Talk:Terminal (Halo 3)

You can find one(terminal) in the remake of the first chamber after Shafted in the level Silent Cartographer from Halo:CE just under the ramp --MCDBBlits 16:42, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Another terminal is located at the beginning of the part where you go to enter the control room, before you go off the ledge you cant get back onto, turn right and jump into a small doorway with an arrow symbol (like on the floor in CE). Once you get inside make sure you go left immediately. there is a steep ledge to the right. Cortana will ask "where are you going?" and then "wait, whats that?" upon seeing the terminal. Spartan 107 04:28, 28 September 2007 (UTC) Questions? sure, im not good at describing this crap.

Here this may help some of you

The 7 Terminals

The Ark:

1. Start the mission and once you enter the first building take a left into another door and now you should be in a curved corridor. On the inside is a Terminal.

2. After activating the bridge to let your comrades accross the gap, do a 180 and you should see it. (it does not open until you activate the bridge)

3. In the third building after defeating the scarab, kill the group of sleeping covenant, then follow the corridor downwards. Once you reach a door in front that is locked, immediately on the left there's an open door. Go through and walk straight off, then do a 180 to find a secret room. It is in there.

The Covenant:

1. When in the first tower standing on the lift, face the access panel and turn left. Jump over and it's right there.

2. Land your hornet on the second tower, walk towards the entrance but when you see the locked door, do a 180. Should be right in front of you.

3. When in the third tower standing on the lift, face the access panel and turn right. Jump over and it's right there.

Halo:

1. After reaching the end of the first cave, hug the right wall and you will see a building. Jump up onto the walkway and hang a left once inside. It's right there.

--MCDBBlits 19:41, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Just finished typing up the entire transcript for all seven terminals (found by me in-game, not on a website). Enjoy!

--Last Hanyou 20:44, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Curious...
Near the end of the transcript, it says, No there is more, But you are not worthy... Not yet. Either that means follow up information somewhere or you have to do something in game then re-access terminals, or something, it sounds like "do this and we'll show you this". Maybe it's just something to think about and they won't give us anything else. E93 00:49, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Different text appears if you access the terminal on Legendary. It's interesting - Mendical Bias claims to be helping Master Chief. Perhaps that's why he's so "lucky"? -T

Or could it possibly be leading up to the next game? Is it possible that while with the Gravemind Cortana picked up Mendicant Bias? She was scrambled and they never enlightened us on the topic. When Cortana was placed in the Dawn's system by Chief, maybe Bias infiltrated the system and caused the ship to break in half. This would lead Chief to the "Forerunner" planet where Mendicant Bias hopes to prove himself. I don't see Mendicant's traces in any of the events Chief experienced. I tried beating it on legendary after accessing the terminal and everything remained the same.

Has anyone figured out what the noises are as the player is rerouted? It sounds like a voice but played backwards. --

If I remeber correctly, in Halo 2, when Cortana goes into the system on High Charity, she mentions that there is an extremely powerful presence there. Maybe thats Mendicant Bias? --CSKnight78

You don't actually have to do anything on legendary to access the 'extra' information, you can just skip straight to that level and put the difficulty on legendary and you will be able to read it.

Pausing
Does the game automatically pause when the player is reading a terminal, like in Marathon 1 and Oni, or does in-game time pass while reading, as in Marathon 2 and Infinity? --Andrew Nagy 20:11, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

343's "Namesake"
In the Terminal readouts, Guilty Spark is not labelled as Guilty Spark but rather as 04-343 ( Installation 04, Monitor 343 ). In the readouts, 343 gets quite annoyed at the Terminal AI ( Perhaps it is Bias ) and starts to Name-call it. Perhaps 343 gains the moniker "Guilty Spark" because he causes Bias to become Rampant. Thus he is "Guilty" of causing the Forerunner's downfall because he is the "Spark" of Bias' rampancy. 5748 PrimaryCipher 05:23, 30 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Spark didn't seem to know who he was talking to, though. You'd think he would have remembered MB if he'd met him before. He specifically said his makers restricted his knowledge of other installations, so it's possible he knew nothing about MB before the terminals. --Dragonc laws (talk ) 05:45, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the word Guilty has any particular meaning in his name - it must be a naming convention for monitors, considering that the other monitor we meet in Halo 2 is called 2403 Penitent Tangent - penitence being a similar concept to guilt. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the others was called something like "49 Contrite Flange"...

Differences with Difficulty
The message you get on at least some of the Terminals vary by difficulty level. For example, I remembered Terminal 3 saying something different when I found it, so I went to check. On Normal and Heroic, it contains what you've got here. But on Legendary, the content changes to some talk about anomalies and a conversation between the Flood and Mendicant Bias. Check it out for yourself.
 * could you put up a transcript? Not all of us have your 1337 skillz ;) Honour Light Your Way - [[Image:HalfJaw03.jpg|20px]]  Kora ‘Morhek   The Battle-Net  My Conquests.  07:01, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Reported content dispute
Hello everyone :)

I'm just leaving a message on behalf of an IP who reported this page has some inaccuracies.


 * I have played through the game on Legendary, reading all the Terminals. Though the contents of this pagge are correct for all the other difficulties, the fact remains that the Transcripts for EACH terminal are different not just for the last Terminal on the last level, but for every terminal in every level.


 * The Legendary versions of the terminals provide both a new "limited read" Transcript (the one Medicant Bias redirects you FROM after about 30 seconds) but also the transcript of what he redirects you 2


 * The Transcripts of each Terminal need to be updated. When played on Legendary, they are vastly different, and reveal MUCH more information. PLEASE try to obtain the full transcripts. Everything is different, including the initial display that can only be read in a limited amount of time.

If you can help out in any way, that'd be great! Edits to this page can be counted towards the Halo 3 Launch Contest, so why not register as a user, and/or for the contest, and help us out?!

Cheers,

Manticore  Talk 18:10, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to say that was me sending those messages. I registered as a user soon after and started working on this page to add the extra content. Spartan729

I've been working with Spartan729 on checking each terminal in each difficulty. We have verified all of them with their respective information. As to your comment that each terminal is different on Legendary, only some parts of some terminals are different - Terminal 3 is the only terminal that is completely different on that difficulty. For most of the terminals, only the (After being Rerouted) part is different. We have posted what we have found to be the full transcripts. We are looking for independent confirmation, but we are fairly certain that these are the correct transcripts.

--Vasja, 2 October 2007

Length
This article is getting way too long. I propose that it be spliced into seperate articles, and a brief summary provided on the page linking to each. Thoughts? -- Manticore Talk | Contributions 18:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, we could leave one page just to talk about the Terminals, and others for each terminal and their Transcripts... Spartan729

Might not be a bad idea to split each terminal up into it's own page (especially given that one of the terminals has multiple variations). It wouldn't be all that difficult to do, and they'd be linked from the main Terminal page. - Dukester101 11:04, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that each should have an individual page assigned to it, with a copy of the location instructions, transcript, and an objective section about specualations. There is no good spot as far as I know for this sort of thing, so it would probably help. I would also like the dialog snippets that Cortana says when finding number 7 be documented. 166.109.124.218 18:04, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I updated the 'terminal 7' portion to include cortanas dialogue.

problem
i have done all the terminals and it still doesnt give me the achievment do you have to complete the mission aswell or is it just like the skulls 90.241.157.17 15:48, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

This is just like the skulls. All you have to do is access them. Make sure you have looked at all seven - 3 on The Ark, 3 on Covenant, and 1 on Halo. Vasja 12:34, 3 October 2007

The terminal on Halo must be accessed last. If you've already gotten all the other terminals; just go back and access the one on Halo again. C07

Theres an 8th terminal on Cortona

The terminal on cortana doesn't count to the achievement, but you can't just go into the terminal and then get straight out; you have to wait to be redirected.

Precursor?
Look carefully at the transcript between Didact and the Librarian in Terminal 2. There is talk of some sort of Mantle (note the capital letter). Is this an object, a Forerunner pledge/idea, or something the Precursors instructed the Forerunners to do? Also, carefully read this quote from Didact:

"The Mantle has not failed! I've already razed scores of worlds--sterilized systems, routed and [disintegrated] the parasite! We're learning its tricks and strategies. We can halt this thing! And we can follow in Their footsteps!"

Just who are "They"(also capitalized), and why would the Forerunners want to follow in "Their" footsteps? Did the precursors leave the galaxy, control the entire galaxy, survive for millions of years, or were the Forerunners just as religious as the Covenant to an even higher form of intelligence?

I'm thinking the last option. There's other stuff about transsentience and a 'Great Journey' that leads me to suspect that the Covenant religion is just a badly translated version of a Forerunner religion. --Dragon c laws(talk) 22:06, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Its interesting that Bungie would mention the Precursors - for so long, we've assumed (or at least, I've always assumed) that the Forerunners were the first sentient life in this galaxy. that there are far older beings with even greater technology (if ti can be called than, anymore) is startling. THey certainly seem to have entered the Forerunners "Mythology" - the Mantle of Guardianship, passed down from their predecessors, the Precursors? a garbled version of these terminals could have definitely formed the basis of Covenant religiosu doctrine. Honour Light Your Way - Kora ‘Morhek The Battle-Net My Conquests. 23:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

In the “BESTIARUM – TECHNOLOGICAL ACHIECEMENT” the scale goes from lowest to highest, Tier 7 to Tier 0, and just for reference the Forerunners are listed as a “TIER 1: World Builders” but “TIER 0: Transsentient” states “As the [Forerunners] had no examples of civilizations with technological accomplishment greater than themselves – with the exception of the Precursors – this is a theoretical ceiling. They can travel intergalactically and accelerate evolution of intelligent life. These may be creatures of legend." I hope it helps -- MCDBBlits 05:46, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

That big question that all major halo fans used to think:Who are the Forerunners and why do they have a connection with humanity?Now ever since the time inbetween the release of Halo 2 and the ending of the Halo 3 Iris to the release of Hslo 3, that question has surprisingly faded from most of our minds.The forerunners from all we know were so advanced that they could deserved to be called gods.A creature or race that's even more ancient, mysterious and powerful than them, this story is getting even more ridiculous than it already is as in complexity.(0nyx Sp1k3r 23:08, 4 October 2007 (UTC))

Another thought. What if the Forerunners considered us speacial because we were decendants/creations of the Precursors? That would certainly explain why they thought our planet speacial. Also, if the Precursors were more advanced than the Forerunners, what on Earth could have caused them to die out? Did they create the Flood? Did they find the Flood in another galaxy, then did the Flood capture one of Their ships, and pilot it to our galaxy to destroy the Forerunners? Or what if the Precursors and Forerunners lived side-by-side, then the Precursors left the galaxy and gave it to the Forerunners, only to have the Flood destroy them in the other galaxy. But then why would They leave the galaxy in the first place, and if humans are Their decendants, why would the Precursors leave a small population on Earth? Was it a crashed ship? And Episode Four's picture of the Earth in it's present and Pangea forms. Did the Forerunners see the symetry of the planet as the reason for it's anomaly? So many questions. I must delve deeper into the subject matter.

The Precursors never died they evolved. The shifted from our reality to that of another level. No need for technology or fear of the real as they are above it. They are accendants of humans (we are the old form) and that is why the forerunners had such an interest in earth. The "gate" was made here for easy transport between the research facilities and the forerunner home galaxy. In the forerunners attempt to also reach this higher level they tried to use an new species' DNA and unintentially disrupted the flood (they were mixing humans with pure forms. The forerunners are not as kind or pure as we thought). Not realising that the flood was under an intellagent being "the Gravemind". It influenced there systems and spread throughout their the forerunners and growing to impossible numbers. So the forerunners focused more on the creation of the Halos instead of continuing their research. The notes in some of the terminals describe how some of the forerunners were still trying to figure it out as a last resort to escape the flood. The "mantel" is a device that they thought was going to help them achieve the next evolutionary state but they ended up using it to raze hundreds of worlds to score the flood from the galaxy. In the ed it all fell apart and they had to activate the Halo and wiping out most of there civilisation. I say "most" cause they are not completely gone. Onyx is meant to be the "last planet" of the forerunners but if you read enough you will find that there is one more place still to look. GEOcheief 14:39, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Achievement Details
"1) Have to start from beggining of level (Start on Ark) 2) Have to get all the terminals IN ORDER AND IN ONE GAME! 3) You have to read every terminal until it says fragment ends, or it has gone past the stage with the red screen 4) Has to be done in normal mode at least 5) You may save and quit the game after find the 3 on ark, covenant and the last one on Halo." <- I would like to point out that this is mostly wrong. I got the achievement after getting the third terminal on "The Ark" after looking through terminals 1, 2, 7, 6, 5, 4, in that order. I was given the achievement on easy mode. This was not in one game, but over the course of 2 days. I am deleting this section off of the page. --Vasja, 3 October 2007
 * I agree with this correction. I played the whole game on Normal, and found all 7, but didn't get the achievement.  What I learned later was that there was a 2nd part after the terminal began accessing it.  I went back and did the 9th mission (7th terminal) on easy, and watch through the whole thing.  Of course nothing happened, but when I went back to the Ark and Covenant missions, I got the achievement upon viewing the 2nd part of the 6th terminal.  All of this was on Easy (I was too lazy to go through it on a harder setting just for the terminals). Sashamorning 23:38, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Saved Films
You can still access the Terminals from within your saved films! Honour Light Your Way -   Kora ‘Morhek   The Battle-Net  My Conquests.  23:57, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Bungie.net Compilation
http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=13233687&postRepeater1-p=1

Hate to see that you guys went to all that trouble to do all that but a guy already did ALL of this including MB's error messages almost 2 weeks ago. It's already got a lengthy discussion and everything. Just thought credit should be given where credit is due.

Co-op vs. Solo
Someone should add that all seven has to be done in either solo or co-op mode. For example: you cannot do 4 of them in in co-op and then the rest in solo. I've just confirmed this as I found 4,5,6 and 7 in co-op then the missing 3 in solo. Did not get the achievement. Then did the 4 I did in co-op in solo and finally got it. And no, I did not miss any and I watched them all the way through. I know some people are having trouble getting this achievement so I hope this will help!

Beginning or Rally Point?
Do you have to start from the beginning to get the terminals, like the skulls, or can you get to them from rally points and the achivement counts? Kap2310 19:48, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

From the beginning --MCDBBlits 05:40, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

ive started from rally points to get terminals and they counted

Easter Egg?
is it really an easter egg? its one of the achievements meaning its not a big secret they exist, they should be classified as hidden items or something, easter eggs are normally something they dont tell you about

The 8th one definitely is, does any body know what it says? i was to excited to listen.

Conversation Between MB.05-032 and LF.Xx.3273
Perhaps it should be noted that LF.Xx.3273 might be referring to the LF.Xx.3273 Flood Super Cell

C07 my friend was playing co-op with his mate and they found another silver skull in the game. they new it werent one of the other skulls because they have already got them.

The Writer
The THING controling the Terminals is the AI that the Forrunners made to stop the flood without the Halo array. I cant remember the first part, but its Something Bias (the one that goes rampent in the seventh terminal). Also someone should note the red text in each terminal this is where I saw who was controling them (in the seventh terminal it says "I will tell you who I am. I am -- Bias" the lines being the name I cant remember.

Also note that they say the words "Flame of Alexandria" or something along those lines in one of the main articles (before the redirect), which relates to Marathon, Alexandria is the name on the pod that the cyborg comes to Marathon in. -LtOBrien


 * Mendicant Bias. --Dragonc laws (talk ) 23:58, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Translation
So... Does anyone else recognize the writing from Iris? Has anyone tried figuring out how to translate it and find out what the messages in the ARG were?

Forerunner population
In the beginning of the first terminal, it says that 1.36 million Forerunners (1.3mn civilians + ~40,000 military personnel) were evacuated from [DM-3-1123 b] (a planet, from what I can tell). Then it says that this number is .0006% of the total population. This would mean that the planet had an absolutely huge number of Forerunners on it - over 200 billion. As in more than 30 times as many occupants as our overpopulated planet. This includes military, which presumably were only temporarily stationed on the planet, but even still. I don't know how this many Forerunner could live comfortably (and we know they did - look how many "recreational spacecraft" the Flood could find lying around) on one world. Maybe a gas planet - but it can't be, or how could it be cleansed so quickly by orbital bombardment? The other possibility is that is [DM-3-1123 b] is a Halo Installation, but this doesn't seem to explain things either. The surface area of Earth is 510mn square km, and I calculate the surface area of a 10,000km-diameter Halo at less than 10mn square km.

Possible explanations: The Forerunner have carved out the entire interior of the planet, like I hear has happened in the books, and live on more than just the surface. But then how did they hit the Flood in the depths of the planet with orbital bombardement? Do the Forerunner ships have a sort of mini-Halo-effect weapon? Wouldn't there be a risk of friendly fire? That effect is pretty, to make an understatement, powerful.

The Forerunner are losing the war with the Flood really badly and the planet is smothered in refugees.

Very intresting point, and a good palce to put it. Its entirely likely Forerunner planets are similar Couroscant from Star Wars, or its a artificial world, as Forerunners are described as 'world builders'. Who knows? --Ajax 013 11:34, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about writing such an essay. Is this a bad place to discuss it?Mr Toad 04:39, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

People who claim Earth is overpopulated base that assumption on arable land and other resources, not living space. Remember that the entire population of Earth could easily fit into Delaware. Even given our current level of agricultural technology, places like the USA could maintain far higher populations. The Forerunner were incredibly technologically advanced, and it seems likely that they would have been liberated from the necessity of farming for their food by matter recombination technology (like Pohl's Gateway series) or by direct energy to matter transformation (like Star Trek), or some other means. Further, there is no reason to assume the planet in question is similar in surface area to the Earth. The planet could be much larger, and if it was less dense could have similar gravitation. It could also be the same size but have much more livable surface (fewer oceans, or inhabited oceans).

Those are some very good points. The only flaw i can think of is that you forgot to sign. Mr Toad 19:47, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Eighth Terminal Location
Can someone please tell me were is it exactly located (the level is 'Cortana', isn't it?)?

Same room as the skull (3nd or 4th chamber) just on the bottem/basement level --MCDBBlits 01:05, 10 November 2007 (UTC) how do u access the terminals

Can someone post the transcript of the Cortana term. ? 82.22.181.114 11:51, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

possible typographical errors
i have bolded and italicised what i am concerned may be errors. i have no way to check them myself or i would. all i can do is call attention to them.

terminal three

REPORT: SECURITY BREACH 2/3 Although [adjacent] systems reacted to the disturbance withing expected parameters, a more comprehensive investigation was undertaken. A physical search w revealed that there was no [corporeal] tampering at the [alpha site].

REPORT: SECURITY BREACH 3/3 In the [42 minutes, 9 seconds] since the original anomaly was discovered two more anomalies were detected in the unrelated systems.

The portal management/life support central system within the boundary complex was momentarily disabled before the cause was [settles] and disassembled. A diagnostic sweep of the central archives was initiated and subsequently halted. The origin on the request cannot be traced.

terminal four

LF.Xx.3273.> Perhaps they have found {~} of making that decision for themselves? Perhaps they chose to leave it {~} impartial outsider; cast your as and arbiter during this time of great need?

terminal five

If we start immediately--commence total biosphere elimination of life sustaining worlds (as indicated in the accompanying charts) and relocate evacuated populations to facilities such as those described in the [Onyx project]--all this could be achieved in [57,1590 (+/-2,184) hours]. Kori126 02:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Reverse Messages
I noticed this a few days ago while reading them over again...

I found this video on youtube, which has them reversed so you can understand them - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5Pphb_RWHg

I think (well, for me, as a huge story buff), that this opens a whole new level to the terminals and am currently composing a transcript of (what I think) they say.