- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
This question was thought up a while ago, as i was reading up on the specifics of the Halo construct at HBO. I was digging up the calculations on the overlapping fields of the ring's pulse - how the circles would have to overlap to cover every square inch of the galaxy.
Then i thought, "Hey, how exactly DOES the ring "fire," anyways? I mean, the galaxy isn't 2-D, it can't just fire laterally and be done with! It has to do one of these things:
create a "tube" (bear with me on these, guys) with the ring as it's midpoint (think of Darth Maul's lightsaber, how it projected opposite ways) and then fired OUTWARDS (think if his blades increased in circumference to scale to 25,000 light years). But that wouldn't hit all INSIDE the "tube."
Or, if it fired from the outer-side of the ring, it gradually arced in a side-ways "V." But that wouldn't hit all - hard to explain, just think about it, it makes sense.
Maybe it would pulse one "wave" of it's "fire,", then spin slightly (say that the ring spins around the Y axis - Y being it's centepoint. If the ring spun on it's X axis, and sent a pulse out at timed intervals, you'd cover everything in a SPHERE, but i'm not to fluent in spherical geometry, so...yah. BUT, it'd miss everything INSIDE the ring.
Also, we know that the ring has been SPECULATED to have fired before, and we know that whatever the ring "fires" obviously can distinguish between Life and the inanimate, so it wouldn't destry ITSELF in the process of firing....and, we know that the Flood still survive today (2552), so even I doubt the possibility of a previous firing...but in either sense, what of INSIDE the ring, the inner-side that we rampage across in the game? Would Halo ALSO destroy what's inside? or would they be safe from it's destruction? If it had fired before, and the Flood still are alive then this brings me to TWO conclusions:
One, that things ON or INSIDE the ringworld live through; and
Two, that if the ring fired to RID the Galaxy of the Flood, WHY KEEP IT ALIVE ON HALO?
Well, maybe it'd rid the rest of the Galaxy, but keep some under control for study? but if the Flodd are about the galaxy, that MUST mean they're not contained on Halo, so they still pose a threat, so it makes no sense that the ring has fired before.
"Last time you asked me, 'If it were my choice, would I do it?' Having considerable time to ponder your query, my answer is unchanged. We must activate the ring."
Plus, Halo ITSELF doesn't make much sense - the Flood are harmful to our existence, so to rid them, to keep US safe, we must...kill ourselves?
EDIT: I also would like to point out how old 343 GS is (100,000 some-odd "cycles" or whatever, meaning years), and how he might not grasp (and his CREATORS might not) the frailty and length of life itself - how firing to rid the Galaxy of all life with enough biomass to sustain the Flood would still leave room for EVOLUTION, and thus, Life once more.
What does everyone think of this crap?
[Edited on 6/7/2004 6:55:49 AM]