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| Trying to understand the Halos' blast pattern | |
| Posted By: Ain Soph Aur | Date: 1/27/05 3:21 a.m. |
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I'm trying to sort out what 343 Guilty Spark said with "all sentient life within three radii of the galactic center died". This can mean a few things. 1) The Halos do not all have identical blast radii. 3 Milky Way galactic radii is about 150,000 light years. The area covered by that is about 7.07x10^10 light-years, which would take 37 Halos or more (did this by math, not models) to cover with a blast radius of 25,000 light-years each. We're almost certain that there are only 7 Halos. 2) The area concerned is just 3 radii of the central sphere, not the whole galaxy. The central sphere is about 2,000 parsecs, or 6,520 light-years, in radius. This would give a death zone of about 19,560 light-years in radius. Alpha Halo 04 has a larger blast radius, so we know this is not the case. This scenario is glaringly incorrect. 3) Not all of the massive area mentioned above is covered in the blast radius. It is entirely possible that the Forerunner scouted the entire galaxy, and most of it turned out to be inhospitable. For example, the center of the galaxy. That central sphere is very densely packed with stars. It is likely that no planet could support life there due to the intense radiation levels which would fry anything that lived there and would also likely boil away any atmosphere that a planet could form. This would also explain the uneven alignment of the Halos, because they would only need to be placed in areas which held planets likely to one day support sentient life. 4) Somehow, the Halos amplify each other's signals. By Occam's razor, this should be the correct answer, as it is the simplest, but it just seems a little too simple. However, the easy assumption has proven to be the case before in the Haloverse, so there's a good chance replay was right about this. However, just to keep open the option of having my foot in my mouth, I'm going to stick with scenario 3 here for now. However, there is really no way that the Earth is not in the blast area of the Halos. If it were not, then there would be no reason to worry about whether they were activated or not. Also, keep in mind that Cortana had all the data from Installation 04's central computer when she and the Chief blew the Pillar of Autumn's reactors. She would have known whether the Earth was safe from the blast or not, and obviously she didn't think so. Of course, many have speculated that Cortana has her own motives and plans, so maybe I'm wrong about that. I highly doubt it, however, and I believe that this proves wrong all the theories that the whole planet is the Ark. Instead, the Ark must be a location on Earth, an installation. I believe that it is in fact what the Covenant were looking for in New Mombasa with the Scarab, which I've argued before is an archaeological tool rather than a weapon. A quick picture to demonstrate the blast radius of the Halos. As there are no actual pictures of the Milky Way from this viewpoint, I used M31, but the concept is the same.
So, either the Halos are only placed in locations near planets either supporting or likely to one day support sentient life, or their signals somehow amplify when they meet each other. If we're talking about a magnification like what happens in waves, then we're talking about a maximum of double the orignal energy. However, this would only affect waves that met head-on, and would still not extend the blast radius. Remember, 343 Guilty Spark said "this installation has a maximum effective radius of 25,000 light-years", and he then says "but when the others follow suit", but doesn't give an upped figure for his own installation, which I take to mean that the installations don't enhance each other. I would consider this evidence for my "positioned as needed" theory, but that leaves the problem of just how close Installation 05 and 04 are from Earth. In theory, they should be at least 30 to 40,000 light-years apart (allowing for some overlap), but we know they're not. Here's some math for you: Reach was initially attacked on August 30. Wagner gave his report September 4th. That allows for a maximum of five days' Slipspace travel between Earth and Reach. Now, instead, I'll assume it's a shorter trip, say, half a day, and this is likely giving human drives a little too much credit. Earth to Reach is 10 light-years, we know this. So, at 20 light-years a day, Halo 04 is still only about 420 light-years from Reach, making for a maximum of 430 light-years from Earth. Halo 05 was maybe a half-day's jump. I'll again give a little leeway, and make it 3 days. So, that's a maximum of 490 to 500 light-years from Halo 04. There can be no need for two installations to be that close together. This brings up a new idea: The Halos can move. High Charity has a Slipspace drive. Is it too much to assume that Halo does? If that's the case, then Halo 05 could have been stationed pretty much anywhere, and when 04 went offline, the Halos realigned in order to cover as much of the sentient-suitable region as they could, and Halo 05 was transferred from its former posting to the general area once covered by Halo 04. I could continue, but I need to go to bed, and I'll likely forget the rest when I come back tomorrow night, so this is it until my mind works again. Rip it to shreds if you will. | |
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