I was recently replaying some of the games and started to get confused to how the rings really work. I’m sure at this point in the Halo universe, the Halo rings aren’t that important anymore, but I just wanted to see if my understanding was right.
So when one ring is fired, all the others fire as well? In Halo 2, the abrupt shut down of Installation 05 put all the rings on stand by. Starting that point all the rings had to be fired from The Ark. By Halo 3, Truth activates the rings with Johnson’s “help,” but is eventually deactivated by Chief and Arbiter. It is then revealed that another Installation 04 is being made to replace the empty slot in the seven rings. I presume that every time a ring is destroyed it would have to manufacture a new one all the time to replace it. By the end of Halo 3, The Ark is heavily damaged and presumably cannot manufacture any new Halo rings anymore. Also, all the rings would still need to be activated from The Ark.
Anyways, my questions below
So basically, firing the rings is now kind of impossible (really hard)?
Do all the rings have to be compete as a set (7) to fire?
If answer to 2. is yes, then does that mean firing Installation 05 during the Halo 2 event would have done nothing since Installation 04 was still destroyed?
Firing one Halo does not fire the others, it puts them on standby in case they will need to be fired later. It wasn’t the abrupt shutdown of Installation 05 that caused this standby, but rather the fact that it was nearly fired. The only way to fire all rings at the same time is from the Ark.
There does not have to be a complete set to fire the Array. Missing a Halo only means that the portion of the galaxy that ring covered won’t be hit by the blast.
> The only way to fire all rings at the same time is from the Ark.
Not true actually.
> 343 Guilty Spark: (pauses) “More or less. Technically, this installation’s pulse has a maximum effective radius of twenty-five thousand light years. But, once the others follow suit, this galaxy will be quite devoid of life, or at least any life with sufficient biomass to sustain the Flood.” (Pause) “But you already knew that… I mean, how couldn’t you?”
Presumably once one activates the rest detect the activation and fire as well.
> > The only way to fire all rings at the same time is from the Ark.
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> Not true actually.
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> > 343 Guilty Spark: (pauses) “More or less. Technically, this installation’s pulse has a maximum effective radius of twenty-five thousand light years. But, once the others follow suit, this galaxy will be quite devoid of life, or at least any life with sufficient biomass to sustain the Flood.” (Pause) “But you already knew that… I mean, how couldn’t you?”
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> Presumably once one activates the rest detect the activation and fire as well.
That presumes that the activation of one Halo triggers the others, but I see no evidence to support such a claim. For all we know, Spark could be assuming that other Reclaimers are working to activate the other Halo rings (or something else along those lines).
According to Halo Nation, If a single Halo ring is fired once the pulse is detected by the other installations, they also fire. Firing them all from the Ark does this simultaneously but in the end they both have the same result. Even though all Halo rings are locked in standby, I believe they still can be activated. Infinity’s Main mission is to find and decommission the remaining Halo rings. At the moment Installation 05 & 03 are safe. But this leads me to believe that they’re still a threat.
> According to Halo Nation, If a single Halo ring is fired once the pulse is detected by the other installations, they also fire. Firing them all from the Ark does this simultaneously but in the end they both have the same result. Even though all Halo rings are locked in standby, I believe they still can be activated. Infinity’s Main mission is to find and decommission the remaining Halo rings. At the moment Installation 05 & 03 are safe. But this leads me to believe that they’re still a threat.
Just for future reference, Halopedia is a much better source than Halo Nation.
Spark did seem to imply that the rings automatically follow each other and fire, but that would kind of negate the purpose of the Ark. It depends, though. Spark could have meant something different as well.
I would imagine the rings have a variety of settings. They’re all networked, so they all know when one ring is set off. But it would be a bad idea for the rings to automatically fire, because what if it is a malfunction or an accident? A 25000 LR radius of destruction is much better thsn the whole galaxy.
I would imagine that an unexpected shutdown triggers a failsafe for the Array. It means there is a threat, so the whole Array goes into standby in case the situation continues to get worse.
But what we don’t completely know, I believe, is if this locks out all the rings. When in standby mode, they can all by activated from the Ark. It is also implied that they can always be activated from there, standby or not.
So, it seems that the failsafe also makes it impossible for a ring to fire individually, to prevent the possibility of further tampering or issues. Control for the Array then shifts completely to the Ark, where it can either be completely activated or returned to a stable mode.
If that’s true… it’s almost a possibility for the UNSC to set one of the rings to standby so that none of the rings can be used. That’s assuming that they can fully protect the Ark, though. As well as successfully false-start a ring. There’s a lot of room for an accident. And perhaps too much of a risk, too much to protect.
> What about slipspace travel? Do the Halo pulse(s) affect slipspace? Seems like it must due to the creation of Dyson spheres as shields.
The firing of the halos was timed to catch as many star roads in normal space as possible. So presumably the halo’s have no effect or dampened at least in slipspace.
> Anyways, my questions below
>
> 1. So basically, firing the rings is now kind of impossible (really hard)?
>
> 2. Do all the rings have to be compete as a set (7) to fire?
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> 3. If answer to 2. is yes, then does that mean firing Installation 05 during the Halo 2 event would have done nothing since Installation 04 was still destroyed?
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> Thanks
As others have said, its unclear though possible that if a firing is not interrupted the rest would fire as well. Its possible the rings are no longer on standby after chief stopped them from firing.
No, though they likely need 7 to do proper galactic coverage.
No, or else the Ark likely would have given Truth a big error message when he tried to activate them in h3. Installation 05 would have likely given an error instead of trying to fire. Since they have a network managing them, I don’t think it’d waste energy/time firing when they can’t.
As I suggested in a previous thread, its possible Installation 03 was moved to our area of the Orion Arm to re-distribute the remaining rings to cover for the status of 04 (and possibly 05 not sure on dates). This is because it is odd that 3 rings are so close to human space, especially 03 which seems to be close enough to be found by people fleeing a glassed colony.
I find it odd the Rings and the Ark seem to be able to communicate so well, but the monitors who are supposed to look after them seem to have communication issues.
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> > The only way to fire all rings at the same time is from the Ark.
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> Not true actually.
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> > 343 Guilty Spark: (pauses) “More or less. Technically, this installation’s pulse has a maximum effective radius of twenty-five thousand light years. But, once the others follow suit, this galaxy will be quite devoid of life, or at least any life with sufficient biomass to sustain the Flood.” (Pause) “But you already knew that… I mean, how couldn’t you?”
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> Presumably once one activates the rest detect the activation and fire as well.
We saw in halo cryptum that one ring can be fired individually without the rest of them getting fired…
