Theory: ONI is controlling The Guardians

In light of the recent revelations from Hunt the Truth and the new ad. I’ve spent some time contemplating what could possibly be going on, so let me cut to the chase…

ONI is either directly responsible for unleashing The Guardians, possibly controlling them, but at the very least responsible for their activation.
Look how convenient this all is for ONI.

  • Insurrectionist Outer Colonies have been affected.
  • Sanghelios - home world of the Elites has also been affected.
  • ONI can accomplish their goals of crippling the Elites and wiping out the Insurrection, all the while allowing it to appear like Forerunners were responsible.

My theory is that Master Chief has been trying to prevent this from occurring. The first mission of the game has blue team on Argent Moon an ONI vessel, it is here that I believe led John-117 into discovering the plot to awaken the Forerunner constructs and use them as tools of war. This led John and the rest of Blue team to go AWOL, trying to prevent ONI from setting their plans in motion.

ONI is aware of John’s intentions and desperately tries to find a way to discredit him and make him out to be a traitor, all the while luring him out into the open with a “failed assassination” attempt on the covenant ambassador by attacking the peace talks.

Once they become aware of his location, they don’t need to discredit him anymore and want to try to use his death to “unite” what’s left of humanity(after they viciously wipe out disloyal outer colonies) so they retract their “mistake” and make him back on good graces with the public through Ben Giraud’s public take down.

His death: Now with publicly announcing the death of the Master Chief, they are still concerned about him managing to find a way to prevent the plans they set in motion, so they assemble a team of their best Spartan-IV’s, specifically choosing Locke to lead it, due to his “noble” character that can be easily manipulated. They deliberately misinform Locke that Chief is responsible for the destruction wrought by the Guardians and make him motivated to kill the chief and give him secret standing orders to take him out (I don’t believe the rest of Osiris intends to kill the Chief.)

This is why Locke is so obviously upset in the “All Hail” trailer. He feels betrayed by his greatest hero and directly blames the Chief for what has happened; “Let us remember him as a protector and not the one who gave us…This.”

This ad is symbolic of Locke’s motivation (and a few other things we can analyse later)

The Cost ad: Symbolic of John’s knowledge of what ONI has tried to do as is talking to Locke as if he symbolizes ONI. .".is this what you wanted? Is this what you were looking for? Was everything you’ve compromised, everything you’ve done… worth it?" This quote clearly can be interpreted as John appalled at the lengths ONI is willing to go to achieve their goals. “You’ve completed your mission, Spartan Locke, Mine is just beginning” Chief’s mission is to prevent The Guardians from continuing their reign of destruction. Locke’s (ONI’s) mission was to destroy the outer colonies and debilitate the Sangheli, which was clearly accomplished (completed) in some capacity.

How could ONI be controlling the Guardians?
My best theory is that they are components of the Maginot Line (Jat-Krula), a defensive installation created by the Forerunners to protect their core worlds from attack. A defensive installation… what is something called who defends something else?..A Guardian.

-Last Light depicts ONI capturing Intrepid Eye, a monitor responsible for upkeep of the Jat-Krula.
-Intrepid Eye believes that humanity needs to be molded into Reclaimer status as it believes we currently aren’t worthy.
-I believe that ONI manipulated Intrepid Eye into “purging the weak,” by attacking the outer colonies with The Guardians. Allowing it to do their dirty work for them.

Well that’s the gist of it. I have a bit more conjecture to talk about on more minor hints and clues, but I feel I can save the minor stuff for later discussion.

Let me know what you all think. I’m looking forward to hearing feedback and precipitating a vibrant discussion about interpretation of current halo lore.

  • EWOKofDESTINY

Holy crap, that’s some conspiracy on the level of Deus Ex. Only problem I have is that The Didact talks about the Reclamation at the end of Halo 4, and I thought he was suggesting the remaining Forerunners will not want to give up the Mantle and will decide to destroy humanity… Maybe the Guardians plan backfires on ONI and the Forerunners take hold of the Guardians by Halo 5’s ending, dunno.

By the way, I didn’t read the last quarter of your post because I have not read Halo: Last Light yet.

But I like the idea. A lot.

Good theory.

> 2533274812698627;2:
> Holy crap, that’s some conspiracy on the level of Deus Ex. Only problem I have is that The Didact talks about the Reclamation at the end of Halo 4, and I thought he was suggesting the remaining Forerunners will not want to give up the Mantle and will decide to destroy humanity… Maybe the Guardians plan backfires on ONI and the Forerunners take hold of the Guardians by Halo 5’s ending, dunno.
>
> By the way, I didn’t read the last quarter of your post because I have not read Halo: Last Light yet.
>
> But I like the idea. A lot.

Yeah I’m kinda figuring the plan backfired. Considering the fact the Warden Eternal seems to be calling the shots by the time Chief makes it to Sanghelios. Also in “The Cost” you get the feeling it’s a UNSC held colony from the dialogue.

Whoaaaa great theory. Especially incorporating Last Light.

I don’t want to sound crazy but I’m still thinking it’s “aliens”.

> 2533274824409174;6:
> I don’t want to sound crazy but I’m still thinking it’s “aliens”.

Lol it’s possible.

Still though, something set them off, and ONI acting is suspiciously. Why fake announce the death of humanity’s greatest hero during a catastrophe? This whole situation is just off.

I like it. This compliments my “Serin Osman is the real Devil” theory. Basically, Serin Osman is behind everything going bad in the galaxy and Blue is gonna have to kill her. Why would she go to such great length? To kill a legend, that’s why. Watch.

> 2533274867519109;8:
> I like it. This compliments my “Serin Osman is the real Devil” theory. Basically, Serin Osman is behind everything going bad in the galaxy and Blue is gonna have to kill her. Why would she go to such great length? To kill a legend, that’s why. Watch.

Serin Osman is a hard character to figure out. She reminds me of Anakin Skywalker, she has just the slightest ounce of moral reasoning, but it’s completely suppressed by an unhealthy persuit of power and control. She’s a dangerous person.

It’s made expressly clear in the Kilo-Five trilogy that Osman hates the Spartan-II program…especially Dr. Halsey. I think Osman is still extremely bitter about washing out in the SII program and being in the Chief’s shadow. Maybe she wants to use the Forerunnser’s secrets to enhance herself to god-like status to satisfy her insecurities. Isn’t that the whole point of ONI anyway? To be all knowing and all powerful? Its what I would do…

This is a seriously convincing arguement

> 2533274867519109;10:
> It’s made expressly clear in the Kilo-Five trilogy that Osman hates the Spartan-II program…especially Dr. Halsey. I think Osman is still extremely bitter about washing out in the SII program and being in the Chief’s shadow. Maybe she wants to use the Forerunnser’s secrets to enhance herself to god-like status to satisfy her insecurities. Isn’t that the whole point of ONI anyway? To be all knowing and all powerful?

I agree completely. That’s a good point.

Thanks for all the positive feedback everyone.

Also did anyone else get the feeling that FERO was just being used as a Trojan horse to get to Zane, rather than being there in an actually investigative role? I think she was played and the only reason Black Box went along is because of his advanced communication systems being used to get real time positioning for the air strike…speaking of which?! Isn’t it suspicious they have an air strike waiting to go?!? She hadn’t even been there long, I think ONI has had presence there all along… Because they are activating the Guardians purposefully.

So the new trailer leaks…and now my brains are all over the floor from this…Great theory

> 2533274807480458;13:
> Also did anyone else get the feeling that FERO was just being used as a Trojan horse to get to Zane, rather than being there in an actually investigative role? I think she was played and the only reason Black Box went along is because of his advanced communication systems being used to get real time positioning for the air strike…speaking of which?! Isn’t it suspicious they have an air strike waiting to go?!? She hadn’t even been there long, I think ONI has had presence there all along… Because they are activating the Guardians purposefully.

Now that I think about it yes, Zane is someone they absolutely want to get rid of ASAP, her skill set with the NCA is bad news bears. I just hope we find out for sure if they got Zane or not, or if we get to see her in 5 because my body is ready to fight some innies.

> 2533274826068716;15:
> > 2533274807480458;13:
> > Also did anyone else get the feeling that FERO was just being used as a Trojan horse to get to Zane, rather than being there in an actually investigative role? I think she was played and the only reason Black Box went along is because of his advanced communication systems being used to get real time positioning for the air strike…speaking of which?! Isn’t it suspicious they have an air strike waiting to go?!? She hadn’t even been there long, I think ONI has had presence there all along… Because they are activating the Guardians purposefully.
>
>
> Now that I think about it yes, Zane is someone they absolutely want to get rid of ASAP, her skill set with the NCA is bad news bears. I just hope we find out for sure if they got Zane or not, or if we get to see her in 5 because my body is ready to fight some innies.

Outer Colonies = 13 colonies, UNSC empire = British Empire. What do the OC want? Freedom, autonomy. What if the Insurrection are freedom fighters an the UNSC are oppressive, totalitarian fascists that need to be pushed back? Lol I’m not a hippie…far from it. But humanity seems to have a pattern cycle when is comes to a nations socio-political climate. It Grows, gets too big, Revolution, war, then secession. Like the phases of the moon, it’ll repeat indefinitely.

I really like the theory, but there is the Warden Eternal to deal with who has been already mentioned. He may not be the only intelligent Promethean or Ancilla or whatever he actually is. Because of this possibility I am not certain that the Didact is the only Forerunner still out there.
Also because of the Warden Eternal, I cant help but think of Cortana being connected to the Domain somehow. She was on a Forerunner ship that appeared to be fully activated. As much as I like Cortana and as much as I think she should stay dead for the sake of story, I do think there is the possibility of her coming back via the domain some how. Something along the lines of she uploaded her self to the domain sorted herself out with the more advanced Forerunner processors, she had already incorporated Covenant code to allow herself to clone herself. It is possible she could incorporate Forerunner code to better herself. Only time will tell I guess.

I like this theory very much, especially because I’ve always want someone to eventually factor in that ONI’s got an entire SHIELD WORLD and it’s capabilities under their control since the events of Ghosts of Onyx / Glasslands. So far we’ve only seen supposedly ‘reverse-engineered’ technology like the Infinity, but never actual Forerunner technology being used by the UNSC.

The Warden is basically all that discredits this theory, but again, who knows?

Chief is activating them/seeking them out and it’s clearly not by order of ONI/unsc if what is mentioned in mid blue team mission is correct. Couple this with the conversation held on the bride of infinity during the sprint. There is clearly another force at work as ONI, Halsey and the rest of the UNSC is playing catch up.

If ONI is behind it, they’ve given him the perfect cover, why bother sending Osiris to stop him.

I think The Hunt Begins trailer reinforces this theory as I believe ONI are just telling Osiris that Chief is activating the Guardians so that they will stop him. When he is really trying to stop ONI from using the Guardians