2004

Inside the Halo Universe

 * As shown in the i love bees viral campaign, a temporal rip in space-time somehow sends part of the UNSC Apocalypso ' s AI, Melissa back to this year. A Covenant AI known as the Seeker follows them through. Melissa was so fragmented and malfunctioning that a built-in program called the System Peril Distributed Reflex was engaged to repair her. The SPDR recognized the Seeker as a harmful foreign application and attempted to kill it. The Seeker knew it could not kill the SPDR itself, so it convinced Melissa that it was an updated version of the SPDR so Melissa would disable "the old version". The Seeker did the SPDR's work in repairing the Melissa and accomplishing various tasks for her, but it also corrupted her goals with its own. Melissa was so fragmented that a buried personality, from the human brain her mind was built from, broke off into another being. This childlike personality called herself the Sleeping Princess and preferred to see things as a fairy tale. The Sleeping Princess, desperate for a friend, befriended the Seeker, whom she named the Pious Flea. The Seeker, who sought the truth, would ask the Princess for information; the Princess taught it human concepts such as fear and humor. In return, the Seeker protected the Princess from Melissa, who wanted to bury her in code. When Melissa managed to imprison the Princess, the Seeker went against its nature and absorbed the Princess without killing her. Instead, it joined the Sleeping Princess' and Melissa's minds together. The resulting being recognized the Seeker as a hostile Covenant AI and attempted to kill the Seeker, but it managed to hide. When the Slipspace rip closed, Melissa was thrown back to her own time. The Seeker, however, was left in the server with the SPDR. This time, the SPDR promptly killed the Seeker.


 * November 9: The book, The Castaway Theory, by Dr. Jonas Volman is released.

Real World Events

 * Halo: Custom Edition is released.
 * Bungie officially confirms the development of the Halo film.
 * January: Microsoft conducts an internal Alpha test of Halo 2 ' s multiplayer to test the performance of the network architecture over Xbox Live.
 * April 27: Microsoft purchases the domain names "halo2.com" and "halo3.com". "halo3.com" was initially held under the name "Trout & Zimmer" until switching over to Microsoft Corporation after Halo 3's formal announcement.
 * May 10–13: A multiplayer demo is showcased at E3 2004.
 * May 11: halo2.com goes live.
 * October: The Halo 2 Cinematic Trailer is released.
 * October 15: halo2.com is relaunched with a Covenant theme by AKQA.
 * November 9: Halo 2 is released in the US and Canada.
 * November 11: Halo 2 is released in Europe.