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[Toa TAK]

I liked all of the Reach Spartans as well.

ODST and Reach had such strong characters that going back to Chief in 4 was a bit of a drag but thankfully they added more character to him at that point going forward.

Especially after A Fistful of Arrows, I do want more backstory on Noble Team. I didn't feel much for any of them except Jorge and that's due to lack of any meaningful and super subtle development.

This comic did a much better job at characterizing them then the actual game itself.

Staten should've written it.

 

[MaxRealflugel]

The stuff in Origins was so bonkers off the wall confusing it would be a pretty crazy mindwarp if it turned out to be the future we were seeing 5+ years early.

And I agree about the nature of the Forerunner construct in the trailer.

Haven't seen you on GAF before--you're the chap who runs The Secrets Within, correct?

Yep. That's me.

 

[Korten]

Hey guys!

So we got basically another teaser...

But...

ARBITER!!!!!!

 

[MaxRealflugel]

Indeed. Along with agent Locke of ONI.

 

[Korten]

Indeed. Along with agent Locke of ONI.

So, do you think the Arbiter will fight alongside Locke?

I personally hope so, it would suck for him to just be in the trailer and or just in a cutscene or two.

 

[Korten]

Hey, sorry for the double post, but I just wanted to inform you guys that I added Locke to the characters section, and I added a new section
called: Upcoming, to which shows Halo 5 Guardians, and Halo: Nightfall.

Should I add the Master Chief Collection to the upcoming? Now one could argue: No, because since this is a lore topic, or there is an argument for yes, since Halo 2
Anniversary will have terminals hinting for things to Halo 5, similar to Halo CEA having terminals hinting towards things in Halo 4.

Also I tried to add the TV show, but do we have an official logo for it yet?

 

[link1201]

Thanks OP. This is just what I needed. Subbed.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

Also I tried to add the TV show, but do we have an official logo for it yet?

Don't know if this is official but was on Halopedia.

 

[Korten]

Don't know if this is official but was on Halopedia.

I do think it's official, I guess for me the problem is the black background, since if you
look at my main post, everything has a black border, though it can't have a black
border.

I don't know... Think I should add it regardless?

 

[Fuchsdh]

It's basically just the Halo 4 logo and some text underneath it, not exactly exciting either way

 

[MrGreencastle]

I'm going to go ahead and guess that this piece of concept art is for Arby's "house", the Vadam Keep on Sanghelios.

-It has either: 2 moons (Suban and Qikost) or 2 visible of the 3 suns (Urs, Fied or Joori).
-Terrain is blatantly reddish in colour, which is how Sanghelios is described in most fiction that it is mentioned.
-Large statue on the right of what appears to be an Elite holding an energy sword (could be Ther Vadam, the founder of the Vadam state?).

-New teaser from the MC Collection shows Arbiter standing next to and talking to Agent Locke in some kind of room that opens up to reveal a setting that looks very much like the above concept art:

Notice Arbiter on the right side of the image, seconds later, you see him in a reflection on Locke's visor.

-This one is a stretch, but Arbiter's original name was Dervish (an Islamic "title"), and the architecture is very reminiscent of Indo-Islamic architecture with the domed buildings and such.

-Description of Vadam Keep from the books (Cole Protocol and The Thursday War) describes it as being very old, and cut out of the foot of Mount Kolaar, the central stronghold of the Vadam state. It is very well defensible, with high rock walls, and has many ancient passages into the mountain with an underground river for water and power. The halls of the keep itself are described as mostly being within the mountain, and the exterior as being part of the lower keep, carved into the cliffs and rock of the mountain, with high walls for defense (I see a wall in the back, near the cliffs).

-Some relevant excerpts-
From The Cole Protocol:

From the sides of Kolaar Mountain the Vadam keep looked out toward Vadam harbor, thirty miles away. They’d huddled against invaders throughout the ages here, and it was also from this well-defended location that they’d lashed back. The Prophets themselves had even tried but had been unable to properly destroy Vadam, among many others. They’d been too buried into the crags and cliffs of their mountains. Great Sangheili had built Vadam’s power up through the generations. Thel wanted to add his own name to the Vadam Saga, etched into the living rock of the walls under the mountain.

From The Thursday War:

The keep itself was more rock than masonry, one wing set into the lower slopes of Mount Kolaar itself. A huge hole in the east wall now gaped like a mouth open in outrage that anyone would dare to attack it.

Tart-Cart was circling over an area a kilometer or two south of Vadam keep, half of which seemed to be built right into the mountain itself. No wonder the Arbiter had been hard to shift.

 

[Whipped Spartan]

I am glad they added cinematics to prime us for 5. Intrigued by b this new story line started in 4.

 

[Caayn]

Nice collection of info you've got there MrGreencastle. It makes sense for it to be the Vadam Keep, would be interesting to see if we're allowed to actually go there in the final game.

Agent Locke just got a whole lot more interesting.

 

[Fuchsdh]

At this point I think you're correct and that we probably get cutscenes (but maybe gameplay?) on Sanghelios.

 

[Toa TAK]

At this point I think you're correct and that we probably get cutscenes (but maybe gameplay?) on Sanghelios.

Sanghelios gameplay for 5's finale would be sweet, with Thel at your side

 

[Darkmakaimura]

I've always wondered if we will see another alien race? Yeah, I know about the mysterious ship that crash landed but there's some people saying that could be an existing known species like surviving Forerunners or whatever. I mean, there's gotta be more out there than just Humans, the current Covenant, Forerunners and Floodcursors, right?

 

[Korten]

I've always wondered if we will see another alien race? Yeah, I know about the mysterious ship that crash landed but there's some people saying that could be an existing known species like surviving Forerunners or whatever. I mean, there's gotta be more out there than just Humans, the current Covenant, Forerunners and Floodcursors, right?

That's something I always wondered as well. Was there other species that the Forerunners indexed? Was there species who evolved during the 100k years (unlikely considering how long the process would take and since all life had been wiped out), and finally are ready to come out?

Maybe we will eventually see more Precursor creations pre-Forerunners? Maybe some actually survived?

snip

This whole thing get's me very excited for Halo 5! I really hope we get to see the Vadam Keep in gameplay, would be sweet.
Though it begs the question, if we do fight on Sangheilios.

Who are the enemies? Covenant Remnants? Prometheans? Flood..?

-------------------------------

Also another fun tid bit:

Tim Dadabo who voices 343 GS, does the audio book for Halo: Primordium, and in the final chapter, they actually
had him do (and with the voice modifier) his Guilty Spark voice, really cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLCey8rxkag&list=PLC6757997959D9160#t=504

So I guess you can take his: "Chakas" voice as how in canon Chakas sounded.

 

[Caayn]

I've always wondered if we will see another alien race? Yeah, I know about the mysterious ship that crash landed but there's some people saying that could be an existing known species like surviving Forerunners or whatever. I mean, there's gotta be more out there than just Humans, the current Covenant, Forerunners and Floodcursors, right?

Don't think that it was a remnant of the Forerunners that crashed on installation 04. The architecture doesn't match up and 343GS would've recognize it if it was Forerunner based on the technology and the signal that it transmitted.

343GS wonders if the species on board of that ship where part of the cataloged species. What's interesting is that 343GS was trying to decipher the distress call but we've yet to hear about the results, also the ship was described as a short-range ship indicating that it must've come from a species local to Soell the name of the local solar system.

What's more interesting is that we've yet to encounter this species. Did they became extinct, if so what was the cause? Have they been trying to hide from the rest of the galaxy, what's the reason behind this motive? Etc. etc. It's a species that brings more questions that answers with it .

 

[Darkmakaimura]

That's something I always wondered as well. Was there other species that the Forerunners indexed?

I'm making the assumption there would be.

In the Halo CE Anniversary terminals, it is estimated there could be 3,792 worlds capable of supporting sentient life within 25,000 light year range and maybe more than that of Halo installation 04.

 

[W.S.]

Especially after A Fistful of Arrows, I do want more backstory on Noble Team. I didn't feel much for any of them except Jorge and that's due to lack of any meaningful and super subtle development.

This comic did a much better job at characterizing them then the actual game itself.

Staten should've written it.

Huh, didn't even know that comic existed. I'll definitely be reading this later.

 

[MrGreencastle]

Nice collection of info you've got there MrGreencastle. It makes sense for it to be the Vadam Keep, would be interesting to see if we're allowed to actually go there in the final game.

Agent Locke just got a whole lot more interesting.

At this point I think you're correct and that we probably get cutscenes (but maybe gameplay?) on Sanghelios.

I don't doubt that we will play as Locke on Sanghelios.

Only other visual glimpses of Sanghelios that I can remember are from Halo Legends: The Duel (and these could be up to artistic interpretation). There may have been a couple other small glimpses as well in recent fiction, but nothing that good.

Note: these images are from a time much earlier in the Halo universe, when the Arbiter title was considered a very honorable rank. This Arbiter's refusal to accept the Covenant religion was what lead to it being made highly dishonorable by the Prophet in charge at the time. This is a long time before the Human-Covenant War, so architecture and land can change in that time and is not in the state of Vadam, as far as I know, but some of it does share some similarities with a few of the buildings in the concept art:

I've always wondered if we will see another alien race? Yeah, I know about the mysterious ship that crash landed but there's some people saying that could be an existing known species like surviving Forerunners or whatever. I mean, there's gotta be more out there than just Humans, the current Covenant, Forerunners and Floodcursors, right?

As for the mysterious ship, I'm currently working on somewhat of a theory concerning this and other things as they relate to some of the more cryptic fiction that we've seen in the past.

There are a few gaps in time that have yet to be fully filled out that are very interesting when you think about the events in the universe that have transpired over the past few years. The following text and speculation is highly disjointed, so beware, I still have some gaps to fill Also, there may be spoilers for pretty much every piece of fiction at some point in these posts, so watch out!

~Green's Musings Part One

Here are some images of said ship:

And the Sarcophagus that 343GS built around it after the distress beacon stopped. There were 7 flatlining monitors on-screen when this happened:

"My analysis shows that the mixture of gases coming from the ship matches the natural atmosphere of my Installation almost exactly. Perhaps the occupants, if they still live, were originally cataloged here."
... "But I do not understand why these sentients have not attempted to exit their vessel. Other than the leaking atmosphere, the only thing emanating from this wreckage is an automated distress call."
... "I am currently translating this automated broadcast. But with such a limited data-set, and no direct communication, I do not anticipate full comprehension. Given the short-range nature of this craft, it is likely that other vessels are nearby, but in accordance with procedure, I am blocking the distress call. No communication of the location of any Installation is permissible." -343GS, a mere ~60000 years after activation of the Halo Array.

We know that the Domain has been destroyed, so 343GS can't use that to find out what the broadcast says. He seems to believe that the ship is of a short-range nature, though he wouldn't be able to confirm it, and the existence of slipspace technology in the universe also has me skeptical of this conclusion. The broadcast repeated every 72.83 seconds. I'm still unsure of the relevancy of this (as was 343GS!).

"“But it is good to think our young will rise to another challenge, as brothers should, making trouble, finding strength.”-Riser, ancient-human character from Forerunner Trilogy.

Bornstellar felt this deeply, and even with his armour to protect him, the emotion was almost too much. “Hope,” was all he could say. Then they returned to the fish-ship and left the humans alone to find their way."-excerpt from Halo Rebirth, post Halo firing, Bornstellar/IsoDidact promised the rest of the surviving Forerunners would leave on an ACTUAL Great Journey, and never return to mettle in the affairs of the humans.

I highlight the fish-ship, as the human's description of some of the ships throughout the book is constantly relating it to fish. Interesting, anyway, as we are more familiar with the angular design of Forerunner architecture.

A guess? This could be some kind of a Forerunner ship. Or maybe the remnants of the humans that lived on the rings at some point. If so, what would they have had to say? It's hard to prove this, as you'd think 343 would be able to recognize it. And there's that strange language that we can't seem to relate to anything we've seen so far. (I'll discuss this again later, in a future post...there may be much more to this than meets the eye...)

Either way, since it is on Alpha Halo, this image from Halo Nightfall comes to mind for some reason:

"A strange and treacherous world exposes elite UNSC operatives to a much deeper danger."-from the Nightfall promotional material.
“A rising star in a futuristic army who is troubled by aspects of the military industrial complex he inhabits. Approaching combat situations with caution and logic, he inspires loyalty in his fellow Spartans” -from the Agent Locke/Marlowe casting reveal press material

I'll keep throwing down ideas. We know that Nightfall tells the origin story of Agent Locke in some manner. Why is the visual ID clearly of what I'm going to assume is a piece of the broken Alpha Halo? What could there possibly still be there that is so important that it is the titular image? I'm going to guess that Agent Locke and his team of ONI "Spartan Agents" visit here for some reason. Perhaps for this ship? I'm giddy at the thought. Perhaps he learns something here that causes him to question many things. And what about this much deeper danger? Does it have something to do with the Flood? Halo's were also vast research stations as well. Maybe... Or is it something else? I will come back to this later...

Another possibility: This promotional image is of a remnant piece of Installation 07, the last remaining of the original Halo Array, created by the Greater Ark (and "weaker" compared to the newer 6 Halos). These rings were 30 000km wide rather than the 10 000 of the 6 newer installations that were created by the newer Installation 00 - the Lesser Ark. After being severely damaged during one of the final battles of the Flood-Forerunner war, it shed many of it's parts (saved by IsoDidact and 343/Chakas as it passed around a planet), and reduced itself in size, becoming covered in perpetual clouds, forever hiding the atrocities committed by the Primordial, Mendicant Bias, and the Master Builder Faber (namely, crazy genocidal Flood experiments on native humans that lived on the Ring (Palace of Pain)... Food for though anyway. I still think it's the broken Alpha Halo.

To be continued...

 

[Tzeentch]

Only other visual glimpses of Sanghelios that I can remember are from Halo Legends: The Duel (and these could be up to artistic interpretation). There may have been a couple other small glimpses as well in recent fiction, but nothing that good.

Halo Legends is ... stylized. Consider it a "fever dream," to use Mr. Stinkles phrasing.

 

[aries_71]

Wait, when and how did the precursors transform into the flood. I missed that part.

 

[Black Mantis]

Wait, when and how did the precursors transform into the flood. I missed that part.

When the Forerunners overthrew them and drove them from the galaxy.

 

[MaxRealflugel]

I'm going to go ahead and guess that this piece of concept art is for Arby's "house", the Vadam Keep on Sanghelios.

-It has either: 2 moons (Suban and Qikost) or 2 visible of the 3 suns (Urs, Fied or Joori).
-Terrain is blatantly reddish in colour, which is how Sanghelios is described in most fiction that it is mentioned.
-Large statue on the right of what appears to be an Elite holding an energy sword (could be Ther Vadam, the founder of the Vadam state?).

-New teaser from the MC Collection shows Arbiter standing next to and talking to Agent Locke in some kind of room that opens up to reveal a setting that looks very much like the above concept art:

Notice Arbiter on the right side of the image, seconds later, you see him in a reflection on Locke's visor.

-This one is a stretch, but Arbiter's original name was Dervish (an Islamic "title"), and the architecture is very reminiscent of Indo-Islamic architecture with the domed buildings and such.

-Description of Vadam Keep from the books (Cole Protocol and The Thursday War) describes it as being very old, and cut out of the foot of Mount Kolaar, the central stronghold of the Vadam state. It is very well defensible, with high rock walls, and has many ancient passages into the mountain with an underground river for water and power. The halls of the keep itself are described as mostly being within the mountain, and the exterior as being part of the lower keep, carved into the cliffs and rock of the mountain, with high walls for defense (I see a wall in the back, near the cliffs).

-Some relevant excerpts-
From The Cole Protocol:



From The Thursday War:

I came to the same conclusion on my blog when the Halo 5 Guardians concept art was released. The architecture stood out to me.

 

[Random17]

Wait, when and how did the precursors transform into the flood. I missed that part.

They didn't transform; it was implied that the Flood was one of their many forms.


------
Anyway, the notion that Reach gets praise from a story perspective has me baffled. I know a lot of you guys didn't like Halo 4's story*, but come on, Reach is apparently considered to be good now?

Let's recap:

-Retconned basically everything from TFOR. Patching up job from 343i did little to improve it. Still have a busload of inconsistencies.
-Military incompetence from the UNSC's perspective.
-Poor voice acting (especially when compared to Halo 4)
-Set of mostly un-relatable characters. Some of them barely received any character development worth noting.

I don't agree with this opinion*

In all honestly, Halo 3 and Reach were fairly disappointing from a story perspective. Not to say that they weren't likable, it is just that Halo 3 had a number of big plotholes and pushed too hard in certain areas, e.g. a Human-Forerunner direct link when even the Terminals implied that there was no such thing. Notably, the fact that High Charity movement through the Portal was something Bungie overlooked. Not only is it bigger than the Portal's diameter by a factor of 3, but the sheer displacement of air from a 300km wide object hitting Earth's atmosphere would cause a global catastrophe. And no, High Charity did not FTL to the Ark, that would be silly for a variety of reasons in relation to the limitations of Covenant FTL travel. Other explanations include HC shrinking to the size of the Portal upon contact with it, and even going into slipspace into the Portal's area, but both of these are silly, and are otherwise still unexplained even if someone were to believe these reasons.

Halo 4's biggest issue was that it was too short/reliant on EU material. I still think 343i did a pretty good job from the lore perspective in the campaign, although Spartan Ops and Escalation were awful.

 

[MaxRealflugel]

Halo: Reach story analysis -

Spoiler

everyone dies

For further reference see

Spoiler

A Song of Ice and Fire

series AKA

Spoiler

Game of Thrones

 

[MrGreencastle]

Halo: Reach story analysis -

Spoiler

everyone dies

For further reference see

Spoiler

A Song of Ice and Fire

series AKA

Spoiler

Game of Thrones

Interesting...

 

[aries_71]

Halo: Reach story analysis -

Spoiler

everyone dies

For further reference see

Spoiler

A Song of Ice and Fire

series AKA

Spoiler

Game of Thrones

Spoiler

Jun

did not die.

 

[Tzeentch]

They didn't transform; it was implied that the Flood was one of their many forms.

-- The Primordial lays it all out (if you trust what it says). The Flood ARE Precursor, but a particularly degenerate form that couldn't reconstruct itself back to their original compound form ... but still useful for sowing misery when the Timeless One was able to contact them and become the first Gravemind.

And no, High Charity did not FTL to the Ark, that would be silly for a variety of reasons in relation to the limitations of Covenant FTL travel.

-- What limitations. Citation needed.
-- The only inconsistency is how Gravemind a) Knew where the Ark was after the portal opened and b) Why/how he apparently took every Flood with him.

Halo 4's biggest issue was that it was too short/reliant on EU material. I still think 343i did a pretty good job from the lore perspective in the campaign, although Spartan Ops and Escalation were awful.

-- Aside from throwing Requiem into the sun because ... reasons ... I thought it was pretty good. Easy to follow, some nice characterization (of Lasky, in particular, but even Palmer was fine in the cutscenes).

 

[Fuchsdh]

-- The Primordial lays it all out (if you trust what it says). The Flood ARE Precursor, but a particularly degenerate form that couldn't reconstruct itself back to their original compound form ... but still useful for sowing misery when the Timeless One was able to contact them and become the first Gravemind.

-- What limitations. Citation needed.
-- The only inconsistency is how Gravemind a) Knew where the Ark was after the portal opened and b) Why/how he apparently took every Flood with him.

-- Aside from throwing Requiem into the sun because ... reasons ... I thought it was pretty good. Easy to follow, some nice characterization (of Lasky, in particular, but even Palmer was fine in the cutscenes).

I think of the possible issues with the Flood showing up, the Gravemind bringing everything with him was fairly minor—the Terminals explain that the Gravemind when its core is threatened essentially gathers everything to it. It was going to the Ark, so everything followed.

I'd never really considered issues with how High Charity got to the Ark, actually. It doesn't seem like it would fit through the portal, but then how did it know the location to FTL to on its own steam? One possibility is Cortana "knew" it—seems possible the Halos might have the destination from which they were sent, and so it was in Cortana's memory but only accessed by the Gravemind.

Dropping a single cruiser with Flood off at Earth was what struck me as more bizarre, just because it's never understood exactly how they went from "quarantining the Halo" in Ghosts of Onyx to "oh forget about High Charity". It's possible the Brutes & Elite's truce broke down or they just weren't able to arrest High Charity once it was overrun. Would make a good fill-in story (Evolutions 2 PLZ.)

Throwing Requiem into the sun made sense to me. It was Jul's gambit—better to destroy Requiem and deny the UNSC its secrets than let it fall into their hands. Remember that he's not religiously motivated so much as politically—he wants the UNSC to not be a threat, and he went looking for the Didact as a ally against a common enemy.

 

[MrGreencastle]

-- The Primordial lays it all out (if you trust what it says). The Flood ARE Precursor, but a particularly degenerate form that couldn't reconstruct itself back to their original compound form ... but still useful for sowing misery when the Timeless One was able to contact them and become the first Gravemind.

-- What limitations. Citation needed.
-- The only inconsistency is how Gravemind a) Knew where the Ark was after the portal opened and b) Why/how he apparently took every Flood with him.

-- Aside from throwing Requiem into the sun because ... reasons ... I thought it was pretty good. Easy to follow, some nice characterization (of Lasky, in particular, but even Palmer was fine in the cutscenes).

Must have ran out of time for this, then:

 

[Tzeentch]

I'd never really considered issues with how High Charity got to the Ark, actually. It doesn't seem like it would fit through the portal, but then how did it know the location to FTL to on its own steam? One possibility is Cortana "knew" it—seems possible the Halos might have the destination from which they were sent, and so it was in Cortana's memory but only accessed by the Gravemind.

-- I have no problem believing it slipspaced directly to the Ark once it knew where it was.

Dropping a single cruiser with Flood off at Earth was what struck me as more bizarre, just because it's never understood exactly how they went from "quarantining the Halo" in Ghosts of Onyx to "oh forget about High Charity". It's possible the Brutes & Elite's truce broke down or they just weren't able to arrest High Charity once it was overrun. Would make a good fill-in story (Evolutions 2 PLZ.)

-- We can infer from the entry for Shadow of Intent in the VG that the Flood were attempting to spread out from Charity using vessels they had captured, and we know that particular ship was a herald (based on the Evolutions story). I think that once the vessel approached Earth (it could have exited slipspace outside Earth first to survey) it saw that the portal was almost open and Gravemind crashed the ship in a desperate attempt to a) stall for time and b) use the nearby Flood to gather enough information to determine where the Dreadnought exited.

Throwing Requiem into the sun made sense to me. It was Jul's gambit—better to destroy Requiem and deny the UNSC its secrets than let it fall into their hands. Remember that he's not religiously motivated so much as politically—he wants the UNSC to not be a threat, and he went looking for the Didact as a ally against a common enemy.

-- To me it seemed a bit out of character for the Didact to entrust that kind of responsibility to his Covenant minions.

Must have ran out of time for this, then

-- Interesting. Will see if I can find out the context of that. Presumably from early plans for Spartan Ops season 2.

 

[GringoSuave89]

I've always considered Halo Legends: The Dual to be more stylized than what's actually canon. It may more like a old samurai movie than anything.

 

[Random17]

-- What limitations. Citation needed.

FTL directly to the Ark without a slipspace portal would be the limitation. Covenant FTL was calced at around ~900 LY per day based on the minimum estimate of Regret's journey in Halo 2. (minimum distance to Installation 05 from Earth). Either way, the Ark is too far away for a quick journey.

Therefore, High Charity would have made it to the Ark using the Portal. Also, note that the Ark's location should have been unknown to the Gravemind. Back in the Forerunner Flood War, even Mendicant Bias was planning to use a Portal to the Lesser Ark. This is a significant issue in Halo 3's story. Both explanations for the movement of High Charity are problematic.

http://www.halopedia.org/Battle_of_the_Maginot_Sphere -> Will do for now

 

[MrGreencastle]

-- Interesting. Will see if I can find out the context of that. Presumably from early plans for Spartan Ops season 2.

According to the artist's DeviantArt page:

Here's a piece I did for Axis Animation for a pitch they were preparing for Halo 4 Spartan Ops animated series. One of their ideas was to make a stylized motion comic, not a full 3d animation. This could have been the style of the whole thing.

Lot's of cool little concepts there, too.

FTL directly to the Ark without a slipspace portal would be the limitation. Covenant FTL was calced at around ~900 LY per day based on the minimum estimate of Regret's journey in Halo 2. (minimum distance to Installation 05 from Earth). Either way, the Ark is too far away for a quick journey.

Therefore, High Charity would have made it to the Ark using the Portal. Also, note that the Ark's location should have been unknown to the Gravemind. Back in the Forerunner Flood War, even Mendicant Bias was planning to use a Portal to the Lesser Ark. This is a significant issue in Halo 3's story. Both explanations for the movement of High Charity are problematic.

http://www.halopedia.org/Battle_of_the_Maginot_Sphere -> Will do for now

That is, unless the Gravemind was more powerful than we thought at this point, and was able to somehow tap into neural physics to transport High Charity. The Dreadnought Keyship was supposed to be the powersource for High Charity, so without it I'm not sure if it could have made its own slipspace portal using Covenant or Forerunner tech. I don't remember it ever going through the portal created at Voi, it came through slipspace in the cutscene. We know from the Halo 3 terminals that when the core was threatened, the Flood would assemble all together (which as far as we know, aside from the spore on the Spirit of Fire, is what happened), so it kinda makes sense, perhaps he had enough biomass to access a neural physics portal to get there... Yeah, kinda stretching a bit, hard to say.

Also, remember at this point, Cortana and the Gravemind were effectively one mind, aside from the "solution" and her activation Index from Installation 04. We still don't fully know what exactly happened between them, aside from what we've heard from Cortana's perspective (which has considerable gaps in time) from Evolutions.

 

[Buwx]

I don't doubt that we will play as Locke on Sanghelios.

Only other visual glimpses of Sanghelios that I can remember are from Halo Legends: The Duel (and these could be up to artistic interpretation). There may have been a couple other small glimpses as well in recent fiction, but nothing that good.

Note: these images are from a time much earlier in the Halo universe, when the Arbiter title was considered a very honorable rank. This Arbiter's refusal to accept the Covenant religion was what lead to it being made highly dishonorable by the Prophet in charge at the time. This is a long time before the Human-Covenant War, so architecture and land can change in that time and is not in the state of Vadam, as far as I know, but some of it does share some similarities with a few of the buildings in the concept art:





As for the mysterious ship, I'm currently working on somewhat of a theory concerning this and other things as they relate to some of the more cryptic fiction that we've seen in the past.

There are a few gaps in time that have yet to be fully filled out that are very interesting when you think about the events in the universe that have transpired over the past few years. The following text and speculation is highly disjointed, so beware, I still have some gaps to fill Also, there may be spoilers for pretty much every piece of fiction at some point in these posts, so watch out!

~Green's Musings Part One

Here are some images of said ship:



And the Sarcophagus that 343GS built around it after the distress beacon stopped. There were 7 flatlining monitors on-screen when this happened:





We know that the Domain has been destroyed, so 343GS can't use that to find out what the broadcast says. He seems to believe that the ship is of a short-range nature, though he wouldn't be able to confirm it, and the existence of slipspace technology in the universe also has me skeptical of this conclusion. The broadcast repeated every 72.83 seconds. I'm still unsure of the relevancy of this (as was 343GS!).



I highlight the fish-ship, as the human's description of some of the ships throughout the book is constantly relating it to fish. Interesting, anyway, as we are more familiar with the angular design of Forerunner architecture.

A guess? This could be some kind of a Forerunner ship. Or maybe the remnants of the humans that lived on the rings at some point. If so, what would they have had to say? It's hard to prove this, as you'd think 343 would be able to recognize it. And there's that strange language that we can't seem to relate to anything we've seen so far. (I'll discuss this again later, in a future post...there may be much more to this than meets the eye...)

Either way, since it is on Alpha Halo, this image from Halo Nightfall comes to mind for some reason:





I'll keep throwing down ideas. We know that Nightfall tells the origin story of Agent Locke in some manner. Why is the visual ID clearly of what I'm going to assume is a piece of the broken Alpha Halo? What could there possibly still be there that is so important that it is the titular image? I'm going to guess that Agent Locke and his team of ONI "Spartan Agents" visit here for some reason. Perhaps for this ship? I'm giddy at the thought. Perhaps he learns something here that causes him to question many things. And what about this much deeper danger? Does it have something to do with the Flood? Halo's were also vast research stations as well. Maybe... Or is it something else? I will come back to this later...

Another possibility: This promotional image is of a remnant piece of Installation 07, the last remaining of the original Halo Array, created by the Greater Ark (and "weaker" compared to the newer 6 Halos). These rings were 30 000km wide rather than the 10 000 of the 6 newer installations that were created by the newer Installation 00 - the Lesser Ark. After being severely damaged during one of the final battles of the Flood-Forerunner war, it shed many of it's parts (saved by IsoDidact and 343/Chakas as it passed around a planet), and reduced itself in size, becoming covered in perpetual clouds, forever hiding the atrocities committed by the Primordial, Mendicant Bias, and the Master Builder Faber (namely, crazy genocidal Flood experiments on native humans that lived on the Ring (Palace of Pain)... Food for though anyway. I still think it's the broken Alpha Halo.

To be continued...

I'm just going to let you know that your theory has half blown my mind. I completely forgot about that Terminal. I remember being really confused by it... But this wouldn't be the first time that cryptic messages paved a road for future Halo lore.

I'm pretty sure it's been said already, but Halo Wars' legendary ending (if you could call it that) really set up what's been revealed in Halo: Escalation.

Serina: "Captain. Wake up. Something has happened."

If you've read the latest issue of Escalation, you understand the correlation.

 

[SenjutsuSage]

I am glad they added cinematics to prime us for 5. Intrigued by b this new story line started in 4.

Yep, and I honestly think we saw locke in Halo 4. I wish with every bone in my body that this guy interrogating Halsey in this scene, especially with the degree of interest he showcased in the Chief, ends up being Locke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKanxNE-FT4

Who else is with me!? I want this interrogator to end up being Locke.

 

[Korten]

Yep, and I honestly think we saw locke in Halo 4. I wish with every bone in my body that this guy interrogating Halsey in this scene, especially with the degree of interest he showcased in the Chief, ends up being Locke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKanxNE-FT4

Who else is with me!? I want this interrogator to end up being Locke.

Unlikely, since Mike Colter, is set to play Locke in Nightfall, and if you look at the small glimpses of the interrogator, it's clearly they're white and Mike Colter is black...

I mean I guess it's possible he got a pigment surgery inbetween Halo 4 and 5, but unlikely. XD

 

[nath999]

Yep, and I honestly think we saw locke in Halo 4. I wish with every bone in my body that this guy interrogating Halsey in this scene, especially with the degree of interest he showcased in the Chief, ends up being Locke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKanxNE-FT4

Who else is with me!? I want this interrogator to end up being Locke.

The questions he is asking don't really make much sense if he was another Spartan but you do have me wondering who that guy is now, I never really thought about it before now.

 

[Heretic]

Yep, and I honestly think we saw locke in Halo 4. I wish with every bone in my body that this guy interrogating Halsey in this scene, especially with the degree of interest he showcased in the Chief, ends up being Locke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKanxNE-FT4

Who else is with me!? I want this interrogator to end up being Locke.

Doubtful since they wouldn't be looking for him if they thought he was dead.

Welcome back, btw!

 

[MrGreencastle]

Yep, and I honestly think we saw locke in Halo 4. I wish with every bone in my body that this guy interrogating Halsey in this scene, especially with the degree of interest he showcased in the Chief, ends up being Locke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKanxNE-FT4

Who else is with me!? I want this interrogator to end up being Locke.

Made a similar guess a while back in the Halo 4 OT, but I'll link it here. I was convinced that's who it was, but the skin thing definitely throws it off. However, Halsey did recognize that he was something other than ONI in the cutscene. That clever Dr.

While that would be cool, would it really make sense in the timeline? Halsey was being interrogated, then was later kidnapped. MC was with the UNSC after that interrogation took place, so if Locke was looking for MC then surely he would've found him already.

Interesting though if they connect that.

More speculation: I don't think he was looking for Chief at this point, rather, trying to glean information about him from Halsey. Or force some sort of admission from her.

This part stands out especially, when you listen to the intonations and reaction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbjA6rB98Yk#t=135

Interrogator: "Do you believe the Master Chief succeeded because he was, at his core, broken?"
Halsey: "What does John have to do with this? …you want to replace him."
Interrogator: "The Master Chief is dead."
Halsey: "His file reads 'Missing in Action'."
Interrogator: Catherine, Spartans never die?

He challenges her, almost angrily when he says the word broken - and immediately Halsey recognizes something weird about that question, and deduces his intent.

He says the Master Chief is dead... seems almost sombre-like.

Now in the timeline, at this point, everyone believes Chief is dead - even this character. So when Halsey says he's MIA, he sort of challenges the adage of "Spartans Never Die" in a pretty condescending tone.

I think he wants to be the "next" Chief. The new beacon of humanity, the celebrity. He seems almost jealous, as if trying to specifically discredit Chief (at first seems like he's trying to discredit the Spartan II program, but his fishing tips Halsey off). This could also just be her first finding out about the Spartan IV program, and this guy is one of the designers.

Now Chief coming back during Halo 4 makes it kind of weird... though he didn't have all that much down time, really. Wild theory? This Agent Locke guy tries to kill Chief after Halo 4, when he goes to investigate New Phoenix, hence the broken armour and cloak in the reveal trailer. Maybe under instruction of Osman at ONI, maybe under his own volition. Chief takes off after finding something... maybe a message from someone. I guess that next Escalation comic vol. 8[7-9] would debunk this.

Arbiter seems to not trust the guy, based on what he says in the teaser, but he also seems to think that he is the only hope in finding Chief. Arbiter is responsible for "turning" Agent Locke.

Halo 5 Guardians[of the Mantle]. Chief, Arbiter, Agent Locke.

--

Well she says the others were naval Intel and you aren't. Doesn't Locke have the ONI tag on his armour? So he would be naval Intel... Not saying he couldn't have joined after this took place.

More wild speculation: She assumes as much. Halsey is incredibly perceptive, she clues in right as the guy asking: "...do you think the... Spartans' lack of basic humanity helped?" She says, body language suggesting quite surprised or confused: "What are you after? The others before you were Naval Intelligence... but you... you're something else." Doesn't necessarily mean he isn't ONI. I imagine only ONI would be allowed to even interrogate Halsey. I take it as her seeing through that, as him being something "more", with an ulterior motive not directly aligning with the previous ONI interrogations. Was the Spartan IV program hidden from ONI? Not that I know. So why would this guy be asking questions like this?

He's trying to get her to admit that the Spartan II's, and Chief specifically are flawed due to their lack of basic humanity. Why? Because he is obsessed (maybe "brainwashed" by ONI). Because he wants to be Chief (Halsey: "You want to replace him"). Though Halo 4's story, and ending, shows us that Chief is discovering his humanity, so we know that that isn't true.

Also, he is in shadows the entire time. Why wouldn't they show the interrogator? What would that accomplish? Who is this guy? Why is he being hidden from us, when no one else related to the Spartan IV program or ONI itself was. They're hiding him for a reason. Insurrectionist? Top-secret Covie informant? I can't really think of a good reason other than we aren't supposed to know yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mui5LuTQReg

We see Locke in a Covenant-looking room somewhere, maybe Sanghelios[probably Vadam Keep], observing floating video holograms of Chief, from scenes in previous Halo games (and the Halo 5 reveal teaser).

If you pause the video at just the right time (about 1:32), you see he is with the Arbiter standing right next to him, and also a couple seconds later reflecting in his visor.

Arbiter's message to Locke in the teaser:

To find him, you have to forget the stories, forget the legends.
You have to do more than walk in his footsteps, for he is more than the sum of his actions.
I tell you this, not because I trust you, Agent Locke, but because ALL our lives are at stake. Because the seeds of our future are sewn in his past.

Arbiter is being pretty poetic here. [First, we know they are looking for him.] Telling him to forget the stories (his preconceived notions of who and what Chief really is[?]). That he is more than the sum of his actions (succeeding at saving humanity, which the interrogator presses Halsey is due to his lack of humanity). Arbiter doesn't trust him. Why? Because he, or ONI, tried to kill Chief. But this guy is so good, "do more than walk in his footsteps" (not just replacing Chief, live through Chief's exploits via Halo MC Collection, Prologue and Epilogue[snip]). Arbiter seems to fear some greater threat, and that they must work together to find Chief, because "the seeds of our future are s[o]wn in his past". (maybe a geas of some kind? possibly related to Cortana? Maybe related to the Librarian's little enhancement that she gave to Chief? I don't know what this means...).

I'm going too crazy in this I think, lol. But that's my theory.
/wildspeculation

The questions he is asking don't really make much sense if he was another Spartan but you do have me wondering who that guy is now, I never really thought about it before now.

I definitely he has shared interests with the Agent Locke (not convinced anymore that he is the same person), or the entity overseeing Locke [Osman?], at least that will have been the case at some point.

Either way, there's clearly a hell of a lot more going on here than we think. I'm working on this to near obsession, lol... more musings incoming soon.

 

[Random17]

I don't remember it ever going through the portal created at Voi, it came through slipspace in the cutscene.

Well, it exited out of a slipspace rupture, which was really no different to the Elite fleet appearing out of nowhere over the Ark. Both came through the Portal, but it is impossible to tell unless you actually seem them entering it.

We know from the Halo 3 terminals that when the core was threatened, the Flood would assemble all together (which as far as we know, aside from the spore on the Spirit of Fire, is what happened), so it kinda makes sense, perhaps he had enough biomass to access a neural physics portal to get there... Yeah, kinda stretching a bit, hard to say.

The problem with this speculation is that neural physics wasn't even a thing until Halo Cryptum, which was released a few years after Halo 3. Based on the knowledge we had at the time, including the Halo 3 terminals, it was definitely a major oversight on Bungie's part.

And I doubt the neural physics portal was that effective; it would have made the battle of the Maginot Sphere a cakewalk for the Flood if that was the case.

Also, remember at this point, Cortana and the Gravemind were effectively one mind, aside from the "solution" and her activation Index from Installation 04. We still don't fully know what exactly happened between them, aside from what we've heard from Cortana's perspective (which has considerable gaps in time) from Evolutions.

Actually, Halo Evolutions; Human Weakness went over this in a fair amount of detail. This is the one contribution to the Halo universe from Karen Traviss that I actually liked.

I haven't read Evolutions in years, so I'll just drop this here out of laziness.

http://www.halopedia.org/Human_Weakness

Throughout the story, the Gravemind tortures Cortana in an attempt to force her to give it knowledge about Earth's defenses. The Gravemind taunts her with the vast amount of knowledge which it could offer her, before causing crippling self-doubt in Cortana by mysteriously accessing her files, making it appear as though it can read her mind. Eventually, it tries to convince her that she means nothing to her human creators, especially Dr. Halsey, and to John-117. The Gravemind also shows Cortana "what it is like to be human" by showing her the memories of its victims, including Eugene Yate, a Marine in the UNSC who had been consumed by the Flood, therefore forcing her into painful torture as she relived his violent memories. It even allows her message about the Portal to be sent to Earth (although it didn't know the contents of the message). Eventually, Cortana begins to succumb to the Gravemind, but her confidence is renewed as she discovers John-117 has arrived to rescue her. The story ends with John-117 rescuing Cortana in a scene largely reminiscent of the one in Halo 3.

Over the course of the story, Cortana also thinks to herself of what she did to Colonel James Ackerson, and how she began to regret those actions. The short story also mentions the connections between humans and AIs, as when Cortana is in control of a starship, the ship is essentially her body and the sensors act as her senses. She explains that she is not all that unlike a human, and that each second to a human provides much greater amounts of time for her to process information. This story also explores the possibility that Cortana has gone Rampant after all the data she has absorbed on Alpha Halo. The story also provides an explanation to the Cortana and Gravemind moments in Halo 3, revealing that the Gravemind had hacked into Cortana's audio output.

TLDR: Gravemind slowly drives Cortana insane, extracting data on Earth's defenses and the Portal. Cortana dummies him by revealing said information, while hiding the Index.

Now in the timeline, at this point, everyone believes Chief is dead - even this character. So when Halsey says he's MIA, he sort of challenges the adage of "Spartans Never Die" in a pretty condescending tone.

Adding onto this point, in Escalation, they have dropped the MIA thing for the Spartan Branch of the UNSC, preferring to openly honour Spartans for their sacrifices in battle.

I think this also symbolizes how the interrogator believes Halsey to be a relic of the last war. Times are changing!

 

[Korten]

"the seeds of our future are s[o]wn in his past". (maybe a geas of some kind? possibly related to Cortana? Maybe related to the Librarian's little enhancement that she gave to Chief? I don't know what this means...).

Honestly I think this might be the case, I think you're right about it possibly referring to the enhancement that she gave to the Chief. What if the UrDidact has return with another Composer? One that's far stronger than the previous one, and that's why they need to
find the Chief because inside him is a way to discover how to make others immune to the
composer?

My own wild theory.

Also great having ya MrGreenCastle, you're presence in this thread is welcomed.

Edit:

Also question for everyone: Should I replace Hood's image with:

http://www.halopedia.org/images/b/bd/H2A_-_Hood.png

And Johnsons with:

http://www.halopedia.org/images/3/39/H2A-SgtAveryJohnson-Main.jpg

 

[soulassssns]

Unlikely, since Mike Colter, is set to play Locke in Nightfall, and if you look at the small glimpses of the interrogator, it's clearly they're white and Mike Colter is black...

I mean I guess it's possible he got a pigment surgery inbetween Halo 4 and 5, but unlikely. XD

So a person of another race cannot voice a character of another?

 

[Fuchsdh]

So a person of another race cannot voice a character of another?

Not what he's saying--(and no; after all Nolan North played Romeo.) He's saying since Locke's dark-skinned it would have been odd to make him the same person as a clearly white character in the cinematic. Not saying they wouldn't do it—obviously the casting for Nightfall took place well after Halo 4, and they might have gone with a black actor on acting ability rather than only looking for white people for a character they barely introduced.

I guess a lot of theories hinge on just when Halsey's being interrogated as well. Clearly it's pre-Halo 4, but when, exactly? Shortly after being arrested? Years later? Feel like the scene has to be closer to 2553 than 2558 given that it seems odd they'd randomly interrogate her years afterwards.

As for Arby, I'm still uncertain about whether they'd actually bring in the high sci-fi stuff from Greg Bear's stuff in a big way (geas, etc.) "The seeds of our future are sown in his past" can just be florid prose for "his actions have influenced our future.

 

[Mindwipe]

I'd never really considered issues with how High Charity got to the Ark, actually. It doesn't seem like it would fit through the portal, but then how did it know the location to FTL to on its own steam? One possibility is Cortana "knew" it—seems possible the Halos might have the destination from which they were sent, and so it was in Cortana's memory but only accessed by the Gravemind.

Finding the Ark doesn't seem too hard - the Gravemind could have sent ships through the Portal and transmitted the location through the other side once the portal had been opened. And I'm not sure the size matters after wibbley wobbley portal physics. It might even just expand to encompass bigger ships on demand.

Throwing Requiem into the sun made sense to me. It was Jul's gambit—better to destroy Requiem and deny the UNSC its secrets than let it fall into their hands. Remember that he's not religiously motivated so much as politically—he wants the UNSC to not be a threat, and he went looking for the Didact as a ally against a common enemy.

It's more that it makes no sense for Requiem to have a "push into the Sun button" and that it's an awful trope. It's not even one that makes a lot of sense - normally the powerful load of alien weapons is destroyed at the end to keep things balanced at least maintains the status quo, but Onyx happened so the UNSC have a bunch of this stuff anyway.

 

[MrGreencastle]

Well, it exited out of a slipspace rupture, which was really no different to the Elite fleet appearing out of nowhere over the Ark. Both came through the Portal, but it is impossible to tell unless you actually seem them entering it.
]The problem with this speculation is that neural physics wasn't even a thing until Halo Cryptum, which was released a few years after Halo 3. Based on the knowledge we had at the time, including the Halo 3 terminals, it was definitely a major oversight on Bungie's part.

Ok sure it was an oversight on Bungie's part I suppose, haha, no doubt. Not sure what more there is to think about other than trying to bend the fiction to the error.

Actually, Halo Evolutions; Human Weakness went over this in a fair amount of detail. This is the one contribution to the Halo universe from Karen Traviss that I actually liked.

I haven't read Evolutions in years, so I'll just drop this here out of laziness.

http://www.halopedia.org/Human_Weakness


TLDR: Gravemind slowly drives Cortana insane, extracting data on Earth's defenses and the Portal. Cortana dummies him by revealing said information, while hiding the Index.

I've read it (this past weekend most recently, haha), and I disagree. We learn a lot, yes, but we see what's happening from Cortana's perspective, and there are still considerable gaps in time - Cortana is basically being accelerated/forced into rampancy (or similar), and fusing with the Gravemind. What are[were?] the implications of that for her? What about for the Gravemind? I think this is one of the important things to think about, and I still believe there are seeds here...[is there more to this than meets the eye?]

Adding onto this point, in Escalation, they have dropped the MIA thing for the Spartan Branch of the UNSC, preferring to openly honour Spartans for their sacrifices in battle.

I think this also symbolizes how the interrogator believes Halsey to be a relic of the last war. Times are changing!

Indeed they are.

Honestly I think this might be the case, I think you're right about it possibly referring to the enhancement that she gave to the Chief. What if the UrDidact has return with another Composer? One that's far stronger than the previous one, and that's why they need to
find the Chief because inside him is a way to discover how to make others immune to the
composer?

My own wild theory.

Also great having ya MrGreenCastle, you're presence in this thread is welcomed.

Thanks!

 

[Korten]

So a person of another race cannot voice a character of another?

I think you misunderstand. Halo Nightfall is live-action, so it's safe to assume that if Mike Colter is playing Locke, that's what in canon (or close to it), what Locke looks like under his helmet.

So it's very unlikely they would have Mike Colter playing a white character in live-action...

 

[MrGreencastle]

Note: The following text is highly disjointed, so beware. There will also be spoilers to pretty much every piece of fiction at some point, probably...

~Green's Musings Part Two

Spartan Ops takes place 6 months after the events of Halo 4. Chief supposedly takes off within 72 hours after the events of Halo 4. Why? What did he find? That's a big gap in time, which should be discussed next week beginning in Escalation 7... one of the covers (shown above) reveals the UrDidact punching Chief in the face. Could that be related to his crack in the Halo 5 reveal teaser trailer? Is the UrDidact really back? Hard to say... Though the speech at the end of Halo 4 seems to suggest so, assuming it is spoken during present day. This is still entirely up to interpretation, I think, so I won't use this a basis just yet...

At the end of Spartan Ops, we know that Halsey has half of the Janus Key (which when whole reveals the real-time location of all Forerunner technology) with an objective from Librarian's personality essence to "bring it to the Absolute Record, and use what she finds there to propel humankind".

Propel Humankind? By what means? If the all Forerunner technology is revealed by connecting the two halves of the Janus Key, then what is the Absolute Record for? Absolute, from wiki: "The Absolute is the concept of an unconditional reality which transcends limited, conditional, everyday existence." hmmm... and Record: "a thing constituting a piece of evidence about the past, especially an account of an act or occurrence kept in writing or some other permanent form."

I have an idea, but first some history

"The records don't always stay the same. Sometimes they change. It is not known why."-IsoDidact
"Like real memories."-Chakas/343GS from Halo Cryptum

The Domain was like the memory of the experiences within the galaxy(and perhaps more), the Precursors' collective consciousness and experience. The Domain was the soul and record of all things, later tapped into by the Forerunners and proved to be an incredibly useful technology. Precursor "technology" was constructed from the concept of "neural physics" (basically "physical" manifestations of the Galaxy/Universe's collective consciousness...yeah...that's some heavy stuff...we are the universe experiencing itself subjectively, etc). A sort of "living brain" of the world. The Domain, presumably along with all Precursor tech, was destroyed when the Halo Array was originally activated by the IsoDidact (Halo's main pulse targets neural activity).

A conversation between 343GS an unknown AI construct takes place in the Halo 3 terminals, with the following associated glyph:

"04-343 (errant): I have told you who I am. Who are you?

All our makers once held dear.

[Alexandria before the Fire].

04-343 (errant): Sincere apology. But how--

Explanation: This facility is host to the Librarian’s final--

04-343 (errant): The archive is intact?! Then our makers' plan--" -Halo 3 terminals, Guilty Spark to some other AI construct on the Ark.

Alexandria before the fire. The Library of Alexandria? The knowledge that was lost there... The archive? Librarian's final... what? She was responsible for the Conservation Measure, after all. All our makers once held dear: The Domain?. Destroyed when the Halo Array was first activated.

My guess? Perhaps the Absolute Record is a sort of "backup" of The Domain, or at least certain parts of it, hence 343's surprise. A "Super Library" if you will. It would make sense that a character called Librarian would have made such a thing, an "archive" of Forerunner history, of her Conservation Measure. This has some serious implications, as it was thought that all Forerunner knowledge was lost with the activation of the Halo Array. It may appear that it has not been lost, then... So it is a race between Halsey and Jul's "Covenant", and the UNSC as each possesses only half of the key.

I believe that the messages displayed in the Halo 3 terminals are from some sort of construct protecting the Absolute Record - that is, before Mendicant Bias seems to reroute many of the terminals to elsewhere... (I will probably come back to this in a future post).

Is this somehow related to Cortana's message in Halo 3?:

"But [the Gravemind] doesn't know about the Portal, where it leads. On the other side, there's a solution; a way to stop the Flood, without firing the remaining Halo rings."

She's no doubt referring to Installation 00 - The Lesser Ark, of course, but what about it is the solution? We know Cortana was hiding Installation 04's Index, but we don't really do a whole lot here in Halo 3... We activate Installation 04B, and it does considerable damage to the Ark (Cortana says "a number"), but it does not destroy it, as confirmed in later fiction. But a solution to stop the Flood? Hmm... I don't think so. At least, not in the way it initially seemed... As we now know there's at least one infection form aboard the Spirit of Fire. So the Flood has not been stopped[can it be?]. 4B was no solution in Halo 3.

In the 2010 re-release of Halo First Strike, there is a new section called Adjunct, a collection of short stories, one of which a speculation concerning exactly the above, by Petra Janecek (who's recently made a reappearance in Escalation, dem sneaks!). I don't have a whole lot to add here, as I'm sure many here are familiar with "the Ark Theory" (that is, Chief is back at the Ark in the initial Halo Xbox One teaser from E3 '13), which I believe is exactly what is going on. What else is the Ark for? What else are the Halos for?

But something related is also discussed in a letter published Halo Evolutions:

The Excession at Voi is a slipspace machine of extraordinary power. It has demonstrated the ability to open a standing portal to a now destroyed extragalactic location referred to in your data as the Ark [we now know it isn't destroyed, but this letter is from 2553]. The portal is now closed, but we have good reason to suspect that the Excession at Voi is capable of other feats.

The Ark was a manufacturing facility - it seems to be the construction site for the entire Halo array. It was too vast and complex for any useful data to be gathered in the brief moments the portal was opened, but we can assume it served other purposes too.
...
Furthermore, now that we understand the Halo is an armed weapon array, we must revisit our prior assumptions about how inert other structures are. This applies to the Excession at Voi particularly, and careful exploration is being undertaken as we speak. Those concerned about ONI barging in as a military force needn‘t be. The investigation is being undertaken with the greatest care and under rigorous scientific conditions.
...
We still don‘t understand everything about Voi, but we do know that the structure is still active, still drawing power from an unknown source, and as far as we can tell, riddled with passageways and conduits that we have,

as yet, minimal access to. There are more secrets locked under our feet than we dare speculate on. -excerpt from a Letter to University of Edinburgh from a lead ONI research doctor [2553], Halo Evolutions 1.

So. Portal machine does more... The Ark does more... and 343GS's new-found obsession with finding the Lifeshaper (NOT Librarian), as told from his perspective in Primordium...

My systems are shutting down. The humans I carry within me are dying... I can feel them fading by the millions. Old friends in my solitude. So many discourses and debates on human nature and history!
Gone.
They were brave spirits and deserved more than ever I could give them.
END STREAM
TENTATIVE CONFIRMATION: PARTIAL MEMORY STORE of Forerunner AI “Monitor” 343 GUILTY SPARK DEVICE STATUS INACTIVE—NONRECOVERABLE. DEVICE ORDERED JETTISONED BY ONI COMMANDER. REQUEST FOR STANDARD BURIAL CEREMONY DENIED BY SAME.
END DATA LOG.
...
“Know that all that lingered in me, the memories and emotions of old humanity, when I was still flesh, is also hidden deep within you. It slumbers, but it shapes, and it haunts your dreams and your hopes. “You and I are brothers in many ways... not least in that we faced the Didact before, and face him now, and perhaps ever after. This is combat eternal, enmity unslaked, unified by only one thing: our love for the elusive Lifeshaper. Without her, humans would have been extinguished many times over. Both I and the Didact love her to this day. “Some say she is dead, that she died on Earth. But that is demonstrably untrue.
...
Now I know where to find her.

We know that some Forerunner exiled themselves after firing the Halo array. Bornstellar/IsoDidact was one, and the Lifeshaper (Librarian bestowing it upon Chant-To-Green, who led the reseeding of the Galaxy after the Halo Array fired - one of last steps of the Conservation Measure). But is she still the Lifeshaper?

My guess is that title now belongs to Catherine Halsey. She has certainly been shaping lives leading up to 2552 and after...

And what of 343 Guilty Spark? I'll start with this:

“Cartographer!” The [Iso]Didact’s voice brought the surviving controllers, and the faculties of the Cartographer itself, to full attention. “Saving all possible biological specimens—including those infected by the Flood—is the desired goal. Plan for the installation’s reduction. We must fit through the portal. Reducing its size also allows us to use the lesser Ark to make repairs. Report!”
That explained everything, then. The [Iso]Didact was on a mission from the Librarian. He could save at least a few of the many species the Librarian had placed on the installation. --Chakas/343GS' account via Primordium

"This galaxy is vast. Its wonders and beauty are almost unfathomable. But the galaxy also hides dark secrets. Some of which have lain dormant since the beginning of time itself." -Cortana, Origins 2

To be continued...