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This topic has moved here: Subject: The HALO's, when and why were they detonated?
  • Subject: The HALO's, when and why were they detonated?
Subject: The HALO's, when and why were they detonated?
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We know that HALO's could destroy all intellegent life in the galaxy, but do we know that was their original purpose? I believe I remeber the HALO's being called "Fortress worlds" What if they were simply intended as fortresses. The beam towers on the level named HALO could have been designed to destroy attacking ships, the entire thing could have been designed to protect against enemy attack. But, then they found the Flood. Imagine that you're the Commander of the HALO orbiting the Forunner homeworld (Presumably not 04). The Flood have captured a Forunner fleet, and you do your best to defend the homeworld, but a small number of Flood slip through. You know they'll come for you next. Notice that the Control room looked like it had been heavily sealed. A little more fortification could make it almost impervious. The flood were coming and (perhaps literally) banging on the door. So you use the power generators already on HALO to emit a pulse that destroys all sentient life out of desperation. Maybe it interfere with thought processes, causing their brains to overload, making them totally useless or something. Because you're all in the heavily fortified command center, you aren't harmed by the pulse (Given that you made it, I think you'd know how to protect against it.), but all the flood combat forms and all are dead, and it wasn't really a bad thing, because everyone in the galaxy was infected already. You (being a Forunner who can probably live for a rather long time, or maybe the Flood can't live long without a host) stay inside and simply wait for the most of the Flood to die, and then you send out robots to capture them, hoping to study them in order to find a way to destroy them without killing everyone else. Then, you go around the galaxy, genetically engineering new races (including the Humans and the Covenant), and you use the people who put themselves in robots(to escape the Flood) to guard the HALO's, establishing protocols to prevent any chance of a malfunction ending with the (effective) destruction of the galaxy. You keep up contact with the races you created, hence the Covenant use of Forunner technology and the Human similarities to the Forunner.

Note - Is was specifically said that the weapon destroyed all sentient life, it was said that Flood could only infect organisms of sufficient intellegence and biomass, but the weapon seemed to destroy all sentient life. Presuming the Control room of 04' was unhardened (stone wouldn't help much... you'd need something special), If my theory as to how it works, the pulse would have destroyed the Monitor as well... which actually makes him a bit cooler.

PPS - If you respond to this thread, please quote who you are responding to.

  • 07.07.2004 5:44 PM PDT
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No it was specifically said that it was made to study and contain the flood the dooms day device is a fail safe

  • 07.07.2004 5:50 PM PDT
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What a better way to contain them then by destroying all their food?

  • 07.07.2004 5:51 PM PDT
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Kazimikar said
[quote]No it was specifically said that it was made to study and contain the flood the dooms day device is a fail safe [/quote

He said "This installation was built to...". Note he didn't say, "This starbase" or anything like that. I think he meant the place you had been wandering around in on that level, not the entire ring. I can't find the exact transcript, but I remeber it pretty well.

[Edited on 7/7/2004 5:58:02 PM]

  • 07.07.2004 5:56 PM PDT
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It is a well accepted theory that when he said installation that he was referring to the ring Halo, not some spot on the ring.

[Edited on 7/7/2004 5:57:13 PM]

  • 07.07.2004 5:56 PM PDT
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Posted by: Hikaru 119
It is a well accepted theory that when he said installation that he was referring to the ring Halo, not some spot on the ring.

But still only a theory, he could have meant just that complex.

  • 07.07.2004 5:58 PM PDT
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and since when did anyone say that halo was a weapon?
If gonna say the covies or keyes don't they truely dont know how halo works they are complete idiots

how come you didn't see anymore flood complexes on the planet

[Edited on 7/7/2004 6:00:37 PM]

  • 07.07.2004 5:59 PM PDT
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Then why didn't he just use the word "complex" then?

  • 07.07.2004 5:59 PM PDT
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Posted by: Kamizar
and since when did anyone say that halo was a weapon?
If gonna say the covies or keyes don't they truely dont know how halo works they are complete idiots

how come you didn't see anymore flood complexes on the planet


Well, you might only need one, and of course Master Chief was probably too occupied preventing the monitor from destroying the galaxy to look for more Flood to release.

Btw, installation and complex can mean the same thing.

  • 07.07.2004 6:05 PM PDT
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well you didn't answer my question. you should have still seen one halo is a big game there should have been one on the horizon in the maw. I already knew that.

  • 07.07.2004 6:11 PM PDT
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Posted by: Kamizar
well you didn't answer my question. you should have still seen one halo is a big game there should have been one on the horizon in the maw. I already knew that.

... Why would one be on the horizon in the Maw... we don't know how many there are, or where they are, the nearest one could be 100 or more miles away, or the ship could be on top of one, it wouldn't take much to go beyond the horizon.

  • 07.07.2004 6:14 PM PDT
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baecause there was a vast land scape of nothing ness it would be a good dramatic effect. considering the climate changes in halo and 100 miles away from each other you still should have seen them. And once again you have failed to answer my question.

  • 07.07.2004 6:18 PM PDT
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Posted by: Kamizar
baecause there was a vast land scape of nothing ness it would be a good dramatic effect. considering the climate changes in halo and 100 miles away from each other you still should have seen them. And once again you have failed to answer my question.

If there was a vast landscape of nothingness, then a building in the middle of it would kinda take away the effect eh? Even if you could see it, at 100 miles you couldn't tell what it was without like 500x Zoom. And what IS your question, if I have failed to answer it.

  • 07.07.2004 6:21 PM PDT
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and since when did anyone say that halo was a weapon?
If your gonna say the covies or keyes don't they truely dont know how halo works they are complete idiots

Wait but the PoA in the Maw was the only structure and it had a good effect. It wouldn't have to be on 500x zoom to see it if it is on the horizon you can't see for a hundred miles distance. The max viewing distance for a human is less than 50 miles(depending on the size of the object).

  • 07.07.2004 6:37 PM PDT
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Posted by: Kamizar
and since when did anyone say that halo was a weapon?
If your gonna say the covies or keyes don't they truely dont know how halo works they are complete idiots

Wait but the PoA in the Maw was the only structure and it had a good effect. It wouldn't have to be on 500x zoom to see it if it is on the horizon you can't see for a hundred miles distance. The max viewing distance for a human is less than 50 miles(depending on the size of the object).


1. No one ever did... but it could have been, and wasn't it at least in effect a weapon against the Flood?
2. That... didn't make much sense. I know you can't see 100 miles, thats why you'd need 500x zoom. Yes the PoA was the only object in the Maw, and that was why it had a good effect - it stood out above the featureless desert. And what was this, if you know that you could see something 100 miles away.

100 miles away from each other you still should have seen them. And once again you have failed to answer my question.

  • 07.07.2004 6:48 PM PDT
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IT WAS NEVER FIRED!

If it is on the horizon than it is closer than 100 miles an there is no need for 500x zoom.
and if each was a hundred miles away you should have seen them somewhere because i dont think that you would ever be at a point in which you would be directly in the middle

  • 07.07.2004 6:56 PM PDT
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Posted by: Kamizar
IT WAS NEVER FIRED!

If it is on the horizon than it is closer than 100 miles an there is no need for 500x zoom.
and if each was a hundred miles away you should have seen them somewhere because i dont think that you would ever be at a point in which you would be directly in the middle


Halo was fired, because note that GS mentions that last time it was activated, the Reclaimer (i.e. the commander of HALO... maybe the name of his ship) asked him whether he would do it.

Halo is 31400 kilometers in circumfrence and 100 km deep. I don't know its width exactly, but that makes for a LOT of cubic mileage. If it was on the horizon, you still couldn't tell what it was without zooming in.

And besides, wouldn't the absence of other Flood containment facilities suggest that HALO itself was NOT built to study the Flood.

  • 07.07.2004 7:20 PM PDT