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February 11, 2002

It's almost as if Marathon fans are storming the Halo Story Page castle-armed with big pointy teeth. Those connections just keep rolling in. Bring 'em on. :)

Bill Gililand (billg@ucdavis.edu) writes:

Hello;

I just finished reading Fall of Reach, and one thing struck me that I hadn't seen mentioned anywhere. The relevant passages are near the end of the last chapter.

The arrival at the Halo system was indeed the result of a blind jump. But it WASN'T a random jump. Cortana had, without telling anyone else, deciphered the meaning of the crystal that the MC recovered from Cote d'Azur, realized it was probably an ancient navigational map, and deliberately took the Pillar of Autumn there. The outcome was very favorable to humanity, since the Covenant armada was destroyed, but Cortana precipitated the entire encounter at Halo.

Sound familiar? This is strikes me as very analagous to how Durandal, on his own volition, summoned the Pfhor to Tau Ceti. In doing so he undoubtedly saved humanity -- stealing Pfhor technology allowed Earth to survive. But he also got a ship of his own to tool around in. Cortana went to the Halo system in order to find out more about the Forerunner, not just to follow the Cole protocol -- in doing so, she got to spend hours immersed in the Forerunner's computer. Who knows what technological information she harvested in there?

Interesting to wonder whether Cortana is always on our side. After all...would you trust this face?

permalink | Cortana

-Ape Man




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