Commentary / Portent
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Posted to the Halp Story Page February 12th, 2002.
An excerpt from Marathon:
Kill Your Television (Terminal 1: 2nd message) [reconstruction]
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i have been roland, beowulf, achilles, gilgamesh; i have been called a
hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the world goes
dim and cold. i am a hero.
she has been nameless since our birth; a constant adversary, caring for
nothing but my ruin, a sword drenched in my blood; forever my greatest
and only love. she is the dark one; the enemy and lover without whom
my very existence would be pathetic and vulgar. her eyes steam and boil
in the night (she is fantastically beautiful yet i cannot stand the sight
of her). our relationship is complex and perhaps eternal.
we met once in the garden, at the beginning of the world and unaware of
our twin destinies (not the garden of Genesis, but another; forgotten,
untended and now choked with weeds, unvisited except for ourselves).
we matched stares across a dry fountain, and i recall her smiling at me
before she devoured the lawn and trees with a translucent blue flame and
tore flagstones from the path and hurled them into the sky screaming my
sins.
our reunions there are epic battles fought without quarter, often in
the dark as the moon is seldom visible and the sun never. i powder a
granite monument in a soundless flash, showering the grass with molten
drops of its gold inlay, sending smoking chips of stone skipping into
the fog. she splinters an ancient oak with a force that takes my
breath and hurls me to the ground. she leaves and i lie in the slow
rain of burning slivers of wood, staring at the low, dark clouds,
craving our next meeting."
CONNECTION TERMINATED
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There has been a lot of debate in years gone by as to whether the author was Durandal, you the cyborg, or someone else entirely. I do not intend (nor could I) solve the mystery now, but I will submit the idea
that our friend John-117/Master Chief and the Security Officer from Marathon are one and the same individual. I am still holding on, waiting for the two timelines to be perfectly aligned without the need of
any time travel or dimension jumping; hoping that the Halo story will fall into the "Century Left Intentionally Blank" in the Marathon timeline, and any apparent contradictions will be explained.
Second, as has been explored previously, I firmly believe that Cortana will or, more than likely, has already become rather selfish (to put it mildly) and has some shady motives of her own. She is not to be
trusted. Now, if "I" is our eternal hero, Master Chief, and Cortana the "she" spoken of we have a peek into the development of their relationship over time. Pointed out to me by me comrade Richard, the
most amazing and relevant phrase is "she splinters an ancient oak with a force that takes my breath", the very definition of the name "Pillar of Autumn". I find this amazing. This could be a gigantic coincidence, but knowing Bungie and also considering that the name Pillar of Autumn had been decided on very early in Halo's development this may be an important link.
Of course the entire text could be interpreted very differently: perhaps the "she" is speaking of the Covenant? The phrases " she devoured the lawn and trees with a translucent blue flame" and "screaming my
sins" suddenly become extremely meaningful starting from that presupposition.
I also recieved this email on March 6, 2002 continuing this speculation. Some very good insights.
So, first, a "Sword drenched in my blood". Cortana is the name of a sword, and "drenched in my blood" is of course that the Artificial Intelligence named Cortana resides inside John's brain (you insert the
memory-crystal in the back of your head in the beginning of Halo, remember? Read Fall of Reach and you will get this with the AI's a lot better).
"The Garden" is obviously the Halo(s?), "forgotten,
untended and now choked with weeds, unvisited except for ourselves", and "she splinters an ancient oak" and also the line "i powder a
granite monument in a soundless flash" is the destruction of the Pillar of Autumn and Halo (The 'Alpha' Halo that is of course...).
Then we have the line "our relationship is complex and perhaps eternal" that means that because Cortana is in fact inside John it's kindof a complex relationship (no shit :) and also eternal because she dies with
him...unless she voluntarily leave, of course.
Finally, after the destruction of Halo , the line "she leaves and i lie in the slow
rain of burning slivers of wood, staring at the low, dark clouds,
craving our next meeting." signifies John's constantly reappering moral dilemmas as he's leaving the Halo, and all the organisms - may they be human, Covenant of Flood - on it, behind him. Dreaming
(nightmares?) about his his next mission...
Happy hunting on the Marathon Story page!
Yours,
Oskar Lissheim
