unforum

[Swissben]

[SPEC] Halo 2 Storyline

[genrader]

It's just too freaking obvious that its about HALO 2's storyline, its got to be something surprising or else I'm going to be sorely disappointed with this game.

[Nope]

But what do bees right now have anything to do with an alien invasion in 500 years?

[Paradoxic]

Wont know until the end... What did a guy who built intelligent homes and robots have to do with AI? Oh... wait... Heh, though what did a scientist who studied ocean ecosystems have to do with AI at the start of that game? It's never completely clear until the game is over.

[Adri_Magnon]

Hi,

[Max Damage]

That would be...

A: Way too obvious.

B: Stupid. The alien races in Halo are the Covenant (an alliance of intelligent alien races bound by religion - none of which are insectoid. The Engineer race are like intelligent floating squid, though) and The Flood (a sentient virus)

C: Stupidly obvious.

D: Obviously stupid.

Bungie are the masters of subtle. Just read the story to Marathon and check out the Cortana mails. It's not like them to just beat us over the head with something so simple.

The way I see it? Bees are a red herring. The choice of site has nothing to do with it - we should be investigating the AI lost within this site, not the site itself.

I mean, if a UFO lands in field A instead of field B, you're not going to spend your time studying the grass when there's a great big UFO staring you in the face

[krystyn]

There's still plenty of room for subtlety.

Bees, beehives, infestations, colonies, groupthink, queens, drones, systematic weakening of defenses ... I'd say the stage is set, it just remains to be seen how deep the permutations run. So, in a way I agree, Max Damage, it's pretty obvious.

But all stories need a starting/sticking point, and having some sort of 'rampant AI' infesting a honey vendor's site? Well, that will help those people stumbling upon this ARG for whom such certain 'obvious' parallels will be an utter mystery.

I wouldn't sweat the obvious stuff too much. There may be plenty to sweat about later. Save the sweat, in other words.

[inio]

[aliendial]

As we discovered with the Beast, this game may have very little to do with the ultimate product. Indeed I do not expect the same characters, but at best perhaps some contextual overlap. Esp. since ilovebees seems to be NOW and HALO is not. So the known universe of HALO is not a limiting factor. Who's to say who the bad guys will be or whether they may not be NEW bad guys for HALO.

Until the game shows us otherwise, good spec, Adri_

[Grunt_Hunter]

Perhaps the Operator could be a Forerunner, or one of the Flood that escaped and took over a human's mind.

Also - the Covenant is an alien alliance made up of different races, such as: the prophets, the elites, the brutes, the jackals, the grunts, the hunters, and the engineers. They ARE NOT insects.

Or maybe it is Cortana gone out of whack. Who knows?

[SocialParasite]

The relevance of insects is right here:

MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY Phasmids. I have to signal, I can't stay stranded here. But if I somehow am operating behind enemy lines, I don't want to draw attention to myself, either. Therefore, I shall be a phasmid. Phasmidia Elegans, they call me-scourge of the sandbox. God I hate it here. Phasmids.

Phasmids being "stick" and "leaf" bugs. Camo.

[Samari]

looking back at the cortana letters there do seem to be several hints at the nature of the gameplay of halo. what's interesting though is that at least one showed up hidden on a Marathon CD if i read things right. it is entirely possible that this has nothing to do with Halo 2 but is hinting at a new game. after all we're seeing the same MO of crytic litterarly references and at the time the first cortana letters showed up no one had heard of halo.

[Varin]

good spec Adri_Magnon.

It may turn out that insects have absolutely nothing to do with this ARG or may have everything to do with it. And who knows if this ARG with have anything to do with Halo 2. Seeing as we only have one site (well, two if you count the blog) we can only speculate. Nice thoughts

[UndaCova]

I definitely believe that the whole ILOVEBEES thing is a lead in to the Halo 2 story line.

The military A.I. in Halo was not unique to the ship on which the Master Chief was travelling. It would make sense that at least one may have been obtain by the enemy "covenant" during the battles. There are several references to being paralyzed (or tied down a la Gulliver's Travels) but moving. Could this be the A.I's way of describing a captured and immobile ship ("paralyzed") that was being transported under the control of another ship ("moving")? In a tractor beam? In the hold of a larger vessel?

It might be a good idea to document all of the works of literature which have been quoted and try to find a link in their themes.

Combining the many insect and Queen reference would imply a leader or controlling figure (likely with many "drones"). In sticking with the A.I. theme, I would hypothesis that the Queen is directing the "spiders" (information gathering\stripping entities) to retrieve any and all useful information from the captured AI to aid in their invastion (there have been several references to stolen memories). The AI is in turn using military survival techniques to try to avoid the spiders, e.g. Survive, Evade, Reveal [Resist], Escape. One of the ways in which the AI is surviving and evading is by obscuring its messages in innocuous literary quotes. (An alien enemy may not interpret a quote from Gulliver's Travels a reference to being restrained\imprisoned and questioned, but a human might.) From the quality of the messages it would appear that the A.I. has already suffered some damaged as result of being picked away at by the spiders, but it is still trying to reach out to warn us.

Assuming the AI is imprisoned on an enemy invasion ship. It might be feasibly to believe that it ability to communicate with Earth would increase as it comes in to closer proximity. I would suggest that as the A.I. has come closer to Earth, it has been desperately trying to communicate and has finally been able to successfully connect via the internet. It is now attempting to send it encrypted-warnings through ILOVEBEES.COM. While at the same time trying to appear inactive and blend in with the other more routine computer processes (see reference to Phasmid insects) to avoid detection by the spiders.

P.S. Maybe the ILOVEBEES countdown timer is not to a product launch but to the invasion date. (The invasion being a marketing blitz -- e.g., fake news reports\ads, War of the Worlds-type broadcasts, etc. -- from Bungie\Microsoft which will lead into the Halo 2 storyline. I believe that in Halo 2 Earth is already under attack at the begin of the game. It would make sense to have the "invasion" happen in real-time BEFORE the game is launched. invasion being a marketing blitz (e.g., fake news reports\ads, War of the Worlds-type broadcasts, etc.) from Bungie\Microsoft which will lead into the Halo 2 storyline. I believe that in Halo 2 Earth is already under attack at the begin of the game. It would make sense to have the "invasion" happen in real-time BEFORE the game is launched.

[XGameFusion]