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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!) » The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!): General/Updates
[SPEC] The mysterious artifact, redux
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Extrasonic
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 		[SPEC] The mysterious artifact, redux
In the calm before the storm (i.e. the Monday before new axons go live), I'd like to set forth a challenge to currently accepted SPEC and solicitation of new SPEC on this subject.

The mysterious artifact that the Apocalypso picked up in space: what the heck is it?

(As a refresher, you can re-read the story of the artifact's discovery here, McKaskill's attempt to tell people about the artifact here, and of course there's always the relevant recipe3.html .WAVs if you want to review what has happened to the artifact post-crash.)

It seems to me that most people generally accept three basic theories about the artifact:

  • That it is somehow related to the time-travel that brought Melissa, SPDR, The Sleeping Princess, and The Pious Flea to 2004;
  • That it is the "coffin" that "cracked", somehow releasing The Sleeping Princess; and
  • That it is Forerunner in origin.

We learned some interesting things about The Sleeping Princess on Friday that directly challenge some of these ideas. According to the October 1st contactme.html page:

  • The Sleeping Princess can now remember a brother, although she doesn't want to think about him, and
  • The Sleeping Princess was held prisoner inside of Melissa.

Since The Sleeping Princess has a brother that she doesn't want to think about, many people have speculated that she may have been engineered from Kamal's sister, Jasmin. That's a whole 'nother SPEC entirely (and would need to address how a smart AI lived longer than 7 years in the Haloverse), but suffice it to say that this makes the SP seem a bit more human in origin. Yes, you could play devil's advocate and say that just because she has a brother doesn't mean she's human - that Covenant and Forerunner races probably have families too. Still, that's a pretty weak argument since we don't know if familial relationships mean anything to those races and we know for sure family is usually important to humans, especially since it's been a central theme of all of the Axon stories thus far.

Also, if we think that the Sleeping Princess' prediction in her August 27th 404 page message was correct (and we have no reason to think that it wasn't), then Melissa placed the Sleeping Princess back into her "glass coffin" when she was recently held captive inside Melissa.

Taking those items into account, we now have some gaps in the logic of the aforementioned SPEC about the artifact:

  • If the artifact is related to the time-travel, then how is it that Melissa is here in 2004 and the Apocalypso, her crew, and the artifact are all still in the future (albeit in various states of alive-ness)?
  • How can the artifact be the SP's coffin when the Princess was held prisoner inside Melissa and the artifact is a physical object in the far future at Chawla base?
  • If the artifact did contain the SP at one point, how can the artifact be Forerunner in origin if the SP is human?
  • Why do all of the trained military personnel who have been fighting the Covenant for years (Capt. Greene, Col. Herzog, Standish) consistently refer to the artifact as Covenant if it is actually Forerunner in origin?

These are some pretty serious logical problems with the current paradigm. So how do we resolve them? What is your best (updated) SPEC regarding the nature of the mysterious artifact?
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 2:46 pm
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weephun
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 		Re: [SPEC] The mysterious artifact, redux
Extrasonic wrote:

[*] Why do all of the trained military personnel who have been fighting the Covenant for years (Capt. Greene, Col. Herzog, Standish) consistently refer to the artifact as Covenant if it is actually Forerunner in origin?

Cortana was the first "human" contact with the idea of the "Forerunners" while she and the MC were on Halo. Prior to this the UNSC had no idea that this race even existed. Dr. Kelly was the first to speculate that the artifact found on Sigma Ocatanus IV originated from another race besides the Covenant, but at that point it was pure speculation.

So, until Cortana returns to earth with the knowledge of the Forerunners that she contains, the rest of the UNSC would continue assuming that any alien artifacts are Covenant artifacts of some sort or another.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:09 pm
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m0tive
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Joined: 29 Jul 2004
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 		"and would need to address how a smart AI lived longer than 7 years in the Haloverse"

We actually don't need to because if Melissa and the SP are one in the same, then they are the same age.

[SPEC]I think that the SP is the repressed memories of the host brain that made the AI. Therefore that would give the SP the impression that she is 'older' than the Melissa because Melissa might only have had an operational lifespan of 3 years before the accident. So the SP has memories that go all the way back to when she was a kid(hence why she acts as a child) where as Melissa's memories only go back to when she came online.[/SPEC]

I just threw out 3 years as an example, BTW.

PostPosted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:18 pm
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ajenteks
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Joined: 26 Aug 2004
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 		Re: [SPEC] The mysterious artifact, redux
weephun wrote:
Extrasonic wrote:

[*] Why do all of the trained military personnel who have been fighting the Covenant for years (Capt. Greene, Col. Herzog, Standish) consistently refer to the artifact as Covenant if it is actually Forerunner in origin?

Cortana was the first "human" contact with the idea of the "Forerunners" while she and the MC were on Halo. Prior to this the UNSC had no idea that this race even existed. Dr. [Halsey] was the first to speculate that the artifact found on Sigma Ocatanus IV originated from another race besides the Covenant, but at that point it was pure speculation.


Cortana was the first "human" contact we're aware of. Ackerson's files seem to suggest that ONI has been aware of the Forerunner and/or their "toys" beforehand though.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:22 pm
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johnny5
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 		Re: [SPEC] The mysterious artifact, redux
Extrasonic wrote:

  • If the artifact is related to the time-travel, then how is it that Melissa is here in 2004 and the Apocalypso, her crew, and the artifact are all still in the future (albeit in various states of alive-ness)?
  • How can the artifact be the SP's coffin when the Princess was held prisoner inside Melissa and the artifact is a physical object in the far future at Chawla base?
  • If the artifact did contain the SP at one point, how can the artifact be Forerunner in origin if the SP is human?
  • Why do all of the trained military personnel who have been fighting the Covenant for years (Capt. Greene, Col. Herzog, Standish) consistently refer to the artifact as Covenant if it is actually Forerunner in origin?

These are some pretty serious logical problems with the current paradigm. So how do we resolve them? What is your best (updated) SPEC regarding the nature of the mysterious artifact?


Some possible explanations, likelyhood varies.

Item 1. Perhaps the time travel aspect is for communications/digital constructs and not physical objects.

Item 2. The artifact was activated in space, and SP got out and co-opted Melissa.

Item 3. Forerunners are human, or the Forerunner/SP device accessed Melissa's core and stole the identity of it.

Item 4. [edit] A better explanation is above.

Again, just possible explanations. I don't necessarily believe any/all of them.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:23 pm
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MarauderIIC
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 		Re: [SPEC] The mysterious artifact, redux
johnny_Nitro wrote:
Item 1. Perhaps the time travel aspect is for communications/digital constructs and not physical objects.


Possibly stated elsewhere, but wanted to draw the connection here: that conveniently explains why the Apocalypso "crashed" out of slipspace -- they had to drive on manual, so to speak.

( http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=72453&highlight=apocalypso+slipspace+crash#72453 comes close)
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:37 pm
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Incitatus
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Joined: 01 Oct 2004
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 		I will point to the link in my signature...
and then to the subject "[SPEC] Key- turning the Sleeping Princess in..."


There i have laid out the theory that I and my associate SuperMega have developed (well before the last batch of axons mind you).

This theory points to the SP as the donor personality (Durga mentioned these) for Melissa... allowed to become rampant and awake...

The artifact is not Forerunner... more likly anyway... because Cortana had a pre-existing knoledge of the FR, to have identified halo as such. so UNI would have prorably figured that out by now...
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 4:25 pm
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Anton P. Nym
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 		Re: [SPEC] The mysterious artifact, redux
ajenteks wrote:
Cortana was the first "human" contact we're aware of. Ackerson's files seem to suggest that ONI has been aware of the Forerunner and/or their "toys" beforehand though.

However, the information has not been widely distributed. In The Fall of Reach there were prominent members of Naval Intelligence going over the Master Chief's after-action report from Sigma Octanus IV... and they noted that the alien coding found in those anomalous rubies resembled Covenant writing, so they assumed that it was Covenant.

In fact, we later learn that the Covenant modeled their writing after the Forerunners', and the coding they see is written in the original Forerunner script.

Most of the gathered staff there, however, are alarmed that they either have missed an entire section of Covenant society (meaning that their Intelligence estimates are way off) or are up against an entirely unknown species.

In First Strike we learn of evidence that ONI new of the Forerunners before, but that's from a clandestine raid of Ackerson's files and not from a formal briefing. ONI is a divided organisation, and it looks like there's a fair amount of internal back-stabbing in it. So it's entirely likely that those who know about the Forerunners haven't spread the news.

-- Steve notes that ONI resembles the KGB to a disturbing degree... he's not certain that the United Earth Government is that nice a place to be.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 5:51 pm
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bcriswell
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Incitatus wrote:
The artifact is not Forerunner... more likly anyway... because Cortana had a pre-existing knoledge of the FR, to have identified halo as such. so UNI would have prorably figured that out by now...

I think that Corana actually said something to the effect of "someone they call the forerunners," in the Halo game. This would indicate that this was the first time she came across the word.

PostPosted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 5:54 pm
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Shad0
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Joined: 20 Jun 2004
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 		Re: [SPEC] The mysterious artifact, redux
Extrasonic wrote:
It seems to me that most people generally accept three basic theories about the artifact:

  • That it is somehow related to the time-travel that brought Melissa, SPDR, The Sleeping Princess, and The Pious Flea to 2004;
  • That it is the "coffin" that "cracked", somehow releasing The Sleeping Princess; and
  • That it is Forerunner in origin.

For myself, I accept #1, for reasons discussed below. I do not accept #2 at present -- I currently think it more likely that the Sleeping Princess is the human personality upon which Melissa was based, and that the "glass coffin" is simply the Princess's allegorical name for whatever code Melissa used to keep her locked up.

I accepted #3, rather blindly, until I reviewed this thread. As I understand it, the sole support for our speculation that the artifact is Forerunner in origin is Melissa's description of the writing on it, from her Phase 3 Memory of discovering it:

Melissa wrote:
The thing was covered in geometric shapes, not embossed but expressed somehow in the grain of the metal. Bars and triangles, dots, ordered but non-repeating patterns. A message, yes, running around the rim like the tread on a tire. I thought: whatever that's telling us, it's something we want to know. Extremely hazardous. Safety glasses required. If found, please return to sender.
...
Bars and triangle, dots and squares. A little like Braille, a little like cuneiform.

As Lutzie first pointed out, waaaay back in this post, this is nearly identical to a description of Forerunner text from one of the Halo books:

Book 3, First Strike, Chapter 15, page 139 wrote:
There were a series of squares, triangles, bars and dots, similar to Covenant calligraphy he had seen - but at the same time it was simpler, cleaner, and when Fred focused on them, the characters seemed to blur around their edges and fade from his stare

Today, however, I learned that this text could apparently also be Covenant:

Anton P. Nym wrote:
ajenteks wrote:
Cortana was the first "human" contact we're aware of. Ackerson's files seem to suggest that ONI has been aware of the Forerunner and/or their "toys" beforehand though.

However, the information has not been widely distributed. In The Fall of Reach there were prominent members of Naval Intelligence going over the Master Chief's after-action report from Sigma Octanus IV... and they noted that the alien coding found in those anomalous rubies resembled Covenant writing, so they assumed that it was Covenant.

In fact, we later learn that the Covenant modeled their writing after the Forerunners', and the coding they see is written in the original Forerunner script.

Since none of us has ever seen the writing, we may no longer be able to assume safely that it is definitely Forerunner and not Covenant -- which, as you've pointed out, makes things more complicated. Additionally, unless I missed something, thus far the concept of the Forerunner is completely OOG. That is, neither Melissa nor Herzog nor Standish nor Greene nor anyone else in this entire ARG has so much as whispered the word "Forerunner." There is as yet no In-Game reason to assume that the artifact is anything but Covenant.

Nevertheless -- with the caveat that I know nothing whatsoever about the Haloverse apart from what I've picked up in the course of this ARG -- I still think the artifact is likely to be Forerunner, for one primary reason: As near as I can tell, only the Forerunner have ever had anything to do with time-travel. We know that something must have sent Melissa from her time to ours. There is not even a hint of a suggestion that either humanity or the Covenant have any kind of technology that could have dont it, even if misused in some fashion. And the mysterious artifact is, at present, the only thing we've got that is potentially outside the known Human/Covenant realm.

Add to that the fact that no one knows much about the Forerunner, except that they were capable of creating wondrous things far beyond our abilities -- like the Halo constructs, which could have destroyed all life in the universe -- and you have an excellent META justification for assuming that the artifact is Forerunner: it's the magic pill that can potentially explain time-travel, AI fragmentation, or anything else that doesn't yet make sense. So, to answer one of your questions, Melissa is here while the Apocalypso, her crew, and the artifact are all still in the future because <insert explanation of wacky Forerunner artifact magic here>.

Now, to answer your last question:

Extrasonic wrote:
...we now have some gaps in the logic of the aforementioned SPEC about the artifact:
...
  • Why do all of the trained military personnel who have been fighting the Covenant for years (Capt. Greene, Col. Herzog, Standish) consistently refer to the artifact as Covenant if it is actually Forerunner in origin?

These are some pretty serious logical problems with the current paradigm. So how do we resolve them? What is your best (updated) SPEC regarding the nature of the mysterious artifact?

The trained military personnel may keep calling it a Covenant artifact because they don't yet know any better. First, Greene didn't actually call it Covenant; all she knew was that it wasn't Human, and Melissa didn't know any better, either:

Melissa wrote:
Is it Covenant? 1st Lt Sorenson said. He was the one inside with it; suited, curious but cautious.

Capt. Greene looked thoughtful. It isn't us. Melissa?

I said, I don't know. If it is, it's new.

As for Herzog, he clearly has never even seen the artifact yet, so he has no reason to suspect that it is anything other than Covenant. After all, if it's not ours, it's perfectly logical to assume that it belongs to the only other major space-going race we have encountered.

Standish, for all we know, may not have seen the artifact himself either. Even if he has, though, he's clearly not about to give Herzog any additional information about it, such as stating that it isn't Covenant. He refuses even to confirm its existence, as shown in wetwork.wav:

Standish wrote:
If you know of a Covenant device, I'm sure we'd be happy to hear about it.

If Standish has personally seen the artifact, and if it does look like something entirely new, it may even help to explain why he believes that he is justified in keeping it under wraps. Who knows, maybe he really did tell the Admiral everything.

So there's my $0.02 -- well, more like $0.06, I'd say. Share and enjoy.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 6:49 pm
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Ceantari
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 		Re: [SPEC] The mysterious artifact, redux
weephun wrote:

Cortana was the first "human" contact with the idea of the "Forerunners" while she and the MC were on Halo. Prior to this the UNSC had no idea that this race even existed. Dr. Kelly was the first to speculate that the artifact found on Sigma Ocatanus IV originated from another race besides the Covenant, but at that point it was pure speculation.


Who is Dr. Kelly? Do you me Dr. Halsey?
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 4:06 pm
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weephun
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 		Re: [SPEC] The mysterious artifact, redux
Ceantari wrote:
weephun wrote:

Cortana was the first "human" contact with the idea of the "Forerunners" while she and the MC were on Halo. Prior to this the UNSC had no idea that this race even existed. Dr. Kelly was the first to speculate that the artifact found on Sigma Ocatanus IV originated from another race besides the Covenant, but at that point it was pure speculation.


Who is Dr. Kelly? Do you me Dr. Halsey?
yep, my bad.
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 4:08 pm
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