Terminal/Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary

The Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary terminals are short videos accessible on all levels of the game, and feature animations and narrations by 343 Guilty Spark and have many connections to Halo 4. The terminals were produced by The Sequence Group, and were written by 343 Industries.

Plot
The Halo Anniversary Terminals depict events that have occurred to Installation 04 throughout the time that the Halo Array was activated to the point when Alpha Halo was destroyed by the detonation of the reactors on the.

Terminal 1 - The Pillar of Autumn
-The view depicts a screen of a UNSC computer screen glitches, and Forerunner symbols are seen, and several Forerunner screens flash by, finally opening a view of 7 rings, in which the 4th is highlighted

-343 Guilty Spark: "Warning! By order of Ecumene Council, proximity to Installation 04 is forbidden"

-The display now turns into a Forerunner display showing a map of space around Installation 04

-343 Guilty Spark: "Your continued presence will result in most unpleasant countermeasures. I must insist that you change course and return to a minimum safe distance of one light-year"

-The map now zooms in on the Pillar of Autumn, approaching the installation, while Halo defense systems lock onto the ship and sensors start scanning the ship.

-343 Guilty Spark: ""This has served as your one and final warning. I have activated defensive systems, and you now have thirty seconds to return to the minimum safe distance of - wait. Curious."

-Several screen scroll by showing man’s evolution, cavemen, the pyramids, Rome, nuclear explosion, the space station, until finally at someone wearing Mjolnir Armor

-343 Guilty Spark: "Curious indeed! After all these years..."

'-Goes back to the screen of the map of space, now displaying a landing trajectory for the Pillar of Autumn to land.

-343 Guilty Spark: "Greetings, humans, and welcome to Installation 04. Ignore prior warnings, and please continue. I have disabled defensive systems to allow your approach, but you must not exit your ship once you have arrived at the designated landing center. This ring contains significant dangers, and even with your assumed legacy, I must verify the presence and pitch of your geas before allowing full access. We have much to discuss, humans."

-343 Guilty Spark himself now appears on-screen

-343 Guilty Spark: "I have been away far too long. You have been away far too long"

-terminal end-

Terminal 2 - Halo
{C}-Seen is a large debris field with the Ark farther away, with 343 Guilty Spark heading towards it.

-343 Guilty Spark: "I am experiencing such a mixture of anticipation and dread. All preparations are complete for my installation. In accordance with the final dictum of the Ecumene Council, I have released myself of all remaining connections to my former station."

-Guilty Spark is now floating through a dimly lit hallway of Forerunner design

343 Guilty Spark: "This was not difficult. What was could never be again. We had seen to that quite thoroughly."

-6 Monitors are seen of various colors converge in a room

343 Guilty Spark: "Prior to my final journey through the great portal, a gathering of my fellow monitors was convened upon the Lifeworkers' crèche to distribute the final Index collection."

''-Fade to a different scene. Several armored Forerunners stand in various places in the chamber. Guilty Spark enters the room and flies toward the other monitors.''

343 Guilty Spark: "It was most unusual to have this vessel of rebirth play host to such an event, even though Lifeworker ships were the only ones still allowed Slipspace permissions. Lifeworkers were responsible for getting us to our places on the active facilities of the Array. While all of this was in accordance with the plan, one entirely unsatisfactory breakdown remained. We had no contact with the Domain."

''-Guilty Spark pauses and faces a Forerunner. The Forerunner bows his/her head, as if unhappy with what is to come. Guilty Spark moves on and flies into an adjoining chamber, where he meets 049 Abject Testament''

343 Guilty Spark: "The history of all Forerunners was now lost to us. We relied upon the permanence of the Domain to preserve our record of the events that led to this point. But without that record, would future civilizations know anything about us? Or only of our weapons?"

-As Guilty Spark Narrates, several views of various Forerunner installations, cities, and ships

343 Guilty Spark: "My fellow Monitor, 049 Abject Testament, had only one comment on this before we went our separate ways."

049 Abject Testament: "We deserve to be forgotten."

343 Guilty Spark: "Perhaps... perhaps."

-A large-scale Forerunner portal opens, and inside a Halo is visible

343 Guilty Spark: "But now, the portal opens, and through it, the familiar shape awaits. Halo. Home."

Terminal 3 - The Truth and Reconciliation
-White light fills the screen

343 Guilty Spark: "Construct, who is your maker?"

Unknown Construct: "Sadness and disrepair, Oracle."

-Light fades to show the unknown construct, which appears to made of a column of light in various colors

Unknown Construct: "I am unworthy. I was never made."

343 Guilty Spark: "Never made? But you are right here. Where you should not be."

-View now of 343 Guilty Spark

343 Guilty Spark: " Tell your charge's to cease their efforts immediately. Quarantine must not be violated."

-Now viewing a CCS-Class Battlecruiser that is close to Installation 04

343 Guilty Spark: "Construct, respond"

Unknown Construct: "Jumbled Grasp, familiar terms. I serve, none serve me, Oracle"

-Screen pans back to Guilty Spark

343 Guilty Spark: Tell your Charges to cease all aggression to the Reclaimers, and leave this installation at once."

-Cells are shown dividing as would be seen on a microscope

343 Guilty Spark: "Construct, you are dangerously close to unleashing a force you cannot yet comprehend."

-A Forerunner view screen shows a hand of an Elite that is being taken over by Flood, then pans to see both 343 Guilty Spark, and the Unknown Construct.

343 Guilty Spark: "This is most inappropriate."

Unknown Construct: "We follow the path, and I am part of the -stone, -journey, -swarm that serves... I, we, serve. They will find, then I will be free."

343 Guilty Spark: "Find? Free? Explain yourself."

Unknown Construct: "I know their path, and when they have gone, only I shall remain. And then, free."

343 Guilty Spark: "This is quite unsatisfactory, Construct. Your core shows no inch of understanding the gravity of the situation. I will return later for your proper decommissioning. Well, unless the Flood kills us all first, in which case the point will be moot. Good day, Construct."

-The screen fades out

-terminal end-

Terminal 4 - The Silent Cartographer


343 Guilty Spark: "Entropy"

- A Forerunner room is shown, with a holographic display showing the halo array

343 Guilty Spark: "It has now been 300 years since my last contact with any of the other caretakers of the Halo Array"

343 Guilty Spark: "Despite clear communications protocol, my follow monitors have ignored or --more likely-- have lost the ability to engage in our scheduled updates"

-343 Guilty Spark starts leaving the room

343 Guilty Spark: "The continued lapse of the domain means were stuck with achingly slow wormholed supraluminal communications."

-343 Guilty Spark is going through a room of small hologram emitters, one of which has the monitor of Installation 05

343 Guilty Spark: "Prior to this communications shutdown the only messages I received in the proceeding 4,573 years were incomplete and quite perplexing from Installation 05."

-343 Guilty Spark starts traveling through a transparent tube overlooking a brightly lit chasm

343 Guilty Spark: "I suspected that Monitor 2401 Penitent Tangent was not functioning properly for some time before his messages ceased."

-343 Guilty Spark now is traveling across a large Forerunner room, then fades black

343 Guilty Spark: "I have logged my concerns on his ability to perform his duties. At this point, however, I am not sure for who I file logs for. 2401 Penitent Tangent is destined for madness. There are fail-safes for this, I know......I hope they work"

-Guilty Spark now enters a large room with a lit pedestal in the middle 

343 Guilty Spark: "I will continue to visit the projection rooms at the assigned dates. Perhaps the other monitors are dealing with interfering galactic phenomenon or unexpected system failures."

343 Guilty Spark: "3,000 years of system failures, indeed"

-Guilty Spark now enters a room filled with containment chambers, one of which has a flood warrior form inside.

343 Guilty Spark: "In the meantime, I have exhausted all scheduled research activities assigned by the Council"

343 Guilty Spark: "Once those experiments were complete, I shut down all Sentinel function and put myself into a state of significant hibernation to measure performance of the installation with negligible upkeep."

-Guilty Spark enters a small chamber his size and powers down, screen fades black, and the below text is seen

 EXTENDED HIBERNATION MAINTENANCE CHECK AT 1,000 CYCLES EXCEPTIONS WILL BE RAISED FOR MAJOR AND PROFOUND EVENTS SYSTEMS NORMAL

343 Guilty Spark: "After 150 years with no noticeable impact on the Installations systems or integrity, even in hibernation, I became...bored"

-Guilty Spark comes back online, and his eye flashes red a few times, before staying blue

343 Guilty Spark: "This was quite troubling, for I was led to believe I was not capable of such a state. This was the one of the gifts I was promised, an end to strife."

-Screen fades to a small creek on the surface of halo, with Guilty Spark passing

343 Guilty Spark: "I am aware of the dangers of a system such as myself losing operational focus. Quite Troubling. I wonder if my fellow Monitors are experiencing similar states, or if this is because of my particular path to this Installation?"

-Screen starts fading around to different sights of nature on Halo

343 Guilty Spark: "For amusement, I have begun a series of experiments involving the evacuation of all matter from contained sections of my installation.

-all the earth and and trees in the current view is suddenly thrown up into the air, screen then goes to a view in space where we see the lower section of halo, with lots of debris flying out from the rim heading to the center of halo

343 Guilty Spark: "By measuring the geological effects of exposure to vacuum of space and the eventual biological recovery of these sections, I anticipate gaining valuable insight into emergency response scenarios of..."

-screen interrupts Guilty Spark with a warning screen

SENTIENT PROXIMITY WARNING INCOMING VESSEL

Computer: "SENTIENT PROXIMITY WARNING!"

-we see a vessel fly by fast into the halo construct's surface

-terminal end-

Terminal 5 - Assault on the Control Room
-Computer Display is shown displaying "UPDATING REPORT"

343 Guilty Spark: "It has been 26 hours since the sentients landed in sector 1215,and so far they have not attempted to exit the remains of their vessel."

-Now visible is the crash site of the vessel, burning brightly and obviously extremely damaged

343 Guilty Spark: "I say "Remains" because there landing was either not executed adequately or this vessel lacked significant maneuvering capability."

343 Guilty Spark: "The Visible Portions of the vessel have suffered catastrophic structural damage during the violent landing experience. I have detected atmospheric leaks in 17 distinct locations along the hull."

-Guilty Spark starts scanning the wreckage 

343 Guilty Spark: "My analysis shows that the mixture of gasses coming from the ship matches the natural on my installation almost exactly."

343 Guilty Spark: "Perhaps the occupants (If they still live) were originally cataloged here! Perhaps these beings will confirm that the plan was successful and the galaxy has returned to our proper cadence! I am beyond optimistic!"

-zooms in on Guilty Spark's scanning

343 Guilty Spark: "But I do not understand why these sentients have not attempted to exit their vessel..."

-zooms back to see the channel in the ground that the ship dug out while landing

343 Guilty Spark : "Other then the leaking atmosphere, the only thing emanating from the vessel is an automated distress call."

-we now see the distress call being analyzed

343 Guilty Spark: "I am currently analyzing this automated broadcast, but with such limited data-set, and no direct communication I do not anticipate full comprehension."

-now we see a star chart of the space around installation 04, with waves emanating from it.

343 Guilty Spark: "Given the short-range nature of this craft, it is like there are others nearby. But, in accordance with procedure, I am blocking the distress call. No communication of the location of any installation is permissible.

-we now see 343 Guilty Spark again

343 Guilty Spark: "I admit great curiosity about these visitors. While the plan is quite clear about procedure about this situation, I have my doubts. How many failure points can the plan sustain before blind adherence become counter productive? Surely, in light of all that has changed, I should be able to modify my responses to adapt--"

-View of Halo's surface

343 Guilty Spark: "No, I have my duties, and I have a terrible cargo here. I must be sure. I shall obey, and content myself to Monitor........I hope they come out soon, though. So many questions to ask! So many questions! -terminal end-

Terminal 6 - 343 Guilty Spark


-we see a large rectangular forerunner structure

343 Guilty Spark: "Construction of the sarcophagus around the unexplained vessel was completed today."

-camera goes back to Guilty Spark in mid air

343 Guilty Spark: "No occupants ever exited. No attempts to communicate were made, other then the automated broadcast that repeated every 72.83 seconds until the signal terminated one week ago"

-Guilty Spark flies to the sarcophagus

343 Guilty Spark: "In accordance with procedure, no attempts to make physical or remote contact with any survivor's of this vessels inelegant landing"

-now we see a computer screen that was monitoring any openings or signals from the ship

343 Guilty Spark: "Atmosphere from inside the craft stopped venting two weeks before the signal ceased. No relation between these two events can be established with certainty. Gases that did escape were sterilized. No further sign of alien visitors has been identified on any sensor system."

-we see Guilty Spark traveling through the forest now

343 guilty Spark: "I have now endured 60,000 years without for word from outside the halo array. I have no way of knowing whether we actually saved the galaxy we destroyed...And because of protocol I sat silently while the first chance to be judged for those acts died.....To say that I regret being forced to this outcome is a tremendous understatement."

-Guilty Spark teleports to the inside of a forerunner quarantine lab.

343 Guilty Spark: "But as I perform the inspection of the quarantine labs today, I am reminded of the gravity of my responsibilities"

-camera focuses on a single containment chamber, with Guilty Spark behind; in the containment chamber is a single, tiny, Flood spore.

343 Guilty Spark: "Just one of these spores, if released form this facility, would render the ultimate judgement against our self-appointed role as protectors of the galaxy."

-we see the flood spore now falling from the sky

343 Guilty Spark : "When the plan to maintain the halo array was created, it was a point of some contention whether we should preserve any remnant of the Flood infection."

-the spore lands, and infection spreads all over the surface of halo

343 Guilty Spark: "Many thought this unwise, as there was a notable chance that one of our containment facilities might be breached. Those who held this belief were almost successful at convincing the Ecumene Council the last flood samples, but oddly enough it was the Librarian who decided otherwise. And I believe she was correct. I know in a way I cannot logically explain that there exists a way to actually defeat the flood."

-we see multiple landscapes infected with flood

343 Guilty Spark: "To immunize...to cure. I still struggle with multiple layers of memory of fighting the Flood, but I know this cure is possible, even though the full genius of the Forerunners were unable to achieve it."

-back to Guilty Spark and the small spore form in liquid containment

343 Guilty Spark: "The Forerunners' ancient enemy held and used that information once. But it was denied to us. But without more samples for further study, that cure will never again be found.

-Guilty Spark moving along the containment chambers

343 Guilty Spark: "Of course, I have no reason to believe this here lies the entirety of the parasite. It may be waiting in the frozen void beyond this galaxy, or worse, inexorably drifting toward us." 343 Guilty Spark: "I don't know what survives beyond my installation, but I know that in order for anything to survive I have to protect this installation and its quarantine very carefully. Yes the librarian was right to store it, examine it, continue to seek a cure."

-we see the outside of the sarcophagus again

343: "Still...Next visitor, things will be different."

-terminal end-

Terminal 7 - The Library


-we see 343 Guilty Spark filling the screen

343 Guilty Spark: "Alone"

-the screen slowly moves back, with Guilty Spark "yelling" over a cliff

343 Guilty Spark: "Alone Alone Alone Alone!"

-while yelling alone, his eye flashes red a few times

343 guilty Spark: "Am I the only intelligence left? waiting here on this ring for a rebirth never truly conceived, guarding a halo array that has no targets...a weapon I could tune to any target?"

-we see a birds-eye-view of the ground high in the sky, then we see several computer screens about the halo, after we now see a room of forerunners, probably when the plan was being made"

343 Guilty Spark: "This is not what I had in mind when I volunteered. Not what I had in mind at all. I was naive to think I knew what this installation meant. We were all naive. Looking back, we should of done a few things differently."

-we see a view of the clouds and a monitor fly by, then another materialize while Guilty Spark speaks

343 Guilty Spark: "For starters, we should of installed two caretakers per installation."

-the second monitor disappears, leaving Guilty Spark by himself

343 Guilty Spark: "Because I am alone, I am losing focus, and that is very, very dangerous for a system such as myself"

-Guilty Spark has now flown up and into space

343 Guilty Spark: "Perhaps a visit to the nearby gas giant is in order...my impulse drives certainly could make the journey...A few hundred years of travel could do me good"

-Guilty Spark is now flying through snow by a forerunner pulse tower

343 Guilty Spark: "There it was again. How very unproductive of me!"

-we see preparation of the plan being done

343 Guilty Spark: "It seems strange how the librarian did not account for this. Her strength was always in planning, in positioning the pieces and then being bold enough to let it happen. To let her plans come true."

-we see a field with a mountain in the background, and a strong shadow of a forerunner being cast on the field from off screen, there's a flash, and the shadow is gone

343 Guilty Spark: "I was a part of many of those plans, long before I knew for certain she was real. Before any of us were. But at the end we only had a fragment of her brilliance left to us, and I fear she did not fully appreciate the nature of my situation here.... the problems it might pose.

-we see a schematic building itself into a monitor

343 Guilty Spark: "But even a fragment of her...frag...fra. fragme...fragment FRAGMENT YES!, Oh dear. Here it comes again"

-terminal end-

Terminal 8 - Two Betrayals
-we see a black computer representation of halo

343 Guilty Spark: "25,000 Light years."

-The ring fires and screen zooms back to watch the expansion of the wave

343 Guilty Spark: "That is the effective range of this Installation."

343 Guilty Spark: "According to the star charts archived on this installation, I estimate that there are 3,972 worlds capable of sustaining biological sentient life withen that 25,00 light year range. In reailty it may be signicantly more then that."

-zooms back to see a section of our gaxy with waves from other installations meeting

343 Guilty Spark: "And if the full array was tuned and activated by installation 00, the harmonics of the overlapping waves would maginfy that effect exponentially, cascading out to cover every known star system and well into the voids beyond."

-we see a single planet with the wave hitting it

343 Guilty Spark: "And that only considers the firing of a mere 7 Halo's!"

-birds eye view of a jungle with the wave crossing through it

343 Guilty Spark: "Had the oringinal twelve rings survive to see use.....Sterilization would spread far further than most forerunners ever feared we could reach."

-an alien life from is seen ebing destroyed by the ring, then screen pans to a flood form and his flood infested surroundings blown away by the wave to reveal a forerunner city

343 Guilty Spark: "But Even with just seven rings we were able to destroy every sign of the Flood.... and every other sentient creature along with it. This victory was the will of our peple, despite the fact that it meant our own end aswell. But by our pyrrhic measurement it was a victory, and it cleared the stage for the rest of the librarians plan."

-we see the sybol of the Didact (presumably) form itself on the screen

343 Guilty Spark: "I sometimes wonder whether the Didact could have succeeded at a much smaller cost. I learned the folly of opposing him personally, and his brilliance was unsurpassed -- except by her own."

-the symbol then changes into a representation of Halo

343 Guilty Spark: "He never got the chance to fully execute his proposal. The council saw to that. But if something were to gowrong woith one of the Halos, if our tools were ever turned against us..."

- the halo disolves and we see mist like pieces of the symbol/ halo and stars

343 Guilty Spark: "Long plans, indeed"

-terminal end-

Terminal 9 - Keyes
"Keyes, Jacob, Captain"

- Captain Keyes accessing info available on his Tac-Com to avoid giving away the location of Earth to the Proto-Gravemind he was becoming a part of.

Terminal 11 - Threshold
Threshold is a secret terminal that can be accessible by entering the glyphs at the end each terminal on Halo Waypoint.

Glyphs
At the end of each terminal is a 5 letter sting of glyphs. If entered on Halo Waypoint the 11th terminal "Threshold" is unlocked. The Glyphs can be decoded into the alphabet and numbers 1 to 9.