For the lore experts, you may know that 000 Tragic Solitude was the monitor of Installation 00, otherwise known as the Ark. Born from the mind of Splendid Dust, this previously social Forerunner was left to take care of the Ark for over 100,000 completely alone, with no other intelligent lifeform or AI to communicate. He was pretty excited once he found out that intelligent lifeforms finally arrived at the Ark in 2552… but was left unpleasant when Installation 04B (or 09) was destroyed and the Ark heavily damaged. Tragic Solitude then became rampant and was going to prepare to fire the rings in 2555, but was stopped by a joint Human-Sangheili operation. Spartan Vale was part of this group and she tried to talk the monitor out of his decision, but he was just too deep in his vengeance plan, so he was destroyed.
Now, let’s retcon this and say that Tragic Solitude actually recovered or snapped and returned to monitoring the Ark, and try to imagine what would have happened with the Banished’s arrival at the Installation and their subsequent battle against the SoF forces. What do you think he would do?
Here’s 3 scenarios:
- He allies with the UNSC; - He allies with the Banished; - He’s hostile towards both parties.
I’d like to think he helps the UNSC as they are (or some of them at least) are reclaimers. Though since, like 343 G.S, he doesn’t really remember anything beforehand then I could see him as classifying both parties as hostile to the well-being of the Ark. Plus if he did help the UNSC then the Banished are lust doomed and then we don’t have an interesting story of two “equally matched” forces fighting on an ancient forge of death weapons…
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> I’d like to think he helps the UNSC as they are (or some of them at least) are reclaimers. Though since, like 343 G.S, he doesn’t really remember anything beforehand then I could see him as classifying both parties as hostile to the well-being of the Ark. Plus if he did help the UNSC then the Banished are lust doomed and then we don’t have an interesting story of two “equally matched” forces fighting on an ancient forge of death weapons…
Expected, but are they really even? The Banished is essentially the Covenant without Jackals and with deadlier equipment. The vehicles and weapons are improvements over their original counterparts and the soldiers have actual training. Meanwhile the UNSC is a professional army with destructive but dated equipment. They still happened to lose the Enduring Conviction, but we were still able to call stuff like Rain of Fire during ATN.
I’d argue he would side with the UNSC. I believe Monitors don’t remember anything from before they were digitized, but don’t they have some sort of general “guiding hand” with how they go about their tasks? If that’s correct, then right before dying, Splendid knew they were doing everything to safeguard the Mantle for humans. Based on that, I’d say he’d help them out instead of choosing to do one of the other two options.
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> I’d argue he would side with the UNSC. I believe Monitors don’t remember anything from before they were digitized, but don’t they have some sort of general “guiding hand” with how they go about their tasks? If that’s correct, then right before dying, Splendid knew they were doing everything to safeguard the Mantle for humans. Based on that, I’d say he’d help them out instead of choosing to do one of the other two options.
Yeah, GS immediately sought out Reclaimers like Marvin Mobuto and the Chief when attempting to retrieve the Activation Index. He didn’t have his prior memories as Chakas but still went straight for the humans. In a terminal from Halo CEA, I believe he even tells a Covenant AI of sorts that his masters weren’t welcome on the Ring (though he may have also tried to tell this to the human forces but I can’t remember).
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> For the lore experts, you may know that 000 Tragic Solitude was the monitor of Installation 00, otherwise known as the Ark. Born from the mind of Splendid Dust, this previously social Forerunner was left to take care of the Ark for over 100,000 completely alone, with no other intelligent lifeform or AI to communicate. He was pretty excited once he found out that intelligent lifeforms finally arrived at the Ark in 2552… but was left unpleasant when Installation 04B (or 09) was destroyed and the Ark heavily damaged. Tragic Solitude then became rampant and was going to prepare to fire the rings in 2555, but was stopped by a joint Human-Sangheili operation. Spartan Vale was part of this group and she tried to talk the monitor out of his decision, but he was just too deep in his vengeance plan, so he was destroyed.
>
> Now, let’s retcon this and say that Tragic Solitude actually recovered or snapped and returned to monitoring the Ark, and try to imagine what would have happened with the Banished’s arrival at the Installation and their subsequent battle against the SoF forces. What do you think he would do?
> Here’s 3 scenarios:
> - He allies with the UNSC; - He allies with the Banished; - He’s hostile towards both parties.
Based on his encounter with the human/sengheili operation, and if he was indeed saved from rampancy by them, then he might feel some gratitude toward humanity, if he wasn’t programmed to regard them as Reclaimers subconsciously. So I could see him siding with the UNSC.
However, if he recovered, he might side with no-one because the Banished are too similar to the Covenant, and the UNSC are the UNSC.
He would go with the humans. I could be wrong, but if I recall, his memories as a forerunner were never bogged down like Chakas. It was purely the vast period of time that caused him to slowly forget his old life, and think of himself more as a proper monitor. He would likely use the sentinels to force a cease-fire between the humans and Banished and also finish wiping High Charity clean of flood. I would be more curious how he would react to the Created and the current state of the galaxy here.
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> He would go with the humans. I could be wrong, but if I recall, his memories as a forerunner were never bogged down like Chakas. It was purely the vast period of time that caused him to slowly forget his old life, and think of himself more as a proper monitor. He would likely use the sentinels to force a cease-fire between the humans and Banished and also finish wiping High Charity clean of flood. I would be more curious how he would react to the Created and the current state of the galaxy here.
As per protocol, monitors forget their past selves, but personalities likely still remain.
I don’t think he would force a cease-fire between both forces considering that he didn’t try that at the Battle of the Ark nor did Guilty Spark when Humans and Covenant forces landed on Alpha Halo AS WELL as Static Carillon, who not only aided Blue Team with defeating the Didact but also did nothing when the Construct timeline took place (Spartan Strike) in Gamma Halo (03). I like to think that they just didn’t want to get involved in conflicts not their own.
Assuming that Tragic Solitude is continuing his duties of overseeing the ark. Who is more damaging to the ark. An outdated human ship that is just put craters in the artificial landscape or the banished who gutted the ark with its glassing beam. For sake of argument let’s say Tragic Solitude doesn’t intervene immediately as the battle would serve as a test for these humans. All semblance of sitting back is discarded once the ark is damaged by something like the Enduring Conviction.