unforum

[fugitivesoldier]

[Halo 2] "Conversations from the Universe": Cassan

[archon]

I understand your pain, but that doesn't make any sense as to why Halsey would go to the great lengths she did to escape with Kelly in the first place. How does that make up for her past sins (or whatever it said in First Strike)? Halsey went to supposedly unknown territory according to Cortana, so this Cassy chick is most likely not her.

Even though the three Halo novels do detail a lot of the Master Chief's life, they don't detail all of it. There are other Spartans that are mentioned that we never know what happened to. The three too far away to be recalled for the Reach/Capture-the-Prophet mission. Others who dropped out or were presumed dead after the augmentation surgeries, even completely different batches of Spartans that were trained after John's group. We miss a period of at least 10-15 or even as much as 20 years of the Master Chief's total time fighting the Covenant. That's a long time of losing planets to an overpowering enemy. Maybe Cassandra was just one woman he saved on one of the planets that was lost. I don't know.

Are Spartan II's even allowed personal letters? You'd think that they'd be so busy fighting and dying and getting parts swapped out of them that any time spent reading letters would seem wasted to them.

[NSA]

Interesting idea, but I doubt they would change her name, especially after those who read the novels came to know her as Kelly.

Though the intimacy of the letter does suggest she is someone important, though I thought her saying she was "Skinned" again meant she got her SPARTAN armor BACK ON.. since they prefer to live in that, like a second skin.

Either way.. I hope we get more info! MORE MORE MORE!

[fugitivesoldier]

If it is NOT Kelly, it is not a SPARTAN from the same BATCH as John.

This is because he says something like "Ironically, Kelly was the only one truly MIA of all of them listed." in First Strike. He has all the Spartan IIs of his "batch" listed as MIA save for himself, Fred, Will, and Linda. So Kelly is missing, right. But this passage infers that the 3 "away" Spartans died in between events somehow.

I know the Halsey part of it is nonexistant as of yet.

I'm just desparately trying to salvage a connection to the novels. xp

[ubersaurus]

The 3 away spartan's aren't really brought up at all in either of the 2 other novels, so that leads me to believe she's one of the spartans that didn't make it through the augmentations altogether sucessfully, or one of those 3 that John didn't count as part of his group, since they were away. Or possibly, those 3 are the only ones who survived from Yasmine's group, and as such, wouldn't be counted as the Chief's batch.

[archon]

[ABoxInABox]

[Motoss]

Maybe Kelly doesn't want anyone listening in on the transmission to know that she is still in contact with the Chief, and so she uses a psuedonym? This happens all the time. The Chief would know who she was just from references, but noone else would.

[Johmpa]

In "Fall of Reach", this comment is made by doctor Halsey:

[archon]

Okay, I've got more support for Cassandra-as-Spartan theory.

Numero uno:

http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=cassandra

"In Greek mythos..." BOINK. KAPOW. Nobody believes her prophecies, huh?

Numero dos:

um, I'll just go ahead and post the entire letter from her here and make comments on it:

[NSA]

Interesting.

Since Cassandra initially calls him "117", but then later refers to him as John, its obvious something interesting is going on.

What did the rest of the military refer to him as? I thought it was usually just SPARTAN-117, or SPARTAN later on when he was alone. Or Master Chief I guess. Yeah they call him Master Chief usually, so I would not imagine this letter is from someone in the Marines or Naval forces.

"117" is practically a first name to the SPARTANS, something somewhat informal I guess. She also knows Sargent Johnson, who by all accounts, is nothing special. Other than the fact that he survived Halo, the Flood, etc. Only Halsey knew how important Johnson's DNA was, since Master Chief destroyed the crystal with his info on it.

So, Cassandra needs to be someone intimate with SPARTAN-117, but also with Sargent Johnson.. and "in the loop" with advanced military technology.. Did Halsey have a middle name? Hehe.

Damn I dont know.

[fugitivesoldier]

I wouldn't mind if it were Halsey or Kelly, just SOMEONE from the novels.

No randomly newly created person who just "happens" to talk to the Chief very personally.

[archon]

Okay, thinking back to I Love Bees, Durga tells the group about the Chief and calls him John. In Halo 2, I've often heard the marines you fight alongside yelling out, "Hey, check it out! It's the new suit!" Later on as you're crossing the lake to kill Regret, one of the marines mentions something about Linda (I can only assume this is if you're being really good with the sniper rifle, as I've never heard this in-game myself).

If you take the above into consideration, it almost completely invalidates my previous post, with the exception of the name Cassandra being from Greek mythology. I think that her name is from Greek mythology is a pointed-enough hint that she's a Spartan that it would be safe to assume, but to assume makes an ass out of you and me. Maybe she's just some really tough marine or something. Unlikely, but hey, who knows?

[thebruce]

well hopefully Halo 2.5 will finish off the story and tell us who some of these unknown characters are...

[/obvious post]

[Gemini]

Maybe Cassandra is some kind of pseudonym for Halsey and Kelly. This would explain the we, the initial 117, and the later John. It would also confound just about anyone reading Master Chief's mail. (Even us!)