Halo Array

Background




Features
=== Custodial

Technology


[[File:Power Room.png|100px|thumb|right|The to other Power Rooms placed around the whole ring. A power room on Installation 04 featured a large vertical Core and a dome-shaped roof, with large glass windows that run down the side. The energy which powers the Installation can be seen pulsating up through the core and then back down through the windows.

Firing method
When activated, the Halo rings would wipe out all sentient life within three radii of the Milky Way's Galactic center, by sending out radiation, targeting certain cells in the nervous system, which includes, but is not limited to, neurons, by harmonizing all neurological frequencies.

Function
The Halo Array is complex, but each can be activated individually by a Reclaimer, also activating the other Installations, or they can all be activated simultaneously from Installation 00. In the event of a major Flood outbreak, the Installation's Monitor will seek out a Reclaimer if available, who they will enlist to aid them. It will teleport them to the Installation's Library, and assist the individual in retrieving the Index, needed to activate the Installation. The Monitor then stores the Index within its data arrays for safe transportation, lest the Reclaimer fall prey to the Flood before they can activate the Installation. Once at the Control Room, the Reclaimer must insert the Index into the control panel in order to begin the activation sequence.

The main weapon is amplified by Phase Pulse Generators, three of which are known to be close to the Control Room. Each Installation has a maximum effective radius of 25,000 light-years, and is apparently of the "highest possible threat assessment from biological contamination and radiological annihilation". The pulse is designed to kill all sentient life in the Installation's three-dimensional radius, with the entire array covering the entire galaxy. The pulse targets the nervous system of sentient life forms via the issuing of a harmonic frequency. The only known way to avoid the effects of these pulses is to escape to a Shield World, located in slip-space and therefore immune from its effects, or to escape to Installation 00, which is out of range. Once activated, the other installations will fire simultaneously, eradicating all sentient life in the galaxy, thus starving and killing the Flood.

Astronomy
The "Ringworld" of Halo is much smaller than Larry Niven's Ringworld. While the diameter of Niven's ring world is close to the diameter of Earth's orbit of 300,000,000 km, the 10,000 km diameter of Halo is much closer to the diameter of Earth itself, which is 12,756 km. Ringworld has a star similar to our sun in its center, and Halo is orbiting a planet, but does not encircle it. Alpha Halo is positioned in the 1st Lagrangian point between Threshold and its moon Basis. Considering the 10,000 km diameter, a Halo has a circumference of 31,416 kilometers.

Besides the very beautifully sculpted landscape on Halo's surface, the sky is also worthy of attention. Depending on the viewpoint, players can see a star, a moon (called Basis), a gas giant (called Threshold), and the band of Halo itself, which looks like a street into the sky.

In the course of Halo: Combat Evolved, neither Threshold nor Basis is reachable, all action takes place on, in, or near the Halo installation. Halo 2's campaign level The Arbiter takes place on a gas mining facility in Threshold's atmosphere and its multiplayer level Burial Mounds takes place on Basis.

While the locations of the other Halo rings are unknown, Installation 04 was located in the Soell System.

Trivia

 * The Halo textures for both Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 are the same, and are both symmetrical.
 * Halo: Ghosts of Onyx describes the Halos as being the "Sword" of the Forerunner, and the Shield Worlds were their "Shield." This description is mysteriously similar to the lines Cortana says on the Halo 3 Announcement Trailer; "I am your shield, I am your sword."
 * Earth is 25,000 light years from the galactic center, which also happens to be the approximate range of one Halo Installation.
 * Considering its 10,000 km diameter, Halo would need to rotate at 7 km/s in order to produce Earth-like "gravity". However, in Halo: The Fall of Reach, Cortana says that "some numbers don't check out" and discovers an artificial gravity field on the ring.
 * In a Halo: Combat Evolved prototype, Installation 04 had a section that was only partially constructed. This feature was dropped from the final game, though it may have inspired the second Installation 04.
 * The names of the installations are Beta, Epsilon, Eta/Kappa, Alpha, Delta, Gamma and Omega, ordered from 01 to 07. Eta is suggested by Halo 3 hex files, while Kappa is from the Cold Storage transmissions (which described Penitent Tangent's abdication of duty).
 * On the screen where Captain Keyes taps his pipe on the opening scene of the Pillar of Autumn, you can see the word 'TRAJECTORY FD: HALO' by the hologram of Installation 04, even when they didn't know that is what it was called then.
 * There are seven Halo Rings, another 7 reference.
 * It is uncertain if the Array is still functional after the damage done to Installation 00. It is possible that each individual Halo can be activated manually at each Control Room, but not all of them simultaneously until Installation 00 can be rebuilt or until an alternative method is found.
 * It is stated that the Halo array was fired 100,000 local years ago, which may mean it may have been activated in more or less years in Earth time.
 * The term "Halo Array" could also be a reference to the computer programming terminology of the same name (array). Arrays can contain multiple variables under a single variable. Each variable is denoted by the syntax: (arrayname) (index). Each Index is unique and goes from 00 to however many variables there are (00 to 07, for example). The reference is in the naming of each installation (Installation(00), Installation(04), Installation(04)II, etc.) and in that the key to each Halo is called The Index, which denotes the Installation.
 * In the newly released Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, 343 Gulity Spark makes note in one of the terminals that originally there where 12 Halos and that five of them where destroyed.