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  • Subject: A few things I noticed whilst reading the Cortana Letters.
Subject: A few things I noticed whilst reading the Cortana Letters.

Gamers Anon

Achronos: And what's this about a "design team" I've been hearing? Apparently stosh is so awesome he's now considered a "team".

I was browsing through the Cortana Letters a while back and some parts of the text stood out to me.

The first being if you scroll down to February 21st 1999 there is mention of an enemy class in Myth 2 called a "Trow". Here is the excerpt:
Feb 21, 1999


John Woods <jfw@jfwhome.funhouse.com> writes:

In one Myth II level, "With Friends Like These", you get to play a game of Territories against 3 stone giants (Trow).

According to the script, these particular Trow are named:

the trow
{
Link
myth trow
oni trow
blam trow
}

Myth. Oni. And Blam. (Although when you play the game, they get the traditional Latin Trow names.)

And a further tidbit: If you play Total Carnage (err, Legendary), you get a fourth trow opponent -- who is controlled by the Blam scripts.

So I guess this means Blam is going to be the hard game of the three...


Now the names of these "Trows" are in correlation to the names of games. Myth Trow being Myth, Oni Trow being Oni and blam Trow we can assume is Halo. However it is this line that caught my eye:
And a further tidbit: If you play Total Carnage (err, Legendary), you get a fourth trow opponent -- who is controlled by the Blam scripts.
A fourth Trow, if this trow is to go by previous trends and represents a game then there are only two games that it could represent the first is Myth 3 however Myth is already a Trow so I do not think it is that. The other is Destiny.

This may seem unlikely in that it is over a decade since those letters were made and since Myth 2 was being made. However if I do recall Halo was originally only meant to be a standalone game. Thus leaving the possibility open that whilst work on Halo was being done there were other projects or even just ideas being pursued within the studio. Now this is not uncommon for Bungie. If I do recall they had a small team working on Reach after Halo 3 was released.

Still seams a bit far-fetched right, considering how long ago it was. In June of 2000 Bungie was acquired by Microsoft and from then they were pretty much locked into making Halo games. Microsoft knew that Halo was where the money was at. It was not until 2007 that Bungie separated from Microsoft. Even when separated they were still entitled to make another 2 more Halo games. Those being ODST and Reach. It is from 2007 onwards that i believe that Destiny has been in the works. During this period the majority of the studio was working on Reach with a small team working on ODST. It was also around this time that there was speculation that Jason Jones was also as part of small team working on something else. Possibly Destiny.

That is all I have to say on that part of the letters. Keep in mind this is just pure speculation.

The other part that caught my eye was in the March 19 1999 section.

Greg Downing <G_Downing@WESLEY.IT.EMERSON.EDU> writes:

The second I heard about the new message, I went right back to Revelations. You might be interested to learn that seven plays heavily into Revelations...seven churches, seven angels to watch over them, seven seals...but I digress.

The howling beasts reference could be referring to Chapter 6:8, which talks about the four horsemen. The stanza reads: "They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth." This line may also have something to do with "there was a fourth", but I doubt it...Cortana probably wasn't talking about fractions, but a specific fourth person/thing.

There's no specific mention to raging seas that I've found thus far, but the angels did drop a fiery mountain into them at one point...so who knows. I'll try and find more info.

Nothing on giants creating the world, but we have to take into account that Cortana is referring to 'this world', meaning the one she's on. And that's not earth, because she refers to the 'suns', probably meaning she's in a system with a binary star.

The reference to 'the fourth' could have something to do with the other three AIs we know of...meaning there is some connection between Cortana, Durandal, Tycho, and Leela. Maybe that Traxus thing I posited earlier....but in that case, there were five AIs infected.


Seven angels, sure sounds like something we know already. Seven Seraphs.
From Wikipedia:
A seraph is a type of celestial or heavenly being in the Abrahamic religions.

The other line from that section that I found interesting was the line about the other AIs.

The reference to 'the fourth' could have something to do with the other three AIs we know of...meaning there is some connection between Cortana, Durandal, Tycho, and Leela. Maybe that Traxus thing I posited earlier....but in that case, there were five AIs infected.

So what does this mean to me?
To me it means that Bungie may have been planning a game or serious after Halo longer than we have known. possibly even since the mid 1999's. Which is a far out idea I know, however not entirely unlikely.

Edit: I accidentally hit submit before proof-reading, so expect a few errors.

[Edited on 07.03.2012 3:38 AM PDT]

  • 07.03.2012 3:35 AM PDT

I admit I just skimmed most of that, but perhaps the unknown game was Project Phoenix?

  • 07.03.2012 3:37 AM PDT

偵察大将 - Recon General

Mr_Hand * <3 Webcams * Read please * Follow me

-Have fun.

it's their job to make games so i would imagine you're right.

  • 07.03.2012 3:40 AM PDT

I totally forgot those existed.

  • 07.03.2012 3:40 AM PDT

Gamers Anon

Achronos: And what's this about a "design team" I've been hearing? Apparently stosh is so awesome he's now considered a "team".

That is also another totally plausible idea. Probably even more so than the one I have suggested.
Posted by: antony X1000
I admit I just skimmed most of that, but perhaps the unknown game was Project Phoenix?

  • 07.03.2012 3:40 AM PDT