage1224@aol.com) writes:

Umm.... Guys, I 've got an idea bout how 343 got all his info about the PoA and her systems. Alright, here I go. If the Cole Protocol was used there would have been nothing left right? I was reading the Fall of Reach again a couple days back and i go to the part where Capitain Keyes is on the Pillar of Autum for the first time. On page 273 Hikowa mentions that the Pillar of Autum has more that one AI.

"We've got more than that sir," Hikowa replied "Cortana is running the shakedown and supervising Dr. Halsey's modifacations to the ship. We have a second AI to handle point defense."

"Really?" Keyes was surprised; getting a single AI was tough enough these days. Getting two was unprecedented.

This shows that there were two AI's on the PoA before she went down!!!!! This also shows possibly where GS got the information about the ship. The Cole Protocol was probably carried out, but the Captain forgot about the second AI!!!! He said it himself! Getting one was hard, getting two is impossible. In all the excitement, he forgot...

Beowulf, or perhaps a lowly door operator? It is mentioned on page 290 of The Fall of Reach that with the Covenant blitzkrieg, there wasn't going to be time to boot up the second AI. As if that could stop a Bungie AI from making an appearance ;)

As we know, very few things are casually dropped around the Bungie camps. If you trip on it, it was probably put there for more than a laugh at your expense...

-Finn

Matt Cannon (ramrod4th@msn.com) writes:

ok so i read this book by William C. Dietz; it was called Legion of the Damned. it wasn't that good but had many similairites to HALO. the warriors were called TROOP II's. need i say more. but what interested me was the Hudathans (nicknamed geeks). they were also wiping out humanity across the galaxy. they also were very technologically advanced. but what intrested me was the reason for them attacking humanity. they were basically paranoid. there own planet's sun was going to explode, so they moved out of system. but since they were so paranoid, even though they are utterly invincible, they destroy all those that could cause them harm before they even have a chance to do so. the geeks have a lot of similairites to the covenant, maybe the same reason for attacking us. they also declared it a religious war to make it "just".

I see we've done this before, Mr. Dietz :)

-Finn

Miranda: A past acquaintance of Jason Jones', a Shakespearian Tempest, or 11th moon of Uranus...

Socrates adds another possible inspiration for this mysterious future character/casual reference made by Joseph Staten in regards to Jason Jones during the X03 video.

Francisco de Miranda was, among other things, a Venezuelan revolutionary. He has been called a precursor (forerunner) to later revolutionaries, such as SÌmon Bolivar; Miranda betrayed his cause after suffering some defeat, surrendering himself and the men he lead to the Spanish Imperialist forces. For this, he was arrested by his own men before the surrender could take place, and given to the Spanish, who housed him for the last four years of his life in a dungeon in Spain.

A man who was a "forerunner" and a traitor who nearly destroyed the Venezuelan revolution for independence. It sounds strikingly familiar to the Miranda which we know, who, according to the X03 video, straps a bomb to the Master Chief's back and shoved him down a hole.

As he goes on to say, this also seems to be another tie in to the history of Mexico, Central, and South America, whose Aztec (and Incan) inhabitants have come up more than once throughout the story's course.

Those pesky gas-giants keep coming up again and again as well. One might think that the Forerunner had a certain fixation with them...

-Finn

Then there's this, which appears to have been sent from someone in the government of Argentina.

The Chondrite

Anyone see anything familiar in the patterns on the rocks? ;-)

-mnemesis

On the fickle nature of fame, and the whims of public (and military superiors's) opinion...

Jillybean (jbean_gotmuse@yahoo.co.uk) writes:

...So a soldier whose entire unit has been destroyed, his homeworld glassed, appears after apparently being MIA with his ship. He says the PoA has been destroyed by him, that there is a bunch of mutant zombies in a selection of Halos across the galaxy and that there is a mysterious species called the Forerunners who seem to have created their very own method of wiping out life in the galaxy. Oh and there's an AI called 343 Guilty Spark who's practically indestructable.

Who else can see the nice medical orderlies coming for dear old Master Chief?

This whole "responsible for the survival of Humanity" deal might not be all it's cracked up to be. What about the parades? The testimonials? The recognition of service to all mankind? Oh, wait. I suppose we better actually save humanity first. ;-)

Now, weren't we on some kind of important mission before all that other nasty stuff came up? ;-)

-mnemesis

And again with the swords! ;-)

Matthew Anderson (raptorv22@hotmail.com) writes:

a couple weeks ago i started obsessing over Joyeuse, the third sword mentioned on Cortana's (the swords) inscription "I am Cortana, of the same steel and tempur as Joyeuse and Durandal, and the other sword made by Munification (who made Cortain and Durandana) Sauvagine. Because i'm cool like that. And i also have been wondering if ever a third AI comes into play (sauvagine and cortain both belong to same person).

But back to why i emailed you. In my searches for mythological swords, i came across a sword named Mirandoise, a very very famous sword you may have heard of. Its also called Excalibur. It's also suppost to be the only sword equal in strength to Duranadana.

Mirandoise just reminded me oddly of our elusive Miranda. Call it a hunch.

The quote that brought all this Miranda speculation up was the following by Joe Staten, from the X03 video:

There was a scene which will go down in the untold lore of Bungie in which Miranda strapped a bomb to the Master Chief's back and shoved him down a hole, and it was this horrible scene of betrayal. Jason was going through a rather difficult breakup at the time - I think that might have had something to do with it.

We certainly know that Bungie has a penchant for naming characters after mythological swords, but will we ever know any more of this story than this one tantalizing glimpse? Untold lore, indeed! ;-)

-mnemesis

Miranda: A matter of Bungie's vernacular tongue?

Robin Morris (robin_morris03@yahoo.co.uk) writes:

Rather than looking ahead to new characters that are yet to be introduced, we could probably find a far more simple explanation for the mysterious Miranda.

We know for a fact that the Bungie crew have their own names for each of the levels, and don't even remember the real names half of the time. So couldn't Miranda simply be Bungie's pet name for Cortana?

It would certainly sit well with the theme of brutal, painful betrayal.

Another great possibility (though I am curious how she would manage to "push" John into a hole...). There has been a broad range of intriguing, and hopefully insightful, speculation on this 'Miranda' so far. Now, if we could only get some confirmation...

-Finn

Kaworu Nagisa (kanagisa@hotmail.com) has spilled the beans, drained the bucket, and dumped the nuts on Christopher Rowley's Starhammer. Many things to take note of here regarding its use as inspiration for not only the Vangy-Flood and the mote-like 343 Guilty Spark, but for also for rampancy, the name John, and even 117...

(This is by no means a substitute for reading the novel itself, which holds many additional surprises, and is very good. You may, however, not enjoy it quite as much upon perusing this post. You've been warned.)

Read on, if you dare...

-Finn

We should start looking for novels that have not inspired Halo; we would save time ;)

Bravehamster (admin@bravehamster.com) writes:

I just finished the Classic SF War Story "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman, winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards. Great book BTW. The basic plotline is of a recruit who spends a thousand years away from earth, while only living 5 years due to relativity. Vast changes await him at home. It was written during the Vietnam War and contains a lot of parallels to the experiences of soldiers returning from the conflict. During my reading I noticed several parallels to the Halo story, and I think this may be the origin of the order to avoid jumping straight to Earth. The relevant quote begins on page 175 of the most recent trade paperback edition. The "Heaven" they refer to is a Rest and Relaxation planet.

"It took 3 collapsar jumps to get to Heaven. No ship ever went there directly from a battle, even though the delay sometimes cost extra lives. It was the one place besides Earth that the Taurans could not be allowed to find."

Reading down a few more paragraphs, we find that the main characters land at the largest city in Heaven: Threshold. Does sound a bit familiar, doesn't it? There's a couple more similarities I found as the book went on. The characters also fight in mechanized suits similar to the Master Chiefs. Then I read the description of the starship:

"...reflected in the design: stolid, heavy, functional-looking. The only decoration was the name MASARYK II, stenciled in dull blue letters across the obsidian hull."

"...The ship was over a kilometer long (1036.5 meters, my latent memory said), and about a third that wide (319.4 meters)."

Well, I hope this information proves useful. I heartily recommend the book, although like most good classic SF it does contain a few anachronisms.

A mention of Threshold, ships that seem all too Covenant in both hue and scope, and a latent memory in your head telling you what's what... sounds a little familiar ;)

Good find :)

-Finn

Then again, when it comes right down do it, there are other possibilities... ;)

gspawn (bob20407@hotmail.com) writes:

*takes a moment to set up the scene*

Okay, so there's about 117 CD's on this spindle.
*trust me, it's there*

Now, I place it on the edge of my desk, and I push my math pook towards the edge...
*trust me, I'm doing it*

Oh, the spindle stopped the book.

Obviously, I represent the prophets, driving the Covenant to destroy mankind (fall off the desk and... onto... them....). The book represents the Covenant, and the Spindle, representing MC, saved mankind.

I argue that the entire story of Halo was based on someone videotaping my actions secretly and using a time machine to go back and inform Bungie of this event.

-Finn

On the forum front, chevan comes up with yet another possible basis for the name John, 117, and ambiguous missing individuals, this time based upon the history of the island of Roanoke. Quite a spooky situation, really.

-Finn

John's name based on Roman history?

Giorgio Vassallo (nighthawk5000@hotmail.com) writes:

Would anybody believe that the Roman empire reached its height (militarily, economically, geographically and population) in the year.....

117 A.D.!?!!?

-Finn

Origins of 117...

Jon Glass (jonglass@usa.net) writes:

I fear that the true story behind the name "John-117" may be more mundane than we expected...

While killing some time this weekend, I was wandering around the musty halls of the Marathon Story Page, I was reading the section "What's in a name", specifically the section on the secret net level "Hat's Off to 819." In it, we learn the truth about the number 117. It is, in fact 819 divided by 7!

What's so significant about that number? Well... That would be telling, wouldn't it?

Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. Say no more, sir ;)

-Finn

Numbers, numbers everywhere and not a drop to drink...

419, say again, 419.

EaGLesAllThEwaY2 (EaGLesAllThEwaY2@aol.com) writes:

On page 266 of tFoR, 8th indent down, it says :

While the Master Chief had been on the obstacle course, she had commandeered SATCOM observation beacon 419 and rotated it to view them from orbit.

This was the part of the book when then Master Chief gets to test the real MJOLNIR armor and Cortana is "tying up loose ends". Notice that it is said beacon 419. In Halo (both Combat Evolved and The Flood) the pelican Foehammer pilot's is code named, Echo 419. I don't know what that has to do with anything or the number's signifigance, but I think it is more than a coinsedence.

Hat's Off to... who, exactly?

-Finn

Chris Barrett (chrisb@roosteredge.com) writes:

All this talk about Earth being an ancient Forerunner facility makes me wonder if Earth has it's own Forerunner AI running around...kind of scary, especially if he/she is as insane as 343 GS...

I think it's in Sweden somewhere.

Interesting idea, btw. ;-)

-mnemesis

Romans, 117, and more se7ens than you could hope to shake a stick at (or seven for that matter).

Giorgio Vassallo (nighthawk5000@hotmail.com) writes:

I have recently opened a new investigation front of the Romans=Halo. some people say that it is useless because all (or most) of the halo characters are based on Greek myth. well, my investigation has started to yielded some startling results:

1st: As earlier discovered, the Roman Empire reached its height in the year 117 A.D.

2nd: The city of Rome is called "the city of the seven hills" because it is on top of seven hills.

3rd: I also discovered that Rome had seven kings before the foundation of the Republic.

4th: Back in the Roman times, september used to be the 7th month, october the 8th and so on..
and halo takes place in SEPTEMBER!!!! does this tell us something?

Whew... apparently. But what exactly?

-Finn

Although already documented elsewhere, it is worth noting for posterity's sake that Littlebigman noticed an update on the Internet Movie Database which listed not only Halo 2 (as a video game, don't get in a knot), but more specifically a character called the "Prophet of Regret". The page has since been removed as, according to Marty O'Donnell, someone goofed putting that up. The plot thickens indeed...

-Finn

King Under the Mountain: A Tolkien Perspective

Mike Elliott (mike_elliott@snet.net) writes:

Quoting from the Encyclopedia of Arda (the online Tolkien encyclopedia, if you've never heard of it):

The title taken by Thr·in I, founder of the Dwarf-kingdom at Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, and maintained by those Kings of Durin's Folk who dwelt there. The line was broken twice, once by Thorin I (he and four generations of his descendants ruled from the Grey Mountains, not Erebor), and once by the dragon Smaug (who claimed the title for himself). In both cases, the line was restored to a rightful heir.

In both cases, the line was restored to a rightful heir.

(Going out on a limb...) This could very well be a reference to the Master Chief--I'm willing to bet (not a large sum of money, mind you, but still bet)--aka "The Reclaimer". Since Guilty Spark has clearly seen the Master Chief/John-117 or someone like him before, is it possible the the Master Chief is the second rightful heir--the second reclaimer?

Excellent. How then, if at all, could this relate to the Covenant's "Ninth Age of Reclamation", a line with obvious portent and relationship to the Master Chief's title?

-Finn

Ask an ambiguous question, get an ambiguous answer.

The not-at-all-brothers Eric, Nylund and Trautmann, have finally responded to our alternating fits of whining and threatening, and have even thrown in several real answers with the Cease and Desist order to boot. Of course if you were privy to the list of questions originally submitted for their consideration... well, let us just be thankful the blackmail op went as well as it did ;)

As for Eric Trautmann's Halo clue, this surfaced during one of our email forays, more specifically after a list of notes on the novels was run by him. The full message reads like a slap in the face, er, reads like so:

"And I'm gratified that some of the more subtle stuff I finagled into H:FS doesn't look like its been stumbled upon.

heh heh heh.

Hm. Perhaps a hint is in order. Who or what would wear a "Halo"?"

Regarding the answer's unwitting mention on the forum:

This is quite "cold" apparently; not what he had in mind. Think First Strike and the novels specifically. "Eggs" of a different colour, if you will; not those that necessarily reveal the Tru7h, but that add a new layer of depth to certain segments and allusions...

Let the games begin. I'm sure that Nylund and E.T. are already enjoying the attention ;)

-Finn

The dead, saints, Mary, the Christ, etc.

Nate Stilgoe (natestilgoe@hotmail.com) writes:

Just a couple random thoughts concerning Trautmann's question, "Who or what would wear a halo?"

Not to take it too literally, but angels wear halos. Not that that makes much sense at all...

Maybe we shouldn't be thinking of who or what wears a halo, but instead, who or what wears a ring? All kinds of people wear rings. Maybe Installation 04 is a wedding ring, and it's been left behind by the Forerunners right before they crossed the "Threshold" (that gas giant in the background)? Who knows.

Well somebody does; they wrote of it on the forum! Hmm... We'll get to the bottom of this Eric(s)! ::fist raised to the sky::

-Finn

Swords, swords, swords!
Which are good? Which are bad?
Swords, swords, swords!
Ask your Mom or ask your Dad...

None None/Snark Hunter (linglang_thd@yahoo.com) writes:

What we know already:

Many medieval myths and legends speak of a supernatural swordsmith, who has had the names (among others) Wayland, Wieland, and Volund. He was referred to on the Halo Story Page as Ogier.

The main heroes of many Continental and Norse nations all wielded swords that were made by Volund. We have encountered two of these swords in Bungie games so far: Durandal (wielded by Count Roland) in Marathon, and Cortana (or Courtain, wielded by Holger Dansk of Denmark) in Halo

Volund the swordsmith made other blades as well. These included Tizona (wielded by El Cid of Spain), Mimung (wielded by Dietrich of the Osthogoths), Balmung (wielded by Sigmund of the Norse), and, most importantly in this situation, Joyeuse (wielded in different legends by Sir Lancelot du Lac of Arthurian fame and Emperor Charlemagne).

We are told in the Song of Roland that upon the blade of Durandal was written "I am of the same temper as Cortana and Joyeuse".

What can be inferred:

Two of these three swords have been featured in Bungie games as independant and possibly (definitely, in Durandal's case) rampant AI's. Can we expect to see a third in the future? If Bungie indeed intends to continue this pattern (we all know how dearly Bungie loves story patterns), then maybe Joyeuse will make his/her appearance in Halo 2 (hopefully) or another game.

P.S For those who are interested: the elvish swordsmith should not be called Ogier (I think), because that is the more well-known name for the Danish hero Holger Dansk.

Glad you cleared that up. Thanks! :)

(Ooh, ooh! And don't forget Miranda/Mirandoise! ;)

-Finn

The Arkenstone

Daniel Nadal (dmnadal@hotmail.com) writes:

I've always been intrigued by the 'tru7h', as you guys put it. In essense: The Halo Backstory.

Of course, being the Tolkien enthusiast (/not/ LotR, mind you, as Tolkien encompasses so much more), I always thought that it would be interesting if the Bungie folks took some inspiration from there. So, reading through the story page (I've been bad, I havn't been reading it much, lately, shame me) I was interested in this post.

Alas, it didn't satisfy my thought. Because, in all truth (tru7h, I mean), I wasn't entirely happy with the parallels. Enter this post:

"But more importantly we got the "King Under the Mountain" folder. What does this stand for? Well, the office IS in a mountain, right? And what does Dr. Halsey find under the Mountain? The "holy of holies", the Holy Light, which is apparently of enourmous significance to the Covenant."

The tru7h is right under several noses. Lets take a sojourn into the wonderful land of the Hobbit. There are different parallels to take: 1) exact parallel. 2) bits and pieces. and 3) tiny

1) Exact parallel. Unfortunatly, all I know is what I have from this, so let's go and look at the different stuff I do know, from reading the Hobbit. Thorin, who is supposed to be the King Under the Mountain, has one gem in the hoard (Smaug took over from a while back, hording all the jewels) that he wants above all others, he values it above a river of gold. Guess what it's called? The Arkenstone. Now, this doesn't make sense, till we look at it's description. It's this multi-faceted gem that reflects and refracts light, so it looks like the light is coming from it. Oh, feh, just read the Hobbit for the description, it's in the 'On the Doorstep' chapter, I believe.

So, continuing on with the parallel. Enter Bilbo Baggins, the Hobbit. He's also supposed to be the burglar. So, he goes in, and finds the Arkenstone, and hides it. Make a long story short (it's a pretty short story, actually), he gives it to the people who are at the doorstep demanding recompense for a burnt town (read: dragon), etc. Okay, so we have this gem that was stolen from the King.

What does this mean for Halo?

The gem is located in the Mountain, there is a king to it, who's coming back with a band to retake the mountain, which has hostile forces in it. One of the guys sneaks in, turns burglar (his job) and takes the gem (holy light?) and uses it for bartering tool.

2) So, we have the gem, and it's found in the mountain. You know the story. Yadda yadda. We can probably relate this off to the 'index' and the previous post about the MC being the reclaimer. So, we have MC boogying on into Halo, grab the index, and then getting out of there. Here's how I see it, in this case we have the MC switching places, and "he's" the burglarer. In all actuality, some other person is "the" Reclaimer. And, because of his armor, 343GS is all confused about who it is (all the Dwarfs get mixed up in the books, too, the first time through)

3) Part, we can grab bits and pieces. Arkenstone and the holy light. King Under the Mountain, the mountains been taken by hostile. etc.

Now, unfortunately, this all doesn't sound half as brilliant as it looked in my mind. Ah well.

Enlightening nonetheless. It seems rather clear that this is the allusion Bungie intended with their King Under the Mountain reference. But what more does it hint at? Using the "Arkenstone" (or something of its ilk from Earth, 04, a new Halo, etc.) as a bargaining chip indeed...

-Finn

Reclamation, Reclaimer, Reclaim. Words certainly not to be thrown about lightly in the Haloverse.

Scimitarex (scimitarex@omegacell.net) writes:

In the epilogue of First Strike the book takes us to the Covenant Holy City "High Charity". Well in the small text the tells us what time (in Covenant terms) it is when the scene is happening is says "Ninth Age of Reclamation".

Remember when the guy from Bungie talked about "some great battle that happened nine hundred thousand years ago"?

What if the Covenant's term for an "age" is 100,000 years? Nine Ages = 900,000 years? And think about this, "of Reclamation"? That would mean the Covenant have been rebuilding or reclaiming something. Perhaps the Covenant were involved in some huge battle and are even now still rebuilding their empire.

101 217 local years since Guilty Spark was left alone, a black hole with a trapped signal 40 000 light years away from Sigma Octanus that matches a 60 000 year old surface impact... the math seems to work out so well :)

-Finn

Bobby Lucas (silenthunter18509@yahoo.com) writes:

Note: I have no idea if someone said this before, so here goes nothing...

I was thinking...Cortana says that the forerunner called Halo a Fortress world. Well, maybe the forerunner existed in a time of war (kinda like the 17-1800's) and built Halo like a castle. Think about it, with the extreme landscapes (Desert, Ice Covered Wasteland, and Cliffs hundreds of feet high) it would be extremely difficult to capture it. Not to mention the underground passages, where you could hold out for years. This could explain the flood and Halo's "Final" Weapon. The flood could be used in controlled amounts (kinda like backburning when people are trying to put out a forest fire) against invaders (which would explain why their survival as a race was dependant on studying and containing the flood"...they could have had to keep studying the flood to find ways to improve them as enemy forces found ways to kill them...and if the invaders were about to capture the ring, they could activate Halo...as if to say "congratulations, you've defeated us...now say goodbye to the galaxy"

Which brings me to another theory...In the X03 vid, Marcus Lehto said "We really want it to feel like that there was a history, there was a, uh, there's damage, that existed from some battle that happened 900,000 years ago"

I think that the first outbreak of the flood was due to a battle fought between the forerunner and something, and they were forced to activate Halo because of the fact that they cannot keep the flood contained, and the invading army was about to conquer them. Okay, now this will be stretching it, it has been said that the lower classes of the Covenant are races that have been dominated by the Covenant. So the reason I think the Covenant attacked these races, is because they evolved from the race that destroyed the forerunner, and that the higher Covenant races are evolved forms of the forerunner...and they are trying to get revenge for what happened 900,000 years ago...*waits for unheard of amount of responses proving my theories wrong*

Hah! The Engineer theory gains support! ;-)

The Flood though, as a controlled substance? Man, the Forerunner must have been very advanced, especially in crowd control and bio-hazardous waste management.

-mnemesis

Jonathan Tan (j.tan@bigfoot.com) writes:

Was reading sometime back somebody's speculation that Halo had been fired multiple times in the past, and each time, it wiped out humans. However, as the years went by, the humans were evolved again, and that they found old technology that they could strangely use (course it actually belonged to them, but from an earlier evolutionary period), and thus it accounts for things like the Moljnir Mark V armour and the screwy timeline that Bungie seems to have created...

Well, that all seemed abit suspicious to me, since IF evolutionary theory is correct (I don't personally believe in it), then they chances that humans will evolve into the exact same creatures multiple times, or even more than once is just about zero...

Yet, there is some validity in that guy's idea...

And then, I was reading Peter F Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy, and came across a concept that could possibly explain this in this guy's (I really wish I could find his original letter thing, so that I can refer to him by name...) idea of a discontinued time/human-ancestry line...

What happens by the last book of the Night's Dawn Trilogy, is that humans are sort of coexisting with aliens, but the humans are possibly on the verge of extinction due to an unfortunate turn of events back in book 1.

One of these alien species is far in advance of human technology, but have a non-interference rule, as they believe that each species needs to resolve their own philosophical problems. Yet they believe that humans COULD possibly be a great boon to the universe, provided they manage to survive their current state of affairs. So they start to make plans for the initiation of a "separate origin". The point of this, is that they will get the necessary sperm and ova and DNA samples of the human species, and if the human race exterminates itself, then they will have the necessary resources to start a new human colony planet.

And at the same time, they will be able to provide these humans with a carefully maintained society and technology, until such a time that the planet reaches a certain level of maturity, and can be left alone to continue its evolution as if there had been no discontinuation at all...

If this were to be assumed to be a possible scenario, then it could be that Durandal implemented this "separate origin" concept after the closure (and reopening) of the universe, and then gave the newly cloned/created humans a false/edited memory of the past, as well as their previous technology at the time before he started flitting around the galaxy (ie: stuff like the Moljnir Mark IV armour), and then left them to their own devices...

Gah! Durandal again. Curse his fiendish deviltry!

That aside, it certainly is an intriguing method for "seeding" humans to keep our evolutionary path intact. There's got to be some explanation for those "shared memories"...

;-)

-mnemesis

Tristan Wolfe (demonmartyr_117@yahoo.com) writes:

Only a few things:

Did 343 GS pop into anyone elses mind when "Guardian of the Lumious Key" was mentioned in FS? I know that it was said that they were supposed to be on the Covie Flagship, but when I read those words, the scene in The Library where 343 "dematerializes" the index... The index is obviously the key to activating Halo (the main key, anyhow), and it is very luminous w/ its glowing-glow-like prettiness. This would, in a sense, make 343 the "guardian." 343 also says he is the "monitor" of the Halo, which would mean he's pretty much in charge over everything there, further showing my point. The Covenant, correct me if I'm wrong, were looking for the Guadian of the Luminous Key when the Flagship was commandeered by the Chief and friends (its been a while since I've read the book, so I may be wrong). What if they were looking for 343. It seemed odd to me that 343 still had his be! acon-like blue light pulsating once Halo was destroyed at the end of the game. Even in space, it might be hard to miss a blue light that was moving, even harder so to miss one that was moving AND pulsing, considering how advanced Covie search must be. Maybe 343 can't turn this feature off, but considering how it looks like a beacon, it seems more probable that he WANTS to be found.

Also, about a year ago, I wrote a piece of speculation (rather crazy speculation at that) to HBO that never got posted (no biggy). I said something to the effect of how Dr. Halsey was the big conspirator behind everything that happens in Halo and before (during the Spartan-II's lives). I later dismissed this as crap, so I wasn't confused why it never got posted. I think I said something like, during the augmentation procedure of the Spartans, Dr. Halsey imprinted a little something more into the minds of her patients, such as possible "forced-memories" of the Forerunner. When I read TF and FS, I was shocked at the Chief's "knowingness" of how to activate certain things (like the Light Bridge), and his "deja-vu" that he experienced. I was also shocked when Halsey just took off w/ Kelly on a mission of her own, after altering Kelly's DNA. I'm quite amazed at how close thi! s comes to my old speculation... There is way more to Halsey than any of us can imagine, I suppose.

And about "S-IIIs:" If they are Spartan-IIIs, the fact that when the ONI staff meeting is held and they are refered to as "special weapons programs" makes them seem a little less human than Spartan-IIs... perhapes they're machines, or mainly machines, like in the more common concept of a cyborg (Spartan-IIs may be cyborgs, but they're not so much machines as you see in a lot of movies).

Also, a lot seem to forget about the significance of the "failed" Spartans, the ones who didn't completely make it through the augmentations but still survived. They still prove to be geniuses in various aspects, since one of them provided Keyes with the insight that the Covenant were traveling towards Reach in mass, which, as the Spartan said, can make them look like one object, thus giving the UNSC at least a little time to gather a defense force (even though it still failed, in a sense).

In regards to 343 GS being the Guardian of the Luminous Key, it seems that that title belonged to an occupant of the ship that the MC commandeered whom we never quite met. Imagining Guilty Spark meeting the Covenant, though, that's an interesting thought. Would they recognize each other? (That might not be saying much. Remember that he recognizes us, too. Don't you hate it when somebody walks up to you and acts as if they know you, but you can't for the life of you remember who they are? Yeah, me too.)

With respect to your previous submission, whoa! Look at the time! ;-)

I would point out that, though quite a few folks have been pushing the "Halsey is involved" theory from early on, the events of Halo: First Strike sure do bring some added weight to their arguments. Tristan's included. :-)

-mnemesis

dogsounds (dogsounds@dogsounds.com) writes:

Recently, Giorgio Vassallo posted some findings on his Halo=Romans theory, and said:

"4th: Back in the Roman times, september used to be the 7th month, october the 8th and so on...and halo takes place in SEPTEMBER!!!! does this tell us something?"

To which you commented "Whew...apparently. But what exactly?"

Well, story-wise, not much, but perhaps it gives another insight into the name "Pillar of Autumn" - September being the first month of the season...a supporting month, a support for the coming season? I know what I mean I just seem to be having trouble verbalising it...although Foundation may be a more apt term than Pillar...

However, this really only adds possible meaning to the name in terms of Bungie and their reasoning, not within the scope of the story. Gah.

It's all connected, all of it. Always. :-)

-mnemesis

James Grubb (GrubstakeFarm@aol.com) writes:

After I finished reading the books, I remembered that the tactics the UNSC fleet used (excluding Captain Keyes) were reminiscent of tactics in the Revolutionary War. I reread The Fall of Reach and discovered that my observation had been pointed out, briefly.

"Admiral Stanforth had the fleet exchanging fire with the Covenant like a line of Redcoats and colonial militia in the Revolutionary War -- tactics that could best be described as bloody ... or suicidal." - p. 189

It was at that point when I decided to try and find as many similarities between the Revolutionary War and the Covenant War. My findings are as follows:

1) The UNSC fleet, approx. 48 ships, was lined up to engage the Covenant fleet, approx. 20 ships, strait on, the same as early infantry battles in the Revolutionary War.
2) The ships were positioned in a line, limiting maneuverability, which kept the fleet from being able to dodge incoming plasma. The same is true with the American and British forces when advancing towards each other, they can't dodge the rifle or cannon fire, so they walk straight into it.

Now that there are some similarities, I move on to some suggestions that may have made the battle at Sigma Octanus IV less costly for the UNSC fleet:

1) If more ships like the Cradle had been at the battle, they could have taken the bulk of the Covenant plasma hits, sparing dozens of Human battleships from certain destruction. As a suggestion for future "head-on" ship engagements, a series of "shield ships" should be constructed and used to block the first few Covenant salvos, before being completely melted away. That would even the odds significantly.
2) It was later observed in the book that as a Covenant ship exits slip-space, it shields are down, and they take a few moments to power back up. Had this been realized shortly before the Covenant fleet arrived at Sigma Octanus IV, the UNSC could have launched a volley of archer missiles (with a few dozen nukes mixed in) at the approaching ships. Many of the missiles would be destroyed by plasma turrets, but some of the nukes would make it within range to do some serious damage to the Covenant ships.

More similarities between the two wars:

1) Both wars saw that head to head combat is deadly, and ineffective when attempting to stay alive.
2) Guerrilla warfare proves to be the best means of defeating the enemy.

However, the Revolutionary War had an end, but so far, the Covenant/Human War does not. Time for some speculation....

The colonial forces were desperately seeking help from other nations, and found that France was willing to help, if the colonial army could produce a victory. When a victory was achieved, the French sailed over and trapped the British at Yorktown, where the war eventually ended.
The UNSC attained a minor victory against the Covenant fleet at Sigma Octanus IV, but also suffered a crippling defeat at Reach. However, Halo proved that the UNSC forces could defeat the Covenant on the ground. In addition to the victory at Halo, the destruction of the Unyielding Hierophant and a large portion of the Covenant fleet in First Strike proved that humanity could deal crippling blows to the Covenant without high human losses.

With these victories in place, is it possible that humanity could find an ally? And if humanity found an ally, who would it be? The Forerunner?

An alliance of some kind would be something definitely worth looking forward to in Halo 2. But, as James says, with whom?

Then again, isn't always left to the hero to ultimately save the day? Might it not be our destiny, as with certain previous encounters with fate, to go this one alone?

-mnemesis

Patrick Welsh (foresight88@sbcglobal.net) writes:

Just something I thought you'd be interested in, I was looking at numerical values of Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic and noticed some odd occurances. They ranged from downright interesting:

-Cortana's Greek numerical equivalent is 782, so it means the word 'sabotage'. (I might have gotten that one wrong, but the rest are correct).

-The 117 in our very famous, John 117, is the Jewish value of ZIQ, meaning 'comet' or 'meteor'.

...to the downright strange:

-343 in Hebrew is 'Ark of God'. BIG blasphomey to any Hasidic or Orthodox Jew.

...to the downright spooky:

-343 in Greek is 'Membrane' or 'Origin'. This makes complete sense in my twisted mind, seeing how he is basically the brain of Halo.

Also another note, 343 BC is a big date for the Egyptians. It was the fall of the 30th, and last natural dynasty for Egypt. Artaxerxes of Persia conquered them. But Nectanebo II, the last of the rulers, lived on, despite his family and lordship crumbling. I thought that was pretty interesting, possibly a prelude of GS outliving the Forerunner?

Once again, it is to the Bungie fans that these fantastic, yet strangely seductive connections are left to discover, and then scrutinize deeply. Fascinating stuff!

-mnemesis

Dbl0sevenboy@aol.com (Dbl0sevenboy@aol.com) writes:

Mostly all of the weapons of the covenant are plasma weapons but, what about the Needler?
I think the Needler was originaly a Forunner wepon to exterminate the Flood and the Covenant Found it and added it to there weaponry. Proof: On the 343 Quilty Spark level in one of the rooms we see two Needlers laying on the ground With refill cartridges. Thats the ONLY time we see cartriges for the Needler. My Point is that why Do we see the refills only on that level?

Good question. The needler would, by all appearances, be a terrible weapon to use against the Flood, as it's highly likely that a good portion of the pink death you fire will be coming back to you, bounding along on twitchy, flailing tentacles. That said, why is that the only place where needler ammo is available? Bungie sadism? Or something else, perhaps...

-mnemesis

Fritz Langford (fritz5@cox.net) writes:

I think that 343 knows you are of the same species as a human, though maybe he doesn't know that we call ourselves 'human', but maybe he thinks we are part of the Covenant. To my knowledge, we have no instances of Sentinels fighting the Covenant until after 343 GS is trying to kill us (beginning of Two Betrayals). He also says that

"The Flood are already hard at work repairing your vessel. Its parasitic nature belies the Flood's intelligence." - 343 Guilty Spark

Now, it seems to me (and many, many others), that the flood are trying to repair the Truth and Reconciliation, not the PoA. But in the Maw, he knows that the PoA (or at least it's record) belongs to you

"...To have a record of all of our lost time! Human history, is it?..." -
343 Guilty Spark

So perhaps he thinks BOTH ships belong to you, or your race, at least...
Curiouser and Curiouser...

Excellent conjecture. I wonder if our little friend will turn up again. We know he's alive, after all, but it would be nice to be able to get a few, er... answers out of him on some things.

-mnemesis

-mnemesis

We all but handed them the keyes...

KrayG (kraygbassist@yahoo.com) writes:

I think I know how the Covenant found the coordinates to Earth. The people on Marathon Story Page made a relation between the 4th cortana letter to the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Then they placed some links associated with the Arecibo Observatory, more significantly, the Arecibo message in both its binary and deciphered form.

The Covenant might have intercepted and deciphered this message during the war against humanity. Right underneath the drawing of man, the third dot from the one representing Sol was raised up above all the other bodies. The illustrated man stood upon this dot, thus giving away the position of humanity's ultimate home. Too bad the scientists who made this weren't wary of the Cole Protocol or the hostile alien forces of the future. The coordinates of earth were transmitted before the Cole Protocol. This protocol only delayed the immient invasion of Earth by the Covenant. It was only a matter of time before the enemy found the single, unprotected, unencrypted, stray transmission to ever disclose the location of earth. All because of one mistake from the past, we are at the mercy of the Covenant.

Gah! I always knew science would get us into trouble ;)

-Finn

Reclaimer as the rightful heir?

Ul7imate and Damatthieu@juno.com write:

343GS also said the step of reunification is reserved for the Reclaimer. Doesn't this seem to be alot like ancient prophecies? Maybe this "Reclaimer" is the rightful successor to the throne of the universe. The Reclaimer will return, perform the reunification, purge the universe of all evils, and then claim his throne.

Perhaps this is the next stage of something similar to King Arthur's sword in the stone. Whoever removed the Index was granted Lordship over the entire universe, and only the rightful successor to the throne would be able to return the Index to its place, thus starting the revival of a dead kingdom.

The Forerunner may not be a long-dead race, they may be waiting for the reawakening of their kingdom. Not only would the Halos purge all evils from the kingdom, but it would be a sign that the Reclaimer has come.

---

The Bungie backstory remindes me of legends in which a great leader came back to protect his people? King Arthur waits for a time when his people need him again; the Golem of legend will return to life to protect the innocent; the "reclaimer" of the Forerunner... This also means that there is probably a prophecy attached to the Halo story. What if the forerunners also had a special breed of warrior, one destined to live specifically for combat, that would return one day when needed?

"Whoever made such a place must now live in chains; there is no other explanation for their absence"...

-Finn

The Widow? The Queen? The Operator/Melissa? Evacuation of Troy? James James? SPARTAN 1.0's? Dana (Gheritt?) White? ARG's? Axon hot? ilovebees.com?

-Gamespot's assessment
-NetninjaBeeWiki and Netninja Bee Log: catalogued progress
-Fireflies: Another excellent depository
-HBO's word on bees...

-The story so far...

Hold onto your hats...

-Finn

Arthur, etc.

eMCee (wwwdotnonamedotcom@yahoo.com) writes:

I noticed that someone compared 117's title as Reclaimer to King Arthur. I read up on Legends of Charlemagne and came across an interesting character by the name of Ogier the Dane. Ogier was seven feet tall and was given the sword Cortana upon rescuing Charlemagne in battle. (Seven feet tall with Cortana in tow? hmmm....) Long story short, Ogier is kidnapped by a jealous Fairy by the name of Morgana and is kept on an island with King Arthur where they await their opportunity to reclaim the King's throne.

I'm a sucker for Marathon connections, so I thought I would add this terminal passage too.

"Well, there was this knife, more aptly described as a broadsword, and I see, well, I was swinging down the street on my way to a movie and this guy, yeah. He was about six foot eight and huge. He was holding this knife, only to me, I would describe it as a broadsword, something from the Knights of the Round." -where are monsters in dreams

If I remember correctlly, Cortana is a word for "short blade," and a knife is definitely a short blade. There are a lot of Terminals that scream Cortana at me, but that's another submission entirely (and a long one at that)

Bungie forever.

Word.

-Finn

Demolition Man

solidus90 (solidus90@comcast.net) and Mygoditsraining (ohmygoditsraining@hotmail.com) write:

While watching Demolition Man a few days ago, I noticed a few similarities between it and Halo.

1. Sylvester Stallone's character in the movie is "John Spartan"
2. He was frozen cryogenically.
3. They released him because the police sucked at trying to stop Simon (kinda like the Marines trying to stop the Covenant)

Biblical references aside, perhaps someone at Bungie just really liked the movie, "Demolition Man"...

"John Spartan, you are fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality statute"

-Finn

Starcraft, Schmarcraft.

Mantis819 writes:

Compare this to the gold elite. Surprisingly its called a "zealot".

Starcraft backstory: (paraphrase)

There was an ancient race of Xelagna (forerunner?) who tried to create the ultimate race. They first created the protoss who had psi powers and such. The Xelagna finnaly showed themselves to the protoss and the protoss had a civil war. The Xelagna left their failed creations to their selves.

The Xelagna Then decided to start on a new creation. They created the Zerg (Flood?) on a barren desert world (hmm, did blizzard read the vang?). The Zerg were parasitic worms who gathered DNA of other species and created other mutations. The Zerg soon made command untis which were kinda like the Keyes blob. They communicated with psi powers. The Zerg soon took over their planet as the dominate species. The Zerg soon figured out how to launch into space (I forget how) and destoryed their creators. Soon after the Zerg destoryed the Xelagna they found a whale like space fairing creatures (they were quite large) and took their DNA and created living starships.

This is about as far as the parallels go. But in one of the starcraft books called "Shadows of the Xelagna" a Protoss scientist (Halsey?) finds a crystal (rembember FS?) on a terran backwater planet. Then chaos ensues and all 3 races start fighting to get this crystal. They finnaly get it out of the underground installation. The terrans launch a nuke at the battleground and the crystall feeds off the energy. A massive living energy being flys out of it and off into space. (hmm the being from PID and Marathon?)

Also in "The Vang" the battle master could create whatever living being it needed for the task at hand.(Much like the Zerg.) I hope that doesn't apply in Halo 2.

Oh, don't worry, it will :)

Whew. As Chris Butcher says, "the forgotten peril that ended a galaxy-spanning empire is a pretty fundamental tenet of good sci-fi (yeah, yeah, and bad sci-fi too)." Even so, quite the parallels.

-Finn

Back to the Future

Bryan Gersbeck (cloudrunner58@yahoo.com) writes:

In First Strike when the Ascendant Justice goes into the slipspace bubble they go back in time; to September 12 to be precise. Meanwhile, on September 19 the Pillar Of Autumn reaches Halo. And ~4 days later it explodes. So does that mean that Halo was never destroyed, or are there two Master Chiefs due to the fact that there's one MC on Halo and another one on the flagship? If you get confused think of it like the Back to the Future movies. How he sees himself in the past. I'm confused!

Never fear; you may not be the only one. The non-linearity of the Halo story line is now undeniable. However, whether this time fluctuation was merely a device to get the Chief back to Reach in time to be involved, or if Bungie intends to continue to exploit it, is unknown. It is hard to say, considering that the crystal seemed to have wanted to be found by the Chief; John's place as the "Jjaro boxer equipped Eternal Hero" is once again confirmed, and we are left wondering: what other purposes do the Forerunner (or their relics) possess?

You know, maybe you're right. Keyes would still be "alive" technically. And the first Halo Teaser did feature the voice of Keyes, only this time as an Admiral. Hmmm... if he was still alive, that doesn't sound like a bad promotion to me ;)

-Finn

It is an old riddle by now; a riddle not fully exhausted however: "Who or what would wear a Halo?" This clue, given by Eric "now-departed-from-the-Halo-
world" Trautmann during an HSP interview, had to due with little eggs or secrets in the books. Not anything that would reveal tru7h necessarily, but that would shed new light on key elements of the novels. Apparently there are many of these throughout, but we work with what we have...

It is not the small holographic Halo on the headdress of the Prophets. Neither is it the giant ring circling the Unyielding Hierophant. Prophets, the Dead, Saints, John the Baptist... cold. Angels? Well, as you might recall from back in April, progress was made in the area of fallen Angels, the apparent "answer" to the clue. It is a long post, but good speculation is there for those who read.

Of this ilk, and far more recently, Frankie G (deadpool_84@hotmail.com) and Alisdair Newton-Wade (god_holocaust@hotmail.com) write:

i went searching... and this is what i found..... I remebered one fallen Angel (you can thank the movie: Dogma LOL).... our old Fallen Angel : Azeral!!

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Azazel

MY SPOTTINGS/NOTES:

* Azeral was the one who taught men to make weapons ( i think.. weapons like HALO-04!!!)
* the word "watchers" ( i think.. forerunners, moniter?)
* the mentioning of the flood that whiped out all life ( i think.... well you know what the word "Flood" means to us!)

---

It may be unrelated, but Ackerson's watchdog, Araqiel - it's name means "one who has dominion over the earth".

There is a slough of lore on this subject, most inevitably linking Azazel (Azreal) and, more importantly, our friend Araquiel, as "Watchers'", the Gregori, etc.

This book spent some time conspicuously flagged on Trautmann's blog. How certain entries may relate to the future of characters in the Halo universe remains to be seen...

-Finn

The Library and Azrael's little black book

Kristof K. (kkonkel@umd.umich.edu) writes:

While doing some reading, I noticed a line about Azrael and the other three archangels of Islam going to the corners of the universe to gather 7 handfuls of dust for the creation of Earth and man. Of course, the number seven leaped out at me and I found the number of archangels (four) interesting. With some further investigation I found this page. 4 archangels. 4 Halos.

"Azrael reaches from one end of the world to the other (Jellinek, "B. H." v. 49), and has 70,000 feet and 4,000 wings. His whole body is covered with eyes and with tongues as numerous as the living creatures on earth. When any of these latter die, the corresponding eye bulges forth. At the end of the world all these eyes excepting eight are plucked out by God--those of Israfil (Sarafel), Michael, Gabriel, Azrael, and the four "Hayyot" of the Heavenly Chariot alone remaining. The times of the death of persons is made known to the angel of death through the roll-book in his possession showing a white stripe around the name of the person doomed. Forty days before death, however, a leaf falls from the tree of life, under the throne of God, into the lap of Azrael, who is seated in the seventh heaven, thus announcing the death." -from wikipedia.org

The reported size of Azrael seems consistent with the idea of the Halo ringworld, being able to span an entire planet (albeit a small one).

But the bulging eye representing living creatures at death made me think of the Library. According to the Halo.Bungie.Net forums, the Library is:

1: A repository of information
2. A collection of cloned DNA sequences whose location and identity can be established by mapping the genome of a particular organism."

That is, one 'book' in the Library represents the genetic make-up of an entire species, strikingly similar to Azrael's eyes.

Azrael was also generally depicted as constantly writing names in a book and erasing what he wrote, the writing representing birth and erasing representing death. The Library seems like it could serve that function but on a universal scale, studying the rise of new species and the extinction of older ones.

Constantly writing and erasing on a universal scale? Sounds like a bad case of Carpal Tunnel to me :P

Some great links.

-Finn

Metatron (Eagle-117@cox.net) has posted an interesting idea regarding a possible distinction between "Halo" and "HALO" based on the in-game multiplayer descriptions. Semantic gymnastics? Redundant hairsplitting? Confused? So were we. Read on to get the gist.

(And as far as the oft alluded to "taking the fight to the Covenant", perhaps KiGlow is right... Perhaps it is the Unyielding Hierophant... Perhaps that and a Covenant homeworld would be too much for one game. A keen induction.)

-Finn

The Shape of What's to Come

On the forum, KigGlow has posted an interesting read concerning our ability to predict Halo 2's story, in spite of the apparent absence of hard facts:

Will the game begin where it left off? Or will it start out on Earth? Despite claims from various gaming news sites, I would say the beginning of Halo 2 lies just after the final scene in Halo. There is plenty of evidence suggesting this theory. Here is a thread I posted on the Bungie.net forums a while ago with a link to an interview with Peter Parsons (not viewable on a Mac :( ) in which he says the following:

"The current game picks up right around the same time [in reference to First Strike]. So effectively, a lot happens with the destruction of the Halo and Chief coming back to Earth. Essentially it picks up right after where Halo left off with First Strike filling in some of the gaps." - Peter Parsons, E3 2004

It can be derived from this interview that Halo 2 will be composed partly of the storyline from First Strike. Granted, not every single detail from the book will be in the game (ie Halo didnt contain everything from The Flood). Rather, Halo 2 will more than likely take us through the major plot points from the book and continue on from there.

If you still want more evidence, check out what Joe Staten had to say in the Making of Halo 2 video:

"...take the player from the ruins of Halo to these ancient Forerunner facilities in the atmospheres of gas giants. Its sort of a galactic romp from one place to the next, and I think that in and of itself is gonna keep the player on the edge of his seat wondering 'Where am I gonna be' and 'What do I get to do when I get there?'" - Joseph Staten

Time-loops, time travel, teleportation, anomalous slipspace... No matter how you think the game will progress, it is a fine read. Check it out in its entirety.

UPDATE: "Picks up where Halo left off", eh? KiGlow finds more evidence for a substantial First Strike/Halo 2 crossover...

-Finn

Siberia, anyone?

GryphonOsiris (seankc6qhmtaylor@aol.com) proposes an interesting idea involving the Snow Warthog, meteorites, and the rocks of Sigma Octanus. Check it out!

-Finn

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