Does Einstein Make the Halos Impossible?

Community Halo Universe
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Really, the title should be: “Does Einstein Make the Halo’s Improbable?”, but I digress.

The following is a quote from the Halo Wikia: “When activated, the Halo rings would wipe out all sentient life within three radii of the Milky Way’s Galactic center, by sending out radiation, targeting certain cells in the nervous system, which includes, but is not limited to, neurons, by harmonizing all neurological frequencies.[29]”

Contemplating the function of the Halo’s, I came upon a small snag in their function, this being that they send out pulses of radiation to exterminate biological life. According to Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, no form of radiation can travel faster than the speed of light- 299 ,792, 458 meters / second- and one light year is ~ 10,000,000,000,000 (ten trillion) km.

Since it takes 1 year for light to travel one light year (duh), and since Halo’s have an effective radii of 25,000 light years, then it is safe to say that radiation emitted from the Halo traveling at the speed of light would take 25,000 years to perpetuate.

My questions are these: If it takes that long for the Halo’s to wipe out life, in a Universe where FTL travel is possible, wouldn’t it be easy to just avoid the blast of the Halo’s (by either slipping out of the effective radius or to a place where it had already passed)? Wouldn’t the Flood have had ample time to see the incoming blast and use Forerunner ships to evade the Halo’s? Also, wouldn’t Mendicant Bias and the Gravemind have seen the Halo blasts used to wipe out the Flood fleet at the Battle of the Maginot Line coming? Finally, if it was so easy to avoid the blasts by teleporting out of the effective Radii (as was done with the Ark), wouldn’t Shield Worlds be kind of pointless?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and unless Forerunners had a way to perpetuate energy through time and space faster than the speed of light (which they very well might have), I am finding a lot of little hiccups in the story. So if anybody knows the details to this, especially the time it takes of the Halo’s energy to perpetuate across the Galaxy, please do share. Of course, your thoughts are welcome as well… so go crazy!

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The forerunners could have used slipspace-like technology to make the radiation travel faster then normal. Like you said at the bottom of your post.

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We actually don’t know anything about how the Halo affect works…so I’m rather disinclined to believe that it’s radiation or whatever. And even if it is, no, it’s not impossible, not in a story universe where you’ve got stuff like giant ring worlds, whole artificial planets with sustainable atmospheres, planets and stars actively moved around by insanely advances aliens…and everything else we’ve seen. That’s why it’s science-fiction, it doesn’t have to actually be possible so long as it makes sense in the story itself.

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> The forerunners could have used slipspace-like technology to make the radiation travel faster then normal. Like you said at the bottom of your post.

That’s what I would like to believe, but then that possibility has some holes in it and it raises even more questions:

1.) Forerunners travel through Slipspace when using FTL, so using Slipspace is out of the question to propagate the energy of the Halo’s, since Slipspace is in another dimension as regular space. (also I believe Ghosts of Onyx states that Slipspace bubbles are used to guard against the effects of the Halo’s)

2.) Several media forms, including Halo: Legends, Halo 3, etc. depict the firing of the Halo’s as a sphere of light expanding from the center of the ring. Since light is a form of electromagnetic radiation and this form of energy is bound by General Relativity, then it must propagate under the speed of light.

Of course one possible explanation is that the radiation itself (if moved at FTL speeds by the Forerunners) could be “ahead” of the light seen by a relative observer, but the light would be blueshifted (in the part of the sphere moving towards the observer), normal (in the part of the sphere moving perpendicular to the line of sight of the observer) and redshifted (in the part of the sphere moving away from the observer), but seeing the graphical representation of the firing of a Halo Array, I see that as highly unlikely.

Finally, in order for the Halo’s to be effective and for the surprise at the Maginot Sphere to be effective, the Halo’s sphere of energy would have had to expand to their effective range near instantaneously, and if the Forerunners could do that, then what is the point of using slipspace travel to begin with…

IDK, I feel like this little question is opening up a whole can of worms when it comes down to the science.

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> We actually don’t know anything about how the Halo affect works…so I’m rather disinclined to believe that it’s radiation or whatever. And even if it is, no, it’s not impossible, not in a story universe where you’ve got stuff like giant ring worlds, whole artificial planets with sustainable atmospheres, planets and stars actively moved around by insanely advances aliens…and everything else we’ve seen. That’s why it’s science-fiction, it doesn’t have to actually be possible so long as it makes sense in the story itself.

It is science fiction, but usually science fiction has a basis on science. The fiction part is that what is being described isn’t possible… yet, but good science fiction is always based on some scientific fact. Halo has been almost immaculately accurate when it comes to this (remember how they retconned the meaning of “glassing” because it was physically impossible for Covenant ships to produce the energy necessary to do what was described?)

However, if there is no real scientific explanation I guess I can sweep it under the rug, as long as it makes sense within the universe. I just want it to fit in with the Battle of the Maginot Line, the depiction of it in the games, and what is shown in the books. What I’m looking for is continuity across the lore, more so than science fact. Since Halo has usually been close to science fact, I expect the same for this :confused:

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Didn’t we find something recently that travels faster than light?

It’s possible that Einstein was wrong.

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> Didn’t we find something recently that travels faster than light?
>
> It’s possible that Einstein was wrong.

Nah. It turns out it was some loose wiring within the fiber optics of the detectors. And I do believe they were Neutrinos.

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My head hurts from this thread :confused:

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Still though, if the Forerunners can so simply and precisely manipulate time and space, it’s possible that they know many things that Einstein did not.

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> Still though, if the Forerunners can so simply and precisely manipulate time and space, it’s possible that they know many things that Einstein did not.

Totally agree. However, that “thing” can’t be Slipspace for the reasons I stated in one of my earlier posts, and it also better be extremely inefficient, difficult to use, et cetera, because otherwise the Forerunners would have been much better off using that “thing” instead of Slipspace (since that “thing” would have had to have the ability to manipulate space and time to speeds of almost as fast as 25,000 times the speed of light.

343, if you are reading this, GIVE ME AN ANSWER!!!

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Also, before everyone starts telling me that Forerunners are mystical and had magical powers, let me state that a LOT of things that they did are based or can be explained through real science. For example, the Forerunners caused supernovas and created stars; this can be done through the manipulation of mass through the recently discovered Higg’s Boson and its sister particle, the yet undiscovered but predicted graviton. Of course some things (a lot of things) have more of the “fiction” part in science-fiction, but the science is always there, even if to a small amount.

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I think it was mentioned in a Halo: CEA Terminal that the Halo’s give off a “frequency” and that if they were “tuned properly” they could reach greater distances.

Now, I know that it shows a massive wave of light going out, but that could have only been for visual sake. It’s possible that the Halo Array’s agitate the very fabrics of targeted organic reality (basically the quarks or molecules or what have you,) and instantaneously disintegrate them through a chain-reaction molecular destabilization. Think of hitting the High C and shattering glass. This could also better illustrate how that primordial Grunt (I assume that’s what it was) was disintegrated in such a fashion.

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> I think it was mentioned in a Halo: CEA Terminal that the Halo’s give off a “frequency” and that if they were “tuned properly” they could reach greater distances.
>
> Now, I know that it shows a massive wave of light going out, but that could have only been for visual sake. It’s possible that the Halo Array’s agitate the very fabrics of targeted organic reality (basically the quarks or molecules or what have you,) and instantaneously disintegrate them through a chain-reaction molecular destabilization. Think of hitting the High C and shattering glass. This could also better illustrate how that primordial Grunt (I assume that’s what it was) was disintegrated in such a fashion.

Oh I’m totally fine with the description of the Halo’s effects, and I agree that the light might have only been for visual sake (kinda how Naval Space battles are very different in game than in book), and I’m totally fine with the distance of the array; what I’m concerned with is the time that such an effect would take to propagate.

But what you say is true… if the light is only for visual effect and the Halo works in a manner similar to what you say (which though is speculation, I have to say I would really like) then it’s totally plausible, and then Einstein’s restriction to the speed of light no longer applies!

However, we would have to ignore all the other references to the Halo’s firing for this to work, but since the Universe is so vague so far (and I suspect it will continue to be) then I am willing to turn a blind eye. I award you one Internet, good sir!

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> However, we would have to ignore all the other references to the Halo’s firing for this to work,

Which ones? Just out of curiosity.

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I Don’t know much about physics, but I do know that the way we think of physics is constantly changing, so I doubt it’s impossible.

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> Which ones? Just out of curiosity.

Well there are the several references (such as the one I posted from the Halo wikia) that state that the Halo’s propagate their effect through energy; as long as the Halo’s use energy as their medium to propagate their effects, they are bound by General Relativity. The reason I liked your idea so much is because you said the Halo’s did it by means of reality (I’m assuming you meant manipulation of space and time), which are not bound by relativity; I actually don’t know if your idea is feasible but I do know its not restricted by current physics, so that works for me!

PS: We would also have to ignore the visual references from Halo: Legends, Halo 2, and Halo 3, since light (they show the Halo’s giving off light) implies electromagnetic radiation (bound by GR). I’m not sure if Primordium or Cryptum make a reference to the Halo’s emanating light when activated (the scene where Mendicant Bias mans the Halo’s at the Ecumene Capital, while Faber is being tried), but this might be another reference that would have to be ignored. :confused:

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No no, I suggested they do it through sound, harmonics. Are soundwaves energy?

Basically the Halo’s - according to my theory - vibrate organic life apart molecule by molecule.

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> No no, I suggested they do it through sound, harmonics. Are soundwaves energy?
>
> Basically the Halo’s - according to my theory - vibrate organic life apart molecule by molecule.

Oh no! Sound is a biproduct of energy! Sound is merely the vibration of a medium thanks to an energy input, such is is the case with air. In space there is no sound, since there is no medium which the energy can vibrate; hence why space is called a vacuum.

In any case the speed of sound is 343.053 meters / second compared to the speed of light (in a vacuum) which is 299 792 458 meters / second, (which is the reason as to why you can see a firework or a lightning bold before you can hear it explode or hear the thunder) so even if there was a medium, the speed of sound would make the Halo’s even more inefficient.

I did like the analogy of it all, though, and I thought that you suggested that space was like a High C, in that it was the bending of space itself that destroyed the organic creatures.

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That could be a possibility, yes. Send out a ripple of slipspace, perhaps?

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Oh yes! See, I was saying that Slipspace couldn’t be used to propel the radiation faster than the speed of light since Slipspace is in another dimension (and the way it is used is as a portal), thus rendering the Halo useless, but an actual disruption of space and time itself, through a slipspace field or microfields (think along the lines of the theoretical Alcubierre drive) could disrupt matter and it is theoretically possible along the lines of General Relativity! Now, idk if this contradicts Quantum Mechanics (idk nearly as much of QC as I do of GR), but I think we have found our theoretical Halo firing solution!

We do have to ignore the other little references (some of which I don’t consider canon anyways, like Halo Legends), but the Halo wikia can have mistakes and is speculative in some regards, and the games are probably just visual representations :smiley: