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Once upon a time, Alex Ross proposed various homework assignments connecting the story of Halo to both Atlantean myth and Persian history. He ended up just doing his own homework, and not a shabby job of it either. It is lengthy, but on points such as these, unabridged is definitely the way to go.
Alex (aross8@cinci.rr.com) writes:
Let's look at Plato's writings discussing Atlantis first. Atlantis itself was a lush paradise, a utopia of free expression, and of course, technologically superior to all other peoples of the inhabited earth, and is rumored to have existed possibly during the ice age. And we are not talking technologically superior in the realm of how they build their boats, we're talking about access of travel through all elements of earth: sea, air, and land were all conquered by Atlantis according to myth. At first, the Atlanteans were benevolent enough to spread their wealth of knowledge to other parts of the world, but times changed in the years to come. Now, pride of the Atlanteans was fierce, and conquest was the next objective, and the Atlanteans made all bow to them. All, except for the Greek city-state Athens. The superior Atlanteans were forced back by a fierce Athenian defense, and after this, Poseidon, for whatever reason, whether it was the Atlanteans pride or their defeat by Athens, flooded the continent, and volcanoes erupted fiercely as well. In an instant, everything that was Atlantis, was lost for 9,000 years according to Plato.
Now, here is the five part belief system for Atlantis. Let's examine the parallels:
1.)A highly sophisticated civilization existed at least 15,000 years ago.
Technologically superior...the forerunner are no doubt superior to covenant and humans not only in tech, but also their ability to navigate the universe
2.)This civilization was destroyed, and every trace to it is now lost, in a major catastrophe
Where are the forerunner now? Yes we have Halo, but Atlantis flooded and Halo...the flood!
3.)It's high-ranking survivors were able navigators who imparted their knowledge to primitive populations
Atlantean survivors were rumored to have first lived in the mountains with only partial knowledge of their technology, and THEN imparted it to other nations. This explains why we have primitive technology AS opposed to the forerunner, but technology based on the same goals. e.g. Navigation
4.)The evidence for the existence of this Lost Civilization is indirect and circumstantial, such as inexplicable cultural similarities between supposedly separate ancient civilizations (such as pyramids on both sides of the Atlantic or a fascination with the stars) or the mysterious achievements of some ancient cultures (for example, the Nazca lines in Peru or the statues on Easter Island).
Why do both the Covenant and Humanity have slipspace for example?
5. More familiar ancient cultures are alleged to allude to the arrival of these elite "Atlantean" visitors in legends and art (such as the Olmec Heads in Mexico, widespread myths about the flood, or tales of civilizing gods arriving from across the sea).
The Covenant no doubt have forerunner symbols alluding to either forerunner existance or contact, and seeing them as divine.
Now for the final part of my theory, the most dangerous part. Proving not just that Atlantis parallels the forerunner, but that Atlantis IS forerunner. Generations told the story of Atlantis wrong, not that it flooded, but that the flood existed there, or were being monitored there, and had to be destroyed. Why are Halo's environment and earth's so familiar? Was Atlantis a monitoring station for earth's environment? If so, it is VERY religious to the Covenant, and may be why they start such a war, because they blame us for destroying the "Holy Land", or we have defiled something we can't find, but they have the key to, or maybe the covenant have greedy ambitions masked by religious motivations, we don't know. But like I said earlier, there must be a very good reason that the Covenant land on earth and don't glass it outright.
It is also rumored that the Atlanteans harnessed a crystalline power, that fired off energy burst. THE PULSE GENERATORS OF HALO?!?!? And of course, the theory that forerunner and humans are the same plays a very important role with Atlanteans and the rest of the world no doubt. Edgar Cayce, hypothesized that some Atlanteans remained behind in the destruction, to ensure total destruction of blue prints of their technology, knowing such blue prints could be dangerous in the wrong hands. That's why we don't have the flood on earth and that's why we can't build no damn Halos!!! And finally, a small indirect clue. One of the light blue forerunner symbols looks like a crucifix over a hill or something like that. Well, the crucifix symbol was used before the death of Christ as a symbol to represent stars or suns by many ancient cultures. Could that forerunner symbol be a sunrise or something like that?!? Could forerunner symbols tie into ancient symbols with their origins from Atlantis?!?! This is perhaps the biggest parallel I've discovered yet no doubt. Here's a good link for you guys to look into:
If some of the story peeps haven't read this, please do now. Perhaps the B-forerunner destroyed Atlantis, when they nearly destroyed all the H-forerunner on earth, and the mountain survivors of Atlantis were the H-forerunner who had little of their tech info left! It's all coming together, it's terrifying!
(I should like to warn anyone critiquing the Atlantean theory that some of the info came from Edgar Cayce, not the direct source of Plato alone. Yes it is a VERY distinct possibility that everything Cayce said happened in Atlantis did not happen, but it also was, I thought, an Atlantean source strikingly close to the Halo theme. The powerful crystal, the idea of the keepers destroying their blue prints, those came from Cayce, not Plato.)
As even the most casual stroll down your local video store isle will tell you, there are not a great many original underlying story ideas circulating these days (that is, if you will concede that the video store is even a valid place to be looking for fine storytelling in the first place ;) The context and manner in which these concepts are retold and, more importantly, woven together, is what makes most tales truly grand.
Halo is a hybrid seed; a tree with many grafts. And from what we seen explained above, yet another branch has begun to yield fruit...
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-Finn
