unforum

[GunsmithCat]

[SPEC] Durga != Melissa (in 10 easy steps!)

[Knight Hawk]

I think I spec'd in a different post that Jan may be a spartan of some sort. They said she broke into an military facility and jumped over a fence. Most fences in military facilities are pretty high. James is probably not even her real father, but maybe even her caretaker. Remember that we come into Halo's story when the S-2's are being developed, and they never mention what ever happened to the S-1's.

[Motoss]

I always assumed that the SPARTAN II project was named such because the Original Spartans were the Ancient Greek Variety...sort of like a the rebirth of the Olympics, except for Spartans.


Also, 37 SPARTAN II's wiped out of the training after the augmentation process. 25 dead, 12 incapacitated for combat. However, the changes to the SPARTAN II's included genetic changes...and the Master Chief is over 30 by the time the events of Halo take place. It is not inconceivable that one of the "washed out" SPARTANs could have had a family, and have a teenage daughter at the time around or before the events of Halo.


On the ILB website, one of the AI's hiding text on the site states specifically that they are more than 7 years old. It isn't concrete that there are no exceptions to the 7 year rule.

[GunsmithCat]

[GunsmithCat]

[Motoss]

Ah, I stand corrected...but I find it EXTREMELY hard to believe that Durga isn't the Operator...the way it interacts and destroys hostile systems is very reminiscent of Melissa...of course, they could just be similar military AI systems.


If that is so though, why show us these sound clips at all? It only makes sense if Melissa was involved in these events.


EDIT: Dear lord, I completely forgot about cryosleep. In Halo, all crews go into cryosleep when taking long journeys, since traveling through space still takes a lot of time, even with Slipspace. SPARTAN I's could still be at large at the time of events at Halo just from being in cryosleep. Perhaps Jan's father is a relic of an age long gone?

[Knight Hawk]

Smart AI's can't live past 7 years old. Is this a clue perhaps that the SP is not a Smart AI but perhaps a "Dumb" AI?

[GunsmithCat]

[GunsmithCat]

[matias]

[truegent]

I have been arguing for some time that Durga is NOT Melissa.

One of the reasons is: How does a rouge (how can a program that invades a civilian PC after a power surge, deleting everything in it's path be anything else) AI go from rouge status to the trusted position of Operator on an ONI ship in deep space spying on the Covenant (or whatever it was that Melissa's ship was doing?).

[GunsmithCat]

However, to counter my own spec:

- Why is Melissa dredging up random conversations from some 50 years ago?
- Where would she have gotten them?
- Have ONI counter-espionage AIs changed so little in 5 decades?

Countertheory is I guess, Jan is an SIII, Coral is in the inner colonies and either Durga = Melissa or Melissa spied on everyone else doing this.

I agree with both matias & truegent though. The similarities between the two really could simply be training and how would Durga be allowed to take an ONI ship?

[Oea]

I think Durga is just an AI that happened to be infected with whatever the pious flea is, before melissa.


The Morelli/Castaway connection seems good, and if this is the case, maybe Morelli (Jersey's father) finds out about the AI that got into jersey's machine and somehow infected Melissa when the ship picked him up as the castaway.

The memories could either be from Durga being half-assimilated, they could be from the flea's own memory banks.

Also, maybe Morelli fell in love with Durga and got her on to the ONI ship somehow infecting/causing the crash


It's pretty out there, but worth a look.

[inio]

[truegent]

If we surmise that Melissa and at least one of the other two have overlapping data due to the cramped quarters, then she may not be dredging up her OWN memories. Remember, she refers to them as voices. She never said that they where HERS.