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This topic has moved here: Subject: Enkidu - Cortana Letters Revisted?
  • Subject: Enkidu - Cortana Letters Revisted?
Subject: Enkidu - Cortana Letters Revisted?
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  • Exalted Mythic Member

January 30, 2004 (Warthog's Day)
The Master Chief emerged from his code. After seeing his dynamically lit realtime shadow, he went back for 9 more months of development.


Behold the power of the Originals, the Gods Axeone-Neurone.

Posted by: Cain182
Oh and Tartarus, I have a question, how do you know that these terminals are following the greek alphabet? I've seen nothing in them reffering to anything alpha through omega.

Look at the links in your address bar they are going in order of the greek alphabet (alpha - omega).

  • 05.13.2004 12:47 PM PDT
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sorry this is off topic, but you are the only other one on here... will the humans have flying vehicles, or the covies have some kind of bomber?

  • 05.13.2004 12:47 PM PDT
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This is not the place to post that. Take your questions elsewhere to have them answered.

  • 05.13.2004 12:53 PM PDT
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Get out of here Mosseymou. We have no idea. Wait for the game to come out or go read the interview by IGN of Pete Parsons at E3, and no, I won't give you the link.

  • 05.13.2004 12:55 PM PDT
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Well, I have to admit. I've read some of the cortana letters, and some of the posts, and my brain hurts. Alot. Im going to give up, cause it's making me cross eye'd. X(

I'll just wait and see I guess.

OH, BTW: JD is actually an elite with a human mask on. Not a good one either: It's one of the ones made out of paper, with a little ruber band to hold it on your face. That's what I think E told Mathers.

Or not.....

  • 05.13.2004 12:59 PM PDT
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I have been doing research on hypermassive objects and I found something that may be relevant.

Whatever this anomaly is it is probably a space/time manipulation device. To determine what exactly the anomaly is we need to know what is involved in space/time manipulation.

These websites provides some background.
http://www.karinya.com/travel1.htm
http://www.beyondweird.com/element115.html
http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/elements/ununpentium.html

Gravity A wave - atomic level gravity, holds subatomic particles together, only superheavy elements posses enough of this for practical use.

Gravity B wave - large-scale, rotates planets around sun, conventional gravity, all elements posses this.


Basically what it says it that we need an element that has a large gravity A wave in order to manipulate the fabric of space. Maybe that is what the anomaly is... a superheavy element that is causing the strong gravitational pull that this planet strangely has. It would have to have both an A and a B gravity wave, if it has a massive B wave than think about the size of the A wave...

This also ties into the meta tag "dizzy_electrons" because a only an element with a large number of electrons can produce an adequate A wave. Such as elements 115+ (117 would make the most sense). This probably ties into "branes" as well, but I am researched-out for now.

from one of the sites:
This amplified gravity A wave is so powerful that the only naturally occurring source of gravity that could cause space/time to distort this much would be a black hole.

Maybe its a black hole?

  • 05.13.2004 1:10 PM PDT
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Yeah i think everyone's brain hurts from this stuff. there are most likely 3 more Enkidu messages and i think everyone is just waiting for them and then we might not have to think about it anymore because we'll have all the puzzle pieces.

  • 05.13.2004 1:11 PM PDT
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I hear that, the anticipation is killing me... those Bungie people always have something up their sleeve.

  • 05.13.2004 1:15 PM PDT
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It can't be a black hole, because the event horizon would be noticible, and they'd easily be able to detect the "virtual particles" coming from it. A virtual particle pops into existance in a pair, and then in less than 100th of a nanosecond, the pairs combine back into energy. A black hole has its energy drained from it when the event horizon catches one of these two particles, preventing the two from completing the equasion. After all, matter can't come from nothing. Therefore, the remaining virtual particle draws energy from the black hole in order to sustain its existance.

Gee, let's see what we've learned from these letters: History, science, a bit of philosophy... Even if this is nothing more than a fanfic, I'm glad it exists.

  • 05.13.2004 1:17 PM PDT
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We like references. We like embedded hints.

Notice that there aren't just a series of terminal, that they've been broken up into sections. Why? Some have speculated that the three non-prologue sections mark the progression of rampancy. We then dig through meta-tags and obscure literary references to find hidden meanings to the terminals. It's more simple than we dared to think.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is broken up into tablets. No real reason. Arbitrary chapter breaks. I thought it was strange how if the sections of the Enkidu Terminals were descriptions of the stages of rampancy that different stages would take different lengths of time. It should be a steady progression. The trickiness of the author was right there. The number of terminals of each section refer to a different tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

The prologue should have only three terminals by the end of the story, so refers to Tablet 3. Section 1 has 7, Section 2 has 6 and by the end of the story Section 3 should have 11. You can go here http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/GILG.HTM to read the same summaries I did.
Even briefer than that site, I will describe the action as it relates to the Enkidu Terminals.
Gilgamesh (John Doe) feels like sitting around Uruk (Reach) is making him soft and wants to go out and do something. So, he decides to travel to the Cedar Forest to kill Humbaba the demon (travel to different starsystems to assassinate a Prophet, maybe). The city elders try to talk him down but reluctantly agree and demand that Enkidu protect him (the UNSC command reluctantly decide to allow John Doe's mission and pair him with Enkidu for better tactical chances). {Tablet 3/Prologue} Enkidu contracts a nasty illness and slowly dies while having dreams and visions of Hell (Enkidu patches himself with Forerunner code, contracts a virus and is slowly 'killed.') {Tablet 7/"Waking Up Is Hard To Do"} Gilgamesh angers the gods, whom vow to release the dead from Hell, cause great tremors, etc. but Gilgamesh still fights on (The Flood are released, the Covenant ships crash when they try to leave causing tremors, John Doe survives it all and pushes on). {Tablet 6/Appettitie For Destruction} Then, Gilgamesh realizes he's talking with Utnapishtim, the man-immortal, and asks for the "knowledge hidden from humanity." Utnapishtim puts him through trials and then sends him to the bottom of the ocean to find a plant, which is then eaten by a snake while Gilgamesh rested, and Gilgamesh goes home (John Doe had to climb to the surface, fight through countless enemies, survive the cold, etc. Now, Enkidu is sending him to the bottom of the Forerunner facility to find an object of limitless power. JD will lose this object to somebody, perhaps the Covenant, and then go home.). {Tablet 11/Credo In Un Dio Crudel}

  • 05.13.2004 1:18 PM PDT

Me: "OMFG, Dude... wtf!"
AbolitionofMan: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to betray you."
Me: "That's the 4th time in this game alone!"
Chris: "Third, besides he had the flag I was trying to stop him, how was I supposed to know you were there."
Me: "I said, 'I got the Flag, don't shoot.'"
Chris: "Well those Wraith shots take a while to reach you."
Me: "You were right next to me, I had killed him and a minute passed before you decided to shoot."
Chris: "Hahahahaha, yeah... that was great."

*Tips his hat to Noir.*

"Noir, out--blam!--standing dude..."

Achilles

  • 05.13.2004 1:23 PM PDT
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At one point, I'd had a similar thought, but discarded it. You put it together far better than I did... Nice!

  • 05.13.2004 1:25 PM PDT
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Beautiful

  • 05.13.2004 1:25 PM PDT
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Very nice Noir, but can we disredard all the other little references we came up with or are they little extras tacked onto this main overall template of the epic of gilgamesh?

  • 05.13.2004 1:31 PM PDT
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I'm sorry, but could someone get me up to speed. What are these letters about?

  • 05.13.2004 1:48 PM PDT
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hey, just a reminder, one of bungies staff hinted: who or what would wear a halo? I think he posted it on the HBO forum. Anyway, maybe Frigid was ment to wear a halo. Maybe when the two combine they produce some super weapon (course isnt that halo's purpous?). Or maybe when the awesome power source of a halo combines with the hypermassive object that stevedave was talking about, it manipulates space/time enough to open up a wormhole. What happens when that happens? Maybe the forrunner come back. Maybe the forrunner got scared durring the last "catestrophic outbreak" and set all the halos to fire and then went forward in time to survive the blast, using this instalation. This theory's still got a lot of holes, but maybe someone could help me out?

  • 05.13.2004 2:05 PM PDT
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Section 8
read the letters and you will know, its easier than reading this whole thread. You are probably the twentieth person to ask for a summary, but there is a lot of info here and there is still a lot that we have only theorized about. Wait until its over (soon) and someone will make a summary.

[Edited on 5/13/2004 2:07:50 PM]

  • 05.13.2004 2:06 PM PDT
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I'll finally add some input.
The object is the Crystal like the ones from the books. It can bend and create gravity as well as bend time while in slipspace.

  • 05.13.2004 2:30 PM PDT
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haloaddic. I do remember that from HBO. thats good thinking. I could see frigid fitting together inside the ring. Maybe the triangular towers that pulse the blue plasma energy inwards on the ring match the ones on frigid that shoot the energy outwards. they could line up somehow and connect the two together. Can you visualize what I'm saying? Wow! Just maybe the two things do fit together. Very cool if they do.

[Edited on 5/13/2004 2:39:06 PM]

  • 05.13.2004 2:37 PM PDT
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A research station that wasn't made to be able to handle combat or things like the Flood being part of a Halo? I dunno...

  • 05.13.2004 2:46 PM PDT
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Posted by: AI Nemesis
Has anyone noticed that in Captain Mathers' letters to JD, he calls him "sailor" in quotations. And Enkidu had told the Captain about JD's identity as a "sailor" (from what I interpreted, Enkidu's letters are just too cryptic). Sailor...I'm guessing that means navy. Maybe an ONI spook, disguised as a SPARTAN-II for whatever reason. The captain seemed disappointed with JD after he found out. He said something like "Its okay, we still need every hand we can get." Speculations anyone?



If it is a ONI spook he must have been in the program because it says in FoR that the only reason that they could wear the suits because of their implants.

  • 05.13.2004 3:02 PM PDT
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This is tense, yesterday there were like 3 terminals, and today so far only one!
Most likely untrue but what if inside the void is like a colony of forerunners left behind to gaurd the anomaly?

  • 05.13.2004 4:15 PM PDT
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it never said he was wearing his armor. if he was, he wouldn't need cold weather gear.

  • 05.13.2004 4:18 PM PDT
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[color=orange]Righty, I like Noir's theory a lot, looks to be the most promising so far, but Tartarus has a good point. Are we just to disreguard all the other references? Of course not! Have we ever known Bungie to be so simple in a story line as to only reference one thing? NO! So, I would tend to think that while the sections represent the tablets of Gilgamesh, and the story follows the epic for the most part, that there are going to be little coincidences and other connections also. So, first off, why can't the titles of the sections represent the stages of rampancy, showing that Enkindu is going rampant, while they have the number of terminals equal to their chapter in the tablets of Gilgamesh? I see no reason why this cannot be, and perhaps we will now find even more double connections like this.[/color]

[color=white]As for the whole 11 dimention thingy, this cannot be another crystal, as they could only bend space and time, but could it not be something similar, forinstance a more powerful one, or an anomaly that functions off of the same principles, just on a much larger scale or with some more/extra effects (the other 11 dimentions)?[/color]

[color=teal]I agree with the theory that JD is one of the new batches of Spartans, seeing as they have now had time for another 2 and a 1/4 batches of em, so that works, and I would say it's the most promising theory on his identity so far.[/color]

Frigid fitting a Halo around it... interesting. Yes, the pasma shots do sound like a way to transfer something, perhaps energy? Frigid could supply power for one of the Forerunner' Ring Fortresses to do something, after all this anomaly is putting out huge amounts of power acording to Enkidu, and it would finally be an explanation for the plasma gun shot thingies on Halo.

[color=yellow]Many people have been trying to figure out why one of Enkidu's personalities is scared of the anomaly and talks about last time, could this be because it is the part of the Forerunner protection system AI that tried to take him over if that is what happened when he entered the network? It would sure explain the 'last time' reference. Perhaps the Forerunner used the anomaly to jump around the last firing of Halo, basically they were on one side of the wave, and utilizing the string theory, used the anomaly to jump to the other side of the wave, or else out of its range? Doing this the Forerunner could have survived the blast and then proceeded to build civilization again in another galaxy as this one was now dead.

And if the AI anti virus thing was in the system back then, it might remember something bad happening at that time, like the Forerunner leaving and perhaps the network having some sort of overload at the use of the anomaly and almost killing the AI? Something like this? There are numerous possibilities, and they are all much more likely explanations for one of Enkidu's personalities fear of the anomaly.[/color]

Like my method of seperating topics with color? I was getting confused in some of the bigger letters, so I figured I'd try to help others out. :-) Can't think of anything else to type, though I know there was more, so if I remember, I'll post it later. ;-)

[Edited on 5/13/2004 4:37:15 PM]

  • 05.13.2004 4:32 PM PDT
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Great Analysis GS Destroy. Interesting fact that there has been time enough for 2.25 batches of Spartans. But where are they, and why haven't we heard anything about them in the books? Could it be that Dr. Hasely made a few more batches of Spartans? Is that why she feels overly guilty about it? And plus, at the end of FS, she takes Kelly away "You're not going on John's mission. You're going on mine" I can't remember what page and if I even got the quote right. My apologies to Eric Nylund. Is Dr. Hasley going to rescue the team on Frigid? She may have known about SENTRYWALK, since she has quite a lot of access for a civilian, plus she was left on Reach to protect the underground facility so she might have heard news or some sort of distress call made from Lebanon or the surviving humans who are already ground-side. If so, maybe in a future terminal will we see when the distress call is made.
Its also possible that Dr. H could save Enkidu because she's overseen every "smart" AI that UNSC made. Plus, the crystal in the book manipulated gravity, as well as space/time. That's how they were able to escape through the grav. lift of the Covenant cruiser.

BTW, the new terminal "Timber" kinda looks like a tree

  • 05.13.2004 5:01 PM PDT