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November 22, 2004

Beyond Halo 2

I finally finished the Halo single player campaign. It was a blast. Like a lot of folks, I was fairly perplexed by the ending. The cinematics in this one were insufficient, by my reckoning, to give me enough details to fill in plot holes. On the other hand, I was very interested to get to the next level, just fresh from the exhiliration of beating the last set of baddies down.

It's true that Halo2 is more expansive in every way than the first. I can see how Halo3 could be even greater. What seems to be the huge surprise, and I may be reading this wrong, is that Earth itself is the Arc, and the Prophet of Regret came to warn humans that the Covenant was on a course to glass it. The Arc, if I'm reading that correctly, is the place where all of the Halo rings can be remotely activated. If Earth is the Arc, then it alone is safe from the Halo weapon, and/or the Founders were the original Earth inhabitants and Humans are the decendants of the Founders. With these pieces, Halo now approaches a new level of sci-fi drama. Or as this guy explains:

the halos don't kill flood...they kill their only means to spread which is all sentient life (meaning everyone else)...the halos were created to contain the flood, so when the rings were activated, they were already quarantined inside the rings, which is why they were able to survive.

The "Ark", which in Biblical terminology, is a safe haven for remaining life (eg. Noah's Ark contained animals, humans, etc, that were to be "saved" from utter destruction (the Great Flood).). So the theory about the humans actually being decendants of the Forerunner are actually likely. This would explain why Regret's fleet only had few Covenant warships (which if they had more could have easily obliterated Earth's defenses) at the start of the game, because he didn't know that humans were on the "Ark".

Earth contains the key to activate all of the Halos, as stated by 343 at the end of the game. If you all remember, at the Halo2.com site, when you point the cursor at the continent of Africa, it says "This is what we came for", which means the key is in Africa. This explains why the only place you get to fight on Earth as MC is Old and New Mombasa (which are actual cities in Africa). This is why the Covenant did not fully glass Earth, as they did with Reach, because they need to get to the key and begin their "Great Journey" into godhood, which they believe the forerunners became after activating the rings (foolish bastards!)


thats, more or less, what i came up with after beating the game, except for the Africa bit (totally looked over that :err: ) lol.

Im just curious what would be if the covenant ever find out the true purpose of the Rings, or worst yet, they actually manage to activate them. Thats why I think they bought in Abriter. Use him to help rally the covenant against the Prophets and help them to realize the truth of what the rings actually do (wipe out all life). This, consequently, i think will result in a truce/agreement between the Humans and Covenant converters to stop the flood and the religion of the false prophets.

Basically the whole story references, and in some instances, are identical to the Bible. i.e. Master Chief the savior and the one true hope to save mankind, the Ark as a haven for life, 7 Rings - the 7th day, Sunday (holy day), etc...


The question is whether or not Ridley Scott believe so, because he is being pitched this movie like nobody's business. You just have to get the right writers interested in taking up subplots and complications on the various alien races of the Covenant and voila.

In the meantime, I've got my ranking up to 5 in the online game and can now concentrate on that exclusively.

Posted by mbowen at November 22, 2004 12:44 PM

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Comments

Dear mr Cobb: can you tell me what the monitor is on about the ark is That on halo 3 or is it on Halo 2 Please can you post the message back with your comment cheers garethy payne

Posted by: Gareth at December 10, 2004 09:41 AM

I think that the Monitors know that humans have to be the ones who release the Index (the key that fires Halo).

The last Monitor was also very specific when it said that the devastation of the fired Halos was 2-3 units. So knowing that the Earth is on the outside arm of the Milky Way galaxy, it would be safe from the firing of the rings. So the Founders' civilization, as well as those of the Covenant are probably near the center of the galaxy, and the Earth was a very distant uninhabited planet.

I don't know if the Prophet of Regret knew (or any of the Prophets for that matter) that the Ark was the Human homeworld. In fact, I don't think that they knew about the Ark at all. They were just wanting to fire the rings to get to their promised land. They forgot what the true purpose of rings was, which was to contain and destroy the Flood.

All of this is guesswork based on the Halo2 single player campaign. Even that book hasn't been written. But it makes sense given the way the game has gone.

Posted by: Cobb at December 10, 2004 10:33 AM

When the the monitor says about the range of Halo in the final cutscene. He says that it is 3 galactic radi... Which by definition means that Earth is in range. Because the galactic radi is from the centre to the edge, times that by 3 and you've got 3 radi. So this means Earth has to be hit by the blast. While it would make sense for the "ark" to escape.. I cannot see how, given the facts, that it can be out of range. Perhaps it escapes by being hardened against the Halos in some way. Earth does have an exceptionally large moon for its size, perhaps this additional gravity saves us?

Posted by: Someone Else at December 19, 2004 07:20 AM