Terminal (Halo 4)

"This node is caught in a loop trying to access something it's calling "the Domain", an offworld data repository of some kind, though I'm only able to extract bits and pieces of the complete exchange."

- Cortana



The terminals in Halo 4 are Forerunner terminals accessible to the player over the course of the game's campaign. Like the terminals in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, the Halo 4 terminals feature animated and voiced cinematics similar to motion comics. Fictionally, the terminals are presented as fragments of information from the Domain, a mysterious store of knowledge once used by the Forerunners.

Finding a terminal awards the player the Contact the Domain achievement, while finding all the terminals in the campaign unlocks the Terminus achievement.

Changes in Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Each Terminal has its own achievement for accessing it, named after the Terminal itself. There is also an achievement for finding all of the terminals.

It appears that the discrepancy noted in the names of Terminals Three and Four was not an error in the names, but an error in the videos themselves. When accessing Terminal Three in Halo: The Master Chief Collection, the Terminal video is named 'Charum Hakkor' but the video is the one previously associated with Terminal Four. This implies that Terminal Three was always intended to be named 'Charum Hakkor' and have the video from Terminal Four. This is also more chronologically consistent, showing the end of the war between the Humans and Forerunners prior to their forced regression, rather than the other way around.

This is further supported by the text descriptions and order of the Terminal videos on the Halo Channel, which describes 'Charum Hakkor', Terminal Three, as the defeat of the Humans, and 'Flood', Terminal Four, as their punishment. However due to an error, both terminal videos play the video of Terminal 3 (Formerly Four) in which Humanity is defeated.

Production notes
The terminals do not appear in-game after they are acquired for the first time, nor does Cortana's unique line regarding the second level's terminal. The only way to avert this is to clear all Halo 4 data from the Xbox 360's system cache. Unlike the terminals in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, the first ten of which are available in-game, Halo 4's terminal videos can be accessed only through the player's Halo 4 Service Record on Halo Waypoint.

Relation to The Forerunner Saga
"The terminal dialogs may themselves be questionable, in light of this new testimony."

- A science team leader, regarding the terminals and the contradicting discoveries.

There are a number of discrepancies between the terminals and Greg Bear's Forerunner Saga, in particular the third and final novel, Halo: Silentium. The most direct inconsistencies lay with terminals 5, 6, and 7, which are adapted as part of the climax of Silentium. Some plot elements are changed slightly, while others are altered quite drastically; the dialog varies completely in each case. These discrepancies are largely the result of deliberate production decisions; according to 343 Industries Franchise Writer Jeremy Patenaude, the terminals are meant to present a condensed version of the story of the Didact and the Librarian with the main consideration of weaving the narrative with that of the game proper while conveying the basics of the story to a wider audience within the confines of the limited length of the terminal videos. Thus the narrative of the terminals lacks much of the nuance and broader context present in the novels, and many elements of the greater story arc are simplified, abstracted or omitted altogether. From an in-universe perspective, it should be noted that the terminals are hosted by the Domain, (which is known to alter data without explanation and had lain un-accessed for 100,000 years following the firing of the Halos), which could explain any perceived incongruities. Meanwhile, the narrative of Silentium is a series of eyewitness accounts collated from the memory stores of the carapace of a Catalog and a monitor as opposed to the more unreliable Domain, and as such can be considered a more accurate recounting of the events.

A number of major story elements from Silentium and the Forerunner Saga as a whole are absent in the terminals; the most significant ones being the Ur-Didact's thousand-year exile in a Cryptum preceding the final years of the Flood war, the existence of the IsoDidact and the conflict between him and the Ur-Didact, or the Ur-Didact's traumatizing encounter with the Gravemind which acts as the catalyst for his transformation as a character. The Primordial, a major character in the novels, is likewise omitted. The Master Builder and his strife with the Didact—a major part of the novels—is only briefly touched on in the terminals, which focus on the growing drift between the Didact and the Librarian.

Terminal 3 depicts the Didact and the Librarian having a conversation on Omega Halo, in the same human village that the Didact later composes in Terminal 6. The exchange could not have occurred in this location for a number of reasons; while the events of the terminal are implied to have occurred almost immediately after the fall of the ancient human empire, the Ur-Didact went to exile before the Halos were constructed and did not reunite with his wife until after his transformation. Additionally, humans were not brought to Omega Halo until moments before the Flood attack on the greater Ark and the Ur-Didact's betrayal. Within the simplified context of the terminals, the backdrop of the Halo and the human village can be understood as setting up a recognizable location for the events of the sixth terminal; in any case, with the main focus of the scene being on the characters of the Didact and the Librarian, the setting is of little importance outside the aforementioned connection within the narrative of the terminals themselves.

The Didact's monologue to the Lord of Admirals in Terminal 4 is taken nearly verbatim from Halo: Primordium, albeit abridged. The circumstances of the Lord of Admirals' surrender differ from Primordium; in his recounting, Forthencho states that he spent the final hours of the battle for Charum Hakkor in a Precursor citadel on the planet's surface, as opposed to personally capitulating to the Didact aboard his flagship as seen in the terminal.

The events of Terminal 5 are not depicted directly in Silentium, though they are implied to have occurred between the Didact's recovery near Uthera Midgeerrd and his return to Nomdagro (a four-year span). In Silentium, the conversion of the organic Prometheans into mechanical Knights is not addressed until much later. The Didact's physiological changes wrought by his self-experimentation are never mentioned in the novel; rather, it is implied that his face has become haggard due to the psychological stress he endured during his interrogation by the Gravemind.

The Didact's attack on Omega Halo from Terminal 6 is adjusted to take place during the siege of the greater Ark, rather than what appears to a lull in the war after the Halo has been deployed. In addition, both Terminals 3 and 6 depict the Halo as orbiting a large rocky planet surrounded by several moons, while the novel places the ring over the greater Ark in extragalactic space by the time of the events of Terminal 6. In the book the Librarian witnesses the humans' composition firsthand rather than arriving after the incident. Likewise, in Silentium, the Librarian only learns of the Didact's plans with the Promethean Knights once she makes her way to Requiem in pursuit of the Didact, whereas in the terminal, the Didact communicates his scheme to her in a holographic exchange before she leaves to confront her husband. In the novel, the pair also do not confront one another until much later, as both are attempting to flee the Ark before its destruction, the latter with some of the last known survivors of humanity.

The events of Terminal 7 are not heavily changed, though they are greatly expanded. The most notable difference is the involvement of Endurance-of-Will, the Didact's lover before his marriage to the Librarian. Additionally, the terminal depicts Mantle's Approach hovering over a mountain range with stars visible in the sky, whereas in the novel, the ship remains docked within the interior of Requiem when the Librarian comes aboard to confront her husband. In the novel, the Librarian and the Didact briefly converse on the bridge of Mantle's Approach before the former shoots the latter. Though the Librarian touches a Promethean Knight as she leaves the Cryptum chamber, there is no indication that this overrides the Promethean constructs' loyalty to the Didact; instead, this is implied to occur when she leaves her memory imprint with Endurance. However, 343 Industries has clarified that the particular Knight the Librarian encounters in the terminal is Endurance, who composes herself after the Librarian's final conversation with her; this is heavily implied, although not directly described, in Silentium.

Curiously, the Librarian states that the Didact, locked in his Cryptum, will be the "only living thing in this galaxy", even though live specimens of the various species indexed in the Conservation Measure were stored on numerous shield worlds (particularly the conservation spheres), along with the samples of the Flood held aboard the Halo installations.

The very nature of the terminal narrative being drawn from the Domain is suspect in light of Silentium's revelation that the Domain would be destroyed by the firing of the Halos, along with all Precursor architecture. In the Halo 4 level Requiem, Cortana notes that a terminal is "caught in a loop" trying to access the Domain, suggesting that the Domain may truly have been unavailable and the terminal videos are in fact locally-hosted copies of the information. Regardless, the name of the achievement "Contact the Domain" implies a connection to the Domain itself.