From: "Michael Sholl" <mssholl@home.com> To: "Louis Wu" <halo@bungie.org> Subject: More Info Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 19:20:48 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 I've done a little more background info regarding the symbols seen in the trailer:These four enhanced chevrons comprise the total number of decipherable symbols found on the holoscreens in the 2000 E3 trailer. I know what you're thinking: "This is old news." Well, yes. It is, but this study of the symbols also sheds some light to the origins of the Covenant. The symbols do change on the screen, which would sugguest a language sequence. These symbols like Chinese, Mayan, or Egyptian writings of our particular culture represent the very beginning of phonetic symbols. It would be logical to assume that these Jjaro symbols represent the seed of the tree of Covenant language. We see similar but not exact replicas of these symbols throughout the Covenant Army. (On Tanks, Armor, and Soldiers.) This also begs the question: what were the Jjaro when they disappeared? They initially must have been biological organisms, because they used phonetics before they had a grasp of high level mathematics. But might it be that our friendly benefactors might have evolved (like the human race) to become dependent and eventually integrated into their machines? A cyborg if one was to put it clearly, and what kind of implications could this have for our Marine? Assuming the Jjaro are now fully integrated into the virtual machine world, wouldn't that mean that the Marine, (who has Jjaro implants) is very similar to the Jjaro? Could it possibly implicate the Covenant's interest in him isn't one of destruction, but of control? It also might mean that the Marine was destined to land on Halo to summon the Jjaro back or to allow our AI friends (Durandal, Cortana, etc.) to be initiated into the ranks of the AI elite? There are so many theories here... I can't even begin to scrape the surface. Back to a more factual topic... If (like the early Egyptians) this super advanced race of Jjaro creators had the facility of language, it is probable that they had an even greater mastery of mathematics. It is likely that they used binary calculations, in relation to the 1/n power of integers and their inverses. Just as Fourier transforms are power series in exp(i t), where exp(i t) is a U(1) group rotation of the unit circle S1, the binary power series can represent Walsh functions, based on the 2-point group Z2 of the 0-dimensional sphere S0. (Walsh functions may be useful in Quantum Computing which also might explain their highly advanced understanding of space.) Just thought someone out there might be interested in reading up on their mathematics/history/language... :) When I set em up, you knock em down, so let me know what you think. -Mike Sholl
