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It has to be something in the water . . .
On this forum thread, we have yet more speculation. Below is the part that caught my attention.
Ain Soph Aur writes:
Either the Halos are only placed in locations near planets either supporting or likely to one day support sentient life, or their signals somehow amplify when they meet each other. If this magnification works on a wave-like principle, then we're talking about a maximum of double the orignal energy. However, this would only affect waves that met head-on, and would still not extend the blast radius. Remember, 343 Guilty Spark said "this installation has a maximum effective radius of 25,000 light-years", and he then says "but when the others follow suit", but doesn't give an upped figure for his own installation, which I take to mean that the installations don't enhance each other.
I would consider this evidence for my "positioned as needed" theory, but that leaves the problem of just how close Installation 05 and 04 are from Earth. In theory, they should be at least 30 to 40,000 light-years apart (allowing for some overlap), but we know they're not. Here's some math for you: Reach was initially attacked on August 30. Wagner gave his report September 4th. That allows for a maximum of five days' Slipspace travel between Earth and Reach. Now, instead, I'll assume it's a shorter trip, say, half a day, and this is likely giving human drives a little too much credit. Earth to Reach is 10 light-years, we know this. So, at 20 light-years a day, Halo 04 is still only about 420 light-years from Reach, making for a maximum of 430 light-years from Earth. Halo 05 was maybe a half-day's jump. I'll again give a little leeway, and make it 3 days. So, that's a maximum of 490 to 500 light-years from Halo 04. There can be no need for two installations to be that close together. This brings up a new idea: The Halos can move. High Charity has a Slipspace drive. Is it too much to assume that Halo does? If that's the case, then Halo 05 could have been stationed pretty much anywhere, and when 04 went offline, the Halos realigned in order to cover as much of the sentient-suitable region as they could, and Halo 05 was transferred from its former posting to the general area once covered by Halo 04.
Arashi90 seems to agree, and brings up a good point.
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-Jillybean
