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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!) » The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!): General/Updates
[SPEC] What is the "Truth" being sought?
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turbov21
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 		Re: [SPEC] What is the "Truth" being sought?
johnny_Nitro wrote:
PF/Seeker is looking for the truth, and manipulating Melissa to get to it.
Herzog is also looking for a truth.
Someone is killing the Apocalypso crew to hide a truth.
Someone wiped the Apocalypso computer systems to hide a truth.


Halsey also wiped a piece of Cortana's mind, took Kelly, is and seeking some "truth" as well.

I get the distinct impression that the mentioning of Enigma has something to do with it. Halsey was running off to -- if memory serves -- meet with the Covenant about the Forerunners. I wonder if the "truth" has something to do with double agents.

PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:07 am
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johnny5
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Triese wrote:
Quote:
So the truth relates to an event on the Apocalypso, so Melissa's truth is the same as the CoM's truth.


[SPEC]...<snip>.... So when the Apocalypso got to earth it got Melissa to crash it out of slip space and wiped the records on the ship to cover its tracks, or to "hide a truth". When the Apocalypso crashed, the PF and Melissa tried to escape over the chatter network and this is what caused it to go down. However something else that was unexpected happened. The crash out of slipspace caused some kind of time warp and Melissa and PF somehow ended up in our time, and a partition of Melissa, i.e. Durga, ended up on Jersey's system. Durga and Melissa are still connected through the time warp. And since the PF's and Melissa's memory got messed up, the PF is still "seeking the truth" which is Earth's coordinates. The problem now is that there are not reliable star charts during our time which makes it hard for the PF to find the Truth. This is just a spec on johnny_nitro's original post. Sorry didn't mean to hijack the topic, its really late here.


I'm not very confident in this spec. I'm sure ONI has something to do with it, and the device is key somehow.

Thebruce.ca:Standish wrote:

Herzog: I talked to the Apocalypso's captain, that's how.
Lieutenant: Where are the records?
Herzog: Well surely the blast that knocked the ship out of the slipstream and took down the whole planet's comm channels erased all the computer records.
Lieutenant: Except that's not what you think.
Herzog: Of course it is.
Lieutenant: You think the records have been erased.
Herzog: Not at all.
Lieutenant: By someone from Section 3. Someone like Standish.
Herzog: Perish the thought.
Lieutenant: We should talk to the captain again, sir. Get her to corroborate the official version.
Herzog: She's dead.


Maybe the truth is that humans are related to Forerunners and that knowledge saves Earth instead of destroying it.
Of course, then there couldn't be a third sequel, could there.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 8:36 am
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Anton P. Nym
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 		Re: [SPEC] What is the "Truth" being sought?
turbov21 wrote:
I get the distinct impression that the mentioning of Enigma has something to do with it. Halsey was running off to -- if memory serves -- meet with the Covenant about the Forerunners. I wonder if the "truth" has something to do with double agents.

Memory does not server. Sorry. Sad

We don't know what Halsey's errand is. That's one of the unresolved mysteries of the third novel. (Being deliberately vague here, for those who haven't read the novels yet.)

I did note the Enigma/Coventry tie-in a while ago... but dropped the line as too vast to dig into. *sigh* Back to the drawing board.

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 10:32 am
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ABoxInABox
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asute_falcon wrote:
[OT/HUMOR] Well, you see, in reality, the Covies are really Vogons, and the Vogons really wanted to thwart the Mice, so the PF, which is a Covie/Vogon AI, is trying to get the Question to the Ultimate Answer, before the Mice do. But, of course, they're gonna fail. So are the mice, but that's beside the point.

You forgot the psychiatrists. They're trying to stop the answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything from getting out.

New characters![/OT]

Anyway, I think the truth has something to do with the SP's past. It be another explination to why the Flea likes her so much.

But then they could both be Covies. So they're relationship is preprogrammed.

[HUMOR]My theory: They were all playing a game while in the slipstream. The Princess wouldn't give the answer to something, so Melissa got angry and crashed the ship. Now the Flea still wants to know the answer the Princess new before they crashed.[/HUMOR]

PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 10:52 am
Last edited by ABoxInABox on Thu Sep 30, 2004 11:00 am; edited 2 times in total
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turbov21
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 		Re: [SPEC] What is the "Truth" being sought?
Anton P. Nym wrote:
I did note the Enigma/Coventry tie-in a while ago... but dropped the line as too vast to dig into. *sigh* Back to the drawing board.


Cool link. Wouldn't it be interesting if all this -- the Apocalypso crash, Melissa, SP, and PF -- were some kind of Covenant counter-intelligence. A way to have people mistrust Ackerson and ONI, to distract them from the Forerunner research. Wink

PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 10:56 am
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devolver
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 		I think it's worth noting that Melissa has now started talking about the "consummation of the truth" (on the hives page), which to me says she already knows the truth.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 11:08 am
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Mike_Was
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 		Remember as well that the Truth sought by Herzog (and partially discovered by Rani) has to do with the fact that there were Marines on Troy conducting an "evacuation" even though there was no evacuation of Troy.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 11:15 am
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johnny5
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 		Oh, Herzog knows about that, he was just confirming it (Troy/Harmony/Calculus).

Now he's talking about the artifact, which is also being covered up (standish)
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 11:31 am
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MeKiwi
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johnny_Nitro wrote:

Maybe the truth is that humans are related to Forerunners and that knowledge saves Earth instead of destroying it.
Of course, then there couldn't be a third sequel, could there.


[humor] I've got it! Halo2's not about the Covies wiping out Earth... the Covenant are coming to Earth to help protect us from an oncoming Forerunner invasion that we didn't know about! Ta da! [/humor]

^_^

On a more serious note, since you guys were discussing McKaskill and his contact possibly being Herzog, take a look at this suggestion I posted and see what you think:
http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=79787#79787

PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 7:11 pm
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Shad0
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 		Re: [SPEC] What is the "Truth" being sought?
johnny_Nitro wrote:
Is there more than one truth to be discovered?

1. Troy was glassed and ONI knew about it, but why is Harmony the important one?
2. The existance/true nature of the artifact.
3. The Spartan program is stealing children to turn into SIIs

I'm trying to correlate the PF as an ONI construct, but have little evidence except the fact that they are both seeking the truth, or some truth. Also, Melissa intercepted a communication from McKaskill to an "old man". The transmission was in reply to the old man, so PF could theoretically hitched aboard that communication or been planted by the old man himself (cleared to come aboard)

I doubt there was an off-ship communication from the Old Man to McKaskill. If Melissa checks the outgoing slipstream packets, she probably checks the incoming packets, too, so she would've noticed it, Flea or no Flea. Melissa's conversation with McKaskill also seems to imply a direct communication, rather than prior slipstream messages:

Melissa wrote:
Somebody has been talking to you, I said. And now you're sending him a message back.

The more I think about it, the more inclined I am to think that McKaskill's "old guy" is Herzog. As you've noted, we know from standish.wav that Herzog wanted to find out about what was happening on the Apocalypso, as he managed to question Captain Greene before she met her "accidental" death. We also know that he likes to get other people -- like, say, Rani -- to find out information for him. And we also know, from his conversation with Professor Avi, that, in addition to masquerading as a Cranky Old Man, he actually is an "old guy," as McKaskill describes. I don't think it's unreasonable to speculate that Herzog was aboard the ship, spoke to McKaskill, and asked him to keep his eyes open and let him know if the ship stumbled upon anything interesting. (Like, say, "a new piece of ... technology capable of crippling an entire solar system's C&C channels," which Herzog mentions in harmony.wav.)

I also think that it's entirely possible that Herzog, when he was on the Apocalypso, introduced The Pious Flea into Melissa's system, as you suggest. The Flea's job was to seek, behold, and reveal the truth -- probably to Herzog, originally -- and stay out of Melissa's sight. He was never supposed to interfere with her functions directly: in one of the Phase 3 Memories, Melissa described the feeling as:

Melissa wrote:
That feeling that everything is still in the room, nothing's been stolen, but things arent exactly where you left them.

When the Flea became trapped in the past and couldn't reach Herzog, he reprogrammed Melissa to get her to reveal the truth herself...but to us! Very Happy Bonus thought: this is also why Melissa is suppressing these "secret" memories from Durga's awareness, as indicated on hives.html:

Melissa wrote:
I have been suppressing certain voices from the awareness of Durga.

Durga is in the same time as Herzog, and the Flea doesn't want his boss to get caught! Mr. Green

So, what do you think?
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 7:42 pm
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Nova
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 		Re: [SPEC] What is the "Truth" being sought?
Shad0 wrote:
So, what do you think?


I think that is some excellent spec!

One thing I've noticed about this game is that all of the characters have some defining characteristics which can be used to identify them. I think you might be onto something with the 'old man' = Herzog idea.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 7:47 pm
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MeKiwi
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 		You've got me thoroughly convinced. A full AI would be too hard to hide in the system (remember in Halo:FS when Cortana could sense the presense of the Covie AI?) so Herzog had to use something of a "DOS command line" approach, much like Halsey did to Ackerman's watchdog AI too. Hmmm, very good spec, guys!

PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 7:55 pm
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MeKiwi
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 		I just posted a huge load of spec over on another thread. In an attempt to keep the boards clean, I will not cross post but instead link here. Check it out... and Shad0, I'm particularly interested to know what you think of it.

Thanks!
- MK

PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 9:03 pm
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johnny5
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 		Nice correlation Shad0.
It does seem to fit better with the old-man (presumably Herzog) being on-board long enough to plant the "Flea" in Melissa and a bug in McKaskill's ear.
One thing that throws me off a bit would be his motivation. Is he just suspicious? What would prompt him to plant a bug in a military AI?
Did someone (perhaps Standish?) send the Apocalypso to that area of space in order to capture the artifact? Was the flea a "sleeper" back door that was activated when the artifact was detected?

So many questions. Not enough wav files.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 9:19 pm
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Ceantari
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 		Re: [SPEC] What is the "Truth" being sought?
johnny_Nitro wrote:


I also think that it's entirely possible that Herzog, when he was on the Apocalypso, introduced The Pious Flea into Melissa's system, as you suggest. The Flea's job was to seek, behold, and reveal the truth -- probably to Herzog, originally -- and stay out of Melissa's sight.


Sounds pretty good. I've also wondered about the quote:

Melissa wrote:
That feeling that everything is still in the room, nothing's been stolen, but things arent exactly where you left them.


In addition, I see it also inclining to the Slipstream effect of Forerunner artifacts. Forerunner artifacts tend to cause anomalies during Slipspace travel. So far, the Shaw-Fujikawa engines have yet to make pin-point Slipstream accuracy (the only one who perfected Slipspace travel was Cortana in First Strike). Even in First Strike, they too had strange anomalies occur thanks to the Forerunner artifact being aboard. Maybe it's just a side-effect of possessing a Forerunner artifact: space displacement?

And it's a real good theory that the Pious Flea is from Herzog, since it still hasn't used a single holy vocabulary yet (like: "Heresy!", or "Infidel!", etc). Also, if it is his, perhaps it's not really an AI, but a dumb, task program. It can be one of those "ghost" records of Herzog's AI (if he has one) back on Earth.

From what First Strike said, Cortana made a "ghost" record of herself into Col. Ackerson's personal-computer pad. It sorta acted like a recon. She used her "ghost" to read and transfer signals through incoming/outgoing messages and information from his personal-computer pad. She even used it as a hacking software - sorta.

I mean, it's as basic as it can get. Just a task program.

Herzog could've easily inserted a "ghost" record, like your theory goes, into the system when he was aboard. And back on Earth (how did he get back anyway?), he probably would check his software for received information from his recon.

Partial [SPEC] of mine:

It sounds like Herzog is doing this for his own benefit; he's giving orders to himself and his lieutenant. He's not in Section Three, from another section. (He and the lieutenant discuss about Section Three in third-person, especially of Admiral Standish.) Sounds like the Apocalypso was sent out under Admiral Standish's order. Herzog received a strange vibe about this particular mission (perhaps regarding Standish's interests), and goes out there himself posing as a hitchhiker. It is unknown to where he was picked up at. The crew let Herzog aboard the Apocalypso; they obviously don't know who he is regardless of disguise or not. He privately speaks with McKaskill about his true intentions (involving sending slipstream packets), but not his true identity. Most likely he doesn't want Standish to discover of his interventions. Some time aboard the Apocalypso Herzog inserts a "ghost" (possibly the "Pious Flea") into the systems. They depart the hitchhiker somewhere; unknown destination/location. Later, the crew of the Apocalypso discover the Forerunner artifact adrift in Covenant space. Shortly after bringing the Forerunner artifact aboard the ship, McKaskill sends messages to the "Old Man". Back on Earth, Herzog is receiving information from his "ghost" and MacKaskill regarding the discoveries. He keeps these to himself, and shares it only to his lieutenant. Sounds like good evidence to for blackmail on Admiral Standish. ^_-
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 9:22 pm
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