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We’ve all seen the new Halo 3 trailer that debuted on Monday night, but does everybody understand it correctly?  As I read through forums the past couple days, it seems some people do not, everything from misunderstanding the dialogue, to not knowing Master Chief’s history.

First I will talk a little bit about what I go through in The Halography.  John, Master Chief, was abducted at the age of six and drafted into the Spartan-II program.  The Spartan program was not created to fight the Covenant, it was created by the Earth-centered Government to try and stop rebellion on outer-colony planets.  In the universe of Halo, humans now inhabit hundreds of planets, that is until the Covenant began wiping them out one by one, starting with the planet Harvest, when John and the other Spartans were around the age of 14 in the year 2525.

75 children were abducted at the beginning of the program in 2517, they were all six years old.  In 2525 when the Covenant threat is found, only 33 of them are still alive, the rest have died mostly due to the genetic enhancements they were given.

I believe the first part of the trailer takes place sometime between 2517 and 2525.  John is particularly friendly with one of the other Spartans, Linda, and that is who I believe the little girl is in the trailer.  The Spartans do not know love, and have even had those kind of feelings suppressed with the genetic enhancements, but it seems John does feel some sort of connection to Linda, and that is why the near-death flashback in the trailer goes back to his conversation with her in the grass.

When the Spartans were first in training, they would sometimes be dropped on a planet’s surface and told to complete a mission, they then had to stay on that mission for days sometimes.  They certainly would have had time to relax and lay around, especially at night.  They obviously did not have the suits back then either, those didn’t come until much later in the war with the Covenant, but the new trailer, the two children are wearing the same clothes, which was their uniform back then.

John was bored with life before being abducted, which made him happy to be a Spartan, his life then had a purpose he believed.  Him saying in the trailer that he hopes there is other life out there and that he hopes we’ll meet them some day fits perfectly with his attitude in life.

“Do you think we’ll ever meet them?” 

“I hope so, don’t you?”

John, as a child, then turns to look at Linda and instead sees his helmet in the grass.

He then regains consciousness in 2552.

John then stumbles back to his feet.

As Master Chief puts his helmet back on, the UNSC believe they have lost the Master Chief.  What has happened to make them think he’s dead?  I believe this is what happened.

(From the E3 2006 Announcement trailer)

The impact of the “Ark” activating or detonating, or whatever it did, knocked the Master Chief out, and even took his helmet off.  In this next screenshot, you see the same circular cloud mass in the sky, but this time it does not look as menacing.

It’s possible that this new commercial takes place before the Ark activates however.  He may have been simply knocked unconscious by a Banshee blowing up his vehicle, or anything else in the midst of battle.  For now I’m going to personally believe that this takes place after the E3 trailer though, due to what kind of force would be needed to knock him out and make his helmet come off.  It’s not a central point anyway.

We then of course see that Master Chief has a new grenade, something that temporarily shields him from projectiles.  He throws it down in front of him quickly after standing up and seeing the incoming fire from the Covenant Wraith tanks.

Master Chief then begins running and jumps down a small cliff into a large crowd of slightly different looking Brutes, one of them being a Honor Guard/Captain, wielding the Hammer (aka the Fist of Rukt), which in Halo 2, was used by Tarturus, Chieftain of the Brutes.

(Thanks to Xboxyde for the images)

This trailer once again dives back into Halo history.  The E3 2006 Announcement trailer referenced things from the late 90’s Cortana Letters, and now this trailer references the first Halo novel, The Fall of Reach, which also came out before the first Halo game.  The fact that Bungie is doing this shows that the Halo universe has a very deep and well-thought out story that is coming to an epic finale.

As Master Chief puts on his helmet in this new trailer however, there’s two faint voices.  One of the voices is one of the children from the flashback whispering, “Time to go.” and the other is of Cortana.  There has been some debate as to what Cortana is saying, but I believe she is saying,

“Chief…don’t leave me!”

She isn’t saying it in a physical sense, since they are light years apart, she’s saying it as in, “Chief…don’t die on me!” as if she was holding him in her arms.

Cortana is trapped a galaxy away in the clutches of Gravemind in the now Flood-controlled hive High Charity, the former holy city of the Covenant.  During Halo 3 however, she will be able to contact you, but whether or not you’ll be able to fully understand her, or if you’ll be able to respond is unknown.  That story element alone is sure to make Halo 3’s tone much darker and dramatic.

On the first of the year I’ll be updating The Halography again, this time with analysis of the new Halo novel, Ghosts of Onyx.  I’ll also include this entry as well.
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In other news today, Peter Moore has again announced that Microsoft will hit the ten million mark by the end of this year, and will even go on to surpass it.  Click here for the story.  This is not surprising, since Microsoft has all stores completely stocked with Xbox 360s, while Sony has provided next to zero, and Nintendo, with its niche market, continues to slowly drip consoles in every week or two.  The Micro Center $100 to $200 rebate also will help sales numbers as well.  From what I read, Micro Center estimates it will sell at least 100,000 Xbox 360s during it’s promotional period, which they just extended a few days ago until the end of the year. 

As I said in that previous entry about the rebate, I would confirm personally whether it works or not, and today I can say it does.  Earlier this morning I was able to pick up the Xbox 360 Premium for $399 plus tax, but along with that, two $100 mail-in rebates.  One of them is automatic, and one is from using my newly-applied for Micro Center charge card.  Even if you do not have the card, you can still get a Core for $199 or the Premium for $299.  The $199 Core is an excellent deal if your system is out of warranty and you failed to purchase the extended warranty.  For $70 more than the Microsoft repair fee, you can have a brand new system and controller, that way you never miss a day of Xbox 360 action.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 6th, 2006 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Xbox 360 News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.