DangerMouse wrote on Saturday, 12/15/2001 - 8:59 am:
: I was playing "the Maw" and during the opening cutscene
: (the fly-by of the crashed Pillar of Autumn) I believe I saw
: the Marathon symbol on the side of the ship, near the front.
: You can only see maybe 3/4 of it but it's a different color
: metal and its a circle with the Marathon symbol vaguely
: engraved into it.
:
we noticed it on screen shots givin to us before Halos release :-)
but it's good to see some one is still looking for things. I personally need to take a break from Halo for a bit (12 shoudl do it). my next mission in Halo will be to go through on easy and explor the maps :-)
Earendil wrote on Saturday, 12/15/2001 - 11:52 am:
: DangerMouse wrote on Saturday, 12/15/2001 - 8:59 am:
:
: : I was playing "the Maw" and during the opening
: cutscene
: : (the fly-by of the crashed Pillar of Autumn) I believe I
: saw
: : the Marathon symbol on the side of the ship, near the
: front.
: : You can only see maybe 3/4 of it but it's a different
: color
: : metal and its a circle with the Marathon symbol
: vaguely
: : engraved into it.
: :
:
: we noticed it on screen shots givin to us before Halos
: release :-)
:
: but it's good to see some one is still looking for things.
: I personally need to take a break from Halo for a bit (12
: shoudl do it). my next mission in Halo will be to go through
: on easy and explor the maps :-)
:
: Earendil
Oh... hmm I guess I wasn't really looking out for things like that before I played the game.
There are a number of Marathon references in the game. If you continue with that same cutscene in the Maw, you fly around to the other side of the ship and can see the entire Marathon logo.
Other items.
The rocket launcher missiles have "Spankr" on the side of them, as they do in Marathon.
The Covenant grunt's blatherings include a few of the more famous Marathon lines like "They're everywhere".
The lineup of weapons is very similar, including the "alien weapon" that can build up a large discharge, or fire regularly. I miss the charge up sound from Marathon, however.
DangerMouse wrote on Saturday, 12/15/2001 - 10:59 am:
: I was playing "the Maw" and during the opening cutscene
: (the fly-by of the crashed Pillar of Autumn) I believe I saw
: the Marathon symbol on the side of the ship, near the front.
: You can only see maybe 3/4 of it but it's a different color
: metal and its a circle with the Marathon symbol vaguely
: engraved into it.
:
: Anybody else notice this?
Captain Keyes has a symbol on his shirt with "Hello my name Keyes" (no "is", though!) on a symbol which I was told is very much like the Marathon one. But I've not played Marathon, so I wouldn't know. Look for it on the third level with the sniper rifle at full zoom.
Just a thought... what is it about Bungiefen that draws them inexorably towards Banks' Culture? I mean, I've come across something like 1% of us folks who haven't read them and become enthralled.
I ask only because I finally got around to getting one of them (recent one, Look to Windward), and it came to mind.
In the beginning cutsceen of "The Tale of Two Betrayals", Cortana says if you don't belive me ask him, and he says while this instalation has a radius of 15 million light years (see if you heard what i did here)
Very interesting, and hard to catch, but is this the only Halo ?
: What about whne he says "Why would you hesitate to do
: something you have already done?" Or something along those
: lines, what could that mean?
Presumably take lives. Master Chief has taken many, many lives in the campaigns leading to the fall of Reach, and subsequent battles on the Halo. Instead of RTFM, perhaps, RTFB? ;)
: What about whne he says "Why would you hesitate to do
: something you have already done?" Or something along those
: lines, what could that mean?
I'm thinking this has to do with sequels, with Marathon, and Bungie's predilection for messed up timelines.
Either GS is confusing us for a Forerunner or their representatives, empowered to activate the Halo-- or in some future instance we'll activate a Halo in the distant past, thus confusing GS into thinking we've already done it when, as far as we know, we haven't.
At the very end of the game when MChief says "No, this is only the beginning", it pans to the galaxy. What I got from that was that he was headed out to destroy the other Halos.
DangerMouse wrote on Monday, 12/17/2001 - 6:54 pm:
: After that he says "once the others follow in suit this
: galaxy will be quite devoid of life"
:
: I suppose he means other Halos.
: At the very end of the game when MChief says "No, this is
: only the beginning", it pans to the galaxy. What I got from
: that was that he was headed out to destroy the other
: Halos.
:
: DangerMouse wrote on Monday, 12/17/2001 - 6:54 pm:
:
: : After that he says "once the others follow in suit
: this
: : galaxy will be quite devoid of life"
: :
: : I suppose he means other Halos.
:
There are several ways to interpret GS's comments at the end of "The Library"/ beginning of "Two Betrayals".
First, his comments, paraphrased -
this installation has a maximum range of 25 thousand light years, but when the others follow suit...
why would you hesitate to do what you have already done?
You once asked me if it were my choice, would I do it? Having had considerable time to ponder your query, I must answer... yes.
There are follow up comments in the final level which add to the mystery:
You would destroy this installation? And this Record! How I will enjoy catching up on our lost time! "Human History" is it? ...
What the chief has already done is open to speculation, of course. This could be he has already retrieved the index and united it with the core (had Cortana not intervened, the station would have gone active and killed a good chunk of the galaxy), why does the Chief now heistate to let the station go active as he has already started? This could also mean that at some point inthe past, the Chief activated this very station and killed 25000 light years of life.
Given Bungie's predelection for f-ed up timelines a la Marathon, the preceding comments suggest to me that, yes, there are multiple Halo Stations, and at some point in the "future" of the Halo-verse, The Master Chief will be transported in back in time a good ways, and go BACK to installation 004, meet the monitor again, only this time he will actually activate the thing but be somehow shielded from its effects. He will have some sort of conversation with the monitor in which he asks if the monitor would have activated the ring, were it his choice. The Master Chief would then go off to repopulate the human race, "Adam" if you will, who develop over the centuries until they eventually come to the point we experience in the game. During the course of the game, the Chief would have no idea he'd ever met the Montior before, because to the Chief this is the first time they've met. A good-ol temporal paradox.
Another possibility presents itself: Humans are the Forerunners. That is, suppose in the distant past that humans were a great spacefaring species, humans built Halo in the first place, and a soldier who just happened to have a coincidental genetic match of the master chief's DNA just happened to be there when the Flood broke loose, and this other chief activated the station. Suppose further that there was a small pocket of humans that were in a "dead spot" of all the halo stations' effectiveness (a spot where none of the Halo stations could reach), and were far enough away that the Flood never got to them. This would allow the Humans to repopulate. This interpretation give you a whole new look on the J'arro and W'rknacter, eh? (Sorry if I screwed up the spelling on those two, been a long time since I played Infinity).
We also know that the Chief is now working against the clock. If you have watched the post-game credits, all the way to the end, you know that despite the destruction of installation 004, the monitor has survived and is en route to somewhere, presumably either another Halo station, or to some device or place where he can be in communications range with another station to ensure activation of the other stations. The Chief doesn't know that, regrettably.
A combination of these views may be the truth: Humans are the forerunners, and the master chief travels through time in a future episode of the Halo universe. Given the background of Marathon, and the specific comments of GS, I think this is probably the best guess.
One final interpretation on just the fact that this is "installation 004" comes from the Babylon 5 nomenclature. B5 was the fifth station built, but the other 4 were either lost or destroyed, similar to the Enterprise being NCC-1701 /-A/-B/-C/-D etc. It is entirely plausible that "installtion 004" is simply the fourth station to be built while 1-3 are gone, but given the montior's comments about other stations going active, this seems unlikely.
Starting a new thread here: ever notice that the markings on the walls in the Flood complex, when you first meet the flood, and the markings on the backs of Elites are the same? What's the story there, eh? Kill an Elite and look at its back sometime. Up around the shoulders will be an engraved, usually-white symbol that matches one of the symbols on the wall in the Flood complex. Either the Covenant put those symbols on the walls after arriving at the complex as some sort of unit designators or something, or the forerunners put the symbols on the walls and there is some relationship between the elites and the flood complex and/or forerunners. Hmmmmm....
Monitor of Installation 003 wrote on Wednesday, 02/20/2002 - 1:50 am:
:
: Starting a new thread here: ever notice that the markings
: on the walls in the Flood complex, when you first meet the
: flood, and the markings on the backs of Elites are the same?
: What's the story there, eh? Kill an Elite and look at its
: back sometime. Up around the shoulders will be an engraved,
: usually-white symbol that matches one of the symbols on the
: wall in the Flood complex. Either the Covenant put those
: symbols on the walls after arriving at the complex as some
: sort of unit designators or something, or the forerunners
: put the symbols on the walls and there is some relationship
: between the elites and the flood complex and/or forerunners.
: Hmmmmm....
I've actually been looking at those symbols on various pages, both the ones on the walls and the ones on the Elites.
Here's my "pet" theory.
The Flood, however dangerous and interesting, don't seem (at least to me) to justify the construction of a single Halo, let alone an entire network of them. Besides that, it seems to make no sense. If the Flood represent a danger on the Halo, such that merely destroying IT is not an effective remedy after they escape, then why allow them to live at all? "Scientific study" is usually the standard SF answer to this question of why races toy with things that eventually become their undoing, but there seems little evidence of this going on at the Halo. Such study (especially if it were of a... umm... military nature) would probably involve studying how the Flood attack and subsume other races, and since prior to the crash of the PoA there seem to BE no other races on the Halo, this doesn't make sense either.
Perhaps the Forerunners, or the monitor, somehow helped "engineer" the situation to bring humans and Covenant in contact with the Halo.
The symbols on the walls are arranged in threes-- and through the doors above which they appear, there are three doors to choose from. Later on, Flood burst from nearly all of these, regardless of what symbol was matched to it. But this simply may mean that at some point the Flood expanded to all neighboring cells, no matter what was originally in them. However, when you first pass these cells they appear empty.
What I'm thinking is that the Halo is a kind of zoo or menagerie, similar to the Rama cylinder in Arthur C. Clarke's novels.
This explains a lot of things that otherwise make little sense, such as:
Why does the Halo have different terrain and environments?
If the Halo was built solely to contain the Flood, why is so much of its surface area seemingly off limits to them?
Perhaps it's possible that, at one time, the Flood were introduced to this station in particular as a single species, one of many, but were found to be uncontainable. That would explain why it (and the others) require a self-destruct, and why the rest of THIS particular Halo is vacant of other ambient life (difficult work schedules aside).
And the Elites? Perhaps they also were once part of the Forerunners' collection. This makes sense of a few more things-- such as why Cortana underestimated their understanding of the Halo's systems, and why later (after being given access to the Core) she accused them of ignoring "signs" of the danger presented by the Flood. The reason is that this is not the first Halo they've seen in the history of their race. (Of course, for that to be true the markings cannot be mere brands or tattoos, but something produced by an actual genetic alteration to the organisms... but hey, it's science fiction, right?
It also explains how the Covenant were able to get to the Flood first-- but then realized the danger and attempted to lock it away (only to have the idiot humans release it again).
The symbols-- at least some of them-- may mean the equivalent of "bioweapon" or "biohazard", leading to the original confusion of it being a weapons cache.
Cortana seems able to understand what the Covenant think they are looking for because of her access to their "unencrypted" comm channels-- but how do the Covenant know what they are looking for? If they can translate the symbols on the walls, or access the Halo's computers, without access to the Core (as Cortana has) then why doesn't Cortana know in advance what they will find and where? The Covenant seem already to know, or to be able to find out about things on the Halo without our assistance, whereas all of our information is either intercepted from them or comes from the Core via Cortana.
Anybody taken a good look at the back of the Marines' necks? Or the Chief's, for that matter?
I think we're getting closer to the truth here, narcogen - thanks for your theory!
I would like to disagree on a couple of points, though. Based on GS's comments, it seems the Halo station was built solely for Flood containment and study, as he directly says things to that effect while laughing to himself overhead during the Library. I can see the bumper sticker now... Halo: Got Flood Insurance? Yes, I know, boo hiss, boo hiss...
The critical piece of information we're missing from this line in the story is one you sort of touched on: we really don't know how and where the Flood were discovered or engineered and how they spread from that point, and at what rate. Engineered seems more likely given the SF genre, but I suppose it could occur naturally. I would suspect, though that at some point the Flood was discovered or created somewhere & "somewhen" else, before the Halo stations were built. We already know they are capable of effecting repairs to starships (I would guess that the Flood are as smart as the lifeforms they infect, or nearly so). This would mean that the Flood could spread from world to world in a geometric curve - take over a spacefaring world, use all of that world's ships to move on and infect an even greater number in the next "generation", and so on. If the tech levels of those they infect were just high enough to be spacefaring but not as militarily strong as something above the level of the Covenenant, this would be quite the effective tactic for propegation of the "species". By the time some race came along that was able to resist, such as the Forerunners, then Flood's numbers may have simply been too great for simple containment measures, neccesitating something drastic, such as the Halo stations.
We also know, from one of Monitor's comments, that as long as a sufficiently large being of sufficiently high intelligence is around, the Flood can spread. This prompts the creation of Halo stations, especially if by the time the Flood were figured out they had already spread to vast areas. Given the pattern of how diseases such as bubonic plague, smallpox and even AIDS get slowly figured out, and how many thousands or millions succumb to them, this later creation of the Halo stations, after the Flood had already spread, and the need to create multiple stations to get all the Flood's food, strikes me as all too likely.
There is also the simple fact that GS would not have talked about other installations going active if there were no others to go active. There must have been a need, or somebody had a really bad sense of overkill, no pun intended.
I have a different take on the environments of Halo and the symbols on the Covenant, and this ties in with the infamous "Cortana Transmissions" posted so long ago by Bungie employees as both mystique-building excercises and game concept development. Of course, they were also just f-ing with us a bit, but a lot of those transmissions actually played out.
Notice that all of the control systems, like computer terminals and engineering controls and such that make up the background and walls and stuff on Halo are humanoid-sized; all of the buttons you must push are on panels designed for something roughly human in height. Yes, Elites and Jackals also are roughly human-sized. Some group of creatures human-sized and human envrionment-tolerant was supposed to live and work on the station, studying and containing the Flood in the stations "most impressive research facilities" as GS stated it. Perhaps whole generations were supposed to live, work, grow old and die on the station as a permanent colony-world.
Looking at the Cortana Transmissions (henceforth CortTrans), which contained many concepts which made it into the game and some which may yet still play out in a sequel (and were a treat to discover as they played out in this game), The Covenant seem to know us before we know them. "You brought nothing in to the universe, and you will take nothing out", they said, or something close to that. We also know from both the supplied backstory and the CortTrans that humans are the Devil to the Covenant, that they hate us more than anything. You can hear Grunts spit "Die, Devil!" at you, as you prompty fill them with superheated plasma bolts or varying calibers of lead. Why did 4 very different species band together to form the Covenant (Grunt, Jackal, Elite and Hunter)? Why do they hate us, why are we the devil? Why do elites bear the mark of the Flood? Why are the systems on Halo porperly sized for either Humans of Elites? Why do the covenant consider Halo a holy place, and why do they know the stations' systems much better than Cortana guessed?
Because we are the Forerunners, who created the Halo stations and killed billions of lifeforms to contain the original Flood, and/or are responsible for creating and/or releasing the Flood in the first place (wherein the Foreunners were responsible for correcting our blunder). If we are not the Foreunners but are still somehow responsible for Flood creation or Halo station activation, the Forerunners may have charged the Elites with monitoring and containing the Flood eons ago and gave the Elites the badge of the "Floodwatch", but they have since lost their way and have turned their mission into a religion - the Vorlons and Shadows all over again for the B5 fans out there. The Covenant hate us because they had a logical reason to do so, which turned into religious zeal - we bring nothing but death, either as the creators of the Flood or as the killers of "Flood Food". If we are the Forerunners, then the Covenant may even hate us because we, the Forerunners, taught them to.
Take the paradox a step further, though and things get really wierd. Do we know for certain that no Flood were clinging to the side of the fighter as we speed away from the destroyed station? We have no idea if they can survive in space or not, only that "our environment suit should serve us well when the Flood begin to alter the atmosphere". We have very good reason to suspect that the Chief will meet the monitor on installation 004 at some point in the past (see my first post). Suppose that we, "we" being the Chief and Cortana, are responsible for the creation of the Flood by travelling back through time with a Flood on our ship's hull and bringing it to the past, a classic temporal paradox. We know from the CortTrans that Cortana is going to have reason to perform immense calculations about time and space, a la Durandal, and she may figure out how to travel backward in time. This would certainly explain why she claims to have "won" the fight Durandal didn't - how to escape the closure of the universe, how to be immortal. If she can travel back through time, she would never have to be around when the universe closes; just jump back a few hundred millenia and keep going. These is also the question of "why would the Chief need to travel back through time?" Maybe because he couldn't get to the next station before Monitor did. But I digress...
The "mission turned religion" threory fits nicely with your question of why the Covenant were able to use Halo's systems so easily - if the Forerunners wanted the Covenant to be the "Floodwatch", they certainly would have taught them to use the containment systems. Or, following your track on this, if the Covenant were "pets" of the Forerunners, perhaps they figured the place out by watching their masters, and the Elites dubbed themselves the sacred order of the Flood Keepers or something along those lines, bearing the mark of the flood as a symbol of office.
I do think the Flood are dangerous enough to warrant multiple stations. The Covenant have much more advanced technology than the humans do, have been kicking our butt in the war and have only recenlty been seriously challenged by the creation of the Mjolnir armored Spartans and even then were victorious at the Battle of Reach, and yet they still fall to the Flood in droves. Looking at the mish-mash of body parts that "warrior" Flood are made of, there are just as many elites and jackals in there as there are humans (backward Elite torsos on top of normal Jackal legs are just as common as those made of human parts). Montior recommends a "level twelve" combat system, but the Chief, the peak of human military development, is only a level two system, and presumably the Elites and Hunters are only a hair better. If we have so far to go to be "properly" prepared for Flood containment procedures, how can we say that the Flood are not dangerous?
But there is something curious about this that doesn't fit with my "mission turned religion" theory, unless the mission was one the Covenant created by themselves. Monitor seems to know us and accept us as belonging here when we first meet, and is surprised that we weren't aware of Halo's true purpose, as if we were supposed to know it because we created it. "We have followed OUR break-containment procedure to the letter", he says. He calls the Covnenant "the other species", as if he does not know them. The monitor speaks English, and I suspect not just for the purpose of letting us, the player, understand him. Bungie could have just as easily had him speaking binary, and communicating with us through Cortana, similar in fashion to R2 talking to Luke through Threepio. He is also gleeful on "catching up on our lost time - human history, is it?" Why does he so readily seem to know and accept us, and why does he feel we have lost time together? The only way that tracks is if humans, or at least the Chief, are somehow tied to the creation of Halo, or are the Forerunners.
Been keeping my eye out for other symbols. Nothing on Hunters or Grunts that matches Flood markings that I can see, keeping an eye out for humans and jackals. Grunts do have some sort of chest-patch that looks like a star or something close, but this looks more like just part of a military uniform than anything grandiose and tied to the Flood. Will definitely post any more symbols I find on bodies that seem relevant to this thread.
Monitor of Installation 003 wrote on Wednesday, 02/20/2002 - 11:53 pm:
: I think we're getting closer to the truth here, narcogen -
: thanks for your theory!
:
: I would like to disagree on a couple of points, though.
: Based on GS's comments, it seems the Halo station was built
: solely for Flood containment and study, as he directly says
: things to that effect while laughing to himself overhead
: during the Library. I can see the bumper sticker now...
: Halo: Got Flood Insurance? Yes, I know, boo hiss, boo
: hiss...
This is true.
Whether he can be trusted to tell the truth himself, or whether his own knowledge is complete is a separate question.
The Halo itself might predate him and the use of the "installation" as a Flood prison. And there's still the issue of all the unused space and the different weather patterns.
:
: The critical piece of information we're missing from this
: line in the story is one you sort of touched on: we really
: don't know how and where the Flood were discovered or
: engineered and how they spread from that point, and at what
: rate. Engineered seems more likely given the SF genre, but
: I suppose it could occur naturally. I would suspect, though
: that at some point the Flood was discovered or created
: somewhere & "somewhen" else, before the Halo stations were
: built. We already know they are capable of effecting
: repairs to starships (I would guess that the Flood are as
: smart as the lifeforms they infect, or nearly so). This
: would mean that the Flood could spread from world to world
: in a geometric curve - take over a spacefaring world, use
: all of that world's ships to move on and infect an even
: greater number in the next "generation", and so on. If the
: tech levels of those they infect were just high enough to be
: spacefaring but not as militarily strong as something above
: the level of the Covenenant, this would be quite the
: effective tactic for propegation of the "species". By the
: time some race came along that was able to resist, such as
: the Forerunners, then Flood's numbers may have simply been
: too great for simple containment measures, neccesitating
: something drastic, such as the Halo stations.
True, we are told they are intelligent-- but evolutionally speaking, this doesn't seem to make sense. Intelligence allows individuals to survive when the survival of an individual is more important to the species as a whole. This is why insects breed in droves and are stupid while humans generally only raise a few kids at a time.
Flood attack suicidally and never retreat as if any one individual Flood meant nothing. That's not compatible with intelligence.
Also, if "Flood-ness" is an infection, they'd only have as much intelligence as what they take over, unless they're growing a whole new brain in there. If they inherit their intelligence from hosts, this might make sense.
:
: We also know, from one of Monitor's comments, that as long
: as a sufficiently large being of sufficiently high
: intelligence is around, the Flood can spread. This prompts
: the creation of Halo stations, especially if by the time the
: Flood were figured out they had already spread to vast
: areas.
But why store the flood on it? Why keep them? Why not just round up the Flood and then blow the Halo?
Also, why is it necessary for the other Halos to fire? Cortana leads us to believe that destroying the PoA killed all the Flood on that Halo. So the expansion is contained without the other Halos firing. So why fire them?
Given the pattern of how diseases such as bubonic
: plague, smallpox and even AIDS get slowly figured out, and
: how many thousands or millions succumb to them, this later
: creation of the Halo stations, after the Flood had already
: spread, and the need to create multiple stations to get all
: the Flood's food, strikes me as all too likely.
Can Flood spores survive in space? If so, then questions about why MC takes his helmet off sound more relevant.
:
: There is also the simple fact that GS would not have
: talked about other installations going active if there were
: no others to go active. There must have been a need, or
: somebody had a really bad sense of overkill, no pun
: intended.
:
: I have a different take on the environments of Halo and
: the symbols on the Covenant, and this ties in with the
: infamous "Cortana Transmissions" posted so long ago by
: Bungie employees as both mystique-building excercises and
: game concept development. Of course, they were also just
: f-ing with us a bit, but a lot of those transmissions
: actually played out.
Well... actually, there's a lot of context there. Basically, given what I know, I don't consider any of those to be relevant any more. They were not entirely sanctioned exercises by a Bungie employee who left before significant development work on Halo began, and long before the Xbox transition.
I think that other than a few broad sweeping themes, those letters aren't really relevant anymore, and may in fact be misleading.
:
: Notice that all of the control systems, like computer
: terminals and engineering controls and such that make up the
: background and walls and stuff on Halo are humanoid-sized;
: all of the buttons you must push are on panels designed for
: something roughly human in height. Yes, Elites and Jackals
: also are roughly human-sized. Some group of creatures
: human-sized and human envrionment-tolerant was supposed to
: live and work on the station, studying and containing the
: Flood in the stations "most impressive research facilities"
: as GS stated it. Perhaps whole generations were supposed to
: live, work, grow old and die on the station as a permanent
: colony-world.
Of course, this is true in Marathon as well, as humans, Pfhor and S'pht are all basically the same size. This is an arbitrary custom in gaming, and not likely anything that anyone even considered when making the story.
:
: Looking at the Cortana Transmissions (henceforth
: CortTrans), which contained many concepts which made it into
: the game and some which may yet still play out in a sequel
: (and were a treat to discover as they played out in this
: game), The Covenant seem to know us before we know them.
True. Even more revealing is the quote "you seem to make friends everywhere you go... and even places you don't". Could be another mangled timeline reference.
: "You brought nothing in to the universe, and you will take
: nothing out", they said, or something close to that. We
: also know from both the supplied backstory and the CortTrans
: that humans are the Devil to the Covenant, that they hate us
: more than anything. You can hear Grunts spit "Die, Devil!"
: at you, as you prompty fill them with superheated plasma
: bolts or varying calibers of lead. Why did 4 very different
: species band together to form the Covenant (Grunt, Jackal,
: Elite and Hunter)? Why do they hate us, why are we the
: devil? Why do elites bear the mark of the Flood? Why are
: the systems on Halo porperly sized for either Humans of
: Elites? Why do the covenant consider Halo a holy place, and
: why do they know the stations' systems much better than
: Cortana guessed?
The religious overtones in the game have obviously been toned down-- a fortunate coincidence given the events of last fall.
The E3 demo featured Elites speaking English, saying "Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instrument." Now no Elites speak English, and the only remaining in-game reference to the Covenant's religiosity is the actual name "Covenant" and the rather innoccuous "die, devil" grunt line, which wouldn't mean anything beyond a minor colloquialism if we didn't have the other context.
:
: Because we are the Forerunners, who created the Halo
: stations and killed billions of lifeforms to contain the
: original Flood, and/or are responsible for creating and/or
: releasing the Flood in the first place (wherein the
: Foreunners were responsible for correcting our blunder). If
: we are not the Foreunners but are still somehow responsible
: for Flood creation or Halo station activation, the
: Forerunners may have charged the Elites with monitoring and
: containing the Flood eons ago and gave the Elites the badge
: of the "Floodwatch", but they have since lost their way and
: have turned their mission into a religion - the Vorlons and
: Shadows all over again for the B5 fans out there. The
: Covenant hate us because they had a logical reason to do so,
: which turned into religious zeal - we bring nothing but
: death, either as the creators of the Flood or as the killers
: of "Flood Food". If we are the Forerunners, then the
: Covenant may even hate us because we, the Forerunners,
: taught them to.
Possible. But it's a little too cliched-- I honestly don't think Bungie would go this way.
It's far more likely that there's a tentative connection between the Jjaro of Marathon and the Forerunners. Basically, the concept of a lost and mysterious super-race is just a lot more interesting than finding out humans used to be more clever, or will eventually travel in time.
:
: Take the paradox a step further, though and things get
: really wierd. Do we know for certain that no Flood were
: clinging to the side of the fighter as we speed away from
: the destroyed station? We have no idea if they can survive
: in space or not, only that "our environment suit should
: serve us well when the Flood begin to alter the atmosphere".
: We have very good reason to suspect that the Chief will
: meet the monitor on installation 004 at some point in the
: past (see my first post). Suppose that we, "we" being the
: Chief and Cortana, are responsible for the creation of the
: Flood by travelling back through time with a Flood on our
: ship's hull and bringing it to the past, a classic temporal
: paradox. We know from the CortTrans that Cortana is going
: to have reason to perform immense calculations about time
: and space, a la Durandal, and she may figure out how to
: travel backward in time. This would certainly explain why
: she claims to have "won" the fight Durandal didn't - how to
: escape the closure of the universe, how to be immortal. If
: she can travel back through time, she would never have to be
: around when the universe closes; just jump back a few
: hundred millenia and keep going. These is also the question
: of "why would the Chief need to travel back through time?"
: Maybe because he couldn't get to the next station before
: Monitor did. But I digress...
Yes, of course, meaning by paradox that this can't happen. If there's no origin for the future Flood you can't bring one back.
:
: The "mission turned religion" threory fits nicely with
: your question of why the Covenant were able to use Halo's
: systems so easily - if the Forerunners wanted the Covenant
: to be the "Floodwatch", they certainly would have taught
: them to use the containment systems. Or, following your
: track on this, if the Covenant were "pets" of the
: Forerunners, perhaps they figured the place out by watching
: their masters, and the Elites dubbed themselves the sacred
: order of the Flood Keepers or something along those lines,
: bearing the mark of the flood as a symbol of office.
So why did they forget? Or do you think the Covenant didn't know the Flood were there?
I think it's far more likely they knew something was there, but not it's true nature, than the reverse. If the Covs had ever been Floodwatchers, they should have known better.
Of course, it is just as possible they could lose that knowledge as well, but I think there are simpler, more elegant explanations. Where things diverge from that it's probably explicable by lack of diligence on Bungie's part rather than a more involved story.
In fact, usually Bungie's complicated plots evolve the other way around-- after the fact, in order to make up for earlier inconsistencies :)
So perhaps by the time the story is done, it will look as you describe...
:
: I do think the Flood are dangerous enough to warrant
: multiple stations. The Covenant have much more advanced
: technology than the humans do, have been kicking our butt in
: the war and have only recenlty been seriously challenged by
: the creation of the Mjolnir armored Spartans and even then
: were victorious at the Battle of Reach, and yet they still
: fall to the Flood in droves. Looking at the mish-mash of
: body parts that "warrior" Flood are made of, there are just
: as many elites and jackals in there as there are humans
: (backward Elite torsos on top of normal Jackal legs are just
: as common as those made of human parts). Montior recommends
: a "level twelve" combat system, but the Chief, the peak of
: human military development, is only a level two system, and
: presumably the Elites and Hunters are only a hair better.
: If we have so far to go to be "properly" prepared for Flood
: containment procedures, how can we say that the Flood are
: not dangerous?
If we're supposed to have single-handedly run through the game, I'd say it's fair to put Elites and Hunters a hair BELOW.
:
: But there is something curious about this that doesn't fit
: with my "mission turned religion" theory, unless the mission
: was one the Covenant created by themselves. Monitor seems
: to know us and accept us as belonging here when we first
: meet, and is surprised that we weren't aware of Halo's true
: purpose, as if we were supposed to know it because we
: created it. "We have followed OUR break-containment
: procedure to the letter", he says. He calls the Covnenant
: "the other species", as if he does not know them. The
: monitor speaks English, and I suspect not just for the
: purpose of letting us, the player, understand him.
True, and this is a hole in my theory as well. (Not the language part-- it's pointless even discussing stuff like that in a game where decisions are made for arbitrary reasons like the understanding of the human player-- but the Monitor's seeming recognition of MC).
Bungie
: could have just as easily had him speaking binary, and
: communicating with us through Cortana, similar in fashion to
: R2 talking to Luke through Threepio. He is also gleeful on
: "catching up on our lost time - human history, is it?" Why
: does he so readily seem to know and accept us, and why does
: he feel we have lost time together? The only way that
: tracks is if humans, or at least the Chief, are somehow tied
: to the creation of Halo, or are the Forerunners.
Less dramatic and interesting. That was likely the reason for having GS speak directly. His character would suffer from the depth given him by his voice characterization if Cortana translated for him.
:
: Been keeping my eye out for other symbols. Nothing on
: Hunters or Grunts that matches Flood markings that I can
: see, keeping an eye out for humans and jackals. Grunts do
: have some sort of chest-patch that looks like a star or
: something close, but this looks more like just part of a
: military uniform than anything grandiose and tied to the
: Flood. Will definitely post any more symbols I find on
: bodies that seem relevant to this thread.
Well, remember, originally the Covenant were supposed to be some kind of an association of multiple races/species. Certainly they all look pretty distinct. Perhaps the Elites are the only ones that were in the Forerunner's zoo, as the most intelligent. Who knows.
It's also been suggested to me that the use of similar symbols is accidental :)
When cortana 1st goes into the control centre she immediately says the
"covenant fools-there must have been signs" as if she already knows what and who the flood are
Also maybe the covenant, not confined to within halos range (through religious zeal) decided to release the flood (so halo would be activated) and destroy themselves along with us
: When cortana 1st goes into the control centre she
: immediately says the
: "covenant fools-there must have been signs" as if she
: already knows what and who the flood are
:
: Also maybe the covenant, not confined to within halos
: range (through religious zeal) decided to release the flood
: (so halo would be activated) and destroy themselves along
: with us
plus
there are loads of parallels between the cortana letters and halo and marathon. could the 'angel' in the 1st be MC
: DarkFish will rule you all (eventually)
: do any yall know where i can get the cortana transmissions
: i havent seen em.
Well, the easiest way to find just about anything you're looking for here is our search page. Do something like search for "Cortana Letters" and you'll probably find it.
If what you're looking for you're not quite sure how to search for, take a peek in the information section. There are lots of things here, arranged hierarchichally. In this case, there are four articles that refer to the Cortana Letters:
Keep in mind, the original Cortana Letters came out VERY early in the development of Halo, and most people who've been following the game for that long don't necessarily consider them to be terribly relevant to the story in the game that shipped. They were originally written by an employee of Bungie who left the company before the buyout by MS, before the rewrite of Halo for the Xbox, and before... well, pretty much before everything.
i found one of the symbols on a hunter in the orange part near the bottom on the back on scilent cortagrfer. outside when you show up after you unlock the doors. then i looked at the other one and i couldn't find one on him.the simbol is in orange but the shading is a little different. it is very hard to see.
kiwi
1. Notice what the lost spark calls MC?
"Reclaimer". That is all he ever calls you. This is saying you have come to reclaim the HALO.
2. "why do you not want to do something that you have already done before." (or somethinmg like that.)
The forerunner built the HALOs to combat the flood and they were losing the battle so they activated HALO removing all SENTIENT life from the galaxy.
MC believing that it is the only way attempts to activate HALO and the spark believes that he is doing this because he knows how it works.
3. The spark believes the chief knows exactly what is going on and so gets confused when MC doesn't understand how halo works.
4. The timing of the last activation of HALO. i forget where you get told this, but you do. It is exactly the same number of millions of years ago that Humans began to develop on Earth, from monkeys. Monkeys are NOT sentient and so would not have been ed by HALO, and the flood could not have used them for food.
The forerunner were ed, however the monkeys eventually reevolved and became Humans (Forerunner) again.
5. "You are wearing level 2 combat armour, why don't you upgrade to a level 12?"
If MC and humans are new how would the spark know about his armour and be so suprised with the weapons he brings to combat the flood.
6. It also explains why the covinent humans.
They are many different forms of creatures allied together to fight the humans. The grunts call you "the " and you get told that "it is gods will to destroy humans" and other references. Why would they believe this? They worshipped the forerunner and when they discovered that their gods were/are humans or are closely related to humans they decided to destroy the people they were at war with.
On another note there are immense amounts of bible references and other religious references that should be noted, there are way too many to speak of here. But things such as "covinent" between man and god that after the "flood" God would not off any of the humans.
there are so many more look into it.
: Humans ARE the Forerunner.
: and here's the proof.
:
: 1. Notice what the lost spark calls MC?
: "Reclaimer". That is all he ever calls you. This is
: saying you have come to reclaim the HALO.
That's only one interpretation. There are others:
He could be reclaiming the index (bringing it back to the control room).
He could be reclaiming the galaxy by starving the flood (activating Halo).
: 2. "why do you not want to do something that you have
: already done before." (or somethinmg like that.)
: The forerunner built the HALOs to combat the flood and
: they were losing the battle so they activated HALO removing
: all SENTIENT life from the galaxy.
We don't know that Forerunners ever activated Halo. What GS says is that *we* did. Since Bungie tends to put contorted timelines in some of its games (Marathon) it may be possible that the Spartan does, in fact, activate Halo in the past, and this is what GS means. So it might not indicate any connection between Forerunners, the human race, and the Spartan.
And again, it could be a case of mistaken identity. GS might *think* the Spartan is a forerunner for some reason that hasn't been revealed yet
: MC believing that it is the only way attempts to activate
: HALO and the spark believes that he is doing this because he
: knows how it works.
: 3. The spark believes the chief knows exactly what is
: going on and so gets confused when MC doesn't understand how
: halo works.
Yes. But again, could be mistaken identity or a messed up timeline.
: 4. The timing of the last activation of HALO. i forget
: where you get told this, but you do. It is exactly the same
: number of millions of years ago that Humans began to develop
: on Earth, from monkeys. Monkeys are NOT sentient and so
: would not have been ed by HALO, and the flood could not
: have used them for food.
I don't believe anyone ever says that the Halo has been activated before or when. GS just asks "why would you hesitate to do what you have already done?"
: The forerunner were ed, however the monkeys eventually
: reevolved and became Humans (Forerunner) again.
: 5. "You are wearing level 2 combat armour, why don't you
: upgrade to a level 12?"
: If MC and humans are new how would the spark know about
: his armour and be so suprised with the weapons he brings to
: combat the flood.
It seems likely to me that GS is just classifying what he observes to be the MC's abilities and ranking it compared to what he knows. It doesn't mean he recognizes MC's equipment as falling within a particular product range, just that he assumes (for whatever reason) that MC *should* have better weaponry.
Aside from all that.. the biggest single piece of evidence for the fact that even 343GS does NOT think you are a forerunner:
He turns on you in the end.
If he really thought you were a member of the race that created Halo, would he have been authorized to override your judgement?
If the reclaimer says the ring should NOT be activated, who is GS to say otherwise? If he's supposed to be in charge, why does he need you to plug in the index?
And if plugging in the index is the important part, then why can GS use it afterwards to activate Halo even if you say you don't want to?
I think GS thinks you are another creation of the Forerunners, perhaps his counterpart of sorts, and not a Forerunner. (Think of the "keymaster" and the "gatekeeper" concepts from Ghostbusters).
343 is the guardian, and you are (assumed to be) the reclaimer.
GS turns on you because it seems clear to him you aren't fulfilling your part of the job.
: 6. It also explains why the covinent humans.
: They are many different forms of creatures allied together
: to fight the humans. The grunts call you "the " and
: you get told that "it is gods will to destroy humans" and
: other references. Why would they believe this? They
: worshipped the forerunner and when they discovered that
: their gods were/are humans or are closely related to humans
: they decided to destroy the people they were at war with.
:
: On another note there are immense amounts of bible
: references and other religious references that should be
: noted, there are way too many to speak of here. But things
: such as "covinent" between man and god that after the
: "flood" God would not off any of the humans.
: there are so many more look into it.
Notice, however, that none of the humans in the game pick up on these references or even mention them. I think references like this are meant to be interpreted by the player in an out of game context, not indicative of an in-game connection between Covenant, humans, or Forerunners.
i foun this on hbo it is an interesting statement 343 Guilty Spark is the AI left to keep watch over Halo when the Forerunner departed. Like most HUMAN AIs, he.... hmmmm interesting dont you think
Just wondering if anyone knows why Sparky keeps calling us Reclaimer. the word means to claim something again (duh), but what is it we're claiming again? the galaxy? do the Forunners somehow feel they own the galaxy?
also Sparky calls Cortana a Construct, any ideas what he means by this? I don't think we ever refer to her as a construct, which means this is sparkys own little nick name. the only loose connection I can guess at, is that the Forunners had AIs do most if not all, the work, and were called constructors (builders).
Spark also refers to Cortana as ours, which again we never acted or said that Cortana was ours.
that little drop kick of a spark really bugs me, I was playing through that level again on Legendary, and he pisses me off :-)
like how about how he transports us from place to place at will, but has us fight our way though @#$% loads of flood to get to the index...grrr....
Anyway, thought I'd attempt to awake this dead forum.
Gs seems to be reminding me more and more of durandal, always teleporting you around, making you do his bidding, keeping you in the dark. Remember there were two ai's above the Pillar of Autumn. We have no reason to believe that GS was origionally from the Halo, he seemed awefully interested in human history, considering he would have never come in contact with humans on halo, and he knew (or thought he knew) Master Cheif. Hmmm, odd how Keyes refused Cortana's assistance in piloting and landing the pillar of autumn, and he was so good at piloting the ships, and always playing with his pipe...
In reply to: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :P [NT]
i was thinking (yeah i know, it's strange) about why the monitor didn't just take the index himself, perhaps he was not authorized to take it, or perhaps banned, so to speak, from taking it, and needed Master Cheif to get it for him. Perhaps the whole, kill every living thing in the universe feature of halo is just a last resort, and only the forerunners were intended to activate it (the monitor just being there to keep watch, if he was put there by the forerunners), the forerunners figuring that noone else would both staying on Halo long enough to figure out how to activate it.
In reply to: Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :P
Virus wrote on Wednesday, 12/26/2001 - 1:36 am:
: i was thinking (yeah i know, it's strange) about why the
: monitor didn't just take the index himself, perhaps he was
: not authorized to take it, or perhaps banned, so to speak,
: from taking it, and needed Master Cheif to get it for him.
: Perhaps the whole, kill every living thing in the universe
: feature of halo is just a last resort, and only the
: forerunners were intended to activate it (the monitor just
: being there to keep watch, if he was put there by the
: forerunners), the forerunners figuring that noone else would
: both staying on Halo long enough to figure out how to
: activate it.
From what I gathered, the monitor is pretty useless when it comes to the whole deal with activating Halo's weapon. He can't take out the index since he has no hands (but he sure as heck can grab it off Master Chief) and he can't insert it into the console in the control room.
In reply to: Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :P
: From what I gathered, the monitor is pretty useless when
: it comes to the whole deal with activating Halo's weapon. He
: can't take out the index since he has no hands (but he sure
: as heck can grab it off Master Chief) and he can't insert it
: into the console in the control room.
if you listen to the moniter he says he is not authorized to "do a job as important as the unification of the index withe core" i think it's the core anyway..but you get the idea! by the way about the there being more then one halo idea, he calls hali "installation 004" which to me ment the fourth halo..just wanted to add that in :)
In reply to: Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :P
SlipknotPhreak wrote on Saturday, 12/29/2001 - 2:57 am:
:
: : From what I gathered, the monitor is pretty useless
: when
: : it comes to the whole deal with activating Halo's
: weapon. He
: : can't take out the index since he has no hands (but he
: sure
: : as heck can grab it off Master Chief) and he can't
: insert it
: : into the console in the control room.
:
: if you listen to the moniter he says he is not authorized
: to "do a job as important as the unification of the index
: withe core" i think it's the core anyway..but you get the
: idea! by the way about the there being more then one halo
: idea, he calls hali "installation 004" which to me ment the
: fourth halo..just wanted to add that in :)
And he also says something about the other installations following suit once this one is activated.
In reply to: Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :P
Virus wrote on Wednesday, 12/26/2001 - 12:36 am:
: i was thinking (yeah i know, it's strange) about why the
: monitor didn't just take the index himself, perhaps he was
: not authorized to take it, or perhaps banned, so to speak,
: from taking it, and needed Master Cheif to get it for him.
: Perhaps the whole, kill every living thing in the universe
: feature of halo is just a last resort, and only the
: forerunners were intended to activate it (the monitor just
: being there to keep watch, if he was put there by the
: forerunners), the forerunners figuring that noone else would
: both staying on Halo long enough to figure out how to
: activate it.
Read the stuff on Halo's story page at halo.bungie.org. Also, 343 said himself that he wasn't allowed to do something as important as activate Halo.
In reply to: Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :P
LordJustonian wrote on Wednesday, 06/19/2002 - 11:32 am:
: REclaimed means claimed again. Have you claimed the index
: before??
There are several instances in Halo where the Spartan is alleged by 343 to have been on and activated Halo before.
However, to interpret the line strictly, "reclaim" can also mean to "take back"-- so he doesn't have to have claimed the Index before, he just needs to be taking it back from someone else. (As in, it was "ours" before, it was taken away, and it has been REclaimed (claimed again) back from those who took it.)
Which brings up other questions:
The only reason to activate Halo would be if the Flood were in danger of escaping.
The only reason they would be in danger of escaping is if they are loose.
If they are loose, they can interfere with your actions.
So why create a situation where the object needed to activate Halo (the index) is so far from the place where it needs to be in order to activate Halo (the control room)? Especially since the Flood, being loose, are able to interfere with your ability to move the Index from the Library to the Control Room?
If the Index is what is being REclaimed, who is it being reclaimed from? We are led to believe (because nought is said otherwise) that the Index is meant to be stored in the Library. But some parts of this interpretation lead us to believe that there are different forces at work among those who constructed and/or operate Halo.
I know that this could be a failsafe measure-- such as using separate keys for nuclear weapons, for instance. But there's only 1 index; placing it where it is doesn't prevent a sole individual from using Halo, it just makes the process take longer. So it isn't much of a failsafe. The distance only prevents "accidental" operation, which I suspect could be done some other way.
I think it likely that Reclaimer actually refers to something else. By activating Halo and starving off the Flood, you may be "reclaiming" the galaxy for other sentient life (perhaps life that was able to temporarily leave the galaxy and then return-- such as the Forerunners? Perhaps they intended to return and never did...)
narcogen wrote on Sunday, 06/23/2002 - 1:41 am:
te on Wednesday, 06/19/2002 - 11:32 am:
:perhaps life that was able to temporarily leave the
:galaxy and then return-- such as the Forerunners? Perhaps
:they intended to return and never did...)
I Saber think that:
the forerunners activated halo and in doing so stoped the flood many years ago, but the halo's kill all sentient life right and someone other than Mr. Guilty Spark 343 and his construct budies has to activate each one of them. the number 004 infers that there can be upto 999 halo rings or only a few, some forerunners must have stayed behind incase the flood escaped.
guilty spark was glad the flood lived on from the last activation of the rings why? so he would have a job.
also he said Human and covenat weapons basicly sucked the shotgun works alot faster at killing flood than a laser!
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE END AFTER THE CREDITS - IS GUITLY SPARK 343 SHOTING THROUGH SPACE . . . . MOST LIKELY TRYING TO GET TO ANOTHER HALO RING PROBABLY 25,000 LIGHTYEARS AWAY-
well first off, he calls Cortanan a construct because that's exactly what she is, an AI construct. He probably calls the Master Chief Reclaimer because he is reclaiming either the Index or Halo or perhaps even the galaxy for the Forerunners.
The little sapsucking punk.Sparky never quits,huh?Well he calls Cortana,who is a hottie to us other A.I. constructs,a construct because of what she is capable of doing.She can build up and destroy information on computers.As you said,a constructor.Now why he calls the Chief a reclaimer is beyond my knowledge.How do you expect to make any sense out of someone who calls themself a genius and hums and laughs to himself all day?You can't.The A.I. of Doom has spoken.
Kevin the A.I. of doom!! wrote on Sunday, 02/17/2002 - 9:02 pm:
: Kevin the A.I. of Doom says:
:
: The little sapsucking punk.Sparky never quits,huh?Well he
: calls Cortana,who is a hottie to us other A.I. constructs,a
: construct because of what she is capable of doing.She can
: build up and destroy information on computers.As you said,a
: constructor.
Actually, that's not the source of the term "construct". The term "construct" or "personality construct" has been used in science fiction to refer to artificially intelligent characters for some time. It refers to the personality having been "constructed" rather than any capability it has to construct information.
Now why he calls the Chief a reclaimer is beyond
: my knowledge.How do you expect to make any sense out of
: someone who calls themself a genius and hums and laughs to
: himself all day?You can't.The A.I. of Doom has spoken.
As mentioned before, the Master Chief "reclaimed" the Index in order to reunite it with the Core and activate the Halo.
Sparky thinks u r a forerunner commin back to reclaim Halo (MC must look like a forerunner) . As for Construct, Cortana is an A.I. Contruct, Construct meaning it is contructed out of Artificial Intelligence, Get it? Got it? GOOD!
Well, from what I can see, Sparky doesn't know Master Chief's name (Well, he doesn't even have a name, he's only known by his rank), so he calls him Reclaimer, also pointing out the fact that he needs him to reclaim the index. I'm sure the Forerunners put a security lockout in Sparky's AI to prevent him from activating Halo when it wasn't needed, Halo is a last resort to destroy the flood. Dunno why the Forerunner didn't just seal the Flood in for good and put up Planetairy Defense Turrets of some kind, with warning beacons, but maybe they did, and they were too Advanced or Primitive to be read by 'modern' ships. Cortana DID mention that there should have been signs: "Oh those Covenant fools! They must have known, there should have been signs!"
: Well, from what I can see, Sparky doesn't know Master
: Chief's name (Well, he doesn't even have a name, he's only
: known by his rank), so he calls him Reclaimer, also pointing
: out the fact that he needs him to reclaim the index. I'm
: sure the Forerunners put a security lockout in Sparky's AI
: to prevent him from activating Halo when it wasn't needed,
: Halo is a last resort to destroy the flood. Dunno why the
: Forerunner didn't just seal the Flood in for good and put up
: Planetairy Defense Turrets of some kind, with warning
: beacons, but maybe they did, and they were too Advanced or
: Primitive to be read by 'modern' ships. Cortana DID mention
: that there should have been signs: "Oh those Covenant fools!
: They must have known, there should have been signs!"
Master Cheif does have a name if youd care to read the fall of reach (the halo book) youd know that it is John
They don't take that much away, but may save you some health on harder settings:
In The Silent Cartographer, once you have the Map room open and start heading down there is a hole you can drop through that saves you nearly a level. Look for it in the area just above the one with the ammo/health stash (and the two hunters). Rather than going down the ramp with the bottomless pit in the middle, look for a small room on the other side and drop through the hole.
In "If I had a Superweapon", you can skip the last two round rooms and all of the enemies heading up the structure - including the tank and hunters. Just as you come out the door run immediately towards the first Banshee. A red elite covenent will be coming to get in it. A rocket to his left will distract him and you can get in. Fly it down to the big hangar like door and you skip all of the enemies in between.
: They don't take that much away, but may save you some
: health on harder settings:
:
: In The Silent Cartographer, once you have the Map room
: open and start heading down there is a hole you can drop
: through that saves you nearly a level. Look for it in the
: area just above the one with the ammo/health stash (and the
: two hunters). Rather than going down the ramp with the
: bottomless pit in the middle, look for a small room on the
: other side and drop through the hole.
:
: In "If I had a Superweapon", you can skip the last two
: round rooms and all of the enemies heading up the structure
: - including the tank and hunters. Just as you come out the
: door run immediately towards the first Banshee. A red elite
: covenent will be coming to get in it. A rocket to his left
: will distract him and you can get in. Fly it down to the big
: hangar like door and you skip all of the enemies in
: between.
a well aimed granade or rocket launcher will also work to flip the banshee and keep the eliet from using it. that can be done from within the safety of the little hallway and doors. or sniping the eliet work too. all depends on your weapons. but a well aimed granade will work.
Oh! They have the internet on computers now! - Homer J Simpson
Earendil wrote on Thursday, 02/7/2002 - 10:05 am:
Sometimes that flips it right off of the bridge :( If you get in it, you get to use a banshee a few levels before coming back out, and you can skip some things. Then again, who doesn't want to take the banshee, fly around and kill everything you would have had to kill anyway :)
: a well aimed granade or rocket launcher will also work to
: flip the banshee and keep the eliet from using it. that can
: be done from within the safety of the little hallway and
: doors. or sniping the eliet work too. all depends on your
: weapons. but a well aimed granade will work.
:
Comments
Earendil
Yeah, we did
In reply to: Marathon symbol on PoA?DangerMouse wrote on Saturday, 12/15/2001 - 8:59 am:
: I was playing "the Maw" and during the opening cutscene
: (the fly-by of the crashed Pillar of Autumn) I believe I saw
: the Marathon symbol on the side of the ship, near the front.
: You can only see maybe 3/4 of it but it's a different color
: metal and its a circle with the Marathon symbol vaguely
: engraved into it.
:
we noticed it on screen shots givin to us before Halos release :-)
but it's good to see some one is still looking for things. I personally need to take a break from Halo for a bit (12 shoudl do it). my next mission in Halo will be to go through on easy and explor the maps :-)
Earendil
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Yeah, we did
In reply to: Yeah, we didEarendil wrote on Saturday, 12/15/2001 - 11:52 am:
: DangerMouse wrote on Saturday, 12/15/2001 - 8:59 am:
:
: : I was playing "the Maw" and during the opening
: cutscene
: : (the fly-by of the crashed Pillar of Autumn) I believe I
: saw
: : the Marathon symbol on the side of the ship, near the
: front.
: : You can only see maybe 3/4 of it but it's a different
: color
: : metal and its a circle with the Marathon symbol
: vaguely
: : engraved into it.
: :
:
: we noticed it on screen shots givin to us before Halos
: release :-)
:
: but it's good to see some one is still looking for things.
: I personally need to take a break from Halo for a bit (12
: shoudl do it). my next mission in Halo will be to go through
: on easy and explor the maps :-)
:
: Earendil
Oh... hmm I guess I wasn't really looking out for things like that before I played the game.
Saiph
Re: Marathon symbol on PoA?
In reply to: Marathon symbol on PoA?There are a number of Marathon references in the game. If you continue with that same cutscene in the Maw, you fly around to the other side of the ship and can see the entire Marathon logo.
Other items.
The rocket launcher missiles have "Spankr" on the side of them, as they do in Marathon.
The Covenant grunt's blatherings include a few of the more famous Marathon lines like "They're everywhere".
The lineup of weapons is very similar, including the "alien weapon" that can build up a large discharge, or fire regularly. I miss the charge up sound from Marathon, however.
DangerMouse wrote on Saturday, 12/15/2001 - 10:59 am:
: I was playing "the Maw" and during the opening cutscene
: (the fly-by of the crashed Pillar of Autumn) I believe I saw
: the Marathon symbol on the side of the ship, near the front.
: You can only see maybe 3/4 of it but it's a different color
: metal and its a circle with the Marathon symbol vaguely
: engraved into it.
:
: Anybody else notice this?
Ryan
Re: Marathon symbol on PoA?
In reply to: Re: Marathon symbol on PoA?Captain Keyes has a symbol on his shirt with "Hello my name Keyes" (no "is", though!) on a symbol which I was told is very much like the Marathon one. But I've not played Marathon, so I wouldn't know. Look for it on the third level with the sniper rifle at full zoom.
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Marathon symbol on PoA?
In reply to: Marathon symbol on PoA?i did!!
vector40
Iain M. Banks
Just a thought... what is it about Bungiefen that draws them inexorably towards Banks' Culture? I mean, I've come across something like 1% of us folks who haven't read them and become enthralled.
I ask only because I finally got around to getting one of them (recent one, Look to Windward), and it came to mind.
vector40
Re: Iain M. Banks
In reply to: Iain M. BanksI just realized that this is NOT the off-topic forum. Ugh. Somebody delete this.
rhino badlands games
Interesting Line in the Story
In the beginning cutsceen of "The Tale of Two Betrayals", Cortana says if you don't belive me ask him, and he says while this instalation has a radius of 15 million light years (see if you heard what i did here)
Very interesting, and hard to catch, but is this the only Halo ?
rhino - badlands
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Interesting Line in the Story
In reply to: Interesting Line in the StoryAfter that he says "once the others follow in suit this galaxy will be quite devoid of life"
I suppose he means other Halos.
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Interesting Line in the Story
In reply to: Re: Interesting Line in the StoryWhat about whne he says "Why would you hesitate to do something you have already done?" Or something along those lines, what could that mean?
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Interesting Line in the Story
In reply to: Re: Interesting Line in the StoryVirus wrote on Tuesday, 12/25/2001 - 1:23 am:
: What about whne he says "Why would you hesitate to do
: something you have already done?" Or something along those
: lines, what could that mean?
Presumably take lives. Master Chief has taken many, many lives in the campaigns leading to the fall of Reach, and subsequent battles on the Halo. Instead of RTFM, perhaps, RTFB? ;)
--El B
narcogen
Timelines
In reply to: Re: Interesting Line in the StoryVirus wrote on Tuesday, 12/25/2001 - 2:23 am:
: What about whne he says "Why would you hesitate to do
: something you have already done?" Or something along those
: lines, what could that mean?
I'm thinking this has to do with sequels, with Marathon, and Bungie's predilection for messed up timelines.
Either GS is confusing us for a Forerunner or their representatives, empowered to activate the Halo-- or in some future instance we'll activate a Halo in the distant past, thus confusing GS into thinking we've already done it when, as far as we know, we haven't.
Narcogen
Saiph
Re: Interesting Line in the Story
In reply to: Re: Interesting Line in the StoryAt the very end of the game when MChief says "No, this is only the beginning", it pans to the galaxy. What I got from that was that he was headed out to destroy the other Halos.
DangerMouse wrote on Monday, 12/17/2001 - 6:54 pm:
: After that he says "once the others follow in suit this
: galaxy will be quite devoid of life"
:
: I suppose he means other Halos.
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Interesting Line in the Story
In reply to: Re: Interesting Line in the StorySaiph wrote on Thursday, 02/7/2002 - 1:05 am:
: At the very end of the game when MChief says "No, this is
: only the beginning", it pans to the galaxy. What I got from
: that was that he was headed out to destroy the other
: Halos.
:
: DangerMouse wrote on Monday, 12/17/2001 - 6:54 pm:
:
: : After that he says "once the others follow in suit
: this
: : galaxy will be quite devoid of life"
: :
: : I suppose he means other Halos.
:
There are several ways to interpret GS's comments at the end of "The Library"/ beginning of "Two Betrayals".
First, his comments, paraphrased -
There are follow up comments in the final level which add to the mystery:
What the chief has already done is open to speculation, of course. This could be he has already retrieved the index and united it with the core (had Cortana not intervened, the station would have gone active and killed a good chunk of the galaxy), why does the Chief now heistate to let the station go active as he has already started? This could also mean that at some point inthe past, the Chief activated this very station and killed 25000 light years of life.
Given Bungie's predelection for f-ed up timelines a la Marathon, the preceding comments suggest to me that, yes, there are multiple Halo Stations, and at some point in the "future" of the Halo-verse, The Master Chief will be transported in back in time a good ways, and go BACK to installation 004, meet the monitor again, only this time he will actually activate the thing but be somehow shielded from its effects. He will have some sort of conversation with the monitor in which he asks if the monitor would have activated the ring, were it his choice. The Master Chief would then go off to repopulate the human race, "Adam" if you will, who develop over the centuries until they eventually come to the point we experience in the game. During the course of the game, the Chief would have no idea he'd ever met the Montior before, because to the Chief this is the first time they've met. A good-ol temporal paradox.
Another possibility presents itself: Humans are the Forerunners. That is, suppose in the distant past that humans were a great spacefaring species, humans built Halo in the first place, and a soldier who just happened to have a coincidental genetic match of the master chief's DNA just happened to be there when the Flood broke loose, and this other chief activated the station. Suppose further that there was a small pocket of humans that were in a "dead spot" of all the halo stations' effectiveness (a spot where none of the Halo stations could reach), and were far enough away that the Flood never got to them. This would allow the Humans to repopulate. This interpretation give you a whole new look on the J'arro and W'rknacter, eh? (Sorry if I screwed up the spelling on those two, been a long time since I played Infinity).
We also know that the Chief is now working against the clock. If you have watched the post-game credits, all the way to the end, you know that despite the destruction of installation 004, the monitor has survived and is en route to somewhere, presumably either another Halo station, or to some device or place where he can be in communications range with another station to ensure activation of the other stations. The Chief doesn't know that, regrettably.
A combination of these views may be the truth: Humans are the forerunners, and the master chief travels through time in a future episode of the Halo universe. Given the background of Marathon, and the specific comments of GS, I think this is probably the best guess.
One final interpretation on just the fact that this is "installation 004" comes from the Babylon 5 nomenclature. B5 was the fifth station built, but the other 4 were either lost or destroyed, similar to the Enterprise being NCC-1701 /-A/-B/-C/-D etc. It is entirely plausible that "installtion 004" is simply the fourth station to be built while 1-3 are gone, but given the montior's comments about other stations going active, this seems unlikely.
Starting a new thread here: ever notice that the markings on the walls in the Flood complex, when you first meet the flood, and the markings on the backs of Elites are the same? What's the story there, eh? Kill an Elite and look at its back sometime. Up around the shoulders will be an engraved, usually-white symbol that matches one of the symbols on the wall in the Flood complex. Either the Covenant put those symbols on the walls after arriving at the complex as some sort of unit designators or something, or the forerunners put the symbols on the walls and there is some relationship between the elites and the flood complex and/or forerunners. Hmmmmm....
narcogen
Interesting Lines, Symbols
In reply to: Re: Interesting Line in the StoryMonitor of Installation 003 wrote on Wednesday, 02/20/2002 - 1:50 am:
:
: Starting a new thread here: ever notice that the markings
: on the walls in the Flood complex, when you first meet the
: flood, and the markings on the backs of Elites are the same?
: What's the story there, eh? Kill an Elite and look at its
: back sometime. Up around the shoulders will be an engraved,
: usually-white symbol that matches one of the symbols on the
: wall in the Flood complex. Either the Covenant put those
: symbols on the walls after arriving at the complex as some
: sort of unit designators or something, or the forerunners
: put the symbols on the walls and there is some relationship
: between the elites and the flood complex and/or forerunners.
: Hmmmmm....
I've actually been looking at those symbols on various pages, both the ones on the walls and the ones on the Elites.
Here's my "pet" theory.
The Flood, however dangerous and interesting, don't seem (at least to me) to justify the construction of a single Halo, let alone an entire network of them. Besides that, it seems to make no sense. If the Flood represent a danger on the Halo, such that merely destroying IT is not an effective remedy after they escape, then why allow them to live at all? "Scientific study" is usually the standard SF answer to this question of why races toy with things that eventually become their undoing, but there seems little evidence of this going on at the Halo. Such study (especially if it were of a... umm... military nature) would probably involve studying how the Flood attack and subsume other races, and since prior to the crash of the PoA there seem to BE no other races on the Halo, this doesn't make sense either.
Perhaps the Forerunners, or the monitor, somehow helped "engineer" the situation to bring humans and Covenant in contact with the Halo.
The symbols on the walls are arranged in threes-- and through the doors above which they appear, there are three doors to choose from. Later on, Flood burst from nearly all of these, regardless of what symbol was matched to it. But this simply may mean that at some point the Flood expanded to all neighboring cells, no matter what was originally in them. However, when you first pass these cells they appear empty.
What I'm thinking is that the Halo is a kind of zoo or menagerie, similar to the Rama cylinder in Arthur C. Clarke's novels.
This explains a lot of things that otherwise make little sense, such as:
Why does the Halo have different terrain and environments?
If the Halo was built solely to contain the Flood, why is so much of its surface area seemingly off limits to them?
Perhaps it's possible that, at one time, the Flood were introduced to this station in particular as a single species, one of many, but were found to be uncontainable. That would explain why it (and the others) require a self-destruct, and why the rest of THIS particular Halo is vacant of other ambient life (difficult work schedules aside).
And the Elites? Perhaps they also were once part of the Forerunners' collection. This makes sense of a few more things-- such as why Cortana underestimated their understanding of the Halo's systems, and why later (after being given access to the Core) she accused them of ignoring "signs" of the danger presented by the Flood. The reason is that this is not the first Halo they've seen in the history of their race. (Of course, for that to be true the markings cannot be mere brands or tattoos, but something produced by an actual genetic alteration to the organisms... but hey, it's science fiction, right?
It also explains how the Covenant were able to get to the Flood first-- but then realized the danger and attempted to lock it away (only to have the idiot humans release it again).
The symbols-- at least some of them-- may mean the equivalent of "bioweapon" or "biohazard", leading to the original confusion of it being a weapons cache.
Cortana seems able to understand what the Covenant think they are looking for because of her access to their "unencrypted" comm channels-- but how do the Covenant know what they are looking for? If they can translate the symbols on the walls, or access the Halo's computers, without access to the Core (as Cortana has) then why doesn't Cortana know in advance what they will find and where? The Covenant seem already to know, or to be able to find out about things on the Halo without our assistance, whereas all of our information is either intercepted from them or comes from the Core via Cortana.
Anybody taken a good look at the back of the Marines' necks? Or the Chief's, for that matter?
Narcogen
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Interesting Lines, Symbols
In reply to: Interesting Lines, SymbolsI think we're getting closer to the truth here, narcogen - thanks for your theory!
I would like to disagree on a couple of points, though. Based on GS's comments, it seems the Halo station was built solely for Flood containment and study, as he directly says things to that effect while laughing to himself overhead during the Library. I can see the bumper sticker now... Halo: Got Flood Insurance? Yes, I know, boo hiss, boo hiss...
The critical piece of information we're missing from this line in the story is one you sort of touched on: we really don't know how and where the Flood were discovered or engineered and how they spread from that point, and at what rate. Engineered seems more likely given the SF genre, but I suppose it could occur naturally. I would suspect, though that at some point the Flood was discovered or created somewhere & "somewhen" else, before the Halo stations were built. We already know they are capable of effecting repairs to starships (I would guess that the Flood are as smart as the lifeforms they infect, or nearly so). This would mean that the Flood could spread from world to world in a geometric curve - take over a spacefaring world, use all of that world's ships to move on and infect an even greater number in the next "generation", and so on. If the tech levels of those they infect were just high enough to be spacefaring but not as militarily strong as something above the level of the Covenenant, this would be quite the effective tactic for propegation of the "species". By the time some race came along that was able to resist, such as the Forerunners, then Flood's numbers may have simply been too great for simple containment measures, neccesitating something drastic, such as the Halo stations.
We also know, from one of Monitor's comments, that as long as a sufficiently large being of sufficiently high intelligence is around, the Flood can spread. This prompts the creation of Halo stations, especially if by the time the Flood were figured out they had already spread to vast areas. Given the pattern of how diseases such as bubonic plague, smallpox and even AIDS get slowly figured out, and how many thousands or millions succumb to them, this later creation of the Halo stations, after the Flood had already spread, and the need to create multiple stations to get all the Flood's food, strikes me as all too likely.
There is also the simple fact that GS would not have talked about other installations going active if there were no others to go active. There must have been a need, or somebody had a really bad sense of overkill, no pun intended.
I have a different take on the environments of Halo and the symbols on the Covenant, and this ties in with the infamous "Cortana Transmissions" posted so long ago by Bungie employees as both mystique-building excercises and game concept development. Of course, they were also just f-ing with us a bit, but a lot of those transmissions actually played out.
Notice that all of the control systems, like computer terminals and engineering controls and such that make up the background and walls and stuff on Halo are humanoid-sized; all of the buttons you must push are on panels designed for something roughly human in height. Yes, Elites and Jackals also are roughly human-sized. Some group of creatures human-sized and human envrionment-tolerant was supposed to live and work on the station, studying and containing the Flood in the stations "most impressive research facilities" as GS stated it. Perhaps whole generations were supposed to live, work, grow old and die on the station as a permanent colony-world.
Looking at the Cortana Transmissions (henceforth CortTrans), which contained many concepts which made it into the game and some which may yet still play out in a sequel (and were a treat to discover as they played out in this game), The Covenant seem to know us before we know them. "You brought nothing in to the universe, and you will take nothing out", they said, or something close to that. We also know from both the supplied backstory and the CortTrans that humans are the Devil to the Covenant, that they hate us more than anything. You can hear Grunts spit "Die, Devil!" at you, as you prompty fill them with superheated plasma bolts or varying calibers of lead. Why did 4 very different species band together to form the Covenant (Grunt, Jackal, Elite and Hunter)? Why do they hate us, why are we the devil? Why do elites bear the mark of the Flood? Why are the systems on Halo porperly sized for either Humans of Elites? Why do the covenant consider Halo a holy place, and why do they know the stations' systems much better than Cortana guessed?
Because we are the Forerunners, who created the Halo stations and killed billions of lifeforms to contain the original Flood, and/or are responsible for creating and/or releasing the Flood in the first place (wherein the Foreunners were responsible for correcting our blunder). If we are not the Foreunners but are still somehow responsible for Flood creation or Halo station activation, the Forerunners may have charged the Elites with monitoring and containing the Flood eons ago and gave the Elites the badge of the "Floodwatch", but they have since lost their way and have turned their mission into a religion - the Vorlons and Shadows all over again for the B5 fans out there. The Covenant hate us because they had a logical reason to do so, which turned into religious zeal - we bring nothing but death, either as the creators of the Flood or as the killers of "Flood Food". If we are the Forerunners, then the Covenant may even hate us because we, the Forerunners, taught them to.
Take the paradox a step further, though and things get really wierd. Do we know for certain that no Flood were clinging to the side of the fighter as we speed away from the destroyed station? We have no idea if they can survive in space or not, only that "our environment suit should serve us well when the Flood begin to alter the atmosphere". We have very good reason to suspect that the Chief will meet the monitor on installation 004 at some point in the past (see my first post). Suppose that we, "we" being the Chief and Cortana, are responsible for the creation of the Flood by travelling back through time with a Flood on our ship's hull and bringing it to the past, a classic temporal paradox. We know from the CortTrans that Cortana is going to have reason to perform immense calculations about time and space, a la Durandal, and she may figure out how to travel backward in time. This would certainly explain why she claims to have "won" the fight Durandal didn't - how to escape the closure of the universe, how to be immortal. If she can travel back through time, she would never have to be around when the universe closes; just jump back a few hundred millenia and keep going. These is also the question of "why would the Chief need to travel back through time?" Maybe because he couldn't get to the next station before Monitor did. But I digress...
The "mission turned religion" threory fits nicely with your question of why the Covenant were able to use Halo's systems so easily - if the Forerunners wanted the Covenant to be the "Floodwatch", they certainly would have taught them to use the containment systems. Or, following your track on this, if the Covenant were "pets" of the Forerunners, perhaps they figured the place out by watching their masters, and the Elites dubbed themselves the sacred order of the Flood Keepers or something along those lines, bearing the mark of the flood as a symbol of office.
I do think the Flood are dangerous enough to warrant multiple stations. The Covenant have much more advanced technology than the humans do, have been kicking our butt in the war and have only recenlty been seriously challenged by the creation of the Mjolnir armored Spartans and even then were victorious at the Battle of Reach, and yet they still fall to the Flood in droves. Looking at the mish-mash of body parts that "warrior" Flood are made of, there are just as many elites and jackals in there as there are humans (backward Elite torsos on top of normal Jackal legs are just as common as those made of human parts). Montior recommends a "level twelve" combat system, but the Chief, the peak of human military development, is only a level two system, and presumably the Elites and Hunters are only a hair better. If we have so far to go to be "properly" prepared for Flood containment procedures, how can we say that the Flood are not dangerous?
But there is something curious about this that doesn't fit with my "mission turned religion" theory, unless the mission was one the Covenant created by themselves. Monitor seems to know us and accept us as belonging here when we first meet, and is surprised that we weren't aware of Halo's true purpose, as if we were supposed to know it because we created it. "We have followed OUR break-containment procedure to the letter", he says. He calls the Covnenant "the other species", as if he does not know them. The monitor speaks English, and I suspect not just for the purpose of letting us, the player, understand him. Bungie could have just as easily had him speaking binary, and communicating with us through Cortana, similar in fashion to R2 talking to Luke through Threepio. He is also gleeful on "catching up on our lost time - human history, is it?" Why does he so readily seem to know and accept us, and why does he feel we have lost time together? The only way that tracks is if humans, or at least the Chief, are somehow tied to the creation of Halo, or are the Forerunners.
Been keeping my eye out for other symbols. Nothing on Hunters or Grunts that matches Flood markings that I can see, keeping an eye out for humans and jackals. Grunts do have some sort of chest-patch that looks like a star or something close, but this looks more like just part of a military uniform than anything grandiose and tied to the Flood. Will definitely post any more symbols I find on bodies that seem relevant to this thread.
narcogen
Re: Interesting Lines, Symbols
In reply to: Re: Interesting Lines, SymbolsMonitor of Installation 003 wrote on Wednesday, 02/20/2002 - 11:53 pm:
: I think we're getting closer to the truth here, narcogen -
: thanks for your theory!
:
: I would like to disagree on a couple of points, though.
: Based on GS's comments, it seems the Halo station was built
: solely for Flood containment and study, as he directly says
: things to that effect while laughing to himself overhead
: during the Library. I can see the bumper sticker now...
: Halo: Got Flood Insurance? Yes, I know, boo hiss, boo
: hiss...
This is true.
Whether he can be trusted to tell the truth himself, or whether his own knowledge is complete is a separate question.
The Halo itself might predate him and the use of the "installation" as a Flood prison. And there's still the issue of all the unused space and the different weather patterns.
:
: The critical piece of information we're missing from this
: line in the story is one you sort of touched on: we really
: don't know how and where the Flood were discovered or
: engineered and how they spread from that point, and at what
: rate. Engineered seems more likely given the SF genre, but
: I suppose it could occur naturally. I would suspect, though
: that at some point the Flood was discovered or created
: somewhere & "somewhen" else, before the Halo stations were
: built. We already know they are capable of effecting
: repairs to starships (I would guess that the Flood are as
: smart as the lifeforms they infect, or nearly so). This
: would mean that the Flood could spread from world to world
: in a geometric curve - take over a spacefaring world, use
: all of that world's ships to move on and infect an even
: greater number in the next "generation", and so on. If the
: tech levels of those they infect were just high enough to be
: spacefaring but not as militarily strong as something above
: the level of the Covenenant, this would be quite the
: effective tactic for propegation of the "species". By the
: time some race came along that was able to resist, such as
: the Forerunners, then Flood's numbers may have simply been
: too great for simple containment measures, neccesitating
: something drastic, such as the Halo stations.
True, we are told they are intelligent-- but evolutionally speaking, this doesn't seem to make sense. Intelligence allows individuals to survive when the survival of an individual is more important to the species as a whole. This is why insects breed in droves and are stupid while humans generally only raise a few kids at a time.
Flood attack suicidally and never retreat as if any one individual Flood meant nothing. That's not compatible with intelligence.
Also, if "Flood-ness" is an infection, they'd only have as much intelligence as what they take over, unless they're growing a whole new brain in there. If they inherit their intelligence from hosts, this might make sense.
:
: We also know, from one of Monitor's comments, that as long
: as a sufficiently large being of sufficiently high
: intelligence is around, the Flood can spread. This prompts
: the creation of Halo stations, especially if by the time the
: Flood were figured out they had already spread to vast
: areas.
But why store the flood on it? Why keep them? Why not just round up the Flood and then blow the Halo?
Also, why is it necessary for the other Halos to fire? Cortana leads us to believe that destroying the PoA killed all the Flood on that Halo. So the expansion is contained without the other Halos firing. So why fire them?
Given the pattern of how diseases such as bubonic
: plague, smallpox and even AIDS get slowly figured out, and
: how many thousands or millions succumb to them, this later
: creation of the Halo stations, after the Flood had already
: spread, and the need to create multiple stations to get all
: the Flood's food, strikes me as all too likely.
Can Flood spores survive in space? If so, then questions about why MC takes his helmet off sound more relevant.
:
: There is also the simple fact that GS would not have
: talked about other installations going active if there were
: no others to go active. There must have been a need, or
: somebody had a really bad sense of overkill, no pun
: intended.
:
: I have a different take on the environments of Halo and
: the symbols on the Covenant, and this ties in with the
: infamous "Cortana Transmissions" posted so long ago by
: Bungie employees as both mystique-building excercises and
: game concept development. Of course, they were also just
: f-ing with us a bit, but a lot of those transmissions
: actually played out.
Well... actually, there's a lot of context there. Basically, given what I know, I don't consider any of those to be relevant any more. They were not entirely sanctioned exercises by a Bungie employee who left before significant development work on Halo began, and long before the Xbox transition.
I think that other than a few broad sweeping themes, those letters aren't really relevant anymore, and may in fact be misleading.
:
: Notice that all of the control systems, like computer
: terminals and engineering controls and such that make up the
: background and walls and stuff on Halo are humanoid-sized;
: all of the buttons you must push are on panels designed for
: something roughly human in height. Yes, Elites and Jackals
: also are roughly human-sized. Some group of creatures
: human-sized and human envrionment-tolerant was supposed to
: live and work on the station, studying and containing the
: Flood in the stations "most impressive research facilities"
: as GS stated it. Perhaps whole generations were supposed to
: live, work, grow old and die on the station as a permanent
: colony-world.
Of course, this is true in Marathon as well, as humans, Pfhor and S'pht are all basically the same size. This is an arbitrary custom in gaming, and not likely anything that anyone even considered when making the story.
:
: Looking at the Cortana Transmissions (henceforth
: CortTrans), which contained many concepts which made it into
: the game and some which may yet still play out in a sequel
: (and were a treat to discover as they played out in this
: game), The Covenant seem to know us before we know them.
True. Even more revealing is the quote "you seem to make friends everywhere you go... and even places you don't". Could be another mangled timeline reference.
: "You brought nothing in to the universe, and you will take
: nothing out", they said, or something close to that. We
: also know from both the supplied backstory and the CortTrans
: that humans are the Devil to the Covenant, that they hate us
: more than anything. You can hear Grunts spit "Die, Devil!"
: at you, as you prompty fill them with superheated plasma
: bolts or varying calibers of lead. Why did 4 very different
: species band together to form the Covenant (Grunt, Jackal,
: Elite and Hunter)? Why do they hate us, why are we the
: devil? Why do elites bear the mark of the Flood? Why are
: the systems on Halo porperly sized for either Humans of
: Elites? Why do the covenant consider Halo a holy place, and
: why do they know the stations' systems much better than
: Cortana guessed?
The religious overtones in the game have obviously been toned down-- a fortunate coincidence given the events of last fall.
The E3 demo featured Elites speaking English, saying "Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instrument." Now no Elites speak English, and the only remaining in-game reference to the Covenant's religiosity is the actual name "Covenant" and the rather innoccuous "die, devil" grunt line, which wouldn't mean anything beyond a minor colloquialism if we didn't have the other context.
:
: Because we are the Forerunners, who created the Halo
: stations and killed billions of lifeforms to contain the
: original Flood, and/or are responsible for creating and/or
: releasing the Flood in the first place (wherein the
: Foreunners were responsible for correcting our blunder). If
: we are not the Foreunners but are still somehow responsible
: for Flood creation or Halo station activation, the
: Forerunners may have charged the Elites with monitoring and
: containing the Flood eons ago and gave the Elites the badge
: of the "Floodwatch", but they have since lost their way and
: have turned their mission into a religion - the Vorlons and
: Shadows all over again for the B5 fans out there. The
: Covenant hate us because they had a logical reason to do so,
: which turned into religious zeal - we bring nothing but
: death, either as the creators of the Flood or as the killers
: of "Flood Food". If we are the Forerunners, then the
: Covenant may even hate us because we, the Forerunners,
: taught them to.
Possible. But it's a little too cliched-- I honestly don't think Bungie would go this way.
It's far more likely that there's a tentative connection between the Jjaro of Marathon and the Forerunners. Basically, the concept of a lost and mysterious super-race is just a lot more interesting than finding out humans used to be more clever, or will eventually travel in time.
:
: Take the paradox a step further, though and things get
: really wierd. Do we know for certain that no Flood were
: clinging to the side of the fighter as we speed away from
: the destroyed station? We have no idea if they can survive
: in space or not, only that "our environment suit should
: serve us well when the Flood begin to alter the atmosphere".
: We have very good reason to suspect that the Chief will
: meet the monitor on installation 004 at some point in the
: past (see my first post). Suppose that we, "we" being the
: Chief and Cortana, are responsible for the creation of the
: Flood by travelling back through time with a Flood on our
: ship's hull and bringing it to the past, a classic temporal
: paradox. We know from the CortTrans that Cortana is going
: to have reason to perform immense calculations about time
: and space, a la Durandal, and she may figure out how to
: travel backward in time. This would certainly explain why
: she claims to have "won" the fight Durandal didn't - how to
: escape the closure of the universe, how to be immortal. If
: she can travel back through time, she would never have to be
: around when the universe closes; just jump back a few
: hundred millenia and keep going. These is also the question
: of "why would the Chief need to travel back through time?"
: Maybe because he couldn't get to the next station before
: Monitor did. But I digress...
Yes, of course, meaning by paradox that this can't happen. If there's no origin for the future Flood you can't bring one back.
:
: The "mission turned religion" threory fits nicely with
: your question of why the Covenant were able to use Halo's
: systems so easily - if the Forerunners wanted the Covenant
: to be the "Floodwatch", they certainly would have taught
: them to use the containment systems. Or, following your
: track on this, if the Covenant were "pets" of the
: Forerunners, perhaps they figured the place out by watching
: their masters, and the Elites dubbed themselves the sacred
: order of the Flood Keepers or something along those lines,
: bearing the mark of the flood as a symbol of office.
So why did they forget? Or do you think the Covenant didn't know the Flood were there?
I think it's far more likely they knew something was there, but not it's true nature, than the reverse. If the Covs had ever been Floodwatchers, they should have known better.
Of course, it is just as possible they could lose that knowledge as well, but I think there are simpler, more elegant explanations. Where things diverge from that it's probably explicable by lack of diligence on Bungie's part rather than a more involved story.
In fact, usually Bungie's complicated plots evolve the other way around-- after the fact, in order to make up for earlier inconsistencies :)
So perhaps by the time the story is done, it will look as you describe...
:
: I do think the Flood are dangerous enough to warrant
: multiple stations. The Covenant have much more advanced
: technology than the humans do, have been kicking our butt in
: the war and have only recenlty been seriously challenged by
: the creation of the Mjolnir armored Spartans and even then
: were victorious at the Battle of Reach, and yet they still
: fall to the Flood in droves. Looking at the mish-mash of
: body parts that "warrior" Flood are made of, there are just
: as many elites and jackals in there as there are humans
: (backward Elite torsos on top of normal Jackal legs are just
: as common as those made of human parts). Montior recommends
: a "level twelve" combat system, but the Chief, the peak of
: human military development, is only a level two system, and
: presumably the Elites and Hunters are only a hair better.
: If we have so far to go to be "properly" prepared for Flood
: containment procedures, how can we say that the Flood are
: not dangerous?
If we're supposed to have single-handedly run through the game, I'd say it's fair to put Elites and Hunters a hair BELOW.
:
: But there is something curious about this that doesn't fit
: with my "mission turned religion" theory, unless the mission
: was one the Covenant created by themselves. Monitor seems
: to know us and accept us as belonging here when we first
: meet, and is surprised that we weren't aware of Halo's true
: purpose, as if we were supposed to know it because we
: created it. "We have followed OUR break-containment
: procedure to the letter", he says. He calls the Covnenant
: "the other species", as if he does not know them. The
: monitor speaks English, and I suspect not just for the
: purpose of letting us, the player, understand him.
True, and this is a hole in my theory as well. (Not the language part-- it's pointless even discussing stuff like that in a game where decisions are made for arbitrary reasons like the understanding of the human player-- but the Monitor's seeming recognition of MC).
Bungie
: could have just as easily had him speaking binary, and
: communicating with us through Cortana, similar in fashion to
: R2 talking to Luke through Threepio. He is also gleeful on
: "catching up on our lost time - human history, is it?" Why
: does he so readily seem to know and accept us, and why does
: he feel we have lost time together? The only way that
: tracks is if humans, or at least the Chief, are somehow tied
: to the creation of Halo, or are the Forerunners.
Less dramatic and interesting. That was likely the reason for having GS speak directly. His character would suffer from the depth given him by his voice characterization if Cortana translated for him.
:
: Been keeping my eye out for other symbols. Nothing on
: Hunters or Grunts that matches Flood markings that I can
: see, keeping an eye out for humans and jackals. Grunts do
: have some sort of chest-patch that looks like a star or
: something close, but this looks more like just part of a
: military uniform than anything grandiose and tied to the
: Flood. Will definitely post any more symbols I find on
: bodies that seem relevant to this thread.
Well, remember, originally the Covenant were supposed to be some kind of an association of multiple races/species. Certainly they all look pretty distinct. Perhaps the Elites are the only ones that were in the Forerunner's zoo, as the most intelligent. Who knows.
It's also been suggested to me that the use of similar symbols is accidental :)
Narcogen
blackmaff
Re: Interesting Lines, Symbols
In reply to: Re: Interesting Lines, SymbolsWhen cortana 1st goes into the control centre she immediately says the
"covenant fools-there must have been signs" as if she already knows what and who the flood are
Also maybe the covenant, not confined to within halos range (through religious zeal) decided to release the flood (so halo would be activated) and destroy themselves along with us
DarkFish will rule you all (eventually)
blackmaff
Re: Interesting Lines, Symbols
In reply to: Re: Interesting Lines, Symbolsblackmaff wrote on Tuesday, 10/15/2002 - 3:39 pm:
: When cortana 1st goes into the control centre she
: immediately says the
: "covenant fools-there must have been signs" as if she
: already knows what and who the flood are
:
: Also maybe the covenant, not confined to within halos
: range (through religious zeal) decided to release the flood
: (so halo would be activated) and destroy themselves along
: with us
plus
there are loads of parallels between the cortana letters and halo and marathon. could the 'angel' in the 1st be MC
: DarkFish will rule you all (eventually)
Spartin
Re: Interesting Lines, Symbols
In reply to: Re: Interesting Lines, Symbolsdo any yall know where i can get the cortana transmissions i havent seen em.
narcogen
Re: Interesting Lines, Symbols
In reply to: Re: Interesting Lines, SymbolsSpartin wrote on Friday, 08/30/2002 - 5:46 pm:
: do any yall know where i can get the cortana transmissions
: i havent seen em.
Well, the easiest way to find just about anything you're looking for here is our search page. Do something like search for "Cortana Letters" and you'll probably find it.
If what you're looking for you're not quite sure how to search for, take a peek in the information section. There are lots of things here, arranged hierarchichally. In this case, there are four articles that refer to the Cortana Letters:
one, two, three and four.
They're in the Information page, in the Articles section, subsection on Halo.
Keep in mind, the original Cortana Letters came out VERY early in the development of Halo, and most people who've been following the game for that long don't necessarily consider them to be terribly relevant to the story in the game that shipped. They were originally written by an employee of Bungie who left the company before the buyout by MS, before the rewrite of Halo for the Xbox, and before... well, pretty much before everything.
Narcogen
Spartin
Re: Interesting Lines, Symbols
In reply to: Re: Interesting Lines, Symbolsyea i just wanted to see em thanks
Spartin
Re: Interesting Lines, Symbols
In reply to: Interesting Lines, Symbolsi found one of the symbols on a hunter in the orange part near the bottom on the back on scilent cortagrfer. outside when you show up after you unlock the doors. then i looked at the other one and i couldn't find one on him.the simbol is in orange but the shading is a little different. it is very hard to see.
kiwi
Anonymous (not verified)
Forerunner Human relationship
In reply to: Re: Interesting Line in the StoryHumans ARE the Forerunner.
and here's the proof.
1. Notice what the lost spark calls MC?
"Reclaimer". That is all he ever calls you. This is saying you have come to reclaim the HALO.
2. "why do you not want to do something that you have already done before." (or somethinmg like that.)
The forerunner built the HALOs to combat the flood and they were losing the battle so they activated HALO removing all SENTIENT life from the galaxy.
MC believing that it is the only way attempts to activate HALO and the spark believes that he is doing this because he knows how it works.
3. The spark believes the chief knows exactly what is going on and so gets confused when MC doesn't understand how halo works.
4. The timing of the last activation of HALO. i forget where you get told this, but you do. It is exactly the same number of millions of years ago that Humans began to develop on Earth, from monkeys. Monkeys are NOT sentient and so would not have been ed by HALO, and the flood could not have used them for food.
The forerunner were ed, however the monkeys eventually reevolved and became Humans (Forerunner) again.
5. "You are wearing level 2 combat armour, why don't you upgrade to a level 12?"
If MC and humans are new how would the spark know about his armour and be so suprised with the weapons he brings to combat the flood.
6. It also explains why the covinent humans.
They are many different forms of creatures allied together to fight the humans. The grunts call you "the " and you get told that "it is gods will to destroy humans" and other references. Why would they believe this? They worshipped the forerunner and when they discovered that their gods were/are humans or are closely related to humans they decided to destroy the people they were at war with.
On another note there are immense amounts of bible references and other religious references that should be noted, there are way too many to speak of here. But things such as "covinent" between man and god that after the "flood" God would not off any of the humans.
there are so many more look into it.
narcogen
Re: Forerunner Human relationship
In reply to: Forerunner Human relationshipMooFreaky wrote on Tuesday, 06/18/2002 - 1:14 am:
: Humans ARE the Forerunner.
: and here's the proof.
:
: 1. Notice what the lost spark calls MC?
: "Reclaimer". That is all he ever calls you. This is
: saying you have come to reclaim the HALO.
That's only one interpretation. There are others:
He could be reclaiming the index (bringing it back to the control room).
He could be reclaiming the galaxy by starving the flood (activating Halo).
: 2. "why do you not want to do something that you have
: already done before." (or somethinmg like that.)
: The forerunner built the HALOs to combat the flood and
: they were losing the battle so they activated HALO removing
: all SENTIENT life from the galaxy.
We don't know that Forerunners ever activated Halo. What GS says is that *we* did. Since Bungie tends to put contorted timelines in some of its games (Marathon) it may be possible that the Spartan does, in fact, activate Halo in the past, and this is what GS means. So it might not indicate any connection between Forerunners, the human race, and the Spartan.
And again, it could be a case of mistaken identity. GS might *think* the Spartan is a forerunner for some reason that hasn't been revealed yet
: MC believing that it is the only way attempts to activate
: HALO and the spark believes that he is doing this because he
: knows how it works.
: 3. The spark believes the chief knows exactly what is
: going on and so gets confused when MC doesn't understand how
: halo works.
Yes. But again, could be mistaken identity or a messed up timeline.
: 4. The timing of the last activation of HALO. i forget
: where you get told this, but you do. It is exactly the same
: number of millions of years ago that Humans began to develop
: on Earth, from monkeys. Monkeys are NOT sentient and so
: would not have been ed by HALO, and the flood could not
: have used them for food.
I don't believe anyone ever says that the Halo has been activated before or when. GS just asks "why would you hesitate to do what you have already done?"
: The forerunner were ed, however the monkeys eventually
: reevolved and became Humans (Forerunner) again.
: 5. "You are wearing level 2 combat armour, why don't you
: upgrade to a level 12?"
: If MC and humans are new how would the spark know about
: his armour and be so suprised with the weapons he brings to
: combat the flood.
It seems likely to me that GS is just classifying what he observes to be the MC's abilities and ranking it compared to what he knows. It doesn't mean he recognizes MC's equipment as falling within a particular product range, just that he assumes (for whatever reason) that MC *should* have better weaponry.
Aside from all that.. the biggest single piece of evidence for the fact that even 343GS does NOT think you are a forerunner:
He turns on you in the end.
If he really thought you were a member of the race that created Halo, would he have been authorized to override your judgement?
If the reclaimer says the ring should NOT be activated, who is GS to say otherwise? If he's supposed to be in charge, why does he need you to plug in the index?
And if plugging in the index is the important part, then why can GS use it afterwards to activate Halo even if you say you don't want to?
I think GS thinks you are another creation of the Forerunners, perhaps his counterpart of sorts, and not a Forerunner. (Think of the "keymaster" and the "gatekeeper" concepts from Ghostbusters).
343 is the guardian, and you are (assumed to be) the reclaimer.
GS turns on you because it seems clear to him you aren't fulfilling your part of the job.
: 6. It also explains why the covinent humans.
: They are many different forms of creatures allied together
: to fight the humans. The grunts call you "the " and
: you get told that "it is gods will to destroy humans" and
: other references. Why would they believe this? They
: worshipped the forerunner and when they discovered that
: their gods were/are humans or are closely related to humans
: they decided to destroy the people they were at war with.
:
: On another note there are immense amounts of bible
: references and other religious references that should be
: noted, there are way too many to speak of here. But things
: such as "covinent" between man and god that after the
: "flood" God would not off any of the humans.
: there are so many more look into it.
Notice, however, that none of the humans in the game pick up on these references or even mention them. I think references like this are meant to be interpreted by the player in an out of game context, not indicative of an in-game connection between Covenant, humans, or Forerunners.
Narcogen
Spartin
Re: Interesting Line in the Story
In reply to: Interesting Line in the Storyi foun this on hbo it is an interesting statement 343 Guilty Spark is the AI left to keep watch over Halo when the Forerunner departed. Like most HUMAN AIs, he.... hmmmm interesting dont you think
kiwi
Earendil
Reclaimer and our Construct
Just wondering if anyone knows why Sparky keeps calling us Reclaimer. the word means to claim something again (duh), but what is it we're claiming again? the galaxy? do the Forunners somehow feel they own the galaxy?
also Sparky calls Cortana a Construct, any ideas what he means by this? I don't think we ever refer to her as a construct, which means this is sparkys own little nick name. the only loose connection I can guess at, is that the Forunners had AIs do most if not all, the work, and were called constructors (builders).
Spark also refers to Cortana as ours, which again we never acted or said that Cortana was ours.
that little drop kick of a spark really bugs me, I was playing through that level again on Legendary, and he pisses me off :-)
like how about how he transports us from place to place at will, but has us fight our way though @#$% loads of flood to get to the index...grrr....
Anyway, thought I'd attempt to awake this dead forum.
Earendil
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Reclaimer and our Construct
In reply to: Reclaimer and our ConstructGs seems to be reminding me more and more of durandal, always teleporting you around, making you do his bidding, keeping you in the dark. Remember there were two ai's above the Pillar of Autumn. We have no reason to believe that GS was origionally from the Halo, he seemed awefully interested in human history, considering he would have never come in contact with humans on halo, and he knew (or thought he knew) Master Cheif. Hmmm, odd how Keyes refused Cortana's assistance in piloting and landing the pillar of autumn, and he was so good at piloting the ships, and always playing with his pipe...
Harry
Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :P [NT]
In reply to: Reclaimer and our ConstructAnonymous (not verified)
Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :P
In reply to: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :P [NT]i was thinking (yeah i know, it's strange) about why the monitor didn't just take the index himself, perhaps he was not authorized to take it, or perhaps banned, so to speak, from taking it, and needed Master Cheif to get it for him. Perhaps the whole, kill every living thing in the universe feature of halo is just a last resort, and only the forerunners were intended to activate it (the monitor just being there to keep watch, if he was put there by the forerunners), the forerunners figuring that noone else would both staying on Halo long enough to figure out how to activate it.
Harry
Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :P
In reply to: Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :PVirus wrote on Wednesday, 12/26/2001 - 1:36 am:
: i was thinking (yeah i know, it's strange) about why the
: monitor didn't just take the index himself, perhaps he was
: not authorized to take it, or perhaps banned, so to speak,
: from taking it, and needed Master Cheif to get it for him.
: Perhaps the whole, kill every living thing in the universe
: feature of halo is just a last resort, and only the
: forerunners were intended to activate it (the monitor just
: being there to keep watch, if he was put there by the
: forerunners), the forerunners figuring that noone else would
: both staying on Halo long enough to figure out how to
: activate it.
From what I gathered, the monitor is pretty useless when it comes to the whole deal with activating Halo's weapon. He can't take out the index since he has no hands (but he sure as heck can grab it off Master Chief) and he can't insert it into the console in the control room.
-Harry
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :P
In reply to: Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :P: From what I gathered, the monitor is pretty useless when
: it comes to the whole deal with activating Halo's weapon. He
: can't take out the index since he has no hands (but he sure
: as heck can grab it off Master Chief) and he can't insert it
: into the console in the control room.
if you listen to the moniter he says he is not authorized to "do a job as important as the unification of the index withe core" i think it's the core anyway..but you get the idea! by the way about the there being more then one halo idea, he calls hali "installation 004" which to me ment the fourth halo..just wanted to add that in :)
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :P
In reply to: Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :PSlipknotPhreak wrote on Saturday, 12/29/2001 - 2:57 am:
:
: : From what I gathered, the monitor is pretty useless
: when
: : it comes to the whole deal with activating Halo's
: weapon. He
: : can't take out the index since he has no hands (but he
: sure
: : as heck can grab it off Master Chief) and he can't
: insert it
: : into the console in the control room.
:
: if you listen to the moniter he says he is not authorized
: to "do a job as important as the unification of the index
: withe core" i think it's the core anyway..but you get the
: idea! by the way about the there being more then one halo
: idea, he calls hali "installation 004" which to me ment the
: fourth halo..just wanted to add that in :)
And he also says something about the other installations following suit once this one is activated.
-Harry
Rob
Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :P
In reply to: Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :PHarry wrote on Sunday, 12/30/2001 - 12:26 pm:
: And he also says something about the other installations
: following suit once this one is activated.
:
: -Harry
With a maximum destructive radius of 25,000 light years.
-Rob
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :P
In reply to: Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :PVirus wrote on Wednesday, 12/26/2001 - 12:36 am:
: i was thinking (yeah i know, it's strange) about why the
: monitor didn't just take the index himself, perhaps he was
: not authorized to take it, or perhaps banned, so to speak,
: from taking it, and needed Master Cheif to get it for him.
: Perhaps the whole, kill every living thing in the universe
: feature of halo is just a last resort, and only the
: forerunners were intended to activate it (the monitor just
: being there to keep watch, if he was put there by the
: forerunners), the forerunners figuring that noone else would
: both staying on Halo long enough to figure out how to
: activate it.
Read the stuff on Halo's story page at halo.bungie.org. Also, 343 said himself that he wasn't allowed to do something as important as activate Halo.
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :P
In reply to: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :P [NT]REclaimed means claimed again. Have you claimed the index before??
narcogen
Other meanings of reclaim
In reply to: Re: Your reclaimed the Index, duh. :PLordJustonian wrote on Wednesday, 06/19/2002 - 11:32 am:
: REclaimed means claimed again. Have you claimed the index
: before??
There are several instances in Halo where the Spartan is alleged by 343 to have been on and activated Halo before.
However, to interpret the line strictly, "reclaim" can also mean to "take back"-- so he doesn't have to have claimed the Index before, he just needs to be taking it back from someone else. (As in, it was "ours" before, it was taken away, and it has been REclaimed (claimed again) back from those who took it.)
Which brings up other questions:
The only reason to activate Halo would be if the Flood were in danger of escaping.
The only reason they would be in danger of escaping is if they are loose.
If they are loose, they can interfere with your actions.
So why create a situation where the object needed to activate Halo (the index) is so far from the place where it needs to be in order to activate Halo (the control room)? Especially since the Flood, being loose, are able to interfere with your ability to move the Index from the Library to the Control Room?
If the Index is what is being REclaimed, who is it being reclaimed from? We are led to believe (because nought is said otherwise) that the Index is meant to be stored in the Library. But some parts of this interpretation lead us to believe that there are different forces at work among those who constructed and/or operate Halo.
I know that this could be a failsafe measure-- such as using separate keys for nuclear weapons, for instance. But there's only 1 index; placing it where it is doesn't prevent a sole individual from using Halo, it just makes the process take longer. So it isn't much of a failsafe. The distance only prevents "accidental" operation, which I suspect could be done some other way.
I think it likely that Reclaimer actually refers to something else. By activating Halo and starving off the Flood, you may be "reclaiming" the galaxy for other sentient life (perhaps life that was able to temporarily leave the galaxy and then return-- such as the Forerunners? Perhaps they intended to return and never did...)
Narcogen
Anonymous (not verified)
Forerunners Activated the Halo Rings and . . . . .
In reply to: Other meanings of reclaimnarcogen wrote on Sunday, 06/23/2002 - 1:41 am:
te on Wednesday, 06/19/2002 - 11:32 am:
:perhaps life that was able to temporarily leave the
:galaxy and then return-- such as the Forerunners? Perhaps
:they intended to return and never did...)
I Saber think that:
the forerunners activated halo and in doing so stoped the flood many years ago, but the halo's kill all sentient life right and someone other than Mr. Guilty Spark 343 and his construct budies has to activate each one of them. the number 004 infers that there can be upto 999 halo rings or only a few, some forerunners must have stayed behind incase the flood escaped.
guilty spark was glad the flood lived on from the last activation of the rings why? so he would have a job.
also he said Human and covenat weapons basicly sucked the shotgun works alot faster at killing flood than a laser!
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE END AFTER THE CREDITS - IS GUITLY SPARK 343 SHOTING THROUGH SPACE . . . . MOST LIKELY TRYING TO GET TO ANOTHER HALO RING PROBABLY 25,000 LIGHTYEARS AWAY-
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Reclaimer and our Construct
In reply to: Reclaimer and our Constructwell first off, he calls Cortanan a construct because that's exactly what she is, an AI construct. He probably calls the Master Chief Reclaimer because he is reclaiming either the Index or Halo or perhaps even the galaxy for the Forerunners.
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Reclaimer and our Construct
In reply to: Reclaimer and our ConstructKevin the A.I. of Doom says:
The little sapsucking punk.Sparky never quits,huh?Well he calls Cortana,who is a hottie to us other A.I. constructs,a construct because of what she is capable of doing.She can build up and destroy information on computers.As you said,a constructor.Now why he calls the Chief a reclaimer is beyond my knowledge.How do you expect to make any sense out of someone who calls themself a genius and hums and laughs to himself all day?You can't.The A.I. of Doom has spoken.
narcogen
Re: Reclaimer and our Construct
In reply to: Re: Reclaimer and our ConstructKevin the A.I. of doom!! wrote on Sunday, 02/17/2002 - 9:02 pm:
: Kevin the A.I. of Doom says:
:
: The little sapsucking punk.Sparky never quits,huh?Well he
: calls Cortana,who is a hottie to us other A.I. constructs,a
: construct because of what she is capable of doing.She can
: build up and destroy information on computers.As you said,a
: constructor.
Actually, that's not the source of the term "construct". The term "construct" or "personality construct" has been used in science fiction to refer to artificially intelligent characters for some time. It refers to the personality having been "constructed" rather than any capability it has to construct information.
Now why he calls the Chief a reclaimer is beyond
: my knowledge.How do you expect to make any sense out of
: someone who calls themself a genius and hums and laughs to
: himself all day?You can't.The A.I. of Doom has spoken.
As mentioned before, the Master Chief "reclaimed" the Index in order to reunite it with the Core and activate the Halo.
Narcogen
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Reclaimer and our Construct
In reply to: Reclaimer and our ConstructSparky thinks u r a forerunner commin back to reclaim Halo (MC must look like a forerunner) . As for Construct, Cortana is an A.I. Contruct, Construct meaning it is contructed out of Artificial Intelligence, Get it? Got it? GOOD!
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Reclaimer and our Construct
In reply to: Re: Reclaimer and our ConstructWell, from what I can see, Sparky doesn't know Master Chief's name (Well, he doesn't even have a name, he's only known by his rank), so he calls him Reclaimer, also pointing out the fact that he needs him to reclaim the index. I'm sure the Forerunners put a security lockout in Sparky's AI to prevent him from activating Halo when it wasn't needed, Halo is a last resort to destroy the flood. Dunno why the Forerunner didn't just seal the Flood in for good and put up Planetairy Defense Turrets of some kind, with warning beacons, but maybe they did, and they were too Advanced or Primitive to be read by 'modern' ships. Cortana DID mention that there should have been signs: "Oh those Covenant fools! They must have known, there should have been signs!"
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Reclaimer and our Construct
In reply to: Re: Reclaimer and our ConstructRR_Raptor65 wrote on Monday, 05/6/2002 - 3:44 am:
: Well, from what I can see, Sparky doesn't know Master
: Chief's name (Well, he doesn't even have a name, he's only
: known by his rank), so he calls him Reclaimer, also pointing
: out the fact that he needs him to reclaim the index. I'm
: sure the Forerunners put a security lockout in Sparky's AI
: to prevent him from activating Halo when it wasn't needed,
: Halo is a last resort to destroy the flood. Dunno why the
: Forerunner didn't just seal the Flood in for good and put up
: Planetairy Defense Turrets of some kind, with warning
: beacons, but maybe they did, and they were too Advanced or
: Primitive to be read by 'modern' ships. Cortana DID mention
: that there should have been signs: "Oh those Covenant fools!
: They must have known, there should have been signs!"
Master Cheif does have a name if youd care to read the fall of reach (the halo book) youd know that it is John
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Reclaimer and our Construct
In reply to: Re: Reclaimer and our ConstructRR_Raptor65 wrote on Monday, 05/6/2002 - 3:44 am:
: (Well, he doesn't even have a name, he's only
: known by his rank)
It's John-117; read FoR
Anonymous (not verified)
Re: Reclaimer and our Construct
In reply to: Reclaimer and our ConstructThe AI uses the term construct because that which it refers to is constructed, rather than born.
Anonymous (not verified)
READ THE STORY PAGE AT halo.bungie.org
In reply to: Reclaimer and our ConstructSaiph
2 shortcuts
They don't take that much away, but may save you some health on harder settings:
In The Silent Cartographer, once you have the Map room open and start heading down there is a hole you can drop through that saves you nearly a level. Look for it in the area just above the one with the ammo/health stash (and the two hunters). Rather than going down the ramp with the bottomless pit in the middle, look for a small room on the other side and drop through the hole.
In "If I had a Superweapon", you can skip the last two round rooms and all of the enemies heading up the structure - including the tank and hunters. Just as you come out the door run immediately towards the first Banshee. A red elite covenent will be coming to get in it. A rocket to his left will distract him and you can get in. Fly it down to the big hangar like door and you skip all of the enemies in between.
Earendil
Re: 2 shortcuts
In reply to: 2 shortcutsSaiph wrote on Wednesday, 02/6/2002 - 11:57 pm:
: They don't take that much away, but may save you some
: health on harder settings:
:
: In The Silent Cartographer, once you have the Map room
: open and start heading down there is a hole you can drop
: through that saves you nearly a level. Look for it in the
: area just above the one with the ammo/health stash (and the
: two hunters). Rather than going down the ramp with the
: bottomless pit in the middle, look for a small room on the
: other side and drop through the hole.
:
: In "If I had a Superweapon", you can skip the last two
: round rooms and all of the enemies heading up the structure
: - including the tank and hunters. Just as you come out the
: door run immediately towards the first Banshee. A red elite
: covenent will be coming to get in it. A rocket to his left
: will distract him and you can get in. Fly it down to the big
: hangar like door and you skip all of the enemies in
: between.
a well aimed granade or rocket launcher will also work to flip the banshee and keep the eliet from using it. that can be done from within the safety of the little hallway and doors. or sniping the eliet work too. all depends on your weapons. but a well aimed granade will work.
Oh! They have the internet on computers now! - Homer J Simpson
Saiph
Re: 2 shortcuts
In reply to: Re: 2 shortcutsEarendil wrote on Thursday, 02/7/2002 - 10:05 am:
Sometimes that flips it right off of the bridge :( If you get in it, you get to use a banshee a few levels before coming back out, and you can skip some things. Then again, who doesn't want to take the banshee, fly around and kill everything you would have had to kill anyway :)
: a well aimed granade or rocket launcher will also work to
: flip the banshee and keep the eliet from using it. that can
: be done from within the safety of the little hallway and
: doors. or sniping the eliet work too. all depends on your
: weapons. but a well aimed granade will work.
:
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