The Oracle (Level)

Were you looking for the Battle of the Gas Mine or Monitor?

Summary
The Oracle is a Halo 2 campaign level, where the player plays as the Arbiter. Starting directly after you land the Banshee you were flying in the previous level, the opening cutscene has "Half-Jaw" comment on smelling a familiar stench.

This is the first level in Halo 2 where one encounters the Flood and some of their new abilities, most notably the ability of Infection Forms to revive fallen Combat Forms.

The player goes down an elevator and up to the top of the Gas Mine to cut three cables. He then must backtrack to the hangar of the previous structure, complete with another Banshee-flying section, where he engages in combat with the Heretic Leader to prevent him escaping Threshold in a Seraph. In the cutscene directly before the fight, it is shown that 343 Guilty Spark had survived the destruction of Installation 04 and was responsible for the "heresy" through his teachings.

Drivable Vehicles

 * Heretic Banshee

Weapons

 * Plasma Pistol
 * Plasma Rifle
 * Needler
 * Carbine
 * Energy Sword
 * Sentinel Beam
 * Fuel Rod Gun
 * Plasma Cannon

Mission Objectives

 * Escape the infested labs
 * Find the Heretic Leader
 * Cut the three cables holding up the station
 * Pursue the Heretic Leader back to the hangar

Transcript
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Part 01: Oracle
''(A door slides open. Two Special Ops Elites cover the entrance with Plasma Rifles while Special Ops Grunts file in. The Elites cautiously advance, followed by Rtas 'Vadumee and the Arbiter. 'Vadumee pauses and sniffs the air.

Arbiter: What is it?

Rtas 'Vadumee: That stench...I've smelled it before.

Part 02: Juggernaut
(The assault team proceeds through a small room, where a large tank containing some small, floating, fleshy lifeforms can be seen. The team approaches a doorway, and through the transparent floor of the next room, they can see the shadows of Heretics and strange creatures battling. Eventually, all of the Heretics are killed. The victorious creatures have familiar screams...)

SpecOps Elite 1: By the Rings. What is that?

SpecOps Grunt 1: (whimpers)

SpecOps Elite 1: Quiet...

(The creatures all leave through another doorway.)

SpecOps Elite 2: It's moved on. Quickly, before it returns, let's find the heretic leader and finish him off.

(The team moves into a laboratory, strewn with deformed corpses.)

SpecOps Elite 1: What happened here?

SpecOps Grunt 1: Me have bad feeling about this.

SpecOps Grunt 2: You always have bad feeling! You had bad feeling about this morning's food nipple!*


 * Note: This is a reference to Halo 1, when the Marines encounter the Flood for the first time in the level 343 Guilty Spark. They say the same thing, only with no mention of the "food nipple".

SpecOps Elite 1: Close your jaws, or I shall bind them shut!

(A floating orb enters the room, and the image of the Heretic Leader appears in the air.)

SpecOps Grunt 1: See! Heretic!

(The team fires on the image, which quickly becomes apparent as a hologram and nothing more.)

Rtas 'Vadumee: Hold your fire. Hold your fire!

Sesa 'Refumee: I wondered who the Prophets would send to silence me. An Arbiter. . . I'm flattered.

Rtas 'Vadumee: He's using a holodrone. He must be close. Come out, so we may kill you.

Sesa 'Refumee: (laughs) Get in line.

(The heretic leader vanishes, and moments later, familiar tiny ball-shaped creatures start to appear.)

SpecOps Elite 1: Leader!

Rtas 'Vadumee: Stand firm! The Flood is upon us!

(The team battles the oncoming Flood Infection Forms. Unless the corpses are destroyed, the Flood begin reanimating them)

SpecOps Elite 1: Heretic fools! What have they done!

(The Flood assault subsides, and a doorway opens out of the labs.)

Rtas 'Vadumee: Go, Arbiter! I'll follow when our reinforcements arrive.

(The Arbiter and the survivors ride an elevator down to the lower levels of the labs, fighting the Flood and Sentinels. They enter a hallway strewn with corpses.)

SpecOps Elite 1: We should have brought weapons to burn these bodies. Every one is a vessel for the Flood.

(The team advances into a lab filled with battling heretics and Flood.)

SpecOps Elite 1: Heretics! Above!

(The Arbiter manages to press outside to the exterior of the station. He sees Flood battling more heretics, and a Phantom swoops in to provide reinforcements and covering fire.)

Phantom Pilot (Radio): Leader, the storm is about to hit! We cannot maintain our position!

Rtas 'Vadumee (Radio): Bring the Phantoms closer to the mine. We're not leaving until the leader of these heretics is dead. Arbiter, the Flood have spread throughout the station! We don't have enough troops to manage such a large infestation. Find the leader of these heretics, kill him now!

(The Arbiter and his troops advance into the heart of the installation. They encounter the Heretic Leader fleeing.)

SpecOps Grunt 1: Heretic boss! You see, you see!

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('Refumee takes cover behind a shielded door before the Arbiter can catch him.)

Sesa 'Refumee: This will save me from the storm, but you will be consumed.

(The Arbiter pounds angrily on the portal, but cannot break through as the doors seal. The SpecOps Leader and his troops arrive.)

Rtas 'Vadumee: Arbiter, where is he? Stinking Floodbait boxed himself in tight. We'll never break through this.

(The Arbiter notices a hologram of the station, and watches it thoughtfully.)

Arbiter: We shall force him out.

Rtas 'Vadumee: How?

Arbiter: The cable. I'm going to cut it. Get everyone back to the ships!

Rtas 'Vadumee: Warriors, return to the landing zone! The Arbiter is going to continue up through this station, cut the cable, and scare the Heretic from his hole!

SpecOps Elite 1: May our Lords guide you.

SpecOps Elite 2: We shall not forget your sacrifice.

(if you have a sword)

Rtas 'Vadumee: Keep your blade handy. I doubt the cable can withstand its bite.

(if you do not have a sword)

Rtas 'Vadumee: Take my blade. I doubt the cable can withstand its bite.

Part 03: Hey, Watch This!
(The Arbiter rides the elevator to the upper level where the cable is located.)

Rtas 'Vadumee (Radio): All my Phantoms are in the air, Arbiter. Go ahead, cut that cable!

(after cutting the first cable)

Rtas 'Vadumee (Radio): That's one! By the Prophets, look at this station list!

(after cutting the second cable)

Rtas 'Vadumee (Radio): One final cable, Arbiter!

(The Arbiter cuts the final cable, and the entire station groans with the stress. The top of the station tears away, and it plummets into the atmosphere.)

Rtas 'Vadumee (Radio): That did it! The station is in free fall! The Heretic Leader is on the move, do not let him escape! We'll stay with you as long as we can!

(The Arbiter drops back down into the station and advances past heretics protecting the Leader's rear.)

Heretic Elite: Our lives for the truth, the truth and the Covenant!

(The Arbiter enters what looks like the main power generator for the station.)

Rtas 'Vadumee (Radio): Are you still alive, Arbiter? We're keeping pace as best we can.

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(The Heretic Leader escapes via a Banshee and cuts across the station. The Arbiter pursues in one of his own.)

Rtas 'Vadumee (Radio):What lunacy! He'll never escape this maelstrom in a Banshee! Wait! The hangar, there was a Seraph fighter inside! Arbiter, you know what to do!

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Part 04: Dead Or Alive . . . Actually, Just Dead!
(The Arbiter fights through the first portion of the station back toward the hangar. There, he confronts the Heretic Leader as he is boarding the Seraph.)

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Arbiter: Turn, heretic.

Sesa 'Refumee: Arbiter. I would rather die by your hands than let the Prophets lead me to slaughter.

Arbiter: Who has taught you these lies?

(At this, 343 Guilty Spark descends, humming to itself.)

Arbiter: The Oracle!

343 Guilty Spark: Hello! I am 343 Guilty Spark. I am the Monitor of Installation 04.

Sesa 'Refumee: Ask the Oracle about Halo. How they would sacrifice us all for nothing.

343 Guilty Spark: More questions? Splendid! I would be happy to assist you.

(Any questions are cut off as the Heretic opens fire on the Arbiter with twin plasma rifles. The Arbiter falls back, taking cover while his shield generator recharges. As he does so, the Heretic Leader floats back toward the Seraph and pulls out two holodrones.)

Sesa 'Refumee: The Elites are blind, Arbiter...but I...will make them see.

(The Heretic Leader releases the drones, which become copies of him. The Arbiter battles the Heretic Leader. During the battle, Spark speaks.)

343 Guilty Spark: This mining facility predates Installation Alpha by several hundred years. It was retrofitted to research possible offensive and defensive measures against the Flood. Indeed, I designed and oversaw the construction of this facility's various outbreak management systems.

(If you continue the fight long enough)

343 Guilty Spark: The cable on top of this mine was designed as a fail safe in case an outbreak took place. I am glad someone had the foresight to cut it!

343 Guilty Spark: Fortunately, all the Flood on this installation will perish once this facility enters the planet's nitrogen core.

(If you miss 'Refumee with your shots)

Sesa 'Refumee: I see the Prophets have chosen poorly, Arbiter!

(If 'Refumee kills you)

Sesa 'Refumee: Come, Oracle, we have much to do.

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(The Arbiter kills the Heretic Leader, and begins to drag his corpse to the hangar door.)

343 Guilty Spark: Unfortunate. His edification was most enjoyable.

Arbiter: I had no choice, Holy Oracle. This heretic imperiled the Great Journey.

343 Guilty Spark: Oracle? Great Journey? Why do you meddlers insist on using such inaccurate verbia-ohhh mmyyyyyyyyy!

(Spark is snatched by an unseen force and pulled away. He is dragged through the air, directly to the top of the Fist of Rukt: the gravity hammer of Tartarus. Tartarus, standing beneath a Phantom, pulls Spark off the end of his hammer.)

Arbiter: That is the Oracle!

(Tartarus tosses Spark into the Gravity Lift casually.)

Tartarus: So it is. Come, we are leaving this system.

01: Juggernaut
Well, crap. The Flood are back with a vengeance. Luckily, we are too, with our infinite-ammo energy sword. You did remember to empty your energy sword on Arbiter, right? And bring a full fuel rod cannon?

If not, you should probably have read my Arbiter walkthrough, because this walkthrough depends on your having exactly these things. So, you're in an area with five Flood corpses lying on the ground. Slash them all to bits so they cannot be reanimated by the Infection Forms. Oh, speaking of Infection Forms, where are they?

Oh, look, it's Notthereal! Heretic Leader. Blah, blah, blah, "get in line", macho, macho, macho, blah, blah, blah. You know, I liked this guy at first—I mean, he's got the right idea about Halo and all—but I'm really starting to lose sympathy for him because he's being such a stereotypical, slick-mustachioed, gold-toothed, top-hatted, "LOL, now you shall die, what what!" villain.

Oh, there the Infection Forms are! Luckily, only your Grunts will bite the dust; in the absence of any Combat Forms, the Elites will be fine. If you have the Sputnik Skull on, I'd suggest taking out Half-Jaw's shields and letting the Flood get him. It's fairly amusing to watch him fly around near the ceiling, bleeding and howling in pain and anger. On the other hand, the guy's just so leet that I feel mean when I do that.

When all the Infection Forms die, Half-Jaw sends you on your way. It's a real pity he doesn't follow you, as this part could be pretty fun with an invincible ally for help. No, we have to make do with two standard Elites. These guys are actually a big help, and you'll want to keep them alive for at least the Most Annoying Elevator in the World™ section. They'll defend you from Sentinels and Infection Forms, while you can protect them from the Combat Forms. And all three of this type will really be out in force.

As to the elevator battle itself, it's so unpredictable, random, and bloody hard that you may be tempted to try and skip it by jumping down the platforms around the edge of the elevator. However, due to the ridiculous addition of death barriers in Halo 2, it's impossible; if you cross a plane which lies about fifteen meters below the elevator, you will spontaneously die from heart attack. I guess you shouldn't have eaten so many potato chips when you were a teenager, Arbiter. Alternatively, I guess Bungie should stop being so frickin' cheap. This battle is boring, painful and stupid, so I don't see why it's impossible (unlike, say, Sniper Alley) to skip it. But whatever.

At the bottom of the elevator shaft is a hall with three or so Combat Forms in it, connecting to the second level of a three-level room. This room consists of a bunch of Heretics being owned by a bunch of Flood. This battle, like the previous one, is unskippable; it's also in the room with the Famine Skull, if you're a complete idiot or skull-collector. Pretty much, you drop down to the bottom level and wait for approximately ten million billion Flood to attack you, with a couple of Heretics thrown in for good measure.

Eventually, you'll be 'rescued' by two Elites and three Grunts who show up to attack you. Kill them and head in the direction they came from. A couple of reinforcements will show up to help you, but you don't really need their help anymore. In fact, your objective from this point on is to move as fast as possible through this whole painful level.

You are given a choice between to identical paths. Take the left one, staying camouflaged as much as possible, and using the infinite sword to kill your enemies. You will eventually come upon Mr. Heretic, running away, as usual. Also as usual, it is impossible to kill him. You can bury him under fire and sword, but it'll do you no good. If you aren't running Halo 2 v1.1, you can even sword-fly past him, but even that won't help you. You can't assassinate him, and if you get into his hiding place before he does, another of those goddamn death barriers will kill you. Go friggin' figure.

Well, at least Arby has a plan to get rid of 'Refumee...

02: Hey! Watch This!
Head upwards, I suppose. The Arbiter, in a burst of true Bushism, decides he's thinking too small-picture. He needs to destroy more Forerunner installations! (I guess heresy like that is condoned if you're the Arbiter).

Head up the ramps. A group of Flood will show up ahead of you, but you can sneak past them with camo. The Flood and Sentinels are pretty much occupied with one another for this whole section, so you needn't worry too much about them. Send the elevator up, up and away.

So, up here are three awesome cables holding the station up. Choose any one of them and start hacking. Notice that, after each one goes down, 'Vadumee starts chatting with you. Until he shuts up, the next cable is invincible, so don't bother hacking away too frantically. Once all three are severed, head back to the elevator and head down. This part doesn't take much strategy—or, indeed, common sense.

Engage active camouflage and head through the door that 'Refumee was hiding behind. There are a few Heretics back here, but they won't see you with camo active. Drop down the elevator shaft and take whichever route you want to get to the far door across the room from the entrance. Remember to use your camo whenever you can. Bizarrely, the sword Elite can sometimes follow you into the cutscene: while you are firing at the Heretic's Banshee, he's slashing fruitlessly away at you. However, when the cutscene ends, he'll sometimes have boarded your Banshee, causing you to spontaneously fall to your doom, or your Banshee may just explode as soon as the cutscene ends. Either way, the problem can be solved by just killing the sword-Elite before you trigger the cutscene.

Boost across the station quick as you can. Actually, if we were actually on a station that was falling at this kind of speed, we could, in theory, just walk off the edge and 'float' over to the other end of the station. (We would actually be falling, not floating, but we'd be floating at more or less the same speed as the station, so we'd appear to stay in the same place, relative to the station, without any visible means of support. Ain't physics great?) Still, since we appear to be falling into Threshold's equivalent of the Great Red Spot, I can understand why the Arbiter wants a Banshee. Anyway, ignore the other Banshees, just get after 'Refumee.

03: Dead or Alive...Actually, Just Dead
Heh. Gotta love the Arbiter's little crouch-walk.

Anyway, this part is mostly running past your enemies, camouflaged or not, as the case may be. Notice that you're running backwards through "Arbiter", which should help you in navigating. When you encounter the room with all the conveyor belts and the Heretics behind the energy shield near the exit door, you'll know you're getting close. Above you is the hangar, which is where you have to go next, and last, for your showdown with the Heretic Leader. And geez oh man, is it ever cheesy. In the words of Mike Miller:

"Apparently, Bungie has heard the ceaseless cries from the legions of fans pleading for boss fights in Halo 2. I know that nary a day went by when I didn't think, "Well, Halo is good and all, but what it really needs are some good old-fashioned video game bosses that behave in a contrived and illogical manner and distort the rules of the game beyond all recognition."

Well, our prayers have been answered; indeed, this battle treats us to many of the traditionally lazy boss fight conventions that we've all come to know and tolerate. Let's see:


 * Regenerating supply of disposable henchmen. Still largely unwilling to fight his own battles, the heretic leader will surround himself with holographic duplicates in an admittedly effective attempt to confuse us. Curiously, these holograms seem to do just as much damage as the real thing, which leads one to wonder why the Covenant don't just employ legions of holographic shock troops as a standard tactic.


 * Arbitrary invincibility. You're only allowed to kill him when Bungie wants you to kill him. Forget about taking him out back in the elevator room after sticking him with a plasma grenade and blasting him with an entire magazine of fuel rods; you can't even kill him in this battle until the end, no matter what you do. I've watched him get stuck in a corner in the first round of this battle and proceeded to pound him with 30 fuel rods and the energy sword, to no effect.


 * Improbable avenues of movement. To add to the confusion, he can use the vents along the ceiling to move conveniently from side to side in a random fashion between each round of the battle.

I'm surprised he doesn't magically change into a more powerful form after we kill him the first time, or at least kidnap our girlfriend or something.

In any case, let's just get this over with, since we've finally managed to corner the little weasel."

Well, on, into the hangar, and trigger the cutscene. I just cannot understand this, though: WHY does the Heretic Leader open fire? This guy has just cut through his WHOLE FRIGGIN' ARMY, not to mention a sizable Flood force. If 343GS explains everything to the Arbiter, wouldn't the Arbiter join him, and believe the Oracle about Halo? Doesn't that seem like a pretty big haul? I mean, I understand Bungie have to progress the story somehow, but would it have killed them to make it possible to lower your weapon (a use for the down arrow on the d-pad besides machinima) and join forces with 'Refumee? You could fight for the Heretics and bring the truth to the Elites! That would actually be pretty cool.

Oh well. If we gotta, we gotta.

As soon as the battle starts, whip out the fuel rod cannon and fire a blast each into the holodrones. That'll get them out of the fight. Take cover, reload, camouflage and fire two-three shots at the Heretic himself. He'll scream and take cover, ending round one. Meanwhile, you need to jump up on top of the Heretic Seraph fighter in the hangar's center.

Following this, the Heretic will appear in one of the four vents along the ceiling. He can be hard to see, but his plasma rifles glow enough to give him away. He'll drone on for a bit about how the Prophets bought your loyalty. (Again, I have to ask: since he seems to think you're misguided rather than evil, why does he feel the need to kill you?) When he says "or was it the promise of their Great Journey?" you need to wait for the word "journey", then open fire on him with the fuel rod cannon. Fire a whole clip at him. He'll scream, and round two is over.

He'll show up again, in another vent, seconds later. This time, he mentions that the "best the Forerunners could do was wasted!" On "wasted", waste him with another clip from the fuel rod cannon. When he howls in pain, end of round three. Be advised that if you don't take him out right away on this round, he'll release some more holodrones.

Now for round four. He'll chat about what happened to the Forerunners for a little while, then say something like, "Come, Arbiter, let me show you where they went." On "went", open fire. This time, with luck, the dumb bastard will die, and we can live a nice peaceful life in retirement, right?

Oh, don't we wish...