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From: "Maarten Edgar" <meed42@hotmail.com>
To: <halo@bungie.org>
Subject: halo theory on 'closure'
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 16:42:04 +0100
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X-OriginalArrivalTime: 24 Nov 2000 15:34:35.0861 (UTC) FILETIME=[0CBC9850:01C0562C]

I have never played Marathon, but once, while doing a search on
something or other, I randomly encountered a Blam! page (the work in
progress title, I believe, of Halo). That was the first I heard of
Marathon, and the first I heard of HALO. And of course my interest
was piqued by all the theories flying...So its time for me to vent
my own thoughts on the subject....I have to warn you though that
first there is some easy astrophisics to get through. You'll get
why, and it could be quite interesting (or absolutely not, as the
case may be =P

First off, there is this AI who wants to live forever and keeps on
goin on about 'closure'...Living forever means for eternity, for the
length of the universe. Now the astrophisics come in: according to
modern theaory, there are 3 possible fates which could be in store
for the universe, depending on the amount of matter in the universe
at present. (I'll not go in to deeply, because it'd take to long and
I dont get it that perfectly myself ;) )

This has to do whith the fact that mater creates gravity (or the
other way round: no-one knows for sure which way round it is) and
matter and/or gravity distort space, or, to put it
diferently, matter curves space... the more matter there is, the
more space curves! And the way space is curved affects the way the
universe will 'end'.

What this breaks down to is that: 
1-if there is too much matter (too much being tied up to Einsteins
cosmological constant) in the universe, space curves too much, and
the universe will, after expansion, contract and give the big
crunch. This is called a closed universe and the process is that of
closure...see where I'm getting at? 
2-if the amount of matter is just right, the universe will epand,
then the expansion will stop and the universe will be stable
3-if the is less than too much matter (sorry for being vague, but
you dont want an astrophisics book here, do you ;) ), the universe
will expand forever, thinning out matter and energy. This is what TS
Eliot termed 'not with a bang but with a whimper'! This phrase can
be found in many an astrophisics book.

So what this boils down to is that the AI who wants to live forever
fears 'closure' but also the 'whimper'. It wants the amount of
matter to be just right! This also ties in nicely with the fortune
telling to be found in the messages from Cortana: it has seen the
future, not by time travel, but through theory.

So where does HALO come in? It is a ringshaped construct with great
power. Somewhere i read ( I believe in Rony Sanchez' observations
about the Jjaro) that in Marathon there was an allusion to 
ringshaped stations which through gravitational powers caused a
singularity...and singularitys are to be found in black holes (and
probably in white ones too). So suppose that Halo can function as a
gateway to a singularity (cause one to appear in the center of its
circular boundary), this singularity can funtion as a black hole to
remove matter from the universe or as a white one to bring matter
into the universe, thereby stabilising the amount of matter in the
universe and causing the universe itself to be stable and live
forever, with the AI able to live forever too!

A nice tie-in is that the energy thus produced (in such a process a
lot of energy would be produced) could be used in an offensive
manner, to destroy ships and thus function as the weapon in (I think
it was Rony Sanchez' ) someone elses post!

Well, appart from all that i think ther is something very biblical
going on as well, but seing as i've written enough for one sitting
I'll leave you guys alone. Just keep in mind that I personally have
never played Marathon 1,2 or Infinity (though i would deffinitly
like to!), so abovementioned is pretty much speculatio; but it does
seem to hang together. All that is left to say is that I can't wait
to get my hands on the game and play it!

Maarten Edgar

PS sorry about the vagueness in some parts of this msg...it's quite
late down here in Holland


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