- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
The Following post contains spoilers for Clarke's Odyssey series.
I read 2001: A Space Odyssey a few months ago, and recently
began reading 3001, and the old Marathon/Halo juices started
flowing and I decided to write about it.
In the Odyssey series, there is a race that is referred to in 3001
as "The First Born." This race started out as any other race, but
as their technology improved and their machines became better
than their bodies, they started transferring their brains into
mechanical structures, then they eventually gave that up and
became what was essentially spaceships. "The First Born" went
throughout the universe in search of potential Minds to encourge
and protect, because what The First Born valued most was the
Mind. They helped many species, including humans, to reach
their potential as intellegent people. After a while The First
Born became pure energy, but what they left behind was a
kind of trail for other species to follow in their footsteps.
There are some obvious similarities to the Jjaro and Forerunner
in the Bungieverse, but what do these parallels imply? In the
Odyssey series, The First Born left behind these strange
monoliths that are completely black, and refract no light at all.
The first of these was found in 2001, in the Tycho crater.
(Marathon fans get a kick out of that one, and an interesting
side note is the spacesuit the scientists wore on the Moon
was simply called a Mk IV =) The second was found on one
of Saturn's Moons. I can't remember if it was Ganymede,
Europa, or something else entirely, but wherever it was, it
was much bigger than the one on the moon, and much, much
stranger.
The final monolith was found on Earth in Africa in the year
2513. There are some parallels to Halo here, with the date
of the monolith's discovery close to the Halo timeline, and
it's location in Africa. (New Mombasa, Zanzibar) Makes
you wonder what kind of Jjaro/Forerunner artifacts are
present on Earth and it's Moon. Here's something taken from
the Marathon story page.
The Jjaro were a mysterious race that
disappeared from our galaxy millions of
years ago, leaving behind military and
civilian outposts on the moons of many
habitable worlds.
Sounds a lot like 2001 to me.
If we assume Bungie took some influence from the Odyssey books,
then we can make a few conjectures, the first of which is the human
relation to the Jjaro/Forerunner race. I don't think Humans are/were
Jjaro or Forerunner, but they were a kind of experiment, designed
to unlock the potential of the human race, and most likely races
across the Universe. The humans were a great success because
they are innovative, while other races like the ones that make up
the Covenant, (presumably of Forerunner "origin") are not quite the
same.
Now lets have a look at what the Jjaro/Forerunner left behind,
Chiefly Halo. (pardon the pun) The relationship between 343 and
117 creates a lot of confusion, but I think some conjectures based
on Clarke's novels can help.
First of all, what do you think 343 actually sees the Chief as? What
does he see the human race as? If the Jjaro/Forerunner were a
race that had gone beyond flesh, then they could probably reverse
the effect as well. The human's extreme intellect may have
fooled 343 into thinking that Humans were some kind of "machine"
or vessel for the Transport of a Jjaro/Forerunner. After all, if you
were basically a computer, you would need some kind of vessel
when you had to kick some ass, so the Human body, while a
weak instrument, may have been enough to confuse humans with
Forerunner.
I wouldn't be much of a speculator if I didn't give any in-game
support, now would I?
343 GS says this:
Your environment suit should serve you well when the Flood
begins to alter the atmosphere. You are a good planner.
But he said this earlier:
These Sentinels will supplement your combat system. But, I
suggest you upgrade to at least a Class Twelve combat skin.
Your current model only scans as a Class Two, which is ill suited
for this kind of work.
Why the difference between Environment suit, and Combat
skin? Master Chief has his armor, and his body. The only
other thing I can see the "Combat Skin" as is 117's body,
which would make sense if the Forerunner used biological
"machines" to do their dirty work.