I was intrigued by one of the military guys saying that Ben and Walker being on the same transport should've been impossible. That makes me think someone must have made it possible. It could be another intentional hole, but what was there to guarantee Ben would be close enough to Walker to see or hear him, and why would they say that while he was unconscious? Of course, then there's the question of why they didn't check him for recording devices, if it was so important to have him unaware, and why Walker didn't just pretend like he didn't know Ben, and indeed that he wasn't named Walker, and he was just mistaking him with someone else.

This along with the factoid about Eridanis not having youth boxing makes me think the story was supposed to hold up and someone poked a hole in it in its formative stages. I suspect that someone was an AI, either acting independently or under orders, because an AI in the right position would be one of the few beings capable of arranging all this, and because it would be easiest for information to be withheld by an AI.

How else would you make sure someone didn't do a search for Eridanis II and see that the boxing story wouldn't hold up? I mean really, that's totally the kind of thing that would show up on a "Seven weird repealed laws from the colonies" list.*

An AI could:

intercept any search made and sanitize it-- or just be selective in giving information, since it sounds like a search like that by a senior UNSC officer would be done by giving voice commands to an AI in the first place

know about the boxing thing and suggest boxing as the early sport he played because it won't hold up

make sure that Ben's direct and/or second-hand searches find contradictory evidence

select "sources" that will hurt the story

• I mentioned Walker and his less-than-best reaction


• what about two weeks ago, the guy who mentioned he was doing this to have peace of mind for his family? a better liar, or even just someone with different motivation, wouldn't have let that slip


• there's the Chief's childhood friend, someone else might not have contacted his other friend, or might not have repeated what she said about him dying

suggest that they use a carrot rather than a stick when Ben starts to find cracks-- give him a good interview instead of just shutting him down

schedule things so that a fake source crosses Ben's path

countermand the top-priority non-intersection order and suppress whatever flags or warnings might be thrown as a result of it being sidelined

put inexperienced or inattentive people on Ben's tail so they wouldn't look for a recorder and/or not check if it's recording

allow him to even get this story out there and seemingly continue talking about it for over a month without ONI tracking him down and/or silencing him

That's my theory anyway. I think now that it'll turn out to be a sabotage, and I suspect an AI will be a big part of it. My dream scenario is that they subtly (or even not so subtly) loop in the Assembly somehow, because manipulating everyone including ONI is right up their alley, but that's probably too much to ask. Honestly, with the amount of time I've spent thinking about it (and typing), how easy the boxing thing should be to find, how many potential cracks turned into actual cracks, and how many coincidences there are, I'm going to be really disappointed if this is all played off as ONI making a mistake or two.

What do you guys think?

* I'd like to see what kind of content Cracked would run in the Haloverse...
"Five worlds you have to visit before they get glassed"
"Six Covenant soldiers who where actually pretty badass"
"Eight things you didn't learn about the Rainforest Wars in history class"
"Ten people who made life in space possible (and the ironic ways they died)"