unforum

[CoffeeJedi]

[Necroscope]

Castaway

[sfsdfd]

[quote="Macavity"]

[CoffeeJedi]

[Necroscope]

"Huge" object in the hold

[clamatius]

Ah, but it was a huge suitcase.

Yes, it was described as being the [URL=http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=Shipboard_Memories]size of a suitcase[/URL] which Rolf had to lean over to touch.

[CoffeeJedi]

[Necroscope]

[clamatius]

Seems probable that the Castaway was there after the cylinder. Of course, we don't know for sure that the unspecified ONI contact was the Castaway for sure anyway. Good odds on that spec, though.

My spec on the cylinder issue would be that the mysterious cylinder is the magical technology required to join the Halo story to the real-world story. After all, as Arthur C. Clarke once said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is undistinguishable from magic". There's definitely a lot of magic required for the link. Seems possible that the cylinder was heading for an ONI warehouse, "Raiders of the Lost Ark"-style as McKaskill says, when something happened which resulted in Operator & co. showing up on Earth.

{edit}sigh, simultaneous posts messed up the reference at the start.{/edit}

[clamatius]

It's not clear that Melissa did block the message going out forever. She did want to intimidate McKaskill into telling her who the recipient was first, though.

[kingchaos2]

I think the queen is writing in the ILB webpage.

[clamatius]

I think a trouting may be in order. It's the Operator's text alright, only the actual context is much more likely to be:

[kingchaos2]

Why would that be trout? And where did you get the other part of the sentence from?

[kalamazoo]

Point the First: Melissa and her surveillance ship almost certainly work for ONI. After all, they have an ONI Tech on board. From this we have deduced that Melissa's ship was probably the Applebee, the Lark, or another ship of the same class that wasn't at Reach during the events of the Halo novels.

Point the Second: McKaskill has been obviously hired, or conned, or talked into, spying for an "old man", quite possibly the Castaway.. Said "old man" was particularly on the lookout for things just like the one in the hold, i.e., Forerunner artifacts. That makes him ONI, as only ONI (among humans) has shown any understanding, knowledge, or comprehension of Forerunner artifacts.

Point the Third: Why, then, is ONI spying on itself? A major plot point in the Halo novels is the inter-service scheming between the different sections of ONI. Dr. Halsey and the Spartans, for instance, were Section Three. Section Two (and its leader, Col. Ackerson) are devoted to discrediting and destroying the SPARTAN project... and Section Two knows far more about Forerunner artifacts than it lets on to anyone else, including the other sections of ONI.

Conclusion: The "old man", who may well be the Castaway, works for ONI Section Two and is trying to pre-learn information about the Forerunner artifact onboard, to use in politics against other ONI sections or for whatever devious scheme Section Two has cooking.[/b]

[Danzilla76]

That is who I was thinking of. Perhaps the ONI person is Col. Ackerson.

And if the ship is the Applebee, that may be why some of the coords are pointing there. Of course, there are only some that are. Oh well, more speculation.