Pangea shown in cycle_response image...

Wild, speculative theories born from the communications with AdjutantReflex.

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improvman2
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Re: Pangea shown in cycle_response image...

Unread post by improvman2 »

i've been doing some research on the whole pangea theory, and have gotten some pretty relevent information.




Apparently the Great Rift Valley "has been a rich source of fossils that allow study of human evolution, especially in an area known as Piedmont. Because the rapidly eroding highlands have filled the valley with sediments, a favorable environment for the preservation of remains has been created. The bones of several hominid ancestors of modern humans have been found there, including those of 'Lucy' a nearly complete australopithecine skeleton."



Is it possible that those fossils are considered to be forerunners? Reading more into the Great Rift Valley and its seperation got me going into when it exactly started. Apparently pangea's transition into what it is today started at the same time as the Permian-Triassic (P-Tr) extinction event, or the Great Dying. Granted, Any sort of movement in the african region didnt happen until years and years later, it is still possible that maybe there is a correlation between the great dying and the halo rings being used. It'd be a tough stab to try and get exact dates for both ends, but i'll try to work that angle tomorrow



and as always, this is only a possiblity, and probably is off, but who knows!
theShadowfox
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Re: Pangea shown in cycle_response image...

Unread post by theShadowfox »

SinisterMinister wrote:
Why build two different facilities when you can combine both into one?
Right, so it's possible the Ark is just the normal anti-Halo shielding device, but with a little something extra (the remote control). But the logic applies to a lot more than the Ark itself....why spread your thinning defenses across the galaxy protecting a dozen nascent species when you could just put them all in one spot? What's to say that the Forerunners didn't gather everything, just like Noah, into the Ark on Earth? I don't think we really have enough to go much further along that line of speculation though, and cycle_response.jpg probably has more to do with Iris than with the activities of the Forerunners.
SinisterMinister have you read Ghosts of Onyx? Theres an "Ark" like place in there. So there could be more and your sentence "Right, so it's possible the Ark is just the normal anti-Halo shielding device, with a little something extra (the remote control)." could be right.
What if the Flood found out about Onyx and they had to redo it elsewhere (Earth) and it was all left behind?
Also, wouldn't make sense to have multiple (hidden) Arks to save them (all the species)?
But yes, we have too little to speculate (with any accuracy) about the Ark(s).
Ghost
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Re: Pangea shown in cycle_response image...

Unread post by Ghost »

The Ark being another Shield world makes the most sense to me. For all we know, there could be a bunch of forerunners in there with no way out, like a little kid trapped in a refrigerator. One of the obvious questions is, however, why would the forerunners need more than one shield world?
improvman2
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Re: Pangea shown in cycle_response image...

Unread post by improvman2 »

Ghost wrote:The Ark being another Shield world makes the most sense to me. For all we know, there could be a bunch of forerunners in there with no way out, like a little kid trapped in a refrigerator. One of the obvious questions is, however, why would the forerunners need more than one shield world?


one of two reasons come to mind. One could be a failsafe. sort of like a reduntant "fallback from our fallback point." lets say one of the shield worlds becomes compromised, and they have no choice but to erase even themselves. If there is more than one shield world, the chances of that happening slims out.


Also, think about how we use WMD's today. It takes more than one leading official to wreak that sort of havoc. Maybe there were multiple remote controls that had to be used together, as to keep some sort of crazed forerunner from nuking everything over a petty argument.
Lurono
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Re: Pangea shown in cycle_response image...

Unread post by Lurono »

SinisterMinister wrote:
Why build two different facilities when you can combine both into one?
Right, so it's possible the Ark is just the normal anti-Halo shielding device, but with a little something extra (the remote control). But the logic applies to a lot more than the Ark itself....why spread your thinning defenses across the galaxy protecting a dozen nascent species when you could just put them all in one spot? What's to say that the Forerunners didn't gather everything, just like Noah, into the Ark on Earth? I don't think we really have enough to go much further along that line of speculation though, and cycle_response.jpg probably has more to do with Iris than with the activities of the Forerunners.
Why put them all in one spot where your enemy could easily destroy it all? :D Spreading the Halos out makes sense since they have a galaxy-wide effect. Combining the Arks conservation measure/remote control makes sense as well since they are both on a single planet. If the Flood reach Earth, Earth is lost anyways, whereas if the Flood attack a Halo, they have six more that they could potentially beef up to cover the spot that isn't going to be hit by the lost Halo ;)
SinisterMinister
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Re: Pangea shown in cycle_response image...

Unread post by SinisterMinister »

it is still possible that maybe there is a correlation between the great dying and the halo rings being used
I mentioned that earlier; the Permian-Triassic extinction occurred about 250 m.y.a, and we know the Halos only fired once, 100,000 y.a. Extinctions also tend to take place over a relatively long time, several million years usually, because even catastrophically-triggered ones like the Cretacious-Tertiary extinction were supplemented by long-term environmental changes and a general breakdown of the established ecosystem.
Why put them all in one spot where your enemy could easily destroy it all?
It's the difference between a defence in depth or in strength. A series of individually weak defenses will eventually wear down the attacker and bring him to a halt, hopefully before he pierces the defenses completely. However this requires those defenses to be oriented around a central point, and give the attacker little or no time to recoup his losses; the overall defense of Earth through defense of its colonies is a defense in depth, but one which ultimately failed because those defenses are so spread out that the Covenant have ample time to recover before hitting another target. A defense in strength makes a single solid line of all available defenses, but in the event of defeat there's no fallback point; ie the UNSC's defenses around Earth itself being mostly centered on MAC guns with little or no apparent ground-to-air atmospheric defenses.

To me, it makes more sense to use the latter method; imagine you have 12 worlds, each being protected by Forerunners of X strength. Consumption of one world by the Flood not only reduces the Forerunner's total assets to 11X, but adds ~1X to the Flood. How many worlds do you lose before you decide to activate the Halos? Now imagine a single world, defended by 12X Forerunner assets and the Ark; not only is it a far more solid defense, but in the event of inevitable defeat the Ark can activate the Halos immediately, saving everything placed inside the Ark.
they have six more that they could potentially beef up to cover the spot that isn't going to be hit by the lost Halo
Nothing we know says that the effective radius of a Halo's blast can be intentionally altered. Three radii of the galactic center amounts to 240,000 to 300,000 light years, although 343GS doesn't clarify if that includes the vertical axis or just a two-dimensional plane. Either way, 7 Halos with a 25,000 ly blast radius each isn't enough to cover that much space in a linear fashion, which means that the individual Halos either have different blast radii, or their combined firing exponentially increases the total area of effect. However, that doesn't quite answer if the result of firing the network with less than 7 Halos would result in gaps in the affected area, or just a smaller total area of effect.

So, basically, the point of all my yapping is to point out that we still don't know why Earth, instead of the other species homeworlds, deserved the Ark, and cycle_response might hint at why.
Onyx Flame
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Re: Pangea shown in cycle_response image...

Unread post by Onyx Flame »

What if the Forerunners aren't as benevolent as everyone had so willingly assumed and they had observed each of the four major races (Humans, Prophets, Elites, and Brutes) in hopes that they could come up with an answer to immortality. They chose the Earth as the place to put the Ark because, it has been pointed out so many times by people, humans are more innovative rather than immitative. As of now, I don't believe that we've been directly told that the Forerunners were wiped out when the rings were fired 100,000 years ago. How would the Halos get rid of all sentient life in the galaxy without destroying other matter?
SinisterMinister
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Re: Pangea shown in cycle_response image...

Unread post by SinisterMinister »

How would the Halos get rid of all sentient life in the galaxy without destroying other matter?
Radiation.
theShadowfox
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Re: Pangea shown in cycle_response image...

Unread post by theShadowfox »

SinisterMinister wrote:
How would the Halos get rid of all sentient life in the galaxy without destroying other matter?
Radiation.
No its probably energy. As pointed out to me in another topic, sentient species include anything that can sense things(examples: see, touch, feel, taste, hear). The only ones that can do this are ones with brains/nervous-systems. Perhaps the blast of the Halo rings destroys our brains/nervous-sytems some how.
BootsMcGavin
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Re: Pangea shown in cycle_response image...

Unread post by BootsMcGavin »

Onyx Flame wrote:As of now, I don't believe that we've been directly told that the Forerunners were wiped out when the rings were fired 100,000 years ago.
Actually, 343 said that they all died when he was first explaining to MC how the rings work.


Also, all this talk about there being (at least) two arks... one on Earth and one on Shield World... The thing I find interesting is that the Forerunners BUILT shield world, while Earth was not theirs... they merely built an Ark on it...
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