Halo 3: The Cradle of Life

Halo 3: The Cradle of Life is a short flash animation web comic, one of the first parts of the Iris campaign created for Halo 3. The comic and story were created by Ashley Wood with Bungie overseeing the story.

During the Iris campaign, the original comic could be found here, though as of the campaign's end in 2009 this link is now defunct. Halopedia hosts a backup copy of the original comic as it was originally presented, viewable here.

Synopsis
The Cradle of Life tells the story of an African tribesman, N'chala, who goes every morning to the same spot in the plains and watches something special. The comic implies that the "gods" are building a huge machine in a large lake on the plains of Africa.

This structure, being constructed by several Strato-Sentinels, appears to be the Portal to the Ark.

IP Address
On the last page of the comic, there are three panels. They are each able to be moved with the mouse to reveal certain numbers. When the numbers were arranged in order, they became an IP Address, 206.16.223.65, which led to a site called the Transmission Log. This site was part of the Alternate Reality Game, Iris.

Trivia

 * The name "Cradle of Life" may be a reference the fact that Earth, and more specifically Africa are seen as the birthing place of modern man.
 * N'chala is similar to the Arabic word, inshallah, which means "God willing".
 * As of December 2009, the website that contains the comic is no longer active. This is probably in sync with Bungie's deletion of the AdjutantReflex profile, ending the Iris campaign.