Messages

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Halo Reach General Discussion / Sorvad, Davros, and Doctor Who (Here Until We Have General Librarians' Board)

« on: October 20, 2010, 14:56:31 »

I was thinking Sorvad was a weird name and started playing around with it a bit.  I realized that the letters in Sorvad, when reversed, spell Davros.  I'm not a Doctor Who fan, but apparently Davros is a main villain in the popular BBC time travel series.  Of interest, he is a talented and mad scientist who engineers a (mostly) robotic race known as the Daleks and places them in Mark-III travel machines/armor.  He is reminiscent of Halsey in this regard, though his creations are villains rather than heroes.  He also resembles the Prophets with his glowing blue "eye" and in the fact that he is (due to injury) encased in a chair-like device that can (eventually) hover.  In one of his many incarnations - Doctor Who is probably more complicated than Halo in its many plot reversals - he looks like this.  Note the hexagon.

I think we could go on and on here.

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Halo Reach General Discussion / Re: Halo Reach: Halsey's Journal

« on: October 19, 2010, 13:56:48 »

While I'm thinking of it, (shotcode aside) the cover design of the journal reminds me of Halsey's drawings of dendrites.  The density might signify rampancy.  Maybe?  Just a thought....

Also, "Ne menj oda" (as written on the map) means "Don't go here" in Hungarian.  Of course, we never do what we're told. 

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Work-In-Progress (Halo: Reach) / Re: Upgading "From Niven to 9/11" to something greater...

« on: October 19, 2010, 13:41:21 »

Yeah, the title may not be the best.  I suppose CG is correct in that I was indicating something of a shift, though I probably don't know enough about Niven's writing (more or less taking CG's word here about the influence) to mention him and I don't really think the use of one reference completely negates the other.  I thought you wanted me to use that title, CG!

As for Imppa's suggestion, there are SO MANY literary/artistic and historical allusions and I would love to catalog them.  These connections are actually the source of about 99% of my interest in the Halo universe - and also about 99% of my frustration with the Halo universe, i.e., does this all actually hang together?!!  :laugh:  Sometimes I start to feel like I'm looking for a needle in a field of needles if that makes sense.  It's just hard to say definitively what influences artists, especially in sci-fi, which is so meta-meta it makes me gag sometimes.  (Did I say that out loud? @:)

But yes, I'm game though maybe we should start by compiling our evidence in the librarians board.  Then we could progress to articles once we see which references are extensive enough to merit them.  Perhaps?  I'm a little overwhelmed right now and this seems more manageable.  But I will bow to Imppa's vision/lightning flash of insight.    Take it away, Sir Imp!

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Halo Reach General Discussion / Re: Halo Reach: Halsey's Journal

« on: September 22, 2010, 20:27:11 »

I only have one ripped page... Maybe I'm blind?

I thought the same thing until CIA posted earlier today.  There are actually two torn pages if you look really closely.  They're ripped exactly the same way so they stick together.

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Halo Reach General Discussion / Re: Halo Reach: Halsey's Journal

« on: September 22, 2010, 14:35:25 »

@CIA:  Mine's ripped at 9.4.2547.

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Halo Reach General Discussion / Re: Analysis of Data Pad Content: Ideas, Theories, and Observations

« on: September 20, 2010, 14:26:01 »

You probably want to listen for yourself before reading.  It's hard to hear it fresh once you think you know what's being said.

Re: audio files, I believe it's "breach identified."  That would make sense in the context, which seems like a sequence of (flood?) containment procedures.

Welcome, scion.  (I think Apollo may be right=scion means descendant.)
Breach identified.
Corruption contained.
? confirmed.
Purge initiated.
Rogue confirmed.
Protocols reinstated.
Purge initiated.
Breach identified.
Corruption contained.

Perhaps it is the initiation sequence for a ring?  If so, lineage makes a lot of sense though it doesn't sound exactly like that.

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Halo Reach General Discussion / Re: Analysis of Data Pad Content: Ideas, Theories, and Observations

« on: September 19, 2010, 20:11:08 »

LOL.  As usual Pulse is a bit lacking in the tact department but PROBABLY RIGHT.

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Halo Reach General Discussion / Re: Analysis of Data Pad Content: Ideas, Theories, and Observations

« on: September 19, 2010, 19:56:11 »

Names are only a means to reference something.  There are many examples of the same name being applied to very different things.  

Very true, Phantasm.  I just can't help but feel that Halsey tells us what she wants us to know.  But yes, these are just wild speculations/ideas.

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Halo Reach General Discussion / Re: Analysis of Data Pad Content: Ideas, Theories, and Observations

« on: September 19, 2010, 19:34:44 »

I also really like Ark's connection between DP07 and Halsey's civilian id number.  The Legendary Edition of Reach came with a replica of Halsey's ID card.  Will someone please cross-reference this with her ID Number to see if they match?  If no ID number is printed on the replica card, perhaps a bar code contains it?

That IS Halsey's id number.  It appears on p. 56 of Fall of Reach and also on the id badge itself.  I have both in my grubby little hands.

I like Imppa's "parallel AI" connection but- as he noted- the dates don't work out.

But look at it this way.  Just because the AI's use the nomenclature first doesn't mean there isn't a connection.  I find the fact that Halsey uses this same terminology....disturbing.  This is what I was getting at earlier (it's very hypothetical):  Is Halsey/her work compromised in some way?

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Halo Reach General Discussion / Re: Analysis of Data Pad Content: Ideas, Theories, and Observations

« on: September 19, 2010, 17:18:53 »

@Phantasm:  Well, it's a very nice head.

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Halo Reach General Discussion / Re: Analysis of Data Pad Content: Ideas, Theories, and Observations

« on: September 19, 2010, 16:30:52 »

Warning:  the first two links below go to the Halopedia.  These pages are safe as of now but if you start clicking around, you're going to run into spoilers.  I learned this the hard way.  Nothing major but....

More observations (low hanging fruit):

From Data Pad 06:

<< 2491 >>

</ Order! Order! The Majority has the floor! />

>> Honored members. Please! The recent discovery of the existence of
extra-solar intelligence in the Zeta Doradus system [ref. XF-063] merely
confirms this body's long-held supposition. >>

This is a reference to Onyx.

From Data Pad 07:

<< In all likelihood, ORION's limited success can be attributed to
[03529-24450-EN's] diminished, though still functioning, compassion.
Conversely, [10141-026-SRB4695's] ruthlessness - which may be
attributed to an undiagnosed, undocumented, or deliberately
obfuscated chemical imbalance - was necessary for setting in motion
the events that will eventually supply us with the optimal solution.

In short, ORION was just the beginning. <<

The second id number is Halsey's civilian id number.

Other:

It appears that the AI of the Committee, etc. were manipulating humans of the UNSC, ONI, etc., ostensibly for humanity's own good but nonetheless.  When viewed in this light, human findings, even those of our beloved Halsey, are potentially tainted, as are their resultant decisions/actions.

I'm just throwing this out there but we may wish to consider Elias Carver a candidate for Page 1 Speaker.  His suicide, whether it was in fact a suicide or something more, seems in keeping with the Speaker's disturbed state of mind.  Way, way premature without the other data pads and more investigation but.... (A human as Speaker, provided there is only one Speaker consistent across pads and he/she has normal lifespan, would mean that the Page 2 data pad dates, if they are years, do not apply to Page 1.)

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Halo Reach General Discussion / Re: Analysis of Data Pad Content: Ideas, Theories, and Observations

« on: September 18, 2010, 18:18:05 »

Ark's note that the first Data Pad page is more robotic might be due to our working hypothesis that the first page is used to sequence the Data Pads through the use of digit replacement for some of the letters.

I think you mean less.

And I see Phantasm and I were thinking along the same lines at exactly the same time.   I suppose we'll speculate on the sequencing, missing letters, etc. in the other thread and leave this one for more general speculation regarding the players and context.  I was trying to put all the data pad theories in one spot because I'm going a bit nuts clicking around, but this definitely merits its own thread.  Plus, I think the madness will resolve when we can get all the transcripts in the guide.

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Halo Reach General Discussion / Re: Analysis of Data Pad Content: Ideas, Theories, and Observations

« on: September 18, 2010, 17:09:02 »

Other observations regarding data pad content:

Across the data pads the tone of the first pages seems different from that of the other pages, less robotic.  Does this suggest a different speaker?  The possibility of a human speaker is supported by Data Pad 14 05:

when i first got here and woke from stasi5 the ship was crawling with
colonists from dead worlds it was so crowded i couldn't move i had to
fight to breathe...

Also there is consistently a number (or numbers) replacing a letter (or letters) on the first page.  We should examine the numbers and also the replaced letters.

Who is the Majority?  The Minority?  The Assembly?  The Committee?  Is there overlap here?  Data Pad 01 suggests we're dealing with AI's:

Consideration of the Minority.s request for a new line of inquiry:
How have our creators, and thus we, their artificial creations, evolved to this present state without encountering a hostile civilization capable of our annihilation?
Majority opinion has long held that only the incalculable immensity of space has protected our creators - that space is full of boundless wonders, but it is the gulf between these wonders that has kept our creators alive.

The above also seems to suggest that we're dealing with AI who have not encountered the Flood, which unless we are completely wrong about the timeframe, would seem to eliminate Forerunner-created AI (the MIA Offensive Bias and company).  Although, of course, we are Forerunner.  But I think you know what I mean.

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Halo Reach General Discussion / Re: Analysis of Data Pad Content: Ideas, Theories, and Observations

« on: September 18, 2010, 16:37:00 »

@Phantasm:  Sorry if I sounded like a jerk saying that Coldglider had provided the link previously.  I was trying to give credit where credit was due, not say that you should have known this or that you were wrong.  I had forgotten this little factoid myself.  I actually am leaning towards you and Apollo in this.  I think the times mentioned are too similar to the years when referenced events occurred, Project Orion, for example, but I've got to look more closely.

Anyhow, tone gets lost in writing sometimes.  You are ABSOLUTELY right to consider every possibility.

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Halo Reach General Discussion / Re: DATA PAD times (not dates)

« on: September 18, 2010, 15:46:58 »

@Phantasm:  Apollo's post is relevant to this discussion.

Coldglider provided this during our intel phase with regard to another topic, but here's the source if you want to check it out for yourself.  (The fact that Bungie specified the 27 hour day in the factbook may indicate y'all are on to something.)