In Response To: HGN observations - long **spoilers** (Ciarán)
Mostly good points, I'll try to answer some questions and what not.
: Half-Jaw's treatment of the Prophet could hardly be said to be respectful.
: This could be a symptom of the stress he is under, but he gets no rebuke
: from the Prophet for his actions. Who has seniority here?
Prophets are supposedly the highest order, but the Legate knows who the boss is, and that 'Vadumee would have had no problem killing him. I suspect that had the Legate made it back to the fleet, Half-Jaw would have "disappeared".
: We don't actually see the destruction of the Infinite Succor, so there is
: the possibility that the proto-Gravemind being constructed onboard was
: able to use the prophet's override codes to change the co-ordinates of the
: Slipspace jump in time to escape.
Interesting thought, though I'm pretty sure that because Half-Jaw got the Legates access codes himself, he was able to completely lock out the Flood.
: I loved the artwork in Breaking Quarantine. Full of movement and detail -
: highly atmospheric. The lack of dialog didn't bother me one bit - who
: would Sarge talk to anyway :) As for the plot being disappointing (he
: "just walks out"), I disagree. He clearly has to fight his way
: out, dealing with being sent flying across the room, leaping from a
: disappearing light-bridge, fighting off the Flood with no shields or
: armour. Bad ass and a half! As for what Johnson may or may not be, see
: down below where I talk about P.122
Yeah Johnson is totally bad-ass. :)
: The key part of this story is where we see the Elite(?) saying something,
: and then hear the translation where the Ark is mentioned. I wonder if this
: might be our Rosetta Stone, leading to deciphering of the glyphs? I
: haven't had the chance to look at this yet, but if those three glyphs have
: appeared in-game, then we may be able to start working out how the
: "alphabet" works. On a related note, the military man with him
: seems to have some knowledge of the Ark, or at least recognises the
: importance of the Elite's statement.
I think its been long suspected that ONI has had some knowledge of Forerunner artifacts for a while now. Though when I read the man's statement I just got the feeling that he knew how important it was to the Covenant and felt that the info needed to get out.
: Some have commented that the ending is poor. I disagree, I think it is
: poignant and very human. In the face of destruction the protagonist
: sacrifices himself to save a child, getting the vital information out of
: the city, saving others but not himself. For someone who has spent his
: recent past in helping the government lie to its people, perhaps he sees
: this as some kind of redemption and can help save others by getting the
: truth out there.
If I remember correctly he said it didnt matter anyways, as nobody would actually make it out, or something to that effect.
: The gallery pieces are excellent - even Mister Chief :). Of course the one
: that potentially gives up most information is p.122. It has been confirmed
: at ComicCon that it is Johnson in the pictures. He is sniping a target at
: over 4km distance as part of an operation on Harvest, apparently
: assasinating a dissident leader, in 2502. The transcripts apparently state
: that Johnson is a "one", and later mention his proximity to
: "twos", which would imply that Johnson is a Spartan-I. The
: transcripts also seem to imply that both Dr. Halsey and Stanforth have
: been inquiring about him, both unsuccessfully. The timing of Halsey's
: inquiry seems to match the time when she is checking his medical history
: from First Strike. She is fed a different file, presumably containing the
: "Paris/BS" information, which is likely details of the Boren's
: Syndrome he is supposed to suffer from. This would appear to be cover, so
: that the real reason he didn't get infected by the Flood is not shown. His
: real medical history would clearly show whatever procedures he has
: undergone as part of the Spartan-I project. He may have no natural
: immunity to the Flood, but rather used his abilities as a Spartan-I to get
: away, as shown in Breaking Quarantine. No normal marine would have
: survived, but then Johnson, it seems, is no normal marine :)
Seems that way, one correction though, it was Ackerson and not Stanforth that wanted the info on the S1 project, and Johnson was one of many that Ackerson made queries about. Jim Lee MB?
: The operation that Johnson was part of on Harvest was one which presumably
: helped quell sedition on a colony. From what I remember from The Fall of
: Reach, the Spartan-IIs were also designed more as colonial counter
: terrorism forces that defenders of human civilisation. Perhaps this is
: further evidence for Johnson being a Spartan-I, and that the Spartan-I
: project had similar roots and purpose, i.e. special counter-insurgency
: forces. I suspect that the marine that helped train the Spartan-IIs (Major
: Silva?) was also a Spartan-I.
Good idea about Mendez (Silva was the CO of the ODSTs on Halo in The Flood)
: There's been questions about Johnson's age. If he was on Harvest in 2502,
: and 50 years later is running around Earth and Halo apparently less than
: 50 years older, how can that be him on Harvest? Some have speculated that
: maybe this is a side affect of being a Spartan-I. I think it may be
: simpler than that. He's been zooming around the galaxy from planet to
: planet in the service of the marines. Slipspace travel may effectively
: mean FTL travel between locations, but I don't think the space vessels
: themselves actually travel at speeds faster than light - they just take a
: short-cut that gets them places quicker that light would take in normal
: space. However, their speeds are likely to be significant to move around
: solar systems quickly. Special Relativity shows that a body that moves
: faster than you experiences time passing slower than you do. So, if the
: military calendar is based on an Earth frame of reference, then if Johnson
: has been travelling at a reasonable fraction of the speed of light for
: much of the 50 years between 2502 and 2552 as measured on Earth , for him
: it would in all likelyhood be much less than 50 years as measured by him
: . Cryo-sleep may also play a part in this, but it would not be necessary
: to explain the apparent discrepancy between Johnson's apparent age at
: Harvest in 2502 and on Earth in 2552.
Technically you're right about taking shortcuts. Slipspace is very complicated. Theoretically you are not actually moving faster than the speed of light, but rather through another dimension (Im recalling something about a crumpled piece of paper with two dots or something). Anyways, so technically time is still progressing at a normal rate for everything. Very non-Einsteinian. Though because they do travel in cryo-sleep for those long journeys, I always figured thats why he was younger looking.
: It's interesting to see Bungie weaving aspects of ILB into
: "canon". Spartan-Is seem to be in, but nothing about 1.5s, or
: rampancy.
: Why is the sword hilt included with all the human weapons?
: I'll post more when I get the chance to compare the glyphs in the HGN with
: the collection on the Halo Story Page.
: Ciarán.
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