Posted by: phearmaker
It is my theory ( 100% positive in my head ) , That when the portal collapsed, It did so on the master chiefs side of the ship, Sending them into another universe. The arbiter is in the halo universe, In the same time, But chief + cortana are in the marathon universe.
Ok. Let me start off by saying that I find it EXTREMELY hard to believe that a studio that puts out such innovative and creative products would opt to double back and do something they have already done before. There would be no surprises or plot twists in the story, which is a must for a successful game nowadays. It would make no sense at all.
There is one thing that I don't think you quite get... the intent of Mendicant Bias. In the seventh terminal Mendicant Bias spoke directly to the Chief and Cortana telling them that he would have his masters know that he has changed, and that Master Chief shall be his example. This means two things:
1. There are still Forerunners alive somewhere.
2. That he intends for Chief to meet them at some point.
How would Chief fulfill this role if he returned safely to Earth. The UNSC was no longer at war, and while ONI (and Dr. Halsey) would certainly like to have the Forerunner technologies on the Ark, humans simply didn't have the practical means to travel more than two galactic radii without a Forerunner Key Ship to reopen the portal. MB knew this and took action to prevent Chief from going through the portal. We already know the MB had been tampering with the portal control systems from one of the earlier Terminals. With all this evidence it seems very likely that it was Mendicant Bias who disabled the portal right before Chief's half entered. Your theory seems to suggest that the portal is 3 dimensional. How can a portal that provides instant transit be 3 dimensional. You're either through the portal, or not through the portal.
Now that we've established that Chief is stranded 2^18th lightyears from the Galactic Center of the Milky Way ( which is a long ways away from Mars), lets look at what happens from here. We know the Ark is 262,144 light years from the galactic center, and we also know from the level on Halo called 'The Ark', that the Ark lies a significant distance below the Galactic plane. We know this because the Milky Way can be seen in the sky from the Ark, and it has an elliptical shape, which means you are looking at the Galaxy from below (or above) the galactic plane. The Small Magellanic Cloud is about 210,000 lightyears from the galactic center, and it lies well below the galactic plane. If we assume that the Ark is also below the Galactic plane, everything begins to line up... literally. You can draw a line starting at the galactic center propagating at a significant angle below the galactic plane. First you hit the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is about 179,000 lightyears away, then you hit the SMC at 210,000, then finally you arrive at the Ark (262,144), which we can assume would have its terraformed side facing the Milky Way (like pointing a gun at its target), which would put the Chief's ship hurtling toward the SMC at the end of Halo 3, which appears to be what we see in both the Normal ending and Legendary Ending ( look at the Wikipedia picture for the SMC and you will see the resemblance. The SMC has the blue gas clouds characteristic of the star cluster we see in the game).
The Legendary Planet...it seems obvious to me that it was built by the Forerunners and from what we can surmise about Mendicant Bias' intent, that it is also inhabited now by Forerunners. My theory puts this planet somewhere between the Ark and the SMC. It is logical that the Forerunners still alive would want to shy away from the Ark, since it was the place where they committed galaxy-wide homicide, and it is also logical that they would want to monitor the progress of their Reclaimers and the rest of the post Halo effect galaxy that they had had (and were still having) such a profound impact on. Being closer to the SMC, suitable energy sources would be less few and far between as well (i.e. the blue star we see coming over the horizon of the planet). I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility that the planet we see is mobile, along the lines of High Charity, except better. This would potentially decrease floating time for the Chief, which I believe is the biggest problem he faces right now. Cortana's life span is only 7 years total, and she already has a few under her belt. I think it's very safe to say that if Chief returns in the next game, Cortana will be right there with him. Also, all of John's friends are trapped in the slipspace bubble at Onyx. The longer he floats in space, the more of his friends die (along with the money making story arcs accompanying them... just think for a minute about the possibilities of a squad based game that finally utilizes the physical advantages a SPARTAN possesses and also every aspect of blue team from Kelly's 60 km/hr speed, to Linda's sniper rifle, to John's luck, to Fred's... well just Fred). It's not logical that Chief would float until all of the characters that we've grown to love are dead (Dr. Halsey, Spartans, etc.). Chief is definitely not floating for very long before the events in the Legendary ending takes place.
I'm not saying that your Marathon theory isn't right. I think it is more likely that my theory is correct based simply on the fact that myself and many others have found significant evidence that suggest this is the way everything went down:
http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=14023026&p ostRepeater1-p=1#14026023I find any Halo->Marathon connection impossible mainly because Bungie would never creatively stifle themselves by re-releasing Marathon and calling it the next chapter in the Halo series.
[Edited on 03.16.2008 1:45 AM PDT]