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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!) » The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!): General/Updates
[META] Feeling philosophical about the themes of this story
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Anton P. Nym
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Joined: 25 Jul 2004
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 		Great catch! Remember also that J2 refers to his fellow "one-point-oh"s as family as well, and shows the compassion and cameraderie (sp) to match.

It looks like Family will be a MAJOR theme of ILB. This bears close watching.

Axon spikers, maybe guiding conversations towards family subjects will bear fruit in additional story tidbits as Melissa seems to be seeking the same kind of companionship and support.

-- Steve is constantly amazed at the vast brainpower these puzzles/stories/games unleash.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:01 pm
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Sep7imus
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 		Isn't there something odd going on with the whole family/human/machine issue?

I mean, when Melissa spoke to people on the phone, recruiting them, she often asked them to prove they were human by telling her a story about something that she was feeling. If she, a non- (former-) human is feeling the emotions that she wants to hear about, what's to stop a devious artificial intelligence process from coming up with a plausible story?

I'm not sure what this has to do with family, actually, except that i'd like to second the idea of steering one's stories towards family-related topics as a way of appealing to Melissa.

-Sep7imus
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:10 pm
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Mazian
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Anton P. Nym wrote:
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Axon spikers, maybe guiding conversations towards family subjects will bear fruit in additional story tidbits as Melissa seems to be seeking the same kind of companionship and support.
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That's so cool, I was just saying this to someone else last night.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:31 pm
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archon
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 		Re: [META] Feeling philosophical about the themes of this st
Anton P. Nym wrote:

Thanks to our privileged information, being able to sit inside John-117's head and all Smile, as readers we know that the SPARTAN-IIs are indeed still human. They have augmented physiologies and they DEFINITELY have abnormal psychologies (many of their behaviours and thought-patterns are still child-like, and they have very black/white mentalities though John is becoming more complex) but they ARE still human.


It leads one to ask though... what IS human? In The Fall of Reach, when Keyes tells the Chief that winning isn't everything, this literally stumps him. He has no concept of anything other than winning or losing being the only options open to a "person." In First Strike, there's a similar scene where Halsey gives the Chief her analysis on the Sarge about whether or not to send him to his death at the hands of Oni, and the Chief has a hard time deliberating over this due to his thought pattern being strictly that sacrifice for the greater good of human-kind is necessary to win.

The Halo story is one of sacrifice, one of heroes with their backs to the wall and not a lot of options left open to them. If the only way to "win" against the enemy is sacrificing what it is that makes us human... I.E. our family (Spartans, friends, whatever) or connections to the world, have we really won?

A victory with such massive damage taken cannot accurately be called a victory. It's another theme that goes all the way back to at least Pathways Into Darkness with Bungie games, where one of the possible "victorious" endings you could achieve was that of the Pyrrhic victory.

http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2003/07/16.html

PostPosted: Thu Sep 23, 2004 7:16 pm
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Anton P. Nym
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 		Yesss... at what price victory, Spartan? Is it victory to fire your house to kill the thief within it?

For John-117 fresh out of SPARTAN training it was literally a no-brainer. Victory. At any price. Consequences were the responsiblity of Command Authority. So long as he had orders, he would follow them and win, win, win every time.

But in the novels the Master Chief is starting to learn what the price of victory can be. And that sometimes victory just isn't attainable. And he's starting to wonder if it can still be considered a victory if it entails destroying what he was trying to defend. He's starting to wonder if the game is worth the candle.

He's learning.

He's getting more human.

And that's absolutely blowing my mind.

-- Steve thinks that it absolutely rawks that themes of family, self-sacrifice, and redemption are important to the backstory of A TWITCH-GAME. Why is it that a FPS video game has a deeper plot than most of the Hollyweird drek swirling the bowl right now?
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 23, 2004 8:24 pm
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clamatius
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 		Great post, Rose.

I also think it's worth noting that the clips unlocked by the first Spikes are all about Durga and Jersey discussing family. Since Melissa's real crew is gone, the Spikes are her new family.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 23, 2004 8:30 pm
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thebruce
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Anton P. Nym wrote:
-- Steve thinks that it absolutely rawks that themes of family, self-sacrifice, and redemption are important to the backstory of A TWITCH-GAME. Why is it that a FPS video game has a deeper plot than most of the Hollyweird drek swirling the bowl right now?


-- Bruce is excited that come November 9th, there will be a month-long epic text/audio movie from the ilovebees game, deeper and more meaningful than LOTR! Ok, well, maybe not LOTR, but pretty much anything else out there... the PM's had BETTER have a hand in making a Halo movie if one is ever made...!
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 23, 2004 10:04 pm
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Mike_Was
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clamatius wrote:
Great post, Rose.

I also think it's worth noting that the clips unlocked by the first Spikes are all about Durga and Jersey discussing family. Since Melissa's real crew is gone, the Spikes are her new family.


Let's hope Melissa hasn't uncovered any Jerry Springer archives, then.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 23, 2004 10:46 pm
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archon
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Quote:
He's learning.

He's getting more human.


The Chief may be learning how to be more like a human, but he was never given a chance to be anything but the machine that Halsey and the government made him to be. Like you pointed out, the Chief is still "genetically" a human, but he has never had a chance to develop into a person, he has never had a chance to develop true humanity, which is what rose was getting at. In The Fall of Reach, it specifically states that John has no feelings of hatred or even of joy towards conquering his enemy, there is just the win. The Chief is a machine, and even if he can stop the Covenant, he will have no place in a peaceful human society, especially with almost all of his family (meaning the Spartans) gone.

PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 2:23 am
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Anton P. Nym
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archon wrote:
The Chief may be learning how to be more like a human, but he was never given a chance to be anything but the machine that Halsey and the government made him to be.

Not until now, anyway.

Yes, he's starting from almost zero humanity. Yes, he's been kept there ("arrested development", for real!) by ONI for thirty years. Yes, he's been an order-taking killing machine for most of his life.

But that's changing.

Remember his final choice, at the end of First Strike:
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
When Sgt. Johnson returns the complete report on his encounter with the Flood, the Master Chief changes his mind! The lesson that Dr. Halsey sinks in, and this is expressly written that the Chief has the epiphany that individuals matter.
If he can make even that small change, then it's possible that he can change, and grow, further. There is still hope. Halo is also a tale of the search for redemption, as Joe Staten mentioned in the FilmOasis documentary. (I have to rewatch that soon.) Encouraging, no?

-- Steve hopes that this theme can also be applied to ILB... maybe we can drag Melissa back from the brink.
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 12:24 pm
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archon
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 		He's changing, but the main question that I have for the Chief (assuming he can somehow stop the Covenant), is it too late for him to be a person (just like the problems you foresaw in your previous comment)? Can a machine really learn humanity? Is the Master Chief really a human being that can learn humanity, or has he been irreversibly changed in order to preserve mankind? It's an interesting setup Bungie's made where the only way to save mankind may be to eliminate our humanity.

Anyway, that's all I was getting at. I just wanted to draw my thoughts out to an extended conclusion. Smile

PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 5:21 pm
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Ekim
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archon wrote:
He's changing, but the main question that I have for the Chief (assuming he can somehow stop the Covenant), is it too late for him to be a person (just like the problems you foresaw in your previous comment)? Can a machine really learn humanity? Is the Master Chief really a human being that can learn humanity, or has he been irreversibly changed in order to preserve mankind? It's an interesting setup Bungie's made where the only way to save mankind may be to eliminate our humanity.

Anyway, that's all I was getting at. I just wanted to draw my thoughts out to an extended conclusion. Smile


I believe that given enough time he could finally learn humanity. He felt remorse at the end of First Strike from his initial decision in Steve's spoiler above.

The Spartan-IIs were taken from their families at six years old. They were taught and raised to fight, to kill, and to always win. For a little over 35 years they've done nothing but battled. Even a normal human with no physical augmentations would have to spend some time learning what it's like to live a normal life and feel different emotions after that. The only (I think) non-physical difference about the Spartans is that their sexual drive was toned down during the augmentation process. Other than that, they're pure human inside.

I really enjoyed Master Chief's shocking discovery of the grey between the lines. I think it not only adds more depth to his character, but also goes to show that he is indeed human after all. Smile

PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 7:25 pm
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