I'm just throwing out an idea but do you think that maybe this smuggler stuff is contected to Halo: Chronicles instead of a new mappack

If I could add a trivial aside: We still do not have any examples of the Forerunner referring to the installations/rings/whatever as "Alpha," "Beta," and so on. Note that any time the Greek letters are referenced, they are in brackets, indicating they are inexact translations. It may mean the Forerunners used a similar naming scheme (i.e., letters or numbers in their native language); or it may mean they had completely out-there names that wouldn't mean anything to us, and so the translation simply fills in what we're already calling them.

Also, the term "quadrant" always refers to one-fourth of something. You can't have seven or eight quadrants (well, you can, but not of one object).

And with that, my OCD is relieved. Back to silence for me.

Ok, (hey all, I'm still around )
I've created a wiki page for these log entries (for now keeping 'caretaker' posts unrelated) at http://halo.wikibruce.com/The_Smuggler

I've just added timestamp calculations, all based on 365.2422. I find it interesting that all calculated periods are no more precise then hundredths of a second (ie it seems they may have indeed used 365.2422 days/year, with initial values no more precise than 100th/sec - that we're on track in calculating).

Anyway, we can't precisely match up the REPORTS to the LOGS yet because there's no indication of the perdio of time between the first LOG and any stamped REPORT. A general order perhaps, but nothing more. I do agree that these two sets of entries occurred effectively simultaneously though.

The 5h 41m 8s (precisely) short of 100,000 years result I came to is very, very curious. What's the significance of precisely 100,000 years - a countdown somewhere? a 'prophecy' fulfilled? I always considered "100,000 years" to be a rough approximate, since the the two separated events were essentially entirely unconnected. Or was there someone/thing that waited precisely 100,000 years before purposely releasing the Flood?

I also find the +/- 7yrs, 12m, 39.44s margin of error ...interesting.

I've seen you pop in every now and then and was wondering when you'd get around to posting. Nice to see you again Bruce!

I'd love to put forth that the 100,000 years is merely a coincidence, but I think that'd be naive of me considering that we're dealing with Bungie. Two more days and we'll get another tidbit.

nothing in this week's update eh?