- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
A grand finale on/in the Ark would seem as the obvious ending, though do we want the obvious?
Seeing as the trailer is 1/3 into the game, it's highly unlikely that the final battle will take place at the Ark. Unless it's mearly a vision as suggested by some...
What if the final battle takes place in some kind of slip-space distortion, where you are thrown through both time and space battleing both on earth and other Halos, in the process there should be short snippets of flashbacks where you get the backstory - possibly seeing the Flood when they first appeared and when the Forerunners built the Halos. The slip-space distortion would be caused by the activation of all the Halos and could symbolize both the extermination of all sentient life in the universe (the Human perpective on the Halos as weapons of last resort) and the Covenants Great Journey - ergo, you would travel with the "divine wind" as it ravages the universe and leaves nothing behind.
You are finally swept back to Earth wich will be the last place affected by the activation, seeing as those destined to survive must have time to reach the Ark. But insteed of hiding in the Ark the Master Chief stands his ground as the obliterating light of the Halos draws closer and closer, and when it finally hits him the Mjolnir armour decays into flaming sparks and left is but a shadow, the shadow of a warrior. All is dark. The world has ended.
Yet the Halos still remain, don't they. Because they are still left since the last activation, We now discover their full purpose... - Not simply do they initiate the end of the world as we know it, the Halos are meant to repopulate the universe. The Library one each of the Halos could contain gentic codes in order to accomplish this, the index could also store some referens to species that are going to be reproduced? The Flood is a monument of all our sins and is meant to have us understand that it is time for a new beginning, that the world will not only end but also begin - in defiance to our poet Elliot not with a whimper but with a bang. A really. Big. Bang...
The world has ended. Long live the world!
[Edited on 5/28/2006]