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Halos make stars go nova - why not? *long*
Posted By: Ciarán <halo@blackice.ie>	Date: 5/24/06 5:57 a.m.
In Response To: Do the Halos destroy suns? (UrsusArctos) : Sir Blunt came up with a very interesting theory. He believes that the Halos : destroy the suns around which planets with sentient life evolve, and so : fry the planets with radiation and the like. : http://halosm.bungie.org/story/newssearch.html?newsitem=920 : There is a line in the second Cortana letter, where the AI we love to hate : dreams of "A sun, black, but shining." Suns are black during : solar eclipses. And eclipses are supposed to disrupt biological cycles in : a lot of animals as well, explaining the lines about howling beasts in the : Second letter. : The second letter also mentions Raging seas, something that is not associated : with an eclipse. Instead of eclipsing the sun, the Halos might actually : cause the suns to go high into the ultraviolet spectrum of emissions, : whiplashing all habitable planets in the vicinity with huge amounts of UV : and ionic radiation. There would be a massive rise in atmospheric : temperatures. The oceans would soak up enormous amounts of excess heat, : and excess heat in the oceans forms big, powerful storms. And storms mean : raging seas. Animals and sentient beings alike would scream and die in the : heat. : Of course, being the crazy theorist here, let me point out that a highly : advanced civilization (Forerunner) would have plenty of starships, : including ones in slipspace at the time the Halos fired. Those in the : starships would not be affected by the destruction of the suns, so all the : Forerunner would not have died this way as 343 Guilty Spark says. Of : course, there may be Non-Forerunners who survived... Two things that may have been pointed out before: In Marathon: Infinity there's a weapon called the trih xeem (mentioned in these terminals and other places too) that makes the star with the trapped W'rkncacnter go nova (thus inadvertently releasing said W'rkncacnter from its gravity prison). In Christopher Rowley's novel Starhammer (which is an acknowledged influence on the Halo universe), the Starhammer itself is a weapon that can make stars go nova, and can work immediately over galactic distances - though it does need a cubic kilometer of planet's crust to do so. So, the idea of a nova-causing weapon that can work instantly over galactic distances would not necessarily be too surprising to find in the Halo universe. The idea of the Index as the list of stars to wipe out I feel has some merit therefore. That said, there is the problem of efficacy mentioned already, i.e. this is not a method that is guaranteed to wipe out all Flood and potential hosts. However, one thing to bear in mind is that a strong gamma ray burst from a supernova may well be enough to sterilise that area of the galaxy - it's one possible doomsday scenario for life on Earth today. The Index could be a list of stars that would be potential supernova candidates, and the Halos could trigger multiple, simultaneous supernovae throughout the galaxy, irradiating it thouroghly and wiping out all but the simplest of life forms. This still leaves the possibility that ships in slipspace or shielded appropriately could survive. If these ships contained Flood, then they would indeed survive, but they would have no hosts, and would therefore slip into hibernation - much like the Vang seem capable of (the basis of the Flood, found in Christopher Rowley's Vang series of novels). While this would not totally eradicate the Flood, it would minimise their potential threat. What then of potential Forerunner survivors? Well, who says they're not out there somewhere? 343GS says they're all dead, but he could be wrong, or lying. After all, Cortana thought there were no survivors from the destruction of Halo 04 - just "dust and echoes". Perhaps they're waiting in the wings, hoping they don't have to step in and cleanse the galaxy again. Or maybe they've sublimed into a higher state of existence (as per Iain M. Banks Culture novels). So how did the Covenant and Humans arise since the last firing of the Halos? Well both seem to have links with the Forerunners - the Prophets at one stage lived on a Forerunner world, while Humans (or the Spartans at least) seem to have innate knowledge of how to use Forerunner technology, which also reacts to Spartan blood. There's also the question of the asteroid with the markings in it that led to Halo 04 and the pattern in the accretion disk of the black hole, both mentioned in the Fall of Reach, with timings that seem to match the last firing of the Halos. There's also the small matter of a huge Forerunner installation on (in?) Earth. It seems to me that a race as sophisticated as the Forerunner would be able to find a way of "rebooting" the galaxy after pressing the big reset button, i.e. some way to re-seed the galaxy with life, and perhaps some way of accellerating evolution, or even some way to start from where things left off - a kind of "restore" operation having taken a "backup" somehow. Except that this time, there would be no Flood. Of course, it could equally be that Gravemind and equivalent organisms trapped on the other Halos found a way to get life going again in the galaxy, and left clues to the locations of the Halos, so that they could be "rescued" and continue their galactic rampage. Whatever the cause of life being present in the galaxy now, I think we need to remember when speculating on the mechanism of the Halos that the Forerunners were not necessarily perfect or omnipotent, and were increasingly under pressure from the ever-encroaching Flood. They fired the Halos as a last resort. Perhaps they only had time to make the Halos good enough to get most of the Flood while also having a way to ensure that life returned afterwards, in the hope that any remaining Flood would not pose a real threat, or could be defeated by those who came afterwards to Reclaim the galaxy. After all, the Vang, the self-styled "Gods of Axone-Neurone", were ultimately defeated - by Humans. Ciarán.

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Message Index

Do the Halos destroy suns?	UrsusArctos	5/22/06 7:50 p.m.
Re: Do the Halos destroy suns?	Vasheeth	5/22/06 10:59 p.m.
Re: Do the Halos destroy suns?	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	5/22/06 11:26 p.m.
Re: Do the Halos destroy suns?	UrsusArctos	5/22/06 11:49 p.m.
My theory was on the way they kill	Sir Blunt	5/23/06 3:46 a.m.
Re: My theory was on the way they kill	opie301	5/23/06 12:34 p.m.
Resonance mb? *NM*	Ma1agate	5/23/06 2:47 p.m.
Re: My theory was on the way they kill	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	5/23/06 4:01 p.m.
Re: Do the Halos destroy suns?	Stephen L. (SoundEffect)	5/23/06 4:04 p.m.
Re: Do the Halos destroy suns?	UrsusArctos	5/23/06 6:56 p.m.
Re: Do the Halos destroy suns?	awesomejacob	5/22/06 11:40 p.m.
Re: Do the Halos destroy suns?	Sir Blunt	5/23/06 3:49 a.m.
Re: Do the Halos destroy suns?	dipanjan	5/23/06 1:01 p.m.
Halos make stars go nova - why not? *long*	Ciarán	5/24/06 5:57 a.m.