Teleportation grid
From Halopedia, the Halo wiki
The teleportation grid, also referred to as a translocation grid,[1] is a piece of Forerunner technology equipped to several important installations. Using slipspace translocation technology, the grid transports its users from one location to another in a compressed slipstream field, not unlike starships using slipspace as a travel medium.
The Halo installations are equipped with teleportation grids, allowing their Monitors to reach vital areas rapidly and supervise their Sentinel charges. The shield worlds also possess teleportation grids.[2][3]
Mechanics[edit]
While the teleportation system on Onyx was made up of a network of translocation platforms, the teleportation grids on the Halo installations allow translocation from any point on the ring without the need for a teleporter. Teleportation through a grid is typically accompanied by rings of golden light that surround the individual being teleported.[4][5] A teleportation grid requires massive amounts of energy to operate.[4] The translocation grids on the Halo installations are supported by an array of "telemetry clusters", spire-like structures equipped with synchronization conduits which ensure the grid's operation at all times.[1] Teleportation grids extend some distance away from the installation they are based on, as evidenced by the Gravemind being able to use Installation 05's grid to translocate John-117 into High Charity, which was holding position near the installation.[5]
Translocation through a teleportation grid is not completely instantaneous; a sense of immense velocity could be felt when traveling through Installation 04's grid.[6] Though the system merely transports its users through slipspace as opposed to disassembling and then rebuilding them in another location, the uncertainty errors involved are known to cause sensations of being put back together again "from a million pieces" when recovering from teleportation.[7] In addition, the process typically causes feelings of nausea and disorientation on humans; Kurt-051 described the feeling as if "his guts had been untwisted, and then dumped back into his body, inside out."[8]
Teleportation grids make use of unmediated slipspace cores bound to them that generate stable, pre-computed slipspace routes between synchronized endpoints. Due to the fact that these devices have fixed endpoints (such as across an installation or its immediate vicinity), destination flexibility is sacrificed for safety, speed, and security.[9][5]
Known grids[edit]
Installation 03[edit]
During the Mission to Installation 03 on July 26, 2557, 859 Static Carillon, the monitor of the Composer's Forge, temporarily disabled the Ur-Didact and used an emergency teleport feature present in Installation 03's teleportation grid to displace the Promethean commander into the Control Room. According to the monitor, the control center was the only destination available to him, being the most secure location on the ring. Static Carillon then teleported John-117 into the control room and, after ejecting the segment of the Halo housing the control room, he teleported the Master Chief aboard Blue Team's GA-TL1 Longsword in orbit just before the detached section impacted the Composer's Forge.[10]
Installation 04[edit]
Installation 04's teleportation grid was used extensively during the course of the Battle of Installation 04. The Installation's Monitor, 343 Guilty Spark, first encountered John-117 outside of a Flood containment facility, and used the teleportation grid to transport them to the Installation's Library, in order to retrieve the Activation Index.[11] After the Index was retrieved, the Monitor used the grid again to transport the two of them to the Control Room to activate the Halo's final weapon.[12] During the Master Chief's efforts to neutralize the Installation's primary firing sequence, Cortana tapped into the teleportation grid, using his Mark V MJOLNIR armor's fusion reactor to power a single jump, to a downed Covenant cruiser having learned how from when she was in the Installation's control systems;[4] however, Cortana's relative inexperience with the grid resulted in reorientation difficulties: the Master Chief was teleported upside down.[13]
Installation 05[edit]
Installation 05's teleportation grid was unavailable during the Battle of Installation 05 as it was being controlled by the Gravemind (formed beneath that Installation's Library facility) through the Installation's captured Monitor, 2401 Penitent Tangent. Managing to ensnare both the Master Chief and the Arbiter, it formed a tentative alliance with the two enemies in order to stop the rings activation - teleporting John-117 aboard High Charity,[5] in orbit above the Installation, and the Arbiter near to the Control Room.[14] The fact that it did not, or could not, use the same grid to teleport its own Flood combat forms to those locations indicates that use of it is restricted to non-Flood life forms and constructs.[15]
Installation 07[edit]
Installation 07's teleportation grid utilized portals, much like those on Requiem. On the Master Chief's orders, Joyeuse opened a portal to take him from the Command Spire to as close as possible to where Jega 'Rdomnai was taking Fernando Esparza.[16] The two passed through a data cluster of Cortana's memories, causing the Master Chief to see some of them.[17]
The ring also had translocation pads which teleported the boat crew out of the Conservatory using a sequence of glyphs provided by 117649 Despondent Pyre. The trip made the humans nauseous.[18] Later, after Spartan Tomas Horvath fell onto a pad with Gorian, it activated and teleported both combatants away moments before the pad was destroyed by Banished fire, thus preventing the rest of the team from using it or discovering where Horvath had been sent. Horvath was teleported to a partially collapsed Forerunner facility on a mountain very far away from the beacon tower where he had teleported from.[19][20][21]
Adjutant Resolution was able to teleport around the installation.[22][16] 091 Adjutant Veridity was able to teleport the boat crew to safety before they could be overrun.[20]
After the death of the Harbinger, a portal mysteriously opened inside the Silent Auditorium's central chamber, enabling the Chief and the Weapon to escape the collapsing chamber. The portal not only transported them to the opposite side of the Ring, it also sent them three days into the future.