Reading this i was overwhelmed with excitement and was really giddy to post my 2 cents.
Personally i belive the planet is not Onyx. Dident it say somewhere in Ghosts of Onyx that the sentinels that formed the planet began to dissasemble and more, causing the planet to effectivly break apart ? if not, then it was Onyx or somthing...
As for customizable weapons/vehicles....thats a little shifty. if done correctly, then it could be amazing, if not, then it will break multiplayer into millions of unfair, peices. I would love to see a system where you can invest points into different atributes of your spartan. (( Ex: agility for runspeed, strength for lifting heavy weapons, accuracy for assult rifles/whatever, stealth for silent footsteps or even a minor virsion of active camo, that kinda fades in and out to give some decent sneaking abilitys, ect... )) this way there is no class system and everyone can still do what they want to do and keep it nice and simple at the same time.
But thats just somthing ive aquired from playing Mass effect for too long.....thats what a lack of a new halo game does to me....*Shudders*
P.s. ONI knows everything, and knows "Nothing" at the same time.....so its probably safe to assume that they had assets on whatever planet it is....and probably ended up leaving them there after they lost connection or somthing.
[Edited on 06.08.2011 5:06 PM PDT]