So I was just playing the ark on halo 3 the other day when, at the beginning of the level, a marine said look up in the sky… is that… and then he was interrupted by another marine. So I looked up in the sky and saw… A galaxy, potentially the milky way. So, is the ark like the forerunner’s command throne where they can see the halos raining death on the galaxy? Is the ark in another galaxy or just in wild space? Are there any other forerunner installations beyond the milky way?
That’s an interesting question, and a good point about the Ark. I can’t say for certain, especially since I haven’t finished Cryptum and therefore haven’t read the other Forerunner novels, nor have I looked into other extra sources regarding the Forerunners. But, I can’t say I’d be surprised if there were extragalactic installations, even if they were nothing like the Halo rings (I will assume that the Flood may be endemic to just the Milky Way…?).
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> So I was just playing the ark on halo 3 the other day when, at the beginning of the level, a marine said look up in the sky… is that… and then he was interrupted by another marine. So I looked up in the sky and saw… A galaxy, potentially the milky way. So, is the ark like the forerunner’s command throne where they can see the halos raining death on the galaxy? Is the ark in another galaxy or just in wild space? Are there any other forerunner installations beyond the milky way?
Installation 00 was indeed outside the galactic spiral, and outside the effective range of the halo array. This is why the ark could fire the whole array, and not be affected. That galaxy in the sky is indeed our own Milky Way.
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> So I was just playing the ark on halo 3 the other day when, at the beginning of the level, a marine said look up in the sky… is that… and then he was interrupted by another marine. So I looked up in the sky and saw… A galaxy, potentially the milky way. So, is the ark like the forerunner’s command throne where they can see the halos raining death on the galaxy? Is the ark in another galaxy or just in wild space? Are there any other forerunner installations beyond the milky way?
The Forerunner Trilogy covers this. The Ark, or rather, the Arks were outside of the galaxy and sort of a last ditch reserve with biological specimens and forges for creating Halos. Only two Arks are known, the Lesser and the Greater. The Greater Ark is destroyed alongside one of the Super Rings, Omega Halo when attacked by the Flood and the Precursor artifacts in Silentium. The Lesser Ark escapes the Flood’s notice and survives to the present era, though it is heavily damaged… a recent book shows that it is undergoing repairs and survived the events of Halo 3 (Hunters in the Dark)
The Ark isn’t the command throne, but rather more or less the last successful bunker in the universe that the Forerunners were able to hold out on. Shield Worlds mostly survived, but were mysteriously abandoned and unused, and we know very little about another possible haven briefly mentioned in Halo 5 known as “Bastion”.
It is very possible other Forerunner structures exist outside the Milky Way, but the implications are that such undertakings were not very common.
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> That’s an interesting question, and a good point about the Ark. I can’t say for certain, especially since I haven’t finished Cryptum and therefore haven’t read the other Forerunner novels, nor have I looked into other extra sources regarding the Forerunners. But, I can’t say I’d be surprised if there were extragalactic installations, even if they were nothing like the Halo rings (I will assume that the Flood may be endemic to just the Milky Way…?).
The Flood is not endemic to the Milky Way. In Silentium
The Librarian makes a trip to a smaller nearby galaxy known as Path Kethona, and discovers evidence of a non-hostile organism with some similarities to the Flood, along with a massive abandoned fleet of Forerunner Ships and a technologically regressed and previous unknown civilization of Forerunners that dated to some 10 Million years before. Primordium and Silentium suggest that the Flood come from outside the galaxy and are the mutated remains of some of the Precursors, who are explicitly stated to be “extra Galactic” and essentially some sort of lovecraftian “god-like” beings. Path Kethona has extremely large numbers of active Precursor artifacts, which are connected to the Flood, and the Primordial who started the whole plague was found on the very border of the Galaxy after apparently drifting for 10,000,000 years
The Ark is definitely outside the Milky Way galaxy. It was designed as a safe place to fire the Halo array from, without the effects of the array reaching it.
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> The Ark is definitely outside the Milky Way galaxy. It was designed as a safe place to fire the Halo array from, without the effects of the array reaching it.
2 to the 18th light years from galactic center, according to Guilty Spark. And each Halo ring only has the effective range of 250,000 light years I think. Enough to cover the galaxy…but not reach beyond.
Just what you need if you want to burn out a parasite.
I’m sure there are other Forerunner installations outside the Milky Way.
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> > 2533274817408735;5:
> > The Ark is definitely outside the Milky Way galaxy. It was designed as a safe place to fire the Halo array from, without the effects of the array reaching it.
>
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> 2 to the 18th light years from galactic center, according to Guilty Spark. And each Halo ring only has the effective range of 250,000 light years I think. Enough to cover the galaxy…but not reach beyond.
> Just what you need if you want to burn out a parasite.
Each Halo covers a 25,000 LY radius. If each one covered 250,000, they’d reach the Ark easily as the Ark is ~262,144 LY away from galactic center.
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> > 2533274907200114;6:
> > > 2533274817408735;5:
> > > The Ark is definitely outside the Milky Way galaxy. It was designed as a safe place to fire the Halo array from, without the effects of the array reaching it.
> >
> >
> > 2 to the 18th light years from galactic center, according to Guilty Spark. And each Halo ring only has the effective range of 250,000 light years I think. Enough to cover the galaxy…but not reach beyond.
> > Just what you need if you want to burn out a parasite.
>
>
> Each Halo covers a 25,000 LY radius. If each one covered 250,000, they’d reach the Ark easily as the Ark is ~262,144 LY away from galactic center.
Good point. Been too long since I played Two Betrayals…(gets out copy of MCC)