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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » ARG: Iris (Halo 3)
[SPEC] Relation to novels (Spoilers)
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Siege88
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 		[SPEC] Relation to novels (Spoilers)
Hey,
So after reading all the Halo novels, I feel like Ghosts of Onyx ties into this somehow. It's been awhile since I read that, but maybe someone with a fresher memory of the book can help out. So figured I'd make a thread where we can use spoilers from the novels.

I was mainly thinking about the end of the novel where it's revealed there are (I think) three parts to the whole Halo thing. The Sword, the Shield, and the Ark. Onyx is the shield as it seems to suspend anyone within it in time, allowing them to survive the Halo's being activated and the galaxy wiped clean. The Halos are the sword, destroying all life in the galaxy capable of being infected by the Flood. And that leaves the Ark, on Earth, which seems to be some sort of mechanism for transport or travel to somewhere.

I think that Iris is an AI on or the actual Ark itself waking up now. And the whole rainbow/travel from Earth to the heavens concept seems to fit with that. But that kind of leaves the question of why is Onyx required if the Ark can transport everyone away anyway? Why is there a shield needed which will allow people to be protected from the Halos and also a transport system to bring them to "the heavens" or wherever?

Anyone who's read Onyx recently have any ideas?


edit: tagged -thebruce

PostPosted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 1:44 pm
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Phyltre
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 		Onyx is a shield-world, but we have no reason to suspect it is the ONLY shield world or even if it is a particularly good example of one. We don't actually know, either, if the Ark is a method of transportation. In fact the Halo 3 comic seems to imply that it was constructed here, which would mean that it might be completely stationary.

PostPosted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 1:49 pm
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Siege88
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 		True, I don't really recall if it was ever suggested Onyx was the only one of its kind. I guess you're right: It seems likely there are many like it. And yeah, I'd agree the Ark probably stays stationary, too, but everything I've heard so far seems to indicate it does transport or teleport or something (Maybe anyone stuck in the Shields back to Earth to restart life after the universe is wiped clean?).

Then again, I was just thinking what if "bringing Earth to the heavens" and closer to God and all the hints like that are just a reference to dying or extinction, and the Ark is simply the control station for the Halos. That would make Onyx and the other possible shield worlds the only places to survive the Halos activating.

PostPosted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:09 pm
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psygene
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 		Ghosts of Onyx
An idea I had at the very beginning of this whole endeavor. I have to troll the other thread to bring back the rest of my ideas.

Bit of background to clarify my idea for those of you who have not read Ghosts of Onyx (Spoiler):

At the end of Ghosts of Onyx, Dr. Halsey (creator/mother of the Spartans), states as fact that they (the Spartans IIIs and the mixed crew of other people featured at the end of the book), have not left Onyx but are in fact inside of it. She states that the Forerunners were so adept at manipulating slipspace structures that they created a Micro Dyson Sphere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere), encapsulating a "G2 type Dwarf, one of smaller dimensions than Sol" and then proceeded to insert the entire thing into slipspace. So, physically, they are all still within Onyx albeit in Slipspace.

She had Linda (Spartan I character from The Fall of Reach, if memory serves me right), use an "Oracle Scope" to determine that all the horizons had a very slight upward slope (unlike Halo-artefact horizons which have a far more observably extreme upward slope). Based on this observation she calculated that they were indeed inside a Micro Dyson Sphere.

Now, here's a thought. Voi is definitely a place of interest, especially if it is right outside New Mombasa. In Halo 2 we saw that as the Covenant Ship (with the Human warship tagging along behind) slipspaced out of New Mombasa, it ripped the city to shreds. I believe this rip vaporized a good chunk of the Earth along with it, uncovering the huge Forerunner Artefact we see in the Halo Announcement Trailer. This Artefact may be right at Voi. And this Artefact looks remarkably like the doorway, in Ghosts of Onyx, that leads through the slipspace rupture onto the Micro Dyson Sphere.

If the Forerunners built one, what's not to say that they built multiple shield worlds? And what's not to say that the Ark is the most important shield world of them all. Buried right here on Earth. It is where the Forerunners retreated to. 100,000 years ago the Flood were cornering them. They built the Halo array to reset the galaxy, and retreated to the Ark. And maybe AR is the monitor for the Ark, gathering information to determine if it is time to open this doorway (since it cannot be opened from the other side due to containment/quarantine reasons). AR has to now open the doorway since the Reclaimer (our beloved Master Chief) that interacted with 343 GS messed up and did not initiate a Halo Event and now AR deems that the Forerunners must come back to rectify this unforeseen sequence of events.

I apologize for the length of the post.
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:44 pm
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psygene
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 		More speculation, with a bit of backup:

Quote:


Lostconfused: to psygene. Shield world seems to be designed purely for containment. The ark on the other hand is the secondary control room for all the halos, and potential the method to seeding planet earth. Now of course its possible that earth is another shield world but if that was true we probably would get more signs pointing to that possibility.


You bring up a very interesting point. I do not recall the exact wordage used to describe the Ark, by Cortana in Halo 2. Looks like i'll have to dredge up that save game and play through it again.

I'm wondering if the description was simply "Control" as opposed to it being an actual "Room". We could also say that if it were "Control", the Forerunners themselves could be the control element that would eventually unleash the Halo Event. And that they were housed in the Ark.

As an aside, the doorway to the interior of the Shield World is described as such in GoO: "..As his vision continued to adjust, a hill resolved in the center of this "room". There was a uniform slope to the floor that gently rose and then arced up hyperbolically a dozen meters......Around the apex of this hill sat a crown of fins raised to the sky; buttressed at their bases and pronged at their tips...."

There is another description of what the Spartan's find at the center of this crown of fins:"...Inside the ring of towers, a series of additional concentric circles fell steeply into the middle of the structure. In the exact center was a hole three meters wide, glowing with a brilliant blue-white heatless illumination......the fin towers had tilted and angled inward. The entire structure was closing like the petals of a great flower...." (excerpts from Halo : Ghosts of Onyx by Eric Nylund).

AR being an ancient Forerunner AI would be appropriate, if it were the monitor responsible for opening the Ark. Also, in GoO, it is a sentinel that talks to the Spartan III after recalibrating its speech translators.


I am not sure if this last bit is of pertinence to this thread, but I figured I would put it in for a sense of completeness.

Quote:
Lostconfused: Yeah the description does seem similar to the pictures of the ark that we have seen. About the control, the monitor (i think its guilty spark or whatever) states that in the event of a failure of the firing sequence all the other halos are ready for remote activation from the ark on earth. Actually since you seem to prefer to explore all the possibilities, all he sais is that halos can be fired remotely and it is heavily implied that it can be done from the ark on earth.

Yes, I was able to track down the transcript of that conversation. Thank you for the headsup.

Excerpt from http://halosm.bungie.org/story/halo2_level_transcripts/lv15_greatjourney.html detailing what the Ark contains:

"343 GUILTY SPARK:

Fail-safe protocol: in the event of unexpected shut-down, the entire system will move to standby status. All platforms are now ready for remote activation.

COMMANDER KEYES:

Remote activation? From here?

343 GUILTY SPARK:

Don't be ridiculous.

.......


COMMANDER KEYES:

Then where? Where would someone go to activate the other rings?

343 GUILTY SPARK:

Why... the Ark, of course.

The Arbiter approaches the trio from the shadows behind them to stand between Miranda and Johnson. Both humans look up at the Arbiter.

ARBITER:

And, where, Oracle, is that?

Cut to the Forerunner ship from High Charity emerging from slipspace into the space battle above Earth.

NAV OFFICER (radio):

We've got a new contact, unknown classification!

Cut to the Master Chief, braced against the side of the ship.

LORD HOOD (radio):

It isn't one of ours. Take it out!

MASTER CHIEF:

This is Spartan one-one-seven!

........


LORD HOOD:

Master Chief! You mind telling me what you're doing on that ship?!

MASTER CHIEF:

Sir. Finishing this fight."



Thanks to halo.bungie.org.

Apologies for putting in the end script as well. Too much of a Halo nut not to.

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:45 pm
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Phyltre
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 		Well, reading this thread reminded me of something I'd reread recently--the Cortana Letters. Yes, they were the first hint of what would become Halo, and as such are rather archaic, but they're seeded with pertinent ideas. You might remember, from the final and "invisible" Cortana letter, a quoted bit of historical text, namely:

Quote:

In a relatively brief period of time, the achievements of SolCore had resulted in an economically stable, technologically mature, rapidly expanding empire of eight human worlds. Advancements in technology arrived at a faster pace than the most optimistic scientists could have ever envisioned. Unexpected contact with indigenous human populations on four "lost colony" worlds led to a frenzy of research as archaeologists,
theologians, astronomers, and evolutionary biologists competed to offer an explanation for the startling discovery. Many accepted the findings as proof that their privileged civilization must surely be the most advanced in the universe. Others eagerly anticipated future interaction with intelligent "aliens". The fear of not being the only sentient species in the universe was forgotten in the giddy excitement of a new era for humanity.


Well. Indigenous human populations on newly discovered planets! Now we can either dismiss this as outdated (something I find unlikely) or we can consider it potentially in the current Halo Bible for the sake of argument. Taking the latter, this proves that either the Ark can move you around to other planets, that humans were the Forerunner, or that the Forerunner seeded multiple human worlds. The second idea seems less likely given the Halo 3 comic (barring more plot twists, which are clearly unbarrable.) That leaves the first and third idea. Since all the colonies were fully human, the movement must have occurred after our evolution, guided by the Forerunner as it might have been. But why do that when humans were on their way to civilization anyway? It just doesn't make that much sense, which leads me to believe that possibly, the Ark (or whatever other Forerunner constructs we might have on Earth) can transport people through the Forerunner network, even between star systems. Perhaps the shield-worlds themselves are the network, the encapsulated Slipspace offering galactic jumping pads that early humans stumbled upon and wandered through (at the prodding of their alien mentors, perhaps).

And this whole potential backstory seems to tie into the current Halo universe as well. I had been curious as to reasons for civil war, and the sharp us/them demarcation, but fundamentally different human populations from different star systems could certainly generate such a conflict. So maybe the Cortana Letters are still useful in sussing some of these facts out?

PostPosted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 2:45 am
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Tweek178
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 		Regarding Psygene's spec, I like most of it.

Except where AR comes into play. Right now AR is in our time continuum. While, yes, the one that ranks him plays with time, there is nothing suggesting he/it itself does or can.

We're still well in MC's past, so AR's activity likely could not have anything to do with MC's actions centuries from now.

And am I the only one that remembers someone somewhere saying that Halo preceded Marathon, or that they were, in fact, the same universe?

After all, didn't someone in an official press article say "the Halo/Marathon universe?"

PostPosted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:23 am
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Phillowe88
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 		Halo and Marathon are not in the same universe. That was a bit of speculation when Halo 1 first came out and Bungie said that they are seperate universes. The Marathon like things in Halo should be seen as easter eggs.

PostPosted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:52 am
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