How the Ark could possibly save the Earth *Quite Off Topic*

[MulletedOne]

so when did we realise the thing in the trailer was the ark? i thought the ship in H2 was the ark. hmmm...

A piece of concept art seen in the Halo 2 DVD pointed out this object in the ground as the ark.

[endejas]

Slipspace Travel is an alternate for FTL. You don't actually go faster than light, you just get there faster than light.

What I'm trying to say is, what if the Halo pulse travels faster than light while staying in our space? No need for slipspace travel, or subspace.

[Sir Topham Hat]

We're operating in a sci-fi universe here. And it was stated in GoO that the Forerunner understood Slipspace much more intimately than we do. There was a quote from Halo 2 that said the Halos were communicating at super-luminal speeds, who knows how? We certainly have no clue.

[ODST Epsilon]

From what I learned from Physics, as long as something operates without mass, it could technically go faster than light, right? Cause anything with mass would reach a point where there just isn't enough energy to get it to go any faster, kind of like a car engine and the amount of HP needed to go 1 mph faster after a certain point. So I guess theoretically if it's some sort of energy weapon that operates with a particle that doesn't follow our laws, i.e. has no mass (somehow) it could go as fast as it wanted, potentially even making it so that life is destroyed, possibly by mucking up cell regeneration, but things like planets and what not are not touched which would explain why, after the rings were fired the first time, there's still stuff in the galaxy and not one big ass debris field.

[Sir Topham Hat]

Interesting theory Epsilon. I like your sub-mass idea. Maybe the halo shoots out near infinite number of bio-destructive particles, each encapsulated in timed slipspace bubbles!

[ODST Epsilon]

Interesting theory Epsilon. I like your sub-mass idea. Maybe the halo shoots out near infinite number of bio-destructive particles, each encapsulated in timed slipspace bubbles!

Like the UNSC's Slipspace cannon that sent out messages in small capsules. As long as a payload can be transported quickly, they could use something along the lines of a cluster bomb, just scattering trillions of trillions of particles that dropped out of sub-space and fried anything that was living, or had a certain brain wave pattern that the Flood used to hook onto people. Although that seems a little too specific for something that needs to be a mass cleansing tool and could leave room for a lot of misses.

[ACEfanatic02]

What I'm trying to say is, what if the Halo pulse travels faster than light while staying in our space?

Any time you exceed the speed of light, you cause a casualty violation. You would go backwards through time at a proportional rate to your speed. In theory.

Actually, that's all irrelevant, because to reach the speed of light requires an infinite amount of energy.

Slipspace is a 'cheat' -- instead of actually going faster than light, you take a shortcut through a separate dimension.

And while you're in that separate dimension, you can't affect objects in normal space.

-ACE

-EDIT- Epsilon: any object with no mass is converted to energy, which always--ALWAYS--goes at exactly the speed of light.

[Sir Topham Hat]

How about biologically attracted deadly particles? They drop out of slipspace when they detect life and destroy it.

[ODST Epsilon]

What I'm trying to say is, what if the Halo pulse travels faster than light while staying in our space?

Any time you exceed the speed of light, you cause a casualty violation. You would go backwards through time at a proportional rate to your speed. In theory.

Actually, that's all irrelevant, because to reach the speed of light requires an infinite amount of energy.

Slipspace is a 'cheat' -- instead of actually going faster than light, you take a shortcut through a separate dimension.

And while you're in that separate dimension, you can't affect objects in normal space.

-ACE

-EDIT- Epsilon: any object with no mass is converted to energy, which always--ALWAYS--goes at exactly the speed of light.

True. But there's a possibility within the Halo universe that the Forerunners were able to find something new that didn't follow this law.

But I think that I kind of modified my theory with the help of Sir Topham Hat where the actual "blast" of sorts could be more along the lines of a huge Slipspace rip that allowed a particle with mass, possibly along the lines of a Gamma ray, to be transported around the galaxy before being dropped back into normal space to do the actual damage.

[endejas]

Expanding on the theory, I think it'll spread the pulse (or projectiles) through slipspace and then drop the pulse from Slipspace to normal space.

Like a drop in water, the Halo pulse would expand through Slipspace until it is equal and then drop into normal space. With the Forerunner understanding of Slipspace I'm sure they could manage to do this incredibly rapidly.