One thing that has always bothered me is the cutscene in Halo Combat Evolved/Anniversary, when you rescue Captain Keyes on the level ‘Truth and Reconcilliation’. He states “While the Covenant had us locked up in here, I overheard the guards talking about this ring world. They call it ‘Halo’.” This prompts Cortana to further inflitrate the ‘Covenant Battle NET’ before revealing "According to the data in their newtorks, the ring has some kind of deep religious significance" This so far is in keeping with what we later learn in Halo 2/3. However she also finds "…They believe ‘Halo’ is some sort of weapon,… one with vast unimaginable power".
Now we know from the expanded canon of the novels, that Fleet Master Thel 'Vadamee (the Arbiter) was in charge of the military campaign. In later installments- namely Halo 2, we see how much convincing it takes for him to see the rings as anything other than divine relics of transcendance, so it rules out him as having information regarding its true purpose in his fleet intranet. We also know that the ‘Prophet of Stewardship’ a lesser San 'Shyuum, was in charge or religious matters. While we know that the Hierachs had more of an inkling of what exactly the halos were, why would a lesser prophet have knowledge of this? Or is this a case of the ‘relics for reclaimation’ being revealed by Mendicant Bias as actually being ‘Reclaimers’- ie, Cortana is able to translate the true meaning from the information. (seems highly unlikely).
I assume that this ‘plot hole’ was left from the original script/direction of the game, and was letter retconned in Halo 2. However, I have never seen it addressed, and have searched on the forums for answers to this, what is in my mind, a rather glaring issue. Would be interested to hear your thoughts.
It could still be a weapon in a sense. Once activated, the ring would allow those who beleive in the Great Jounrey to achieve transcendence, but it would damn those left behind. And even then, there is room for some members of the Covenant to see the Halos in a more practical sense as weapons.
I always assumed that The Arbiter didn’t necessarily believe it’s weapon quality, while the other covenant on the ring did. After all, the Ring wasn’t fired for it to be destroyed in Combat Evolved, the Pillar of Autumn destroyed it.
In his mind, it was just a desecrated relic, and all the others were relics. Ultimately, this is all speculation, but I like to believe that the lesser prophet figured it out himself.
Hmmm… true, there is that aspect to it. Just found it strange how it never seemed to be adressed- especially in the terminals of Halo Anniversary. Maybe we will see in Halo 2 Anniversary, if ther terminals do tell more of Thel’s backstory… although maybe not, there are more important things that they could be used for. Now that you mention it RedGandlafr, in the adjunct of ‘The flood’ it does say that the ‘Prophet of Stewardship’ kept issuing contradictory orders (sending Ossoona to POA, trying to access ‘flood’ storage facilities) and acting hastily, even when “Contact with High Charity could not be made”. he is supposedly following ‘Reclamation Procedure’… remembering the confession of the other San 'Shyuum in ‘Wages of Sin’, I wonder therefore if perhaps the Prophet would have been privvy to the ‘truth’, at least on his own personal terminals. Hopefully ‘Broken Circle’ will elaborate more on this.
There’s also the very probable possibility that Cortana was simply misinterpreting what the Covenant meant by their description of Halo. The Covenant believed that Halo would wipe out all who were unworthy, which, if Halo was described as something that would do that, would make it sound like a weapon.
Some religious interpretations of Halo by the Covenant do descibe it as a weapon of sorts. The other thing is that Cortana could have found Forerunner texts on the Battlenet and translated them correctly whereas the Covenant might have mistranslated them.
“I opened the portal to this hallowed place, this shelter from Halo’s fire, in the hopes that more of our Covenant would join us. Alas, save for a rabble of Heretics and their Demon allies, we are all that remains on this new world. So we must temper joy and sorrow in our hearts, for those who were left behind.”
When the covenant made the “Great Journey” then they believed that those who were -Yoink!- would be wiped out by Halo. The question is, do they think that the Ring itself does this or would it be somehting else.
Was just reading Contact Harvest today, and I came across a Dabab chapter where he mentions how the Covenant knew of the Forerunner-Flood War. They believed that Halo obliterated the Flood AND granted the Forerunners godhood all in one go.
I kind of regarded it being seen as a kind of tecnological rapture: those who were worthy would be taken on the Great Journey, while those unworthy would be “clensed”.
I believe that they thought that the halos to them would act as a relic of transcendence to the faithful, but would be a weapon to those who did not believe. So basically its a weapon to humans, and a relic to the covenant.
I always take it as Cortana’s interpretation. As others have said, Halo kinda already sounds like a weapon in any description.
I thought about this the other day while playing Halo CEA, just finished up a playthrough today too!
To be honest, I wouldn’t have said Bungie knew where they were going with the franchise when they wrote those lines.
At that point, it made sense to the story that the Covenant thought the halo was a weapon, giving Keys and Co a reason to try and stop them from finding a way to use it.
Obviously after Halo 2 came out and they changed some of the Covenant’s objectives and beliefs, the hiccup in canon can be explained by a mistranslation on Cortana’s part.
I don’t believe that even devout religious followers of the Covenant thought that the ring served a duel purpose of damnation for non-believers and salvation for believers as separate functions respectively. They only state believers will be -Yoink!-. It’s much a kin to some beliefs of certain religions now. I.E. Believers will go to heaven, non-believers to hell… etc. Nowhere does it state the terms in which one dies affecting that.
So by this, they could think Halo is a weapon, but also believe it saves and damns beings respective to their belief in the religious cause.
Religious view aside I think they all know it to be a life ender. It really all falls upon what the understanding of ‘the great journey’ means to them as per what they have been told. And judging by what we see in the cannon, the Covenant speaks in metaphor and symbolism ALOT with respect to that subject, which really helps leave a great deal of information up for varied interpretations.
I’d lump it in with “A Weapon of Devine Transcendence”.
Martyr Dome. They know it will kill them; but by sacrificing themselves to destroy the “evil” in the galaxy, they will be rewarded.
Hell, we see these type of extremist today even.
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> I kind of regarded it being seen as a kind of tecnological rapture: those who were worthy would be taken on the Great Journey, while those unworthy would be “clensed”.
I agree, in the covenants own twisted (and wrong) way, it was a weapon.
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> It could still be a weapon in a sense. Once activated, the ring would allow those who beleive in the Great Jounrey to achieve transcendence, but it would damn those left behind. And even then, there is room for some members of the Covenant to see the Halos in a more practical sense as weapons.
realy it is a weapon that the forrunners created to stave the flood. But when the covenant (idiots) released the flood 343 guilty spark (monitor of installation 04) decided that containment had been breached and the halo must be activated.