unforum

[Nola]

[Halo 2] Backmasking in Halo 2

[astrovanman]

hmm... intresting, wonder what it means. The fact that they use words like 'Earth', and 'God' and 'Amen' leave me to wonder why you would hear that in the Covenant Holy City. I figured those were more human words.

Then again it's open to translation I suppose.

The other thing is it seems to cut off at the end. Maybe there are segments like this in other cutscenes that when pieced together make up on long story.....hmm isn't that a familiar theme...

[Nola]

Someone else claims to have found the full text, but because he did it by extracting the actual sound bite directly from the disk (as oppposed to recording from normal gameplay), he can't post the link (copyright things).

Anyway, here's the link to the post:

http://carnage.bungie.org/haloforum/halo.forum.pl?read=539310

And here's the text:

[thebruce]

ok that's just crazy... clipped the audio myself and listened and it's there, clear as crystal... now I want to go through the game listening for anything that sounds like it could have hidden audio... obviously if there's more text, then this is just one snippet of a pieces... what would be even spookier would be if there's audio in human cutscenes... but I dunno how it could be hidden, since the covenant environment seems to be filled with 'spookiness', so reversed audio fits...

it's funny though, I never heard anything that sounded reversed before hearing about this... now I can't hear anything but reversed audio...

And actually, for the best results, it's good just to reverse the audio and speed to 150%.

The only questions now are, where are the phrases before and after the whisper in the storm 20 second clip (noted in the first post of this thread), and are there even more throughout the game?

[Phaedra]

[INCyr]

[Phaedra]

[Nola]

[NSA]

It seems strange for the audio to be in the scene it is in, where the Arbiter is being dragged before the prophets, to recieve his fate AS Arbiter.

It seems almost PLAUSABLE that the reversed audio is talking about the position of the Arbiter, as if the armored suit and position of Arbiter exists far beyond the life of the person inside the suit. However, the terminology just doesnt really fit the Covenant, sure they refer to the Forerunner's as "Gods" but it also mentions Angels and a couple of references to "men", which would make no sense for the Arbiter to talk about.

The only reconciliation I could make is that perhaps the position of Arbiter is part of a Forerunner legacy? Sigh.

[archon]

[ubersaurus]

My guesses:

1) It's a prayer the soon to be Arbiter is saying. Remember, in Halo 1 all elite speech was reversed.

2) It's a sort of prayer or writ or something of the Arbiter position itself. Since we don't know how long the Covenant Ages are, one could assume that 3000 years could work out.

3) It could be the Gravemind, or something else, like a Monitor, or a surviving Forerunner even.

[weephun]

Marty O'Donnell weighs in on this here: http://halo.bungie.org/oldnews.html?item=11905

[Motoss]

It sounds RIDICULOUSLY like the Gravemind when at its original speed.

[regnevah]

also to note, that piece of music appears a few times throughout the game, including the final boss fight.... at least on heroic, I haven't double checked on other difficulties yet. I hope it'll be on the vol2 soundtrack

[thebruce]