perhaps we are looking for the wrong things

Wild, speculative theories born from the communications with AdjutantReflex.

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bovine politics
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Re: perhaps we are looking for the wrong things

Unread post by bovine politics »

KMS wrote:
bovine politics wrote: Why would the Flood do that? It makes no sense. If they had the ability to take over a ring, they would try to get off of it. Trying to hold the Forerunners hostage using their ring would come to no end. What would they do, give them a ship and doom the entire race? They'd let the Flood fire the installation before doing that.

The Monitors want to activate the rings. They have probably deduced, based on the analysis of their master's combat against the Flood, that there is no way to stop them besides activating the rings, and will attempt to do so the instant the Flood escape.

There is undoubtedly a failsafe where the installations cannot fire if the Flood are free. If the Flood are contained and all is well, than the Index is locked down and impossible to get to. Only when the Flood escape do the Monitors allow the Index to be removed.

No no, I meant, 'Say for instance the Covenant found the rings, WITHOUT awakening the flood. Meerly by having it they could hold it hostage. Whether they could truly activate it was a different thing. True, they could probably force their way into the Library, like they did in Delta Halo, and with luck, they could probably just take a reclaim with them and force them to take the index, and activate it.
Not referring to the flood.

EDIT:
Delta Halo, the Arbiter forced his way to the index, I imagine all you need is a reclaimer to grab it, and a reclaim to activate it. Delta Halo didn't seem that locked down, in my opinion, in terms of getting TO the index.
And in Delta Halo, the flood was all around you, Flood tentacles around the index, yet Miranda still grabbed it.

Regards,
KMS

Well, the Arbiter had disabled the containment shield, Gravemind has captured 2401 and probably cut him off from his Installation, leaving the Sentinels leaderless and disorganized, and at least one sentinel factory was shot down. The defense of the installation would probably have been more effective, had the Sentinels not been left to their own devices; instead of going after the Flood, they simply tried to kill everything in sight.

Miranda being able to retrieve the index, though, I dunno. All the flood in the area were dead, or at least wetting themselves in a corner, not to have just blitzed Miranda as soon as she touched the Index.

The weird thing? The Chief was able to get Installation 4's index, despite there being lots and lots of Flood around. Although Installation 5 seems to have had better Sentinels that Guilty Spark's( had PT not been out of commission), the actual Library complex was much less secure than Installation 4's. Just enter, and BOOM, Index.
nismo634
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Re: perhaps we are looking for the wrong things

Unread post by nismo634 »

and actually, now that im thinking about it.
If this ARG takes place in 2007, AR would be contacting us to give us information regarding the last halo firing.
alpha halo is still in contact at the moment. so the arbiter, MC, have nothing to do with this post.

what would the activation have to do with us? If we were meant to interact with the halo's/Ark...what could we do?
MC isnt around for another 500 years or so..(right?)

07.1.2007?

what could be occuring at the halo's at this moment?
just some begginer questions to throw out there to bubble those thinking heads of ours
bedlam
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Re: perhaps we are looking for the wrong things

Unread post by bedlam »

Give it time. I don't really think there's much to look for. You'll find what they want you to find, in time. It's basically a waiting game. My time my place.. yadda yadda. Rampant speculation is just a way to keep busy.
nismo634
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Re: perhaps we are looking for the wrong things

Unread post by nismo634 »

truth.
I dont know if this post belongs any more.


Mod, you can go ahead and lock this if you well please. you have the posters authority. along with your own ;)
Mikezoom
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Re: perhaps we are looking for the wrong things

Unread post by Mikezoom »

No don't lock it.

What a great read, so much speculation it should be moved into the speculation thread. Even if none of it is proven this is still the whole idea of this place. Keep speculating and sooner or later one of those ideas will lead us closer to understanding whats going on or it wont but its still one of the best reads on this forum atm.

KUDOS Guys. ;)

Mike.
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mnemesis
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Re: perhaps we are looking for the wrong things

Unread post by mnemesis »

Good point, Mikezoom.
bedlam
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Re: perhaps we are looking for the wrong things

Unread post by bedlam »

nismo634 wrote:We know that 343GS was present at the time the halo was fired first, we know this because in Halo one he says, "Last time you asked me, would I do it?"
And therefore the halo's werent fired the first time from the Ark, they were fired from Installation 04.
Not necessarily. We don't know for certain when this so called conversation took place. It's the type of conversation that must have happened over and over again between those that questioned the pyrrhic solution. It's not the type of conversation that only takes place right before the rings are activated. Hell, Chief never asked any questions, but he was oblivious to the rings purpose. My question is, why would the creators ask their creation for answers? I build your purpose, and then ask you if your program has changed?

Maybe the forerunners were mixed, or something. And an oblivious child that was low on the chain activated the rings in some kind of uprising. Or maybe his creators were long gone, but still around, in a sense. I don't really know how else to explain the question. If you know the pyrrhic solution, why question it? And why question a monitor that is programmed not to question it? Or maybe it was.. I don't know. Something doesn't make sense to me. A lot a something(s). The last time someone questioned a monitor, they looked at it as an oracle. Could the same be said for the first activation? Even if the one that turned the key was, in some way, its creator?
nismo634 wrote:truth.
I dont know if this post belongs any more.


Mod, you can go ahead and lock this if you well please. you have the posters authority. along with your own ;)
I never said you should lock the thread. Sorry if I sounded like a party pooper. I just want my chocolate milk.. I don't want to go searching for it. I want it handed to me!
Last edited by bedlam on Fri Jun 22, 2007 6:14 am, edited 2 times in total.
RogueDemonHunter
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Re: perhaps we are looking for the wrong things

Unread post by RogueDemonHunter »

Sorry to post the obvious but a recap of the messages we have got so far seems prudent:

Log 5 Transcript says basically: I'm putting a message in a bottle and hope one day people in the future will understand why we fired the rings... blah blah etc.

The array recorder data was a record of the firing while an istallation was under attack from the flood. The speaker is the one who threw the switch and did not hit the abort button (reversion sequence negative). Where should you be able to shut down any remotely activated halo? Why the Ark of course. So this is a message left in the Ark for future generations to discover.

i.e. An A.I. has woken up and wants us to have some info on the past but has been shut down before all could be told. It wanted to know today's date, and give us a warning that the flood are coming back etc. but it was shut down. Now the bottle has been broken and the message inside is starting to leak out. In a way we are "reclaiming" the info and histories of the halos.



Please break my theory, or flame me for stating the obvious.

RDH
John Rabbit
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Re: perhaps we are looking for the wrong things

Unread post by John Rabbit »

Just wanted to throw something out there:

The two monitors we've encountered thus far, aside from a numerical designation, apparently have some kind of "nickname" attached to it. The names of the 2 monitors we do know of make little to no logical sense as descriptors of anything, let alone sentient machines.

343 "Guilty Spark"
2401 "Penitent Tangent"

Perhaps:

--- "Adjutant Reflex" ?

Maybe he is another monitor. Or the monitor of the installation on Earth. Perhaps he was under attack/defeated by Gravemind, an intelligence/threat that was unforseen at the time of AR's construction as a monitor.
TheJoseph
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Re: perhaps we are looking for the wrong things

Unread post by TheJoseph »

Everyone here has some awesome ideas, and setting up this thread to discuss crazy ideas was a great one. Here's a few wild theories that I've cobbled together on my own or from the thoughts of others. If you deserve credit, let me know. Oh, and beware, there's a lot of SPOILERS FROM HALO 1 AND 2. Just in case everything wasn't spoiled already:

It could have been a Forerunner who fired the Halos, and that same forerunner could be the one who "killed" AdjutantReflex. Through cryogenic sleep or having his brain mapped into a "smart AI" like ours (but with a longer lifespan) he could still be around in our time, on the ark or any installation. Remember that Miranda Keyes removed the index from Delta Halo (Installation 05) right before it fired, so the countdown can be interrupted from the initiating Halo without the need of being physically present on the ark to cancel the firing.

A note on this Forerunner: He/She/It might have murdered their entire race on purpose. They had made plans to survive, but their shelters were empty. They had even contained the flood for future study and specifically to keep it alive - if something that was going to eradicate their entire race could be annihilated, why would they make certain that it would survive until someone else found it? Maybe they weren't expecting the Halos to fire so soon, or fire at all. Perhaps they left them there as a last-case scenario, with prerecorded messages of their defeat (the one who fired the device in the log needs not be the one who left the message in the video) - but what if they were simply betrayed at the moment of victory by one of their own? What if one of their own BECAME the gravemind? We've already seen how one was using Keyes in an irregular fashion. What if that was the beginning of a gravemind? And what if this Forerunner became the gravemind by choice, and retained control?

Another idea: The one who fired the Haloes said:
All I have left is the quiet of space to lull me to sleep. /
No pain. No remorse. Is that normal?
AR asks,
What has he learned in Eon’s slumber?
I doubt it’s mercy or sorrow.
Seems to support the idea that the one who first fired the array is now attacking AR.

The quote "Something that once was malevolent is stirring" could be the Flood (and/or Gravemind) waking up from the Covenant prodding them on other Halos perhaps. We don't know the range on their hive mind capability, but the ones in Halo 1 were awake when we got there, correct? Did the Covenant wake them up right before we arrived, or were they stirring long before? Another possibility is that the appearance/awakening of AR and this malevolent being could be linked to the time travel slipspace disturbance from Melissa in I Love Bees, if that story is allowed to be related. Probably a no on that one, given Bungie's iffy stance on "is it canon or not?"

And correct me if I'm wrong, but it's never stated that the Covenant have only visited the same two Halos as we did, or that they never saw the Flood before. They just couldn't fire the array without a reclaimer (read: human) anyway, and they certainly know their way around the technology. Two possibilties here: Either they can fire the array from the Ark without a Reclaimer, and that's why they want to get to it so desperately, OR the Prophets know that it's a safe haven, and want to secure it for themselves. It's shown that they already understand the Great Journey is going to wipe the galaxy of sentient life, and maybe they don't want to die.

Anyway, AR notes:
An older life is here with us. He is not as helpful as I. His motives are oblique and his alliances opaque.
He plays with time even as he hides in its folds.
He outranks me and anyway, is stronger.
This supports the idea of a Forerunner as the entity that "killed" AR. He outranks him. If this Forerunner became the Gravemind and retained its identity, it could still possibly outrank him. And you don't need to be an AI to delete some code. Even the Flood could interact with technology, and the Gravemind seemed to have the ability to use Delta Halo's teleport system. You don't even need to be present for tat matter, and obviously the Halos can communicate with each other (shown after Delta Halo's firing sequence was aborted and it sent an automated command to all other Halos). Why shouldn't they be in contact with the Ark as well? And why couldn't AR be deleted locally OR remotely? This shadowy figure could be "here with us" figuratively, watching from behind the scenes and interfacing at a distance. Remote desktop, anyone?

Another idea is that N'chala, the tribesman from the comics, was the one who activated the array of Halos. As the flood overtook the Forerunners before they had a chance to get to their shield planet bunkers, a monitor told him to fire the array to fix things.

And unless the monitors share a single intelligence (which doesn't seem likely given Guilty Spark and Penitent Tangent's actions), Guilty Spark WAS present at the time of the original firing, either physically or through a communications link. The question was asked of him, "What should I do? If it was your choice, would you do it?" He responded "yes," as the events of Halo 1 seem to show.

Also, they seem to see all human life (and possibly all non-flood life) in general as a collective. They automatically assume that the reclaimers know how what the Halo is for, and that they remember what the first reclaimer did. This is shown by Guilty Spark when speaking to Chief, and Penitent Tangent when speaking to the Arbiter. That supports the idea that a human fired the array in the first place - unless, of course, Forerunners were seen as reclaimers too. Or possibly, Forerunners were also human, which allows for the first firing to be performed by a Forerunner.

Anyway, I see now that I've gotten carried away with myself and rambled on far too long. Please find the holes in these arguments so that I can edit and delete parts to make it shorter.

EDIT: Several quotes point toward the malevolent force being a machine or AI - possibly the Forerunner turned into an AI construct? Anyway, from AR:
He was always better than I.
More powerful.
More intelligent.
A better machine.

Adjutant Reflex is terminated.
Attempt no further communication.
I am utilizing its matrix.
Everything is within protocol.
The mercy and sorrow quote still leads me to believe there's a non-machine brain hidden behind it all. And it wouldn't be a stretch to call the Gravemind and the flood a "machine." After all, we speak of a "war machine" when we describe an army composed of many people.
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