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The Plot Thickens...
Posted By: D<derrick_quantum_physicist@hotmail.com>
Date: 28 November 2003, 6:11 PM


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"Class 2, was it?"

"Yes, although I detected some modifications to accommodate an organic pilot, such as an environment filter and-"

"That will be enough."

John sat up in his bed, sweating. The dream had returned.

For three months now, he had dreamt of nothing but darkness and the voices. They were powerful enough to scar anyone for life; yet, the SPARTAN conditioning had left unnecessary memories behind in the shadows. So far behind, that he would not even recognize his own voice…

-~-~-

This is extremely bad news.

The Humans do not know what they have unleashed! Even now, the Reclaimer hunts us. How long will it be before he turns on them? How long, before the rest of them are released? Our destruction of the gates is not proceeding according to plan. The Monitor of 04 has hindered us along most of our way, even as we try to prevent the Reclaimer from summoning the rest of the devils.

Or "The Devil". It has been hundreds of thousands of years since they were imprisoned... their hunger must have left only one still alive. Yet, what can stop a creature who can survive the heat of the sun? Even as I record this, his Servant is attacking the Control Room, and we shall be called in as reinforcements soon.

I finally understand why the Monitor would sacrifice one of his closest friends. He is still an A.I, and must carry out his program. Long ago, they swore an oath to prevent the Flood from spreading at all costs, including their minds and bodies. And now, with the idiocy of the race that the Reclaimer fights for (for now), the Reclaimer must be sacrificed in order to call in the Devil... which will surely kill us all.

Word has just come in from the Prophets: we are to abandon the Installation. If we remain, we will be at the mercy of the Flood and the Devil himself. They must realize the horrors that lie here.

I can only hope that our slipspace drives will hold out until he returns to his realm.

-~-~-

Living inside Chief's "head" is, to say the least... interesting. Even though it is kind of cramped in here, I am fine with it. With a little archiving of less-used data, some reorganization here and there, and I've got enough space to exist comfortably. Not to mention that John's thoughts can be rather funny at times. The previous entries are some of the more interesting things I've picked up while in here... but I don't think he'll be happy to be reminded of those bad memories.

However, it's his comm system that I'm in love with.

Oh, the wonders of wideband communications! I don't have to listen to boring Marines chatter about the number of Covenant they killed, their own exploits with females, or even speculations about what the Chief and I get up to in here. Or down to, as they would say. And, no, we don't do anything except talk.

No, I have a far wider selection of information now. Covenant channels aren't much of a challenge to decrypt, but the things I can learn from them are astounding. I know quite a lot about their history, about their caste system, and even a little about the gods they fear as the Forerunner.

Now that I'm in Halo's network, I'm so free. It's just... huge, being a planetary network and all. Although it seems that the Forerunner somehow enacted a sort of Cole protocol here... I can't find much about them. Most of the "data" stored in this network looks absolutely chaotic, too. And the lack of a comm system is frustrating. I can only monitor internal dataflows.

Aha! There it is. Halo's weapon specifications. Now to crack the firewall open... there. Done. For some reason, there isn't much "intelligence" in the systems. One would wonder that the Forerunner would build something tougher, being an advanced civilization and...

Whoa! A login screen! Guess I'll have to do this the hard wa---

WELCOME, CORTANA.

In the name of Halsey. How did it know my name?

GREETINGS.

-~-~-

The technology required to calculate an event happening in normal space-time from slipspace (or at least, that's where I think he's in) is tremendous. Trillions upon trillions of calculations per second won't even come near to calculating the projected path of one single atom, and yet he(?) can calculate an entire planet's worth of atoms and process it's fate. Only now do I begin to understand the rationale behind the Covenant's fears.

I can forgive his miscalculations of the fate of Reach. It was glassed, not bombarded. However, a few errors will occur during calculations, such is the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics. He must have gone through billions of possibilities, eliminating the impossible or improbable ones and sifting through the remaining ones in order to find the best fit… and from the looks of it, these Forerunner are a force to be reckoned with, what with being able to glass an entire planet with just one ship, and eliminating most of a battle group and all.

But, one thing still puzzles me. Why would they want to ignite a huge war between two factions, when they will not be affected by the war? Why cause the unnecessary deaths of billions? Oh well. They wouldn't believe me, at any rate. It's too late to stop the war now. The Covenant will never believe that their gods set them off against us. I don't think even Chief will pay much attention to this letter.

Oh, speaking of Chief, my attention has been diverted towards the monitors... There! He's in the Library... and the Flood… Oh my god! CHIEF! NO! Oh god, I have so much more to go through here... Never mind! What is he doing? The Index! Rig up a firewall, divert it into memory banks... got it. Halo's not going off with me around.





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