Talk:Halo Array

Larger edit?
The art of Halo 3 shows and explains how a fortress world is made and terraformed. should we not include this very important info to the page as well? grey 23:36, 15 June 2009 (UTC)grey101grey 23:36, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Move?
I also agree on re-naming the page fortress world. it is the correct and forerunner term. grey 23:36, 15 June 2009

23:36, 15 June 2009 (UTC) Suggest moving to "Fortress World" as that seems to be the proper term. --Dragonc laws (talk ) 23:56, 28 September 2007 (UTC)


 * It would be harder to locate and Fortress World is more of an overall description, Halo is more of a name and title, unique to this array. Lovemuffin  Wiki UserpageEdit CountTalk PageContributions[[Image:Dancing_master_chief.gif|35px]] 02:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that Fortress world is better. Halo is kinda what the Covenant called them. Ringworld, Fortress world and Arrays are the only names their owners, the Foreruners, called them.Hatchling001 06:21, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it should be mentioned in the opening paragraph that it is a fortress world, a term given to the rings by their creators. This would appease most people Im sure. Hatchling001 01:17, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Locations
It is curious that the other halo rings had not yet been found, since it would really only take knowledge of the location of perhaps two halo rings to determine the rough positions of the other six. The reason being all seven halos share the same design and consequently the same effective range. The halos would logically be arranged such that the entire inhabitable galaxy. The galaxy is relatively symmetrical, and consequently the halos would be placed opposite each-other on symmetrical sides of the galaxy. Dont know about the 7th, though. Perhaps that would be near the galactic core? ElFroCampeador TALK 19:54, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I have a feeling that the two closest rings to our part of the Galaxy are 04 and 05, and they were found. It would take years for humans, with their limited slipspace capability, to reach another ring, but I can imagine that the Covenant may give it a try. -- E D [[Image:ArmyROTC.gif|15px]] 22:16, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Why?
According to GoO, the forerunner weren't able to make it to the sheild world(s) and we know from Halo 3 that the Forerunners didn't stay on the Ark, I have to ask: Why in god's name would you build the WMD to end all WMD's, places where you would be safe from the ultimate WMD, and then not use these safe places? I know if I were a forerunner I would stay in these places from when they were built until I was absolutely sure we weren't going to use it (again). Why even put a remote activation thingy on the Ark if your not going to use it. So why didn't the Forerunner survive? Why didn't they use their own lifeboats? I would expect world builders to be more ineligent.


 * The Forerunners didnt make it to the Shield Worlds? I presume that would be speculation instead of cold hard fact, since no one knows what happened to them, really. Sides, the Shield World in Onyx is MEGA HUGEO. The Forerunners could be somewhere else in it, i.e. not where Halsey, Mendez, and the new Blue Team (including the S-IIIs) landed. Though, if that was the only portal, it'd make sense to begin building your cities there. And if you built gigantic stuff like the Micro-Dyson Sphere and the Halo Arrays and the Ark, your civilisation would probably be pretty big. Then again, I had this wild idea that the Forerunner were just one MASSIVE swarm of nanobot-like creatures. Also, there may be many (like... 7, cause Bungie would NEVA use any other number) Shield Worlds, so, just because the one on Onyx is uninhabited, doesn't mean the others are.

It is theorized that Mendicant Bias informed the flood of the shield worlds and they were abandoned or locked down for fear the creature would attack them or the compound mind would survive inside. The terminals mention in Didact's conversations that there was no place to go now where the Parasite cannot follow. Hatchling001 06:17, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I couldn't help but add that the halos aren't the WMD to end all WMDs, this is.

Various Environments on the rings
In thinking about the various environments for the Halos seen in the Citadel in Halo 3 I think I have an idea of what could explain the differences. Beyond being aesthetically pleasing each environment could serve a tactical purpose in the case of a Flood outbreak. For instance if every installation had the exact same layout as 04 the Flood would know where all the important locations were immediately such as the Control Room and the Library if they were in fact under the control of a Gravemind. So rather then making a single environment the Forerunners changed them to further slow a Flood outbreak across the various rings, even with prior knowledge from another ring they would have to relearn each installation. As well the varying environments could be used to experiment on the Flood learning potential weaknesses. Let me know what you think.


 * Cool idea, but I had another. Maybe the different enviroments are due to their locations in the galaxy or thier size or the influence of the planet they orbited, or a combination of all.

It's possible that Bungie may have not given much thought to the surface of the other Halo Rings. So it may be that they may have simply used textures of planets and moons in our Solar System as a homage. It doesn't make sense why two rings would be perfectly habitable while the other aren't. 343 Guilty Spark has already stated that the rings are designed to be a habitat that can support life. Both to study the Flood and for the Reclaimers to activate the Ring's primary weapon.

the "wall"
howbout in the article, mention something about what appears to be a giant wall to hold in the atmosphere. Crubs 07:08, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

How did sentient life continue?
I know this isn't supposed to be a forum but... If the Halo array was fired 100'000 years ago destroying all sentient life in the galaxy, then why is there still sentient life when in the time of the games. I know some people are saying that it is because the humans and the forunner somehow connected, but then how does one account for all the other sentient life (Elites, Grunts, Brutes, etc)? Even if one says that the 100'000 years figure refers to the length of Halo's year not Earth's, the numbers don't make sense: lets say that Halo has a year double the length in human years of Neptunes orbit (which would put it very very far away from the star it orbits), which would be 320 years, that would mean that the Halo's were fired 32'000'000 human years ago. However you look at it there is not enough time for new senteint life to evolve when you consider it took billions of years for senitent life to come about in the first place This is probably a really obvious and irritating question, so sorry to disturb you. Thanks. 81.151.247.65 18:14, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * aside from it taking plenty of time for live to evolve, if the Halos truly destroyed ALL life, there'd be nothing to evolve FROM. I suppose the only posibility is if a specimen was saved (Ark or Shield World) then rereleased back into the galaxy after they thought the Flood had starved to death. The specimen(s) then evolved into the creatures we know today. Also, I think it is possible if ALL life evolved from Forerunner and this is what happened: Flood fought Forerunner. Forerunner scared so Forerunner hide and Forerunner fire the Halos. Forerunne think Flood dead so Forerunner come out of Shield World. Idividual (groups of) Forerunner go to different planets and evolve/devolve from there to suit their new enviroments. (This may or may not be possible, I hadn't really thought it out fully.) One more thing, this one about Local Time. Local time may vary from Installation to Installation. This 'local time' may be the time of the system each Halo is in, based on it's orbit of a star or planet. The time may also vary due to the different sizes that the Halos have. Alternatively, the local time of all the Halos could be the same as it may refer to the ancient format which the Forerunner used.

Because species such as the Humans and the covenants' multiple races were taken to the Ark, where they were kept safe.  1st Class   Cadet   ONI recon 111  |   18:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

The only question that leaves is, how did all the protected races get to their homeworlds, with no knowledge or memory of the Ark, without memory or knowledge of each other and no knowledge of the sentinels etc on the Ark?  Ti ger rr rr 18:27, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Who says they had no memory? Mythology comes from somewhere - where there's smoke, there's fire. Flood myths are pretty common across all human-occupied continents, with most cultures and religions having them in some form - the earth gets scoured, with a few survivors who start again. In the Halo Universe, it may be a folktale memory of when the Forerunners saved them from The Flood, wiped the galaxy clean, and returned them to their planet to start again. --  Administrator  Specops306  -  Qur'a 'Morhek   Honour Light Your Way!  02:09, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

We don't know yet. FishType1 21:04, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I would say it would have to be something like a massive gamma ray burst, radiation is more potent on creatures that are more complex, this would explain why less complex creatures like bugs would survive, also the effect it had on the ark could be explained by the fact that under certain circumstances gamma rays will turn instantly into electrons and the anti-matter twins, positrons, creating an uber huge explosion

this is what I think All Under Heaven

Greek letters are completely wrong...
I don't know how, where and when were the rings named in Greek, but the names are completely wrong.


 * Installation 01 should be Alpha Halo,
 * Installation 02 should be Beta Halo,
 * Installation 03 should be Gamma Halo,
 * Installation 04 should be Delta Halo;,
 * Installation 05 should be Epsilon Halo,
 * Installation 06 should be Zeta Halo, and
 * Installation 07 should be Eta Halo.

I'm Greek, and I know my country's alphabet. -  Μητσάρας   κι όποιος   αντέξει 
 * No, they shouldn't be named as that. The UNSC gave the greek letters. Installation 04 was encountered first, and is therefore Alpha Halo. I'm not sure how that works for Delta halo, as it was found second, and should be Beta, but we have currently listed them to how the Halo games have presented them, so therefore, canon.  Ti ger rr rr 21:39, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * They're supposed to be wrong, thats how they are in the Halo universe. FishType1 21:02, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think that they were supposed to be in any given order. FishType1 17:38, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, Alpha Halo is a FAN given name. It ain't official. Even if it was, no one said it was Greek. It may follow the Phonetic Alphabet. Which is very possible as military often uses it and there is at least one use of it in the Halo Games (Sierra 117). The Phonetic Alphabet has both Alpha and Delta: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, etc etc.

Umm first, Phonetic Alphabet is almost as today's language, only some edits is done by the Greeks and Romans, and second, they just call it that because it sounds nice during the game testing...I guess... Soul-Reaper Can't talk...being chased !!Pepsi makes me High! Project: PROMETHEUS 13:36, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it really matters that much though. Maybe they had some really good reason for it, or maybe it was just random. Who knows? Why don't you just ask someone at Bungie if you want to know it that much. FishType1 20:16, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Death by Halo Activation.
I've always wondered; when the Halos were fired, how does the life they target die? Do they just drop dead or completely disintegrate? And would that take the Flood Combat Forms with them? Cuz apparently, Flood Infection Forms aren't targeted, as "starving the Flood" is the motive of activating the array. So what; do the Combat Forms get wiped out, too, while the Infection and Pure Forms eventually just... die from starvation? What about the Gravemind? Can a Gravemind "starve"? This is all pretty confusing. It also makes the Flood Containment Facility on Installation 04 make less sense, unless the Flood were never released from it during the Forerunner-Flood war. Aerandir 01:19, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I always just imagined all sentient life just disappearing, and the flood outside of containment being killed, but those inside the library and such not being affected somehow.Papayaking 01:28, September 24, 2009 (UTC)

Name
Doesn't the term "Halo" refer to the collection of Sacred Rings as a whole rather than to individual rings? My point is, is "Halos" a proper term to be using to describe multiple rings? I believe this is what Dadab was saying in the narration of Contact Harvest, a more up to date facet of the Haloverse possibly retconning previous books. --<font color="#4D56B1">Dragon<font color="#F28500">c laws (<font color="#4D56B1">talk ) 03:13, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

What do these things kill?
In various statements, including Cortana's explanation in Halo: Combat Evolved, the Halo Array is described as killing only the Flood's food -- that is, all life in the Milky Way Galaxy except the Flood -- in order to starve the Flood.

However, in the Terminals, Offensive Bias recounts his battle against Mendicant Bias's Flood-piloted fleet of ships. Offensive states that when the Halos were fired, all life was killed. Obviously, the Forerunners died... But the Flood had to die too, because Offensive states that the majority of Mendicant Bias's fleet was immobilized. The immobilization could not have been the result of an EMP or some other effect on the ships themselves, as Offensive was still able to use his ships (performing actions such as opening Slipspace rifts in the midst of Mendicant's fleet). Similarly, the Forerunners weren't traitors -- only Mendicant Bias joined the Gravemind -- so Mendicant's ships had to be piloted by the Flood. This, then, means that the first Halo activation killed all life in the galaxy including the Flood, rather than just killing everything else and letting the Flood starve.

Furthermore, we know that that is what the Forerunners intended -- if the Flood themselves hadn't been directly killed by the Halo Array, then they would have, at Mendicant's direction, found the Ark and killed the sentient species that had been relocated ("indexed") to it.

Now, one could explain the inconsistency by claiming that Cortana (and others) had only a limited knowledge of the Halo Array. Cortana, however, hacked into Installation 04's Core to learn about the Array's purpose, meaning that the Installation's own programming code indicated that it did not directly kill the Flood.

So we have an inconsistency here: what do the Halos actually kill? Everything but the Flood, or everything and the Flood? <span style="background:#AADDAA;display:inline-block;height:16px;padding-right:4px;line-height:1em;position:relative;top:-3px;-moz-border-radius:0 50% 50%"> DavidJCobb  05:58, September 20, 2009 (UTC)


 * While what you say is true, I believe I have some reasoning. Based on what the terminals and in game references say, the forerunners believed the flood to be more of a parasite, a disease. In this respect, it is highly likely that the forerunners did not think of the flood as a living being, and the term life is in fact referring to all highly sentient life, such as that of the Forerunners themselves. If the Halo Array kill everything with, say, a specific brainwave, then all highly sentient live would be killed, while the underdeveloped life like that of the Humans would still be alive. That way, since the flood kill things with a certain brainwave, their "food" would all be killed. The process of evolution could later develop said brainwave into Human life, making us susceptible to the flood. ~ Blade bane  ~  Anti-Vandal ~ 06:06, September 20, 2009 (UTC)Blade bane


 * I also think that the firing of the array might kill the hosts to the flood even if infected. If the flood is a parasite, it needs hosts, thus killing sentient life would kill the bodies the flood infest thus explaining what is mentioned in the terminals as Mendicant's ships being immobilized. The same was said about Offensive's fleet. Vessels strictly driven by pilots not the waring AI's were all lost when the rings fired. I imagine the little flood parasite crawling from the useless bodies after the firing and scurrying about looking for hosts. In a sense they were probably the only things to remain after all those years, which is why on Halo CE they burst from the containment rooms to infect you. The rings are said to kill only sentient life, man on earth wasn't around back then, and the most basic flood parasites are actually not intelligent thus they survived. But to kill those suckers you might have to kill all life which would be useless. Plants and small creatures that do not have (as Guilty spark puts it in Halo CE during the Library) Sufficient bio-mass necessary to sustain the flood would have to go too, leaving absolutely nothing. Imagine a galaxy with no life at all. How could you restart all that? What they did was basically do what Russia has done for many wars, abandon the towns being invaded and burn them to deny access to your enemy. It works.


 * Good theories, both of you. It didn't occur to me that Infection Forms are still separate from their hosts, even after they have warped the host's body to accommodate them. <span style="background:#AADDAA;display:inline-block;height:16px;padding-right:4px;line-height:1em;position:relative;top:-3px;-moz-border-radius:0 50% 50%">[[Image:DavidJCobb_Emblem.svg|16px]] DavidJCobb  18:35, September 20, 2009 (UTC)

Aftermath
Two questions I have about the Halos:

1. Since the Halos are supposed to destroy all life-forms capable of infection, would this mean that "un-possesibles" like Grunts, Hunters, Jackals, and AI's would be left behind, or does the firing work to kill absolutely everything? (Kinda hilarious to imagine Grunts ruling the universe.) 2. Since the Halos have now been revealed to work by harmonically targeting neurons, how could this damage the Ark? It would kill everything alive aboard, but wouldn't the structure itself remain intact?

Tuckerscreator 23:56, November 22, 2009 (UTC)


 * 1) Yes, it kills every living organisms in the galaxy.. but not the Flood. Read the article on why. 2) The Ark (or Installation 00) is located outside the firing range of the Halo Array, so it wouldn't be damaged. However, from the events of Halo 3, the new Installation 04 was mentioned by Cortana as "doing numbers on the Ark", suggesting that the Ark received major structural damages... and that it could mean that the Ark is still intact... or not.--<font face="century gothic"> <font color="#666666">Lol @<font color="#666666">Phailure  00:28, November 23, 2009 (UTC)

I think that it kills everything cause jackels and grunt make the more interesting forms, JUGGERNAUTS and the evolved forms from halo 3. as for the ark, the ring wasn't finished so when fired it exploded thus damaging the ark. Hatchling001 00:31, November 23, 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes, it would kill everything (Except flood), as they supposedly kill all sentient life in the Galaxy, as far as The Ark, I'm guessing the Halo 'ripping itself to pieces' would at least cause significant damage to The Ark, more specifically the halo-building area where the actual halo was.Papayaking 20:09, November 23, 2009 (UTC)

So the damage to the Ark was simply by the debris then, not the beam. But since the actual beam itself does not kill Flood, this means their plan was to simply disable the Ark so that the Flood wouldn't exploit it to build ships, and remain behind to starve to death? I suppose that makes sense. Thanks guys.Tuckerscreator 03:47, November 27, 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, my impression was that the harmonic pulse did destroy the Flood, but only its accumulated biomass, not the actual Flood spores. And as long as evena single spore survives, so does the Flood. During the battle between Mendicant Bias and Offensive Bias, portions of both fleets were rendered inoperable as the pulse swept through, killing all biologicals in it - giving Offensive Bias the advantage. Why would Mendicant Bias' forces be affected if the Flood was immune? --  Administrator   Specops306  -   Qur'a 'Morhek   04:26, December 2, 2009 (UTC)

How Halo Works(Speculation)
I was finishing up campaign on legendary and as I watched the final cinimatic, it occurd to me that the Halos could be using high-frequency electromagnetic rays(something beyond gamma rays) to disrupt the brain-waves of sentient life forms in range. Not every world would be hit at the same time, multiple slipspace portals would have to be used to move the energy from the Halo ring to indipendint systems where the waves of energy move out at the pace we see at the end of Halo 3. Any organism without sentience could be targeted by their brainwaves and be unaffected by the energy, while sentient or near sentient species are moved out of range or into sheild worlds for preservation(such as humans, elites, prophets, brutes, etc.) THIS IS ONLY A THEORY AND MOST LIKELY NOT TRUE IN ANY WAY--Navypilot1046 02:29, December 1, 2009 (UTC)

Halo Encyclopedia explains how it works. It issues a harmonic pulse wave that disrupts the nervous systems of host lifeforms. Each Halo has the effective firing range stated within the game, 10,000 light years. They charge up form the pulse seen in Halo2 and 3 and then expand to the max range. ProphetofTruth 03:30, December 1, 2009 (UTC)

Oh, thanks, I havn't seen the encyclopedia.--Navypilot1046 00:10, December 2, 2009 (UTC)

How long would it take?
This morning I was thinking about how the Halo Array works and I've just noticed an impossibility. Each Halo Array has a firing range of about 25,000 lightyears and that pulse activates the others rings that it happens to hit along the way. But that doesn't work because that would mean that, assuming the pulse is traveling at lightspeed, it would 25,000 years for it to get there! They can't be using slipspace here, because that would mean the pulse is being taken out of the universe and thus it would have no effect! So it seems to be a major scientific flaw in its design.

There MAY be a way to reconcile it. It may be that the Halo doesn't actually launch a wave, but instead creates a 25,000 lightyear wide field, much like a magnetic field or a gravitational field, only this would be a "brain field" that is set at a certain frequency. Then, when the Halo is activated, the frequency within the field instantly changes to a harmful one, and thus kills anything within it. And that frequency goes on to activate the other rings and they change their frequency and... Does this sound like a plausible solution?Tuckerscreator 03:51, December 1, 2009 (UTC)


 * Delta Halo is able to communicate with the Ark, billions of lightyears away, instantaneously - presumably this involves tachyon particles, travelling at superluminal speeds. This is supposedly impossible - but, then again, the Forerunners always seem to be able to pull off the impossible, don't they? Personally, I'm sure they use slipspace in some capacity to diseminate whatever field they use, dropping out to sterilise systems as needed, perhaps explaining why a "buildup" was needed - it wasn't building up the harmonic pulse, it was building up the slipspace portal needed for it. But of course, this is just theoretical. --  Administrator  Specops306  -   Qur'a 'Morhek   01:20, December 2, 2009 (UTC)

So the "death pulse" itself is put into slipspace and dropped out as needed? I suppose that could work, though wouldn't it compromise the integrity of the Micro Dyson worlds? Since they are encased in slipspace, wouldn't that allow the "death wave" to hit them?

Aside from that, your theory seems to work. But since the lightspeed barrier would otherwise be a major flaw to the Halos' design, should it be noted in the the article? I know that speculation is generally discouraged on the articles but I think this should be noted, since without it some might get the wrong impression that the wave is able to travel throughout the whole galaxy in a matter of seconds.Tuckerscreator 02:50, December 2, 2009 (UTC)


 * We certainly know there is more than one type of slipspace. But until we know exactly what kind of harmonic wave is generated, what medium it travels through, and whether this explicitly violates relativistic theory, I would say we keep it to the talk page. --  Administrator  Specops306  -   Qur'a 'Morhek   04:19, December 2, 2009 (UTC)