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| Starhammer (big post) | |
| Posted By: Kaworu Nagisa <kanagisa@hotmail.com> | Date: 11/20/03 10:05 a.m. |
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Ahhh... Good morning! Well, Louis, I finally finished my homework assignment! Anyone who hasn't read Starhammer and still wants to may not wish to read this HUGE post. Also, I'm not certain I'm the first to write about this, but that's okay because I also don't care. :) The influences Bungie took from this book are just so obvious that it borders on plagarism, but it's more like paraphrasing. The enemy here are the Laowon, a blue-skinned, sometimes purple-skinned race bent on controlling and enslaving the human race. The humans are quickly becoming a client race. The Covenant are also primarily blue- and purple-skinned, made up of client races, though they are more bent on human destruction instead of enslavement. The secondary threat in this book are the Vang. The book describes them as a "High Intelligence Omniparasitic Life Form". 343 Guilty Spark did say that the Flood's parasitic nature belies its intelligence. The Flood bear striking similarities to the Vang; there is a 'ranger form' that attacks and controls the host, though in Starhammer, the Vang do not seem to require a living host. There is the same 'consciousness' though, as the host is aware of what is happening, but has no control over its own body. The Vang also had a kind of pinkish, frondlike organ, which is very similar to the Flood. As the Covenant with the Flood, the Laowon have had a long history with the Vang. In a hushed voice he said, "Did you know that there is an alien species that the laowon fear? Twice in the past thousand years they have been forced to burn entire worlds. They used nuclear weapons, until no life of any kind survived."
So perhaps the Covenant are burning our worlds for fear that the flood is present there, and we simply aren't aware of it? Anyway, perhaps the most interesting parallel is the one that I have not seen mentioned yet. There is a character in Starhammer called Rhapsodical Stardimple, or Rhap Dimp for short. It is a small, thermally powered floating green orb, with two red eyelike lights known as a 'mote'. It was left behind on a planet by the batrachians, or wisdom seekers, along with the Starhammer. This little mote bears more than a passing resemblace to everyone's favorite insane AI. Here's a few excerpts: Jon stared, speechless, as a glossy green ball with tiny red dots like eyes floated in with a slight humming sound.
The ball had been murmuring to itself in a squeaky little sing-song.
He was about to hand the cube back when Rhap Dimple became active with a squawk.
note: the cube was a small object that apparently contained the necessary access codes to activate the Starhammer. Jon, the main character, was given the cube which was made by a device that I believe read his thought patterns, or DNA, or something like that. Jon was the 'Reclaimer', it seems. one more:
Pretty obvious, no? Other interesting facts. I seem to recall someone at Bungie saying they wanted to make a level that looked like a war had taken place something like 900,000 years ago. This is very similar to the planet BRF, or Baraf, in Starhammer. The batrachians, similar to the Forerunner, had fought an ancient war long ago with the Vang, leaving our space-time continuum behind as they used the Starhammer to destroy their own sun in an effort to eradicate the Vang. Their skeletons and ancient machinery litter the surface of the planet. The batrachians machinery seems to be 'grown' and not constructed. It is made out of a substance called 'eternite' that lasts forever, much like the structures on Halo, and Halo itself, though MC blew it up, so it can't have been quite as good... On Baraf, there are ancient structures like ziggurats, almost identical in design to Halo's control room building. Even the vast spherical control room of Starhammer bears striking resemblance to Halo's control room. It is said in the book that ship to ship communications begin with x- designations. I quote from the 'Transmissions' page: • CCS Truth and Reconciliation (DE H c-1)
What you have begun in anger you shall end in shame. Note the 'x-process'. On rampancy: "But the computer malfunctioned, accelerated to maximum speed, and kept it up for centuries."
One more thing. It's not that significant, but Bungie always likes the details. On page 47, Jon is going to see a computer whiz friend of his, named Meg. On his way, he turns down corridor 117... Kaworu Nagisa The Tru7h is out there... | |
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| Replies: |
| Starhammer (big post) | Kaworu Nagisa | 11/20/03 10:05 a.m. |
| Hehe... *NM* | Louis Wu | 11/20/03 11:30 a.m. |
| Analysis | Jillybean | 11/20/03 11:33 a.m. |
| Very nice | mnemesis | 11/20/03 11:36 a.m. |
| interesting | Grey Wolf | 11/20/03 11:47 a.m. |
| Re: Starhammer (big post) | Wado SG | 11/20/03 12:17 p.m. |
| Re: Starhammer (big post) | Red Loser | 11/20/03 3:13 p.m. |
| Interesting indeed... | Scimitarex | 11/20/03 1:39 p.m. |
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