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"Captain" Keyes
Lee Andrew MacNeill (lee@m2020.com) writes:
We, who are all deeply concerned about the issue of Keyes' rank insignia, I think I have an Out for us.
You know the OOG reason, is that Bungie screwed up, and the guy responsible for drawing Keyes' chest drew a USMC O-3 (Captain) insignia, traintracks, instead of the USN O-6 (Captain) insignia, the eagle, and it was one of those little mistakes that just plain slipped through the cracks at Bungie possibly glossed over because the Release Date was too close.
But here's my IG reason:
1. Keyes is a sentimental, and slightly deranged man. He was expecting the tail end of the SPARTAN mission to be his last, something told him that his luck was about to run out, so he wanted his traintracks, the insignia he won when he was successful in his mission the first time he met Dr Halsey; his introduction to the SPARTAN II program. Or perhaps he was a lot more worried than he let on about the mission's chance for success and wanted his O-3 insigne for good luck's sake. This possibly was a move to reassure his bridgecrew more than himself.
2. Keyes is was and always will be a a Scorpio a sneaky, sneaky man. Perhaps he was fully expecting to be boarded by Stealth Elites i.e. Covenant Intelligence operatives, and that they would possibly seek out the Autumn's "shipmaster"... but if all they found on the bridge was an O-3, a Lieutennant, they might kill him or ignore him, believing that the ship's CO (the real "shipmaster") was dead, and the best they could do by way of surviving command crew was this lowly O-3. Once again, Keyes sees his options through the lens of the Cole Protocol. And Keyes know that this insigne change would not confuse the crew of the Autumn, because:
the naval officers all know Keyes intimately, having been handpicked by Keyes for that mission, trained up in the UNSC Navy by him, and are not going to be fooled by his O-3 insigne, they know damn well who he is, and:
the Marines, who I'm guessing rotate from ship to naval installation to ship, are going to take one look at the traintracks and think "Captain", traintracks being the Marine O-3 "Captain" insignia. But after years in the corps, I'm sure the average marine immediately translates what he thinks the rank is based on what it is in the Corps, to it's Naval equivalent, in this case, an O-3 Lieutennant-- but the first word that jumped to mind was the Marine word for O-3, Captain, and they can clearly see the word Keyes emblazoned on this supposed O-3's chest, so the Marine clues in that it's Jacob Keyes, the CO of the Pillar Of Autumn, who is in fact a UNSC Naval Captain, an O-6, wearing the wrong rank on purpose.
And with that in mind, I hope and pray that this message is seen by someone at Bungie with the stern admonition that WE DO ACTUALLY CARE, AND WE CHECK SHIT LIKE THIS (WE CAN'T HELP IT) †SO PLEASE BE CAREFUL NEXT TIME because we Love Bungie, we LOVE Halo, and some of us don't just want it to be perfect, we NEED it to be.
Take care, and HBO pwnz! :-)
He he. Indeed ;)
-Finn
