ok now im new to this site, as well as new to be over-analytical on Halo, so bear with me. anyway...

1. i would think that if the covenant were glassing the planet, the shots would be seen coming from space in the trailer... there is seemingly no shots coming from space towards earth (and yes it is earth because someone from bungie said we could see washington getting hit). so, now we ask, ok why the ships at all, and the explosions? well since it appears that it is our own weapons going off planetside causing the explosions, we can assume that there are covenant ground forces that are in combat. so then... that would also mean that they had to be transported there... and it would be safe to assume that the covenant would put their most valuable ships outside the range of the MAC guns... they wouldnt want troop transports being blown to pieces because they probably cant defend themselves all that well, so they "folded" those inside the ring of MAC guns.

2. now some people have said "why in the world would the MC jump towards a ship when hes just gonna bounce off the shield?" well IF we assume that those particular ships seem in the trailer were transports, then it is also safe to assume they would have to lower their shields to let the smaller space-to-ground carriers out of their bays. therefore making it safe to the MC to land on the hull of the ship... however... we dont see anything going planetside from those ships.. so if they were transports... where are the S-t-G carriers... not in the vid. so i could be completely wrong.

thats all i can think of for now. im a halo addict, but dont know anything about marathon, being a PC owner. so im still a rookie on bungie :P

narcogen wrote on Saturday, 09/7/2002 - 8:34 am:

: Having had ample time now to watch the Halo 2 trailer more
: than a few times, here are a few thoughts and observations,
: in no particular order:
:
: 1) The modified Mjolnir suit looks great to me. There were
: more than a few people who felt that the MC's look in the
: shipped game was a little too, shall we say, chunky,
: especially compared to the slimmer look of the original
: cyborg from the MWNY '99 video. The new model seems to have
: all the best of both.

He definitely looks much better, having lost the bulk... though honestly, most concepts of augmentation suits do look a bit like "hydrocephalic gorillas". (Quote taken from "Starship Troopers")

Actually being a true cyborg instead of a man in a suit would allow him to compact down. And honestly, I suspect we'll more easily be able to build machines that can perform actions at greater accuracy and speed, than we'll be able to modify human bodies. (Genetically, or otherwise)

: 2) From the mission summary, the "neutralize adaptive
: parasitic life form" item listed as "completed" might be
: interpreted to mean we've seen the last of the Flood, at
: least for now. Perhaps this is just part of Bungie's planned
: story arc, that the Humans and Covenant will be constant
: participants, and that some as-yet-unrevealed third party
: wills step in to make things more interesting later.

Well... I'd call blowing up the Halo a probably successful "neutralization", unless the Flood is much hardier than Halo 1 would lead us to believe. And anyway, do we have any indication that the Flood could somehow follow him to Earth? (Hitch a ride on his spacecraft, perhaps? Very Aliens. )

There is the strange fascination that Guilty Spark had with Human history... perhaps foreshadowing to a deeper connection between Humans and the Flood? This reminds me an awful lot of Niven's connection between Humans and the Pak, which are considered one of the most dangerous races in Known Space.

As far as a third party, beyond the Covenant... it made things interesting last time, but Bungie may have come up with some better tactical challenges with the Covenant. I'm certain we haven't seen all that the Covies have to offer, yet, and so it may be interesting enough with them... However, I still expect Bungie to toss in some fascinating twists. Perhaps alien technology somewhere on the Earth. Perhaps we'll finally find out why they've got a beef with us in the first place.

: 3) The structure that the MC is on in the vid looks quite
: a bit more like levels in Marathon than it does like
: anything from Halo. As already speculated elsewhere, it's
: probably a space station, possibly a ship-- to me, at least,
: calling it "the spoke" seems to indicate the former rather
: than the latter.

Probably a larger ship. One large enough to accomodate a bay, I'd think. I can't think of a good reason to keep a soldier on an orbital station unless you were moving him somewhere. So... perhaps he rejoined with Humanity at some point? It's possible that Cortana or he could have the clout to requisition a war vessel to get him to Earth. Or, that he might hitch a ride. The Admiral does say that "the entire fleet" (remaining) is there to defend Earth.

*** Folded in, inside the Earther formation, and close to a gravity well.

*** orbitals = assault carriers -

It seems to me that the admiral set up a kill-zone in space... an interdiction point, where a portion of his fleet can concentrate its fire, while the rest can maintain a perimeter. Not to sound arrogant, but it's what I might try to do.

And then, at the very beginning of the movie, a lower-grade officer complains that the Covenant just "folded in" (appeared out of hyperspace), inside their own formation... inside the perimeter they set up around the Earth. And pretty close to the Earth. (Most sci-fi "bibles" -- rulebooks created by authors to maintain consistency from one part of a story to another -- consider it difficult or dangerous to go into or out of hyperspace near a gravity well)

The orbitals, to me, seem to be one and the same with the Covenant assault-carriers... in orbit. It's true that we don't see anything obviously emanating from the carriers, but what else would be bombing the hell out of the Earth? It's possible that these ships are really, really big. Or that their munitions are small and efficient. An antimatter bomb, for example, would technically not need to be all that big or complicated... just large enough to maintain a chunk of antimatter, floating in the center of vacum. (via an electromagnetic field) Impacting the surface could be powerful enough to overcome the field and make contact between the antimatter and the container's inner surface.

The General directing ops on the ground is screaming for the Admiral to keep the pressure off his forces from orbit... and the Admiral is responding that he can't afford to strip from his perimeter. Things are going very poorly. In fact... I wonder if Bungie might have overdone it a little... it really doesn't look like there's much to save, by the time the Master Chief is on the scene. In fact, he's probably going to have to take out a series of targets, as with Halo 1, which will take time. The Covenant, in the mean-time, are seeking annihilation and not occupation. That makes things much simpler for them.

You also have to wonder how this fits into the Marathon universe now. Halo is supposedly set some centuries preceding the events of Marathon... but now, the fact that there is no mention of Earth being near-obliterated...? (After the loss of numerous colony-worlds, no less) I don't know, have they decided to make this an alternate universe or something?

:
: 4) At first I thought that the "Admiral" character might
: possibly have been Keyes, somehow resurrected or cloned, but
: then Bungie revealed that this is not the case. Even so, his
: reaction to Cortana's announcement about reinforcements
: seems odd. Cortana only escaped from the PoA and Halo by
: hitching a ride inside the MC's skull. It seems to me that
: either the Admiral should be shocked to be hearing from her
: at all, OR he should know how she got back, which makes his
: "what the hell sort of reinforcements have you got?"
: question seem a little strange.

Yeah... same voice. Bungie does tend to re-use their voice talent, and the Keyes voice was probably too command-like to lose. I even gave a little bit of thought to cloning... cloning the Admiral or, more likely, cloning Cortana. She is software, after all, so could there be more than one copy of her in the Human fleet? Perhaps an original on Earth, and a copy that went with the PoA? Before anyone objects, yes: the book by Eric Nylund cites Cortana to only be a copy of the doctor who ran the program to create Master Chief and his comrades. I'm just trying to think of some possible (plausible?) reason why the Admiral would be reacting to Cortana that way. Perhaps the answer is that Bungie could have done some better writing for the movie?

"The entire fleet is engaged Cortana... With respect, what the hell sort of reinforcement have you got?"

The fact that he used "with respect" suggests that Cortana holds some position of power in the military heirarchy. We saw that she was effectively the PoA's executive officer. (Second in command)

:
: 5) Bungie has done some really impressive cinematics,
: starting with the MWNY '99 trailer. I think it's inevitable
: that at some point, each successive work will have less
: impact, because we're already prepared for how amazing they
: can be. However, this one still blows me away.

It's nice... I wanted more, but I suppose that this is a good first taste. Thing is... their game is still a good 15 months away by the current, best estimate. I figure that Bungie is probably MUCH more confident in this release date than they were with the Halo 1 announcement. Halo 1's dev-cycle stretched out much longer than originally anticipated, and I expect that Bungie is even more concerned about avoiding overhype and, worse, hype-fatigue... which occurs with extended development times. You all know how that goes.... a game looks or sounds absolutely fabulous, but the overriding question becomes: when the hell is it finally getting here, and by the time it does, will other games be better? It happens much more than it should, but game developers want to garner interest, build up potential sales, and perhaps seek investors.

:
: 6) If I had to pick out a single best element, both in the
: shipping Halo game and in this trailer, it would be the
: music, hands down. The way Marty has played around with the
: Halo theme, making it more ominous, conveying the gravity of
: the situation displayed in the trailer is just great. The
: original Halo theme was not modified that much, it seems,
: since it debuted in the MWNY trailer. Here's hoping the same
: for the Halo 2 theme.

The audio (music and effects) is probably one of the most amazing parts of Halo... and one of the most undervalued. Marty has a vision.

Honestly... this is one of the things that Lucas did right, back when he did Star Wars and still had some genius. He dispensed with electronic music, and wanted a full-fledged, symphonic score for his movie. Something that would truly move people's emotions.

:
: 7) While it may mean nothing, the dialogue between Cortana
: and the MC ("What if you miss?" - "I won't") might indicate
: that she is once again communicating with him remotely, and
: not from inside his head. Perhaps this explains the
: Admiral's behavior. Possibly more time has passed between
: Halo 1 and Halo 2 than we think, and that in intervening
: events Cortana has been reinstalled as the AI in a ship or a
: space station. The MC may have been away somewhere else
: (perhaps getting fitted for that new suit?) and that might
: explain why the Admiral was unaware he was back (and why
: they didn't save a fighter for him, requiring his little bit
: of impromptu paratrooping).

Mmmm... possibly. Seemed to me, though, that Cortana was sticking in MC's head. Personally, if I were an AI construct, I might consider that the safest place to be until the Halo franchise runs dry, and then I'd try to shift my place of residence to the nearest converted martian moon.

:
: 8) In the final scene, many have already pointed out the
: mushroom cloud that appears over the approximate location of
: Bungie's own headquarters in Redmond, Washington. It also
: appears as if there's one over their old headquarters in
: Chicago. What made me scratch my head were all the
: explosions north of there. It appears as if there is an
: awful lot of activity in arctic and subarctic Canada. Why?
: Has global warming pushed the population of the Earth
: towards the warming poles and away from the sweltering
: equator?

How about just overpopulation and hyperurbanization? There's also that devices continue to become smarter and smaller... I'd be willing to entertain the idea that clothing of the future could and would keep us somewhat more comfortable within a wider variance of meteorological extremes. Cooling and heating devices, built-in.

Hrm....looks like there's a glowing crater or two, overlapping about where SLC would have been. (My current place of residence) Har... it'd be funny if this were one of the first targets.

~ Noctavis

EREH EMAN RUOY RETNE wrote on Saturday, 09/7/2002 - 2:22 pm:

: Goodness me... how the hell did I end up back here???

that will teach you to click unlicensed yer red dancing shoes three times

EREH EMAN RUOY RETNE wrote on Saturday, 09/7/2002 - 2:22 pm:

: Goodness me... how the hell did I end up back here???
:
: ~ Noctavis

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