- SpoonGuard
- |
- Exalted Heroic Member
Posted by: RadioTubeClock
I was under the impression that it was knowledge which was passed to Cortana, allowing her to activate/use stuff on Halo.
While the nature of the Forerunner installation is never directly revealed, it is likely a part of the overall species redistribution system put in place 100,000 years ago. When questioned, Halsey says the installation contains "Knowledge. A birthright from an ancient civilization." If I were to guess (and this is based purely on supposition), I would say that the installation is some sort of regional indexing center for the Librarian.
The room in which Noble Team finds Halsey and Cortana contains a huge holographic sphere sucking in wisps of something from all angles. The sphere is either Reach or the core planet of the Ark itself. Either way, the wisps are data packets being broadcast from surrounding systems adjacent to Reach. For the Librarian's purposes, the Reach installation acts as a hub from which she could have indexed biological samples from that region of the galaxy.
I hesitate to think it is a direct portal to the Ark, like the installation found beneath New Mombasa on Earth, because of the difference in geological composition between the two planets. Whereas the western Africa site was covered in relatively soft red sandstone and flat desert, Sword Base was located in a much more primordial terrain of hard granite mountains. This would certainly not be an ideal location for a massive portal, especially if it required excavation first.
Again, this is just supposition but it's the best explanation I can come up with.
Also, in more direct response to your comment, Cortana never utilized anything on Halo until she was placed directly into the Control Room (just before the Master Chief was telported to the Library by 343 Guilty Spark). While its possible she was able to interface with Halo more easily because of her previous interaction with the Reach installation, it was the Chief who did all the button-pushing early on.
[Edited on 04.08.2011 4:37 AM PDT]