Whats wrong with ending.

[Lord_Ne0]

Im not sure if were talking of the same thing, but i do remember a strange object the spartans found on Reach. Do you guys not remember it. It altered the space-time continuum thing. It was purple and such. Going to start reading First Strike again.

MUST UNCOVER SECRETS.

[Tar Ecthelion]

Im not sure if were talking of the same thing, but i do remember a strange object the spartans found on Reach. Do you guys not remember it. It altered the space-time continuum thing. It was purple and such. Going to start reading First Strike again.

MUST UNCOVER SECRETS.

Not the same thing... but I know what your talking about. In fact if I'm not mistaken, that is how the Coords for the 1st halo (halo 004 right?) where found. And if they Covies hadn't followed they might not have found it... or am I in left field now?

-Tar

[Lord_Ne0]

No it didnt have the coordinates for halo, but im not sure what it did, or if they found out. Reading it still. Ill post some info tommorow night, I should be finished reading it by then.

[The_Janitor]

First off, most of us know what mc looks like. He has red hair and freckles and is roughly 40-50 years old. Halo: The Fall of Reach states that.

Really? I remember somebody telling me that it said that his name was John, a clean shaven guy with brown hair..

[Lord_Ne0]

Ahh crap, my mistake. Brown hair it is. I just usually put freckles and red hair together, and i remember the freckles. Brown hair and freckles. Here is a rather lenghty lengthy excerpt of the novel describing him (for a forum post, that is).

"...The picture in the file showed a typical six-year-old male. He had tousled brown hair and a sly grin that revealed a gap between his front teeth. A few freckles were speckled across his checks. Good--she could match the patterns to confirm his identity.

'Our subject.' As she angeld the pad toward the Lieutenant so he could see the boy, Dr. Halsey noticed that the picture was four months old. Didn't ONI realize how fast these children changed? Sloppy. She made a not to request updated pictures on a regular basis until phase three started.

'Is that him?' the Lieutenant whispered.

Dr. Halsey looked up.

The Lieutenant nodded to a greassy hill at the end of the playground. The crest of that hill was bare dirt, scuffed clean of all vegetation. A dozen boys pushed and shoved one another--grabbed, tackled, rolled down the slope, and then got up, ran back, and started the process over.

'King of the hill,' Dr. Halsey remarked.

One boy stood on the crest. He blocked, pushed, and strong-armed all the other children.

Dr. Halsey pointed her data pad at him and recorded this incident for later study. She zoomed in on the subject to get a better look. This boy smiled and showed the same small gap between his front teeth. A split-second freeze frame and she matched his freckles to the picture on file.

'That's our boy.'

He was taller than the other children by a full head, and--if his performance in the game was any indicator--stronger as well. Another boy grabbed him from behind in a headlock. Number 117 peeled the boy off, and--with a laugh--tossed him down the hillside like a toy..."

*snaps back into reality*

Ehh, kinda long but it gets the point across, i got to into in and found out i had typed 2 pages . Had to go back to where the description ended, lol.

[Jusus]

First off, wonderful comments and opinions everyone!
About the Ark. As said in previous posts, couldn't be the ship we see MC on in end cutscene, as it was on a halo. Now on to why I think it is on earth. I dont think, even with his abilities to controll forunnner and alien technology, that MC could navigate the ship to earth on his own(especialy that fast). It had to be a set course. There is only one reason for a forunner ship to be targeting earth, and thats if there is something important there.

Now the flood. The forunner (and covie) seem to be absolutly obsessed with life after death, and thats why I think they created the flood. They could have messed up an attempt to create a way to live after death, and ended up with the flood. We saw in clearly halo 2 flood spores turning freshley dead elites into -living?- flood(lvl after arbiter - cant think of of the top of my head - oracle?), and the prophet of regret too. The halo instalations might have been a last resort to a long term problem. Which brings me to question the effectiveness of the halos. If only used once, no one can tell if they work right(or at all), especially with all of the life and diversity now. They might not even be capable of effectivly whiping out the flood.

Well, just my thoughts...

[logan]

The reclaimers. Sure, 343 refers to mc and keyes as reclaimers. Maybe only organic lifeforms can be the reclaimer. If so why doesnt he call the covenant reclaimers. Or better yet, the other marines. Maybe the first person to touch it is the reclaimer. THink about it. MC was the first to touch the first index, he was the reclaimer. Keyes was the first to touch the second, but it got stolen. 343 did NOT refer to the prophet as a reclaimer, that is why i think the first to touch it falls in place.

The forerunner. True, the spartans have an amazing ability to control forerunner AND covenant technology. That is why you cant automatically assume they are realated to forerunner. I myself dont have a way to explain the spartans ability to control alien technology, but i dont think it has a direct relation to the forerunner.

In The Flood When chief is on the library with Guilty Spark, Spark says something about the other reclaimer, when he finds the body of a dead sargeant. Also your whole thing about MC touching it first is complete codswallop. At the end of 343 guilty spark the level the monitor adresses MC as a reclaimer, also when MC meets 2401 Penitent tangent Tangent says something like " A reclaimer, here, at last" how would he know what has happened at halo 04 and then call MC reclaimer? Hence reclaimers must be Humans as they are the only lifeforms (so far known) which the monitors adress as reclaimers.

in regard to the whole covie tech thing, i've already told you that covenant technology Forerunner technology they didn't invent any of it themselves. Hence the haverson having to shoot an engineer after it repairs MC's armour in The Fall Of Reach so that the covenant by some chance dont get their hands on improved technology. Also when Cortana improves the plasma weaponry the AI on the Ascendant Justice tells her it is heresy. Seeing as the covenant venerate the Forerunners the only way modifying covenant tech could be seen as heresy is if it was Forerunner tech.

Also when you are talking about no species ever evolving the same if they start again is not quite correct, yes it is mostly true, but if aforementioned species, has exactly the same enviroment to live in then they will evolve to something very simmilar. So if you compare Halo's enviroment to earth's, we should assume that Halo is either the optimum forerunner enviroment or the same as their homeworld so perhaps, Earth is the same as the forerunner homeworld, or maybe it was their homeworld and they dissappeared in some terrible event like Atlantis.

[Daybreaker]

Geez, I'm tired of all this brainwork (got enuff in skool). I'm just gonna wait till Halo 3 if it ever comes out or the next book.

[HunterFett117]

Alright, I'm warning you all now this is going to be a long post. I'm new to the forum, but not new to the theories on Halo. I was around when the cortana letters were making a big deal, though I never bothered to get in to all of that.

My ideas are a conglomeration of a few other theories, but just bear with me.

First I have to rattle off a few things I take as fact.

The Covenant worship the "Forerunners" as gods. Many of the things the Forerunners once had their hands on are referred to as Holy Relics by the Covenant.

"The Covies are imitative, not innovative." This is a direct quote from Halo: First Strike. I take the novels as Halo Cannon - things that have been put down and must be accepted as true. What that quote means is that the Covenant do not invent their own technologies, but rather try to recreate what they find.

There is a definite human-Forerunner connection. Several examples of this connection from the game are, "… a record of all of our lost time. Human history is it? Fascinating." A quote by 343 GS, The Maw. "I scan that battle armor as Class Two, highly ineffective for this style of work. I recommend you upgrade to at least a Class Twelve." 343 GS again, The Library. GS knows a lot about humans and their technology, it would seem. He also constantly refers to Cortana as "the Construct," when Cortana is a highly advanced Infiltrator AI Construct. The final connections I will point out come from the novels Halo: The Flood and Halo: First Strike, respectively. In The flood, Chief touches a control panel and activates a light bridge. Cortana asks him how he knew which button to press. Chief responds with, "I didn't." And in First Strike, when Kelly and Fred hijack two Covenant Wraith Tanks, Fred immediately knows how to operate the tank though he's never seen the inside of one, and has never had any technical readouts in front of him. And since the Covenant have taken all of their technology from the Forerunners, it's safe to assume that the forerunners had something similar, allowing the human-forerunner connection to work in his benefit.

We're gonna go way back in time. The Forerunners are alive and kicking, and have discovered the varied races of the Covenant. They have introduced themselves and have kept their technology to themselves, giving only little bits and pieces of it to the Covenant for various reasons. The races of the Covenant see this technology as the work of magic - or gods.

The Forerunners have, in the eyes of the Covenant, proven themselves to be gods.

Then the Flood breaks out. The Forerunners give the covenant a bit more of their technology and show them how to fight. The covenant becomes a bunch of shock troops for the Forerunners, while the forerunners have their own troops backing them up in special armor. These special troops are called Reclaimers.

The Covenant and Reclaimers begin losing the battle, so the Forerunners construct the ringworlds, hoping to keep the Flood contained within.

The Forerunners herd the covenant to a small part of the galaxy, a tiny corner, and give them what is now known as High Charity..

High Charity, for those of you who don't know, is usually travelling in slipspace, which is like another dimension where faster-than-light travel is possible.

The Covenant are told to remain there with the minimal technology they have while the Reclaimers bring the Forerunners on their last journey. Some of the Covenant don't like the idea of the Forerunners leaving them behind, and are put down by Reclaimers wearing low-level armor. These reclaimers are looked upon by the Covenant as demons, doing the opposite of what their gods do.

The Reclaimers set off the Halos.

Now, there is one more specific thing I must point out.

In The Library, 343 GS says that the Halos are designed to target anything with "sufficient bio-mass and cognitive capability."

For those of you who don't speak geek, here's what that means.

In order for the Flood to live off a host, the host has to be of a certain size, and have a certain level of intelligence.

The stupidity of the Grunts aside, they are still part of a technologically advanced group, and therefore, are converted into carrier forms. (I think it's obvious the carrier forms are from Grunts, because the legs are the same.)

The Covenant and Forerunners who were around for the blast are reduced to nothing but children. Beings too small to actually have any memory of what came before.

The Covenant on Holy Charity, only Elites, Prophets, and Jackals at this point, blame one another for what happened and begin feuding. After a few generations of this war, they happen across Forerunner relics and remember their old gods. They put aside the differences and decide that together, they can find their old gods and what they did on this last Great Journey.

The Forerunners, however, are left with nothing of their old technology. Nothing but a ship known as the Ark, crashed in the middle of a continent on a planet that is much like their homeworld. The Forerunners who survived are all children, too young to have any real memories of life in space. They soon forget it and move away from their crash site in an effort to survive.

A few millenia go by, the Ark is buried by nature and forgotten, and humanity is nearing its old technology. They have re-discovered slip-space and are colonizing planets when the Covenant come across a human outpost. Marines, greeting the Covenant, resemble too much the stories of the Forerunners who, at the last minute, turned on those faithful beings. The Covenant declare a holy war on humanity.

Humanity is overwhelmed, and forced on the defensive. Their innovations bring them closer to where they were than ever before, and the Spartan program is launched. Having secured pieces of their old technology, humans reverse engineer it to create MJOLNIR armor. Mark II.

The rest, as they say, is history.



I told you it would be long.. Didn't realize how long.

But yeah, that's my theory. And if you read it all, you get ten cookies and fifty cool points.

[[-TLG-]MadRoX]

WEEE I like cookies, and i got cool points thats a great idea i really need to get those 2 books

[nick_gs]

firstly the flood are not sentiant therefor not effectedby halo

secondly i think gravemind is the collective minds of all those who are destroyed by the first halo activation i think thisbecause of:
gravemind the name
"i am a monument to all of your sins" doesent take a geniuus to add that to the forrunner idea and the halos to get hey presto
thirdly the flood are the mindless bodies of those who were first affected by halo they serch 4 mental signals and could possibly assimilate them

[Quitrix]

The Covenant worship the "Forerunners" as gods. Many of the things the Forerunners once had their hands on are referred to as Holy Relics by the Covenant.

Wasn't it that they thought the "state" where Forerunners are/were/went(?) was to be achieved by any means? They do rever them as "gods" too though, but still understanding that they were some kind of race, which might have not been immortal, maybe before they achieved the "state" which the covenant are trying to achieve now. (Why are the Covenant prophets so keen to launch Halo(s)? Do they think that that triggered the chance in Forerunners?). I think i read this from somewhere. Maybe it was jut another theory.

Btw. Nice post HunterFett117. Thanks for the cookies

[nick_gs]

that would be the great jeorney

[GuiltySpark]

firstly the flood are not sentiant therefor not effectedby halo

secondly i think gravemind is the collective minds of all those who are destroyed by the first halo activation i think thisbecause of:
gravemind the name
"i am a monument to all of your sins" doesent take a geniuus to add that to the forrunner idea and the halos to get hey presto
thirdly the flood are the mindless bodies of those who were first affected by halo they serch 4 mental signals and could possibly assimilate them

The Flood aren't entirely mindless. While it's true that they mimic what their hosts might do, if you remember in Halo they mentioned the flood were working on repairing a vessel. The Covenant even sent in the spec-op grunts and elites to deal with the flood and reclaim the vessel. A mindless organism would not have been able to repair something as intricate as a starship without having some cognitive ability. My thinking is that in their ranger form, the flood has a basic intelligence and instinct to search for food and a host, but after taking over the body, some of the cognitive ability of the host is still retained making them capable of some tasks they couldn't possibly accomplish in their ranger forms. As for the Ark theory, it would make more sense that it is under Forerunner control outside of the range of all the installations should there be the need for an activation. However, with the amount of time that has passed, it is possible that Earth itself is the Ark, the Forerunner have been lost in time along with the true location of the Ark hidden from the Covenant and through the millenia, Earth and the Sol system has traversed to a spot within the galaxy that could possibly be effected by the activation of the remaining Halo's. It makes sense that Earth would be the Ark if you think of it as an Ark might be intended to be used. The definition and explanation of ark from dictionary.com states that it was a boat built for survival during the flood. Halo doesn't fit this definition completely because it's intention was to destroy life. Maybe the Forerunner built earth...not so improbable considering they built something as large as Halo...and deposited life there so it would have a chance to survive beyond the reach of the flood. This discussion will obviously continue until Bungie stops dangling the carrot and disclose all of the story's secrets.

[HunterFett117]

The Flood are not mindless. I will give two examples.

The first is from the book The Flood.

Keyes and Jenkins both contend with "The other." Keyes actually has limited dialogue with his Flood controller. Something to the effect of, "That. Where. Tell. Food."

And then, of course, from the game itself. 343 GS in the Library says quite plainly, "The Flood's parasitic nature belies its intelligence. They are already hard at work repairing your vessel."

Translated to normal english, this means, "No matter how mindless they seem, they're actually as smart as you and I, 'cause they know what your ship is and how it works, and how to fix it."

As for the Flood not being affected by Halos, that's simple. They don't have sufficient bio-mass to sustain themselves. All the Flood really are are the infection forms. The little popcorn-kernel looking things. This is shown more clearly in Halo 2 when you see them crawl in to the "dead" combat forms and re-animate them.

As for Quitrix, that's exactly the point I was trying to make. The Forerunners left the Covenant alone saying they were going on one last great journey. The Covenant, as religious nuts tend to do, blew this out of proportion. Instead of taking the words for what they really meant, they figured the Great Journey was a trascendance of the physical realm into true god-hood. As opposed to a great journey across the galaxy in one final attempt to rid themselves of the Flood.