As many of us know, Installation 00 was besides to build replacement Halo’s, meant as a safe place for living creatures.
But this throws up a interesting question.
In a Terminal video (don’t remember the exact one, will look it up shortly) 343 Guilty Spark states that the original Array of 12 rings could fire way beyond the Galaxy, thus
it would reach the Ark aswell.
So this means that the initial Plan for preserving life on the Ark was NOT planned from the very beginning, but a mere coincidence since 5 Rings were destroyed.
Why would the Forerunners send out the Librarian to gather life and place it on the ark, if it was clear that the array would wipe it out anyway?
Correct my if my thought have any error.
You can see the Milky Way from the Ark, so I don’t think it would spread THAT far.
Fact about Installation 00
262,144 light years from galactic center
343 Guilty Spark said that the Waves of the Halo ring amplify each other…
A single Halo can cover 25,000 light years… now lets Assume each Halo amplify this by x1.
so 10 Halo’s would amplify themselves up to 250,000 light years…
and all 12 would go up to 300,000 light years, which would indeed reach the Ark.
Also what has to be noted, every single Halo covers 25,000 light years from the Origin, so with the amplified version they cover from the Origin of fire around 300,000 light years… and the ark is merely 262,144 light years away from the galactic center.
So I assume it would hit it quite easily.
> Fact about Installation 00
> 262,144 light years from galactic center
>
> 343 Guilty Spark said that the Waves of the Halo ring amplify each other…
> A single Halo can cover 25,000 light years… now lets Assume each Halo amplify this by x1.
>
> so 10 Halo’s would amplify themselves up to 250,000 light years…
> and all 12 would go up to 300,000 light years, which would indeed reach the Ark.
> Also what has to be noted, every single Halo covers 25,000 light years from the Origin, so with the amplified version they cover from the Origin of fire around 300,000 light years… and the ark is merely 262,144 light years away from the galactic center.
> So I assume it would hit it quite easily.
But you must remember, the energy that wipes out all the sentient life overlaps each other for maximum “cleansing”, so yes they would be able to reach the arc if the energy was edge to edge, but the energy radii overlaps one another and would likely only go a small amount of the way outside of the galaxy.
Remember that the original twelve Halo rings were of the 30 000km diameter, and all but one got destroyed. Six more rings of the smaller variety were made, and what could be salvaged of the last 30 000km rings was turned into Installation 07. And keep in mind that there are two Arks, being the Greater Ark and Lesser Ark.
Just things to think of. 
> Remember that the original twelve Halo rings were of the 30 000km diameter, and all but one got destroyed. Six more rings of the smaller variety were made, and what could be salvaged of the last 30 000km rings was turned into Installation 07. And keep in mind that there are two Arks, being the Greater Ark and Lesser Ark.
>
> Just things to think of.
Indeed… it may be that the “Original” Halo’s would have a way bigger diameter of coverage.
And well, the problem here is that we don’t really know how they amplify each other.
They may amplify them by a way bigger factor, since Guilty said “Had the oringinal twelve rings survive to see use…Sterilization would spread far further than most forerunners ever feared we could reach.” … room for thoughts…
Edit: The quote taken is from Terminal 8 on “Two Betrayals”
Spark doesn’t say that the 12 rings would reach beyond the edge of the galaxy, he just says that they would fire farther than the Forerunners had dreamed they could, (or something along those lines). This can be taken however you want, and seems to imply they can fire beyond the edge of the galaxy. However, as was previously mentioned, the entire galaxy is visible from the Ark, implying the Ark is several galactic diameters from the outer edge of the Milky Way.
Finally, I don’t believe the life stored on the Ark was stored as full-bodied sentient creatures. More likely, specimens were stored as DNA samples, (thereby being immune to the effects of the Array firing), and would be reconstituted after the firing occurred, making the face that they could hit the Ark irrelevant.
Wasn’t all the genetic stuff stored on plates that generate full-bodied organisms as seen in Halo Legends?
> Wasn’t all the genetic stuff stored on plates that generate full-bodied organisms as seen in Halo Legends?
Yes, and I forgot to reference that, so thank you. This is why I suggested the organisms were stored as DNA, thus rendering them immune to the Halo firing. Therefore it really doesn’t matter if the Halo pulses reach the Ark.