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[GunsmithCat]

[SPEC (Wild or otherwise) ;)] HALOVERSE & ILB

[Dorkmaster]

No offense, as I know this is spec based on research, but can a Moderator or an Admin place [Wild Spec] before the title of this post? Only for this reason, Gunsmith: This is good spec, but based only on leaps of connections. IF we believe that so and so represents so and so... this is a wild spec, cuz it's based on what we have no real evidence for, yet... so good work, and I don't mean to offend AT ALL, as this kind of speculation will be needed down the road, I think, but for now, let's make sure that newbies and such don't take this as established fact, cool?

[GunsmithCat]

Well I certainly don't want anyone to confuse this with established fact, but I thought that was the purpose of the SPEC tag. I'm not sure what there is about this that would upgrade it to WILD Speculation. Simply because there's a leap of connection? That seems pretty true for all speculations (I mean, how is the Sylvia Plath theory any less wild than this then? ) ...

The lynchpin to this is the assumption that Kelly-089 is the Sleeping Princess. There's a great deal to suggest that at least someone involved in SP is in cyropod, and very logical that the person is SP. The person being Kelly is clearly a bit more of a stretch, but there's references to adventures, voodoo parents, and other allusions which make it fit. So SP is a person in a cyropod, and is a female SPARTAN - it's almost certainly Kelly. The rest is just logical chronological flow based on ILB text and events from Halo.

So yeah, I agree - there's some leaps that have to be made ... but I think that's try of any theory or speculation. I guess I'd just like to see some more discussion about the theory itself before it gets branded as wild/rampant/etc...

[Dorkmaster]

WARNING: THIS IS A LONG FREAKIN POST, AND IT'S TOTALLY META. BEWARE.

GunSmithCat: Again, just so you know, I was not trying to say anything about the quality of your speculation. In fact I applaud it's completeness, however, the problem here is that we've only had one distinct in-game Halo reference, and that was the comments from the ONI tech. (Ok two if you count that the ILB site was found via the trailer, but that's a rabbit hole, not part of the plot here...). I think we're trying to hard, is all, to make this game fit into what we know about Halo or Halo 2, or the general Halo universe, and I don't think we have enough in-game evidence to really make that leap.

And as far as the Sylvia Plath stuff, that's spec too, of course, but I would not consider it wild for this reason, there's direct text matching going on, and it's been more than just the "bees" part. If it was just that, or just the suicide attempt happening on the 24th, or whatever being isolated, I would say that's wild spec too, but there's a couple of converging factors going on: an AI that reads literature, references to poetry, and references to bees, boxes, widow, spider, bee-keepers, etc... so there's enough of a comparison there for me to say it's not wild spec. whereas your spec (again, not dissing it, don't freak out) is not linked directly, in ANY sense. (Not saying the Plath thing is a certainty, of course, just that it's one of the more fleshed out leads currently...)

Essentially the difference in my mind of Spec vs. Wild Spec is this:

Spec is grounded on:
(1) textual evidence in-game
(2) Fits the M.O. of the game thus far
(3) thread generally agreed upon by most players as a valid & solid theory

Wild Spec is grounded on:
(1) Theory that cannot be proven or unproven
(2) Connections we believe we'll see/want to see verified, despite no facts yet
(3) Leaps that need to be taken about Characters, actions, or text that has not been verified by anything yet

So, while all three may not apply to all, or some may straddle the line, I think your spec fits perfectly the Wild Spec category. Again, not a negative thing, and please stop defending yourself against it... I'm just stating that Spec tends to mean that we've got something in game to tell us something. Your spec is completely based upon assumtions about characters' identities that we have absolutely NO way to verify, and have really had no evidence in-game to back up. All evidence comes from out-of-game sources that we're lining up because (1) we want to believe this is about the Halo universe, and (2) we can't say it's not true yet.

Sorry for being so long about this, but I really want to establish the difference, because your theory is that anything unproven is spec, which is true, but I think the reason we have the designation wild spec is to make sure new people know that one theory is based completely in-game, and wild is linkable, but on a thread originating outside of the game. Ya follow? (Anyone seriously disagreeing with me, I'm glad to talk about this in a Meta thread, but I won't be discussing this aanymore here, cuz I don't want to devalue this original theory by taking this thread too way off topic.)

[Extrasonic]

[GunsmithCat]

OK - there's no ingame text that quotes Sylvia Plath. None I've seen recorded in the wiki at least. There's some similarities of dates and some nouns which are used - but that's probably true of a lot of poetry.

On the other hand, I don't see the assumption that has something to do with Halo being a stretch - the preponderance of sevens, the movie trailer directing to the site, Bungie's web site directs to the site, the ONI reference, shipboard AIs, a colony being glassed (show me any other fiction which refers to the destruction of a planet as "glassing") ...

I'm not here to dis the Sylvia Plath connection - but if we're weighing evidence, it's way more wild speculation than the ILB being connected to events in Halo.

I definitely don't want to lead anyone astray into joining me in leapt conclusions, but I'd rather discuss flaws in the theory itself as opposed to it being wild - since imo, it's a lot less wild than most of the theories I've read.

[Dorkmaster]

Ok, dude, you're seriously missing the point here, and that is these parts in your post:

[Dorkmaster]

And just so you know, I'm getting heatedly into this topic, not attacking you personally...

And I totally, 100% agree that there have been many more and much wilder theories than this that should have been called wild spec and weren't... But you keep seeing wild spec as a negative, and it's not. You could still end up trumping us all and being totally correct, but at the same time, since your whole premise is based on something that is not in-game, then it's wild spec. Whereas, the Plath stuff (while I totally see what you're saying) is at least a connection on more than one platform. We've got the date, we've got the literature refrences throughout, so that would totally agree with the Modus Operandi of the game, and we've got specific words that correlate throughout her works. So I would say that's a little less tenuous, yes...

(EDIT - Bold added for emphasis to show that I don't discount this theory, just the premise that it's based on in-game evidence)

[GunsmithCat]

[Dorkmaster]

Ok, now we're talking... However, just see one more point (agree or not, that's ok )

While your understanding of what we've seen in-game and your conclusions for those events (hushed casket=possible cryo, etc...) make perfect sense, those items in themselves are spec. (Not wild, those I'd definitely say are solid spec.) But your new timeline is however, based more on those specs, than on new or existing ILB stuff, you see? I'm just saying that you're taking these (again, solid) specs on how things relate to the HALO universe, and then going one step further, but since that step extends based on spec itself, is where I take issue. I promise to shut up, respect your answer to this, and let this go where it will. (And sorry for potential derailing of your thread... it was not my intention. )

For example: We're not certain that the Sleeping Princess wrote the 8/3 emails... it's a solid spec, but anything that takes the SP as the email originator as fact and goes onto something else based on that, I would consider wild too... (not trying to go off topic, but maybe that clarifies my reasoning here...) Anyway, thanks for listening to my rant, and if anyone wants to get involved in the spec, not this meta stuff, please do. I don't mean to discredit the theory, because it is a good theory!

[CoffeeJedi]

GSC, DM, i think part of the communication problem here is what certain people consider "in-game" or not.... so i propose the following added to the top sticky:

"Any knowlege, including knowlege of events, in the Halo videogame or novels, or the Marathon games is completely OOG"

now before you jump down my throat with "but we KNOW its connected to HALO!!!", keep in mind something... this ARG is set in the Bungie-verse in the year 2004. That means that those events haven't happened yet, so the "characters" that we are playing (a group of 'hackers' helping a new friend) don't know about Halo. You have to pretend that the games and novels don't exist. Yeah, i know, i know, hard isn't it? But you wouldn't expect Master Chief to look into the camera during a cut scene and say "boy, this a great video game, isn't it kids!?" that's basically what you're doing when you start making theories linked from the OOG material.

do i beleive there was a time warp of some kind and an ONI AI is now in the ILB server? of course! is the pious flea a Covenent AI? maybe! but all my "character" knows is that there's a group of AI's from the future, some are from Earth's military, some may be an evil alien presence. The PM's will never force us to use knowlege of the events in the Halo timeline to solve a puzzle, because it would be out of character for us.

does this make sense to everyone?

[Dorkmaster]

I have started a topic in the META Forum, under the General Meta Discussions thread. Please continue all discussion there. (I apologize for dragging this conversation on here, Gunsmith.) If we can discuss this in depth there, that would be good. I think our point here is gotten across, even if people disagree with said point... (not Gunsmith, though, cuz I really think he does get it, and if we disagree it's primarily semantics now)

All love to all, but go here, instead, please! Otherwise we're way off topic (and it's all my fault)!!!

[EDIT] Actually, I just merged the two topics together, so we have all spec in one place. Not sure if that turned out right though... -- Giskard

[GunsmithCat]

Well I was doing Halo research because I haven't played the games, read the novels, etc. It's honestly the most intriguing aspect to me, as I've had a lot of gamer friends cajole me for not being "in" on the Marathon/Halo storylines.

Personally I think it's helpful in trying to determine the framework of the characters. Maybe it's OOG - but it's also extremely useful in trying to decipher some of the text and not to get lost in false leads. Now, maybe by ARG rules this is "cheating" - I could see that, but I guess to me it's just puzzle solving.

Anywho - if label changes help distinguish the usage of those factiods just let me know. EDIT: I went ahead an updated the label, so hopefully this will seperate it well enough.



But yes, I would like to get back to the theory itself so ...

Admitted Weak Spots

Person in cyro is a SPARTAN - a lot of suggestion, little evidence. Could be nearly any human. Unfortunately, if it's not a SPARTAN - much of the rest of the theory crumbles.

Flea is a Covenant AI - Again, there's some suggestion - but the Flea is the character with the least clues on the board it seems. This is in my guess column. It's not terribly pertinent to the timeline though.

Forerunner Crystal - it fits only because it's the only Haloverse item which seems capable of it, but the event of the actual accident is missing a lot of evidence.[/i][/b]

[Extrasonic]

[GunsmithCat]