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Grab yourself a nice warm cup of coffee (well, hot; not one you just found sitting on the window sill) and sink into a comfy chair. This update's a little long.
First off, a long-time thorn in my side has been removed. And by removed, I mean made into a page and posted on the Internet (it seems to be the way to handle that these days ;). The Spartan Roster immerses itself in the details and numerology of the Spartan project in an attempt to keep track of who is left, when and where they were, and how it all adds up. Check it out, and of course let us know if something doesn't add up :)
Several of the subsections found on the Resources page have also been updated with additions and tweaks sent in by so many people. To Ben Marhefki, Dan Robbin, Dave, Lee Andrew MacNeill, Matthew Buzas, larry hahn, Dan "Druff" Malone, Paul Delamore, Jason Hinds, karen harrison, Jonathan Grell, Matthew Rebeiro, chris bentley, and any others we may have missed, thanks for your help :)
-Finn
Wado SG has offered up some forum speculation regarding the importance of the Reclaimer being organic (versus a robot), Flood AI/construct/computer infiltration, and the safeguards put in place to at least delay further Flood infestation:
In hisco scopea's post on the HSP, it is speculated that those that built the facilities on Reach are not the same as those that built Halo.
Regardless of that being true or not, it appears that the same conclusions were reached in the context of a catastrophic Flood outbreak. Now from the books and game we know that the Flood can infect organic life AND steal the memories from those infected. We also know that the Flood can infiltrate electronic/computer systems. Given it might be the knowledge stolen from the infected hosts that gives the Flood the ability to infiltrate the computer systems, there is still evidence of further "adaptive" abilities of the Flood such as the Keye's Blob and Gravemind to interface with electronics/computer systems.
Now Halo has some safeguards against the Flood taking over purely on their ability to interface with electronics. Protocols did not allow constructs to be in the core and important tasks such as the re-unification of the Index with the Core are reserved for only the Reclaimer(s), who happen to seem to only be humans. Humans, of course are organic, making them subject to Flood infection.
So what is to keep an infected human from being a Reclaimer? Well conversely, what good would a security system be if all you needed was "body parts" to get by it?
To keep the Flood from gaining control, I believe the creators of Halo and the creators of the facilities on Reach came to the same conclusions. First, limit the access of computers/constructs/AI's. And second, encode the security protocols to something that cannot be used if altered by the Flood.
The first limit is demonstrated by the role of constructs on Halo, and in the facilities on Reach there were no holographic projectors or access points for constructs. Imagine the fear the creators must have had to cause them to cast away their own technology and live on dirt floors (underground on Reach) knowing the Flood was out there and that their own constructs could be used against them.
The second limit is evidenced in the controls of Halo, how the Reclaimer could just intuitively use the controls and how a Reclaimer must unify the Index with the Core (other organic creatures tried but it did not work for them). Also the mechanisms for opening the secured doors in the Reach facilities had something to do with blood which seems to tie into a genetic encoded system as the key. Any presence of Flood alteration would likely set off alerts and keep the doors locked down.
Sound off in the forum post here.
permalink | Halo Installations
-Finn
"Do not forget the legacy of the good Dr. Heisenberg."
Hieros (hieros@gmail.com) writes:
The last question that you asked Joe, he answered with something about Dr. Heisenberg. You may already know this, but Heisenberg came up with the Uncertainty principle [among other things] which states, "You cannot know both the velocity and location of an electron. It is possible to know the velocity and not the location, or to know the location and not the velocity".
In other words, don't look too close 'cuz things get all fuzzy-like? ;)
permalink | Rampant Speculation
-Finn
UrsusArctos spent some time mulling over the Marathon Kill Your Television terminal in this here forum post:
And the ancient oak is IAC/High charity. High charity is shaped like an oak tree, and oaks are clad in 'amber' leaves during autumn (see the connection here?).
Ooh. Good thinking :)
permalink | Marathon Connections
-Finn
The Devil's in the Subtitles...
LostRock (lostrock@gmail.com) writes:
When I bought Halo 2, I decided to turn on the subtitles, because I hated having to focus to listen every time something unintelligible was said by a character.
The other day, playing through The Arbiter, I scanned my eyes across the dialogue inside the Covenant Seraph. Then I noticed there was one scene where the dialogue appeared to be longer than what was actually said. I restarted the level, and paying closer attention to the subtitles, I picked up the following from the Covie SpecOps chant (italic indicates unheard dialogue):
"Grind them into dust, scrape them as excrement from our boots!"
Small and not so important, but cool.
Definitely neat. Also, at the beginning of "Whisper in the Storm" the exchange between the two Heretic Elites, if you stay cloaked and out of sight, is rather interesting ("Any word on our missing brothers?", etc.; perhaps the Heretics who accidentally released the Flood?). I wonder if there are any other such insightful treasures.
permalink | Rampant Speculation
-Finn
The People's Court
David "Endbringer" McCulley (dvdmcculley@yahoo.com) writes:
As many Halo fans know, Bungie seems to have a love for slipping the number 7 into the story every chance they get and I believe I have discovered a few more examples. In the Heretic scene we see the Arbiter to be getting interogated by the Covenant Council. The Council is positioned where there is Elite members on one side of the Arbiter and Prophet members on the other side. †Each side seems to be composed of two sections, with 20 Elites on each section of their side and 17 Prophets on each section of their side. Add them up and you get 40 Elites + 34 Prophets + 3 Hierarchs = 77 Council members.
Another 7 example that may have been over looked is that in the begining of The Arbiter/Whisper in the Storm level, the assault team is composed of 4 Elites, 2 Grunts, and The Arbiter (7).
Tricky ;)
-Finn
Arthur C. Clarke, suits vs. skins, and the Forerunner
eMCee (wwwdotnonamedotcom@yahoo.com) writes:
*I think it should be noted that this submission contains spoilers for Clarke's 2001 series.*
I've been reading Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey series, and quite a few things reminded me of Halo and Marathon. The most interesting in my opinion was "The First Born." This race reminded me of the Jjaro or Forerunner. The First Born were an extremely advanced race, and valued the Mind above anything else in the universe. They loved it so much, that they went from galaxy to galaxy encouraging its growth in potential intellegent species. They did this with humans, and possibly many other species.
Could the humans and Covenant have been projects of the Forerunner? More evidence in the Odyssey series could point to yes. In 3001: The Final Odyssey, some backstory in the novel revels that an ancient monolith was found in Africa in 2513, around 500 years after the events of 2001. This timeline is eerily close to Halo's, and with the only two publicly demoed levels taking place in Africa, it makes one wonder if there are Forerunner artifacts somewhere in Africa [ie. The Ark].
What about the Forerunner themselves? If they're not human, what are they? The First Born from the Odyssey series started out as organic beings, but as their machines grew better than their bodies, they gradually moved their brains into machines, and eventually became pure energy. If the Forerunner left their bodies behind, they probably wouldn't have much trouble reversing the effect, would they? This may be a possible reason to keep such a terrible thing as the Flood around.
Maybe the Flood were a resource to the Forerunner. The Flood's genetic adaptability might make them act as a kind of "mold" for organic vessels for the Forerunner to run around in. If this is true, then it could explain 343 GS's apparent confusion with the humans as Forerunner. To 343 GS, there is no other species in existence as smart as the Forerunner, so when 343 sees how brilliant Humans are, he automatically assumes that they are Forerunner, albeit in a weaker "skin." There is actually evidence of this in-game.
343 GS says this: Your environment suit should serve you well when the Flood begins to alter the atmosphere. You are a good planner. But he said this earlier: These Sentinels will supplement your combat system. But, I suggest you upgrade to at least a Class Twelve combat skin. Your current model only scans as a Class Two, which is ill suited for this kind of work.
Why the difference between Environment suit, and Combat skin? Master Chief has his armor, and his body. The only other thing I can see the "Combat Skin" as is 117's body, which would make sense if the Forerunner used biological "machines" to do their dirty work.
An interesting distinction, certainly one I wouldn't have thought of. 343 seems to imply that the Forerunner are truly organic (as they all "died" when the ring was activated") but a creative idea nonetheless. :)
-Finn
Speaking of Arthur C. Clarke... Are there Forerunner Installations on Jupiter?
Kristof K. (kkonkel@umd.umich.edu) writes:
In the opening scenes of Cairo Station, Cortana is conversing with Lord Hood and mentions unidentified signals near Io that need to be probed further, and this occurs immediately before the Covenant fleet arrives in system. Later, at the the end of Outskirts in the tunnel, Cortana reveals that the Covenant are surprised humanity is on Earth, which explains the small size of their fleet. My first speculative leap is that the strange signals near Io, Jupiter's moon, were a smaller advance group of Covenant forces.
It is my understanding of the Prophets in general, and Regret by relation, that they use Forerunner artifacts with spatial coordinates to find other Forerunner artifacts and facilities. If they sent a small, explatory fleet to our home star system with such an obvious interest in Jupiter, it stands to reason that there is some sort of Forerunner facility or artifact on Jupiter or one of its moons.
Jupiter is a gas giant. We have encountered, through the eyes of the Arbiter, an ancient Forerunner facility in the atmosphere of another gas giant (Threshold). It stands to reason that if the Forerunner had established a facility anywhere near Jupiter, it is probably very similar to the one the Arbiter travels to.
In the fight against the Heretic Leader in the hanger on the aforementioned Forerunner facility, 343 Guilty Spark is floating about. Hiding for a moment to avoid certain death, I noticed that 343 actually says things in this part of the game and I recall him saying something along the lines of, "This facility was built to study the military capabilities necessary to eliminate the Flood." Since it's already been posited that the Jupiter facility is similar to the Heretic controlled facility, it follows that the Jupiter facility also contains Flood and Forerunner military technology.
Thanks again for the story page and have a great day.
You too. If Halo 04 was any indication, the Forerunner weren't shy about building new installations in the same system as their older ones. If the Ark is on/around Earth who knows what old wrecks they've left strewn throughout the rest of SOL. Darn litterers...
-Finn
It's official! The/a Ark is/was on Earth!
Ye old Whiteboard sketches of things that never were:
Images of the Ark on Earth (and "Dervish" references) from G4's Bungie Icons show.
-Finn
Some discussion and link-age on the Arbiter's working title (Dervish).
And remember, when posterity's at stake, posting old items holds no shame ;)
-Finn
