| News | |
Search the Story Page Archive |
The enigmatic utterances of 343 Guilty Spark perplex another unsuspecting victim, yet another case is made for our indestructible little lunatic being but one of many.
Damien Kellis (dkellis@neo-anime.org) writes:
I have just obtained a copy of Halo, and I've been playing it fairly religiously for the past week or so.
What interested me greatly were the actions and words of the Monitor, 343 Guilty Spark. I'll have to use your level transcriptions for reference, as 343 GS is rather inaudible in my game.
343 Guilty Spark is supposedly the Monitor of Installation 04, and, as he says, "My function is to prevent it from leaving this installation." (end of the 343 Guilty Spark level).
Later, in the Library level, he says a lot of other interesting things. Namely:
"Pardon me. A plasma conduit breach in section 5-5-2-4 has disrupted power flow to a gravitic maintenance assembly."
and
"Flood activity has caused a failure in a drone control subsystem. I must reset the backup unit. Continue on. I will rejoin you when I have completed my task."
Apart from wondering what is this drone control system that must be reset, one may also speculate on 343 GS's job scope. Is his duty simply to prevent the Flood from escaping (in which case, where was he when the Flood were first released?), or is he the odd-job AI of Halo?
When you journey through the corridors of the Library (why is it called a Library, when there are no records of any sort?), very often 343 Guilty Spark either proceeds on a course that you cannot possibly follow, or he asks you to wait in one place while he fiddles with the security overrides. Why would an AI supposedly in charge of the entire Halo installation require any overrides? Where does he go when you cannot see him?
Not counting the obvious superweapon, does 343 Guilty Spark actually have full control of Halo's systems in the first place?
One more quote may shed some light onto this speculation.
"The installation was specifically built to study and contain the Flood. Their survival as a race was dependent upon it. I am grateful to see that some of them survived to reproduce."
I understand that 343 GS may not be talking about the Flood when he speaks of reproducing, but let us assume (for the sake of this argument) that he is.
Which leads us to a problem: the way he phrases it ("I am" as opposed to "I was") would indicate that he did not know before a recent accounting whether or not the Flood had actually survived.
Either the Monitor is remiss in his Monitoring duties, or he was not the one specifically in charge of scrutinizing the Flood.
Leela, Durandal and Tycho, perhaps?
Is it possible that 343 Guilty Spark is not the only AI left behind by the Forerunners? Could there be some others that we just haven't met? If so, what could their fates post-Halo-destruction have been?
E3 lurches ever closer, and with it the hopes of some small bit of Halo Story goodness, duly reported to you here. Both Finn and I will be present to beat... er, cajole the truth out of whomever we can find. Sources say Joe Staten, the "Voice of Grunts Everywhere," will be on hand, so keep your eyes peeled and your ears to the ground.
-mnemesis
