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Max Damage · Decorated Joined: 24 Jul 2004 Posts: 178

[SPEC/QUESTION] The Operator - What we know, and theories

**Posted:** Sun Jul 25, 2004 9:06 am

Anton Sirius

The Operator's Memory Banks

**Posted:** Sun Jul 25, 2004 9:24 am

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Max Damage · Decorated Joined: 24 Jul 2004 Posts: 178

Ah, true! I did assume something there.

My assumption was based on Bungies previous rogue AI characters, which also had a penchant for writing in prose, while at the same time being quite qualified in military procedure.

However, yes, that is a possiblity. Could SPDR be piecing together The Operator from various pieces of data around the web, or is it merely just repairing it without too many additions?

**Posted:** Sun Jul 25, 2004 9:33 am

Deaper · Greenhorn Joined: 24 Jul 2004 Posts: 9

Often times even with the AI that exists today (however limited it may be) the AI is typically fed lots of classic literature as a way for it to better understand the way the human mind works. Which is why the bungie AI is typically well versed in prose.

**Posted:** Sun Jul 25, 2004 2:21 pm

Grout · Veteran Joined: 25 Jul 2004 Posts: 105

So what I want to know is - what about the erosion of network throttling and all that - It seems like we are counting down to something bad... Is SPDR and the revival of the Operator causing this? Or is this what they are trying to avoid?

Does the Operator want to metastasize?

**Posted:** Sun Jul 25, 2004 2:26 pm

thr4k4 · Boot Joined: 25 Jul 2004 Posts: 22

piecing together..

**Posted:** Sun Jul 25, 2004 2:40 pm

drizjr · Unfictologist Joined: 28 Nov 2003 Posts: 1700

Re: [SPEC/QUESTION] The Operator - What we know, and theorie

Max Damage · Decorated Joined: 24 Jul 2004 Posts: 178

Phasmids = stick/leaf insects. Camoflagued bugs.

The Elegans genus is related to worms, I believe.

The Operator is talking about how it plans to hide itself.

**Posted:** Sun Jul 25, 2004 3:07 pm

Grout · Veteran Joined: 25 Jul 2004 Posts: 105

Re: piecing together..

**Posted:** Sun Jul 25, 2004 3:57 pm

Fraxxxi · Boot Joined: 24 Jul 2004 Posts: 38 Location: Austria

Re: piecing together..

**Posted:** Sun Jul 25, 2004 4:07 pm

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John Orapello · Guest

Hey. I am new here, a huge huge huge Halo fan, and very interested in ARGs-- I have been thinking about games like this for a while, but never knew a community such as this existed. .. glad to find it, though!
Anyway, on topic:
I thought it interesting that SPDR seems to be reconstructing the Operator through bits and pieces of data it finds on the net, as it is reminiscient of something from Marathon.

In Marathon 1 you can find a terminal that details the Rampancy of an AI named Traxis on Mars. You can find it here and other information on Marathon and Rampancy here.

Traxus went Rampant, infected 5 other Martians AIs with Rampancy, and had to be dealt with by a global net shutdown, leaving repercussions of its crash for years afterwards. It has been theorized that all the AIs in Marathon were part of this.

Also, at the end of Marathon 2, you read this about Leela, who was a friendly AI in Marathon:
While Tau Ceti was being nuked down to bedrock in 2794, Pfhor scientists disassembled and removed the AI Leela from the Marathon, loading her aboard a vessel bound for the Pfhor homeworld. But the ship fell into the hands of a Nar privateer between jumps at Beta Naxos, and was never seen by the Pfhor again.
Thinking the cargo little more than scrap, the Nar captain sold the Pfhor ship, Leela and all, to a Vylae merchant. The subsequent crash of the Vylae FTL network when Leela was reassembled and reactivated is still legendary in the annals of rampancy, and the Vylae have long since accepted that they will never expunge her from their fifteen-world network.

(The Pfhor are the central enemy in the Marathon series-- intergalactic slavers.)
Perhaps bits and pieces of the original Operator are all over the net, and SPDR is reconstructing the Operator from these.

Interestingly, you could call Leela the Operator of the ship. .

Just a random connection I made. Thanks for listening. Smile

Hope this is not a trout!

**Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2004 12:52 am

Primus · Boot Joined: 24 Jul 2004 Posts: 24

I've been mulling over the Leela = Operator possibility for a couple days now, since I brought it up initially on Friday. Trouble is, without the use of judicious time travel, it can't work. The UESC Marathon was launched on November 16th, 2472 for its 300+ year trip to Tau Ceti, according to the Marathon Timeline. By the Halo Timeline, the Fall of Reach is on August 30, 2552. Leela and the Marathon don't reach Tau Ceti until 2773, some 220 years after the events in Halo. She's disassembled by the Pfhor a year later. So while her physical disassembled state does quite nicely match the Widow's Story, time-wise it doesn't scan.

**Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2004 1:32 am

QBKooky · Decorated Joined: 24 Jul 2004 Posts: 281

I've been reading through the Mayday texts, the assembled Widow story, and trying to get my head around all this. *shakes fist at content-heavy PMs* Raor.

Well... I've been trying to find if (or where) the Operator fits into the Widow story and the computer text. If SPiDeR = The Widow, then that still leaves the Queen and the Manticore. I think the Queen is still unknown, or having to do with the "master-sector" that the computer text talks about.

The Operator -could- be the Manticore. The Widow story says "all the guards were dead but one" while the Operator is confused that her crew left her, and wonders if it's because they're all dead.

The part that doesn't exactly fit is that the Widow slays the Manticore. Is the SPiDeR disassembling the AI that is the Operator, and that is why she's so confused and damaged?

**Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2004 1:50 am

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TheBiggestSean · Guest

Hi, I'm new here. Much akin to John I didn't know stuff like this existed! But it's awesome to see people so devoted and interested in the story. I do a lot of work with Halo's story line and all things Halo-related on teamxbox.com, so I figured I'd pop over here when one of the memebers there mentioned that you all had made some progress! Looks fun!

Anyway, there are some interesting proposals floating around about the possibility of some serious time travel going down so that Leela could be reassembled and become the Queen. While a lot of people are ready to dimiss this outright, it is not necessarily unheard of in the Halo universe. In the third book written (First Strike), announced as a part of the continuity and essentially edited by Halo's story masters, a curious piece of ancient alien technology allows Cortana and the Master Chief to fly a hijacked Covenant cruiser backwards through time, rewininding essentially a week and a half to just a few days after the destruction of the stronghold of the Human Colonies, Reach. The Master Chief finds out that the SPARTANs on Reach had found and somehow activated a device which could bend time and space itself, essentially yanking the two points of time next to each other so that the Chief could rendezvous with them and extract them... Dr. Halsey, the most impressive character of the Halo universe, intones that there's a possibilyt the Chief HAD to be there at that time, at that place. Cortana dismisses it as circular logic, but Halsey BELIEVES something is afoot... which is odd for the smartest, most logical woman in the galaxy.

So, we do have SOME precedent for odd space/time distortions. Sorry for the lengthy explanation, I'm somewhat awful at being concise. I'll let the pros get back to it.

**Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:39 am

Primus · Boot Joined: 24 Jul 2004 Posts: 24

Actually, that's a great addition, Sean. I haven't read the Halo books, so I was unaware that they were doing serious time travel in them.

To address another point you made:

**Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:57 am