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Another "Prophets and the Great Journey" Theory
Posted By: skraelingDate: 1/16/05 4:31 a.m.

The theory that the Prophets know full well what the Halos do has been stated many times, but I wanted to add a few more things to the theory and clarify some of the logic.

The Beginnings of the Plan:
Perhaps most importantly are Regret's sermons on the Delta Halo. The part of first sermon, which is given in the bridge activation room, goes like this,

"The Forerunners... used the seven sacred rings... to escape the endless struggle against the Flood. Long ago the Elites fought an equally fruitless war."

What is important here is that the Prophet of Regret compares the Forerunner/Flood war with the Prophet/Elite war.

Now the Prophets were not frail nor did they have a technological advantage over the Elites in their ancient war. As can be seen on a mural in a deleted scene on the limited edition DVD, a Prophet is attacking a spear wielding Elite with a scythe-like sword. I hardly think a weak and technologically advanced race would engage in close combat battles with an Elite. So the Prophets and Elites were equal matches on the battle field, no one was making any headway in the war, and the Prophets needed a quick solution.

They learn about the Forerunners and how they exterminated themselves and all life using the Halos. As Regret shows in his sermon, the Prophets feel a similarity between their present war and the ancient Forerunner war and decide to use a similar solution.

However, they cannot search for the Halos and fight the exhausting war with the Elites. A solution is developed along the lines of, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

Regret: "Indeed, I suspect we would still be at each other's throats if the Prophets had not found evidence of the Forerunners and their Great Journey."

So what does this matter? Why should the Elites care or cooperate?

Regret's second sermon, "In a gesture of peace and reconciliation the Prophets promised to find the means of the Forerunners transcendence and share it with the Elites."

Ah, so the Elites have been bribed with the promise of celestial candy. But how does giving this information to the Elites help the Prophets?

Regret: "The Elites promised to defend the Pophets as they searched. A simple arrangement that has become our binding Covenant."

That is the Prophets' solution. By bribing the Elites with the "Great Journey" in return for peace and protection, the Prophets can focus all their attention on finding the Halos and finishing their war by exterminating the Elites with the "containment." That is the whole point, after all, ending the war as the Forerunners ended their war. The Prophets do intend to survive the Halo firings, although I don't know how exactly. Perhaps it has something to do with the Ark. Do we know that the Halo blast will affect things in slipspace or not? If not, the Prophets could just hide in slipspace.

The Other Races:
Regret gives another sermon in while he is a giant hologram:
"Most of those we encountered on our search were compelled to join our union. To take part in a movement that promised freedom for allegiance, slavation for service. But some, like the humans, chose to impede our progress, block our access to sacred sites, damage holy relics. For their transgressions the humans shall be hunted until none remain."
Important to note is that humans arn't the only ones to be excluded from the Covenant. But before I go to that let's talk about the races that did join.

The absorbtion of other races into the Covenant was nothing more than the Prophets way of keeping up the facade, nothing more. It would seem odd to the Elites if the Prophets offered the covenant to them and no other race. Why would the Prophets desire to share the Great Journey with their sworn enemies but within no one else, it would look suspicious. And indeed, in the conversation between two Elites in "Conversations from the Universe", one of the Elites mentions how he is growing suspicious because of how the humans have not been offered the Covenant and the Great Journey. "... they merit consideration to accept and embrace the Covenant."

So the most races were allowed to join the Covenant to keep up the facade. They are not needed to be balanced against the Elites' power nor are they needed as a distraction of the Elites, since the Elites will willingly activate the Halos and exterminate themselves with joy in their hearts.

What about those that were exterminated are will be, like the humans? There could be many reasons for this. What is very likely is that the Prophets targeted races that had a long history of space travel and might have encountered Forerunner relics and thus known of the truth of the Great Journey. If such a truth were revealed it would ruin all the Prophets' plans. Humans might be a special case since as we know, they are also Reclaimers. But that is a different topic.

Technology:
Cortana mentions that the Covenant do not innovate upon the technology of the Forerunners. They reverse engineer it with the Engineers to help them, but they never make improvements. This is because there is no need for improvements. The Prophets don't want to imporve their life styles or their cities. All they need is technology that will allow them to activate the Halos. Why innovate when the technology you have will serve you as far as you need it to go?

And now for the main event:
So here we are, at Halo 2 and the Prophets are trying to finish the plan they've been working on for so long. Things are starting to come together. Notice that at the very beginning the council is filled with many minor Prophets. We never see them in the game again. This could be because they simply serve no more purpose to the plot, or it could be because they have left High Charity and are going somewhere to be safe from the Halo blast.

I do not think that any of the other races know of the true purpose of Halo, nor do I think that the Prophets care whether they survive. Tartarus, the chieftain of the highly trusted Brutes, seems to truly believe he will travel on a Great Journey. It is doubtful that if the Brutes and Elites do not know, that any other race would know. It is also entirely possible that many Prophets are not allowed to know the truth. After all, you can't spill a secret if you don't know what it is.

And the plan would have gone off without a hitch. The rings would have been activated and the Elites would be eliminated, and the Prophets could finally claim victory over the war. But then there came 343 Guilty Spark.

You see, Monitors a.k.a. Oracles, have this tendency of speaking the truth. If an Elite were to hear the truth he would rebel, as indeed the Heretic Leader does. The Prophets send the Arbiter to kill the leader, and Tartarus to intercept the Oracle before it can do any more damage. Tartarus has this hammer, see, that keeps the Oracle nice and quiet.

The events with the Heretic Leader were too close to ruining the works of the Prophets. They get scared and make the mistake of placing the Brutes into the Elites' former positions of power.

The Prophets question the Oracle. Undoubtably the true purpose of the Halos was revealed during that conversation. Why don't the Hierarches seem surprised or flustered and call off the Grea Journey? They already knew what it is and the extermination of life is precisely part of their plan.

As a side note I'd like to point out that Truth let's Mercy die, not for personel gain, but because there is no choice. Mercy is already infected by the Flood. Unless I'm mistaken, only a couple chews are required by a Flood ranger to infect someone. When Master Chief finds Mercy, Mercy doesn't seem in the least bit disturbed that his brother abandoned him. He understands that he has become useless as a Flood host.

The humans, brutes, Flood, other species, Forerunners, personnel power, are all irrelevant. All that matters to the Prophets is pulling off the most ellaborate Trojan Horse manuever ever, to defeat their enemies the Elites and finally achieve peace.

Message Index



Replies:

Another "Prophets and the Great Journey" Theoryskraeling 1/16/05 4:31 a.m.
     Re: Another "Prophets and the Great Journey" Theorreplay 1/16/05 4:58 a.m.
           Re: Another "Prophets and the Great Journey" Theorskraeling 1/16/05 12:53 p.m.
                 Re: Another "Prophets and the Great Journey" Theorreplay 1/16/05 4:25 p.m.
                       Re: Another "Prophets and the Great Journey" Theorskraeling 1/16/05 4:42 p.m.
                             Re: Another "Prophets and the Great Journey" Theorreplay 1/16/05 6:29 p.m.
     Re: Another "Prophets and the Great Journey" Theor17 1/16/05 5:33 a.m.
           Re: Another "Prophets and the Great Journey" Theor17 1/16/05 7:14 a.m.
                 Re: Another "Prophets and the Great Journey" TheorSweden-MB 1/16/05 8:59 a.m.



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