When we first see the Harbinger she’s surrounded by those odd panel looking things and emerges from a haze of yellow light. We later see her emerge in a similar manner in the final fight. They never explained what that was or why she was there.
Despondent says that she needed to “go back” and find out how she escaped. When we hear her being destroyed, why is that audio the echo which is usually applied to the Forerunner whispers from the past we hear in the same area? This implies DP went back in time and was killed by the Harbinger.
I mean, how are we hearing whispers of Forerunners from the past anyway? Fine, Chief has this ability from Halo 4 but only when a current day Forerunner does it surely? Is this some kind of Slipspace technology and every time this happens the “veil” thins and that why we hear it.
Perhaps that’s why DP is so horrified by the Harbinger killing her and says it’s wrong. Killing her in the past would creates a paradox and risk damaging reality itself. If the Endless want that on a grander scale that could, a bit like Multiverse of Madness cause all kinds of problems and that’s why they’re so dangerous.
Maybe there’s a limited range on the Time Machine so you can only go back in time inside the Conservatory for a limited period of time.
I’m not sure I think Despondent Pyre went back in time. Personally, I think that line refers to going back to where the Cylixes are stored, more a colloquialism.
My theory on why Chief is hearing these whispers is because he’s passing through data clusters from Cortana - which the game already establishes can make him see her, and see events - and is encountering her connection to the Domain. Since the domain is the living history of the Forerunner, he would be able to hear these events. We know the Domain was restored ~1 century after the firing of the array, so it is possible, depending on the exact timing of events, that it captured the conversations with the Criterion regarding the handling of the Endless.
I think that what Despondent Pyre says is wrong is the releasing of the Endless, if memory serves, that her quest to release them is not in keeping with the plan the Forerunners laid out for the universe.
Where I do think time manipulation comes into play is potentially in the Silent Auditorium. I do think the theory that the Auditorium is a time lock/reverse time lock has some merit. It does seem to match the description for where the Primordial was time accelerated to death. And this would serve to explain the time dilation that Chief and the Weapon experienced while the Harbinger was working there. Time was being manipulated - not in the sense of a time machine, traveling to a specific point in time - but in terms of acceleration/deceleration.
I wonder if that’s where Mendicant Bias was judged as well. Crazy to think Cortana would die on the same spot as the Primordial and where Mendicant Bias was accused.
Why so many people think that time travel to the past is a thing in Halo ? It’s not because Master Chief and the Weapon made an accidental jump of three day in the future than we can talk about time travel.
Travel to the past and change the reality is something completely different and infinitely more complicated, nothing in Halo show us it’s possible.
Manipulating time could mean a lot of thing. With the relativity, time does not pass at the same speed for everyone. For example, if 1 hour somewhere = 1 year in the universe, we can talk about a travel to the future, but not to the past.
Another example, in the forerunner trilogy, the Urdidact accelerate the time around the Primordial to kill him.
Maybe the Endless survive to the Halo by jumping in the future and avoid the destructive wave, but I don’t think they have the capacity to travel to the past.
Not to mention that time dilation is fully present in Halo across multiple stories, and is the more likely explanation for the lost 3 days in Infinite. It’s also inherent in slipspace travel in the Halo universe. Time dilation is seen across many stories - the time lock used to destroy the Primordial, the slipspace crystal in First Strike, the Suluhu Contemplarium in Halo: Retribution, and so on. Basically - time dilation is solidly core canon, while time travel is not.
Actually the SA is kind of a place where the forerunners made lawsuits. Where probably the forerunners judged the Harbinger and her species to kill them (actually not kill them because for some reason (that I dont remember) there are still cylixes of the Endless. Sorry if my English is not really that impressive.
What would happen if Cortana used the Timelock on herself if she’s immortal and has endless space in the Domain and it’s data?
“I have walked among men and angels for 3,000 years.
Time has no end, no beginning, no purpose.
I wandered the earth seeking forgiveness for my horrible crimes against God and man.
I live to see death and destruction.
Evil over the light, but the light cannot be extinguished.
I live in a prison of my own demise. I am lost in time.“
So the Endless’s abilitie could be the time dilatation, like make a jump to the futur to avoid an attack, like the Halo array : In the trilogi forerunner book, two Halo ring had detected echoes of their own shots before they opened fire. The Endless could have predicted the firing of the Halo array and decided to jump a few day to the futur to avoid it.
In that way, that could make them really difficult to fight and more dangerous than the flood