Before we begin, the name "Keep it Clean" has some significance in itself. On the first level of Halo 1, "The Pillar of Autumn", there is a bulletin board:
On this board, there was a poster that read:
"Marines
Keep it clean
Clean your area
Toss your filth
Put away your tray"
Now we move on to the video itself.
It starts off on an image of a city. In the background, the main part of the city, close to a space elevator, is ablaze.
In the background, there is a Covenant ship far off in the distance, behind the space elevator.
Here's a different angle to prove it again:
For those who still don't see it, I used Photoshop to splice them together:
The scene shifts to a drop pod falling from space. These are ODST pods, NOT Covenant ones.
Again, it is NOT a Covenant drop pod. Covenant pods look like this:
Meanwhile, THIS is a human drop pod:
Compare to:
There's an ODST in there.
The scene shifts to the city again. This time, the Superintendent's HUD is online. We will be watching the remainder of the clip from his eyes.
The camera changes to the scene of a street. It is here we see a sign in the upper left that proves this is the Earth city of New Mombasa, seen in Halo 2. It is 4 in the afternoon here, but the sky is full of smoke from the various battles and fires raging, making it look as dark as midnight.
It is right about now we can also see that the Superintendent is currently tracking a certain Spartan who we all know and love. This is the only time he is referenced in the video.
The scene then shifts to what looks to be "Hotel Zanzibar" from Halo 2. I couldn't find a good picture of the back, where the Scarab fight is located in H2, but here's a picture of the front of the building I'm talking about
:
This is the back of that very building, with the orbital elevator stretching to the sky.
Please notice that everyone in the city has been evacuated using New Mombasa's high-tech evacuation systems, as seen by a message on the Superintendent's HUD:
We then start to see the drop pods enter the atmosphere above New Mombasa. The Superintendent turns from a wide-eyed "alert" state to a eyes-half-closed "suspicious" state.
The Superintendent becomes interested in a rouge group of these going on their own course. While the rest of the group heads towards Voi, these 16 pods go their own course. The Superintendent tries to authorize them.
Suddenly, there is a massive explosion. Based on the fact we spotted a Covie cruiser earlier, I think it is safe to say that this is the Prophet of Regret's ship jumping into slipspace in the middle of Halo 2. This explosion begins to engulf the pods. Meanwhile, the Superintendent fails to authorize the rouge group of pods. This is due to the fact that they are on a top-secret mission, though what their mission is is not entirely clear.
All of the pods are engulfed in the blast. The pods that did not turn rouge and went on the correct path are presumably destroyed.
The Superintendent's status turns to "ERR" as he detects an EMP trip coming from the blast. The EMP trip disrupts any electronics in the area. From here out, the Superintendent, who was functioning perfectly normally, starts malfunctioning. I must stretch this: he does NOT go rampant. I will touch on rampancy later on in this article.
From here, the Superintendent activates subroutine "Vergil". What this subroutine IS exactly is unknown. However, he is probably referencing the epic poet Virgil, who is best known for his epic poem Aeneid, about the Trojan warrior Aeneas who flees the destroyed city of Troy and winds up being ancestor to the Romans.
There has also been a data leak on level 9. The Superintendent keeps this in a log, and on his next contact with a marine somewhere, he downloads the SI's log to try to find out why he is acting erratically, and he mentions it in a conversation with the Superintendent.
The explosion goes throughout the city, destroying mostly everything in its path. However, some ODST pods from the rouge group of pods survive, and are flying towards the camera in this shot:
The explosion hits the camera, and there is 6 seconds of darkness with no sound. I'm surprised it's not 7, keeping with Bungie's theme of 7 for everything.
Suddenly, Superintendent reboots.
He says "Please Remain Calm" in Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and English.
He also cycles through various emotions:
"Suspicious"
"Happy" or "Excited"
"Angry"
"Suspicious" again
Possibly "Confused"
"Depressed" or "Sad"
"Confused" again
"Depressed" again
"Angry"
"Alert"
"Angry"
"Suspicious"
Nothing at all, for a period of time
"Alert"
"Angry"
"Depressed"
Realizing the city is destroyed, he remains in this "Depressed" state.
Also, the Superintendent tries to figure out how to respond to this. Please note that his facial expressions, which I covered above, DO change in response to the possible responses. However, it is impossible to determine if they change because of how he feels about each response if it was true, or if it is just a product of his malfunctioning. Here are the responses he cycles through, and his possible thought processes for each of them:
"Expect Delays": "There's going to be a minor delay of some sort to where everyone is headed." Unfortunately, there is much more than just a minor delay to get to their new destination.
"Road Closed": "This explains why all the traffic can't go anywhere, right? Right?" Nope.
"Yellow means Yield": "OK, so there must have been an accident."
"Obey Posted Limits": "Not at a traffic light, so it must have been out on the road!" Interestingly, Bungie uses this occasionally on their own website to say to obey by the rules.
"Maddie, where are you?": There has been much debate as to why the Superintendent says this. My theory is that there is another AI to help him run the city, similar to the AI Sif and Mack from
Contact Harvest. The other AI is Maddie, and the blast has wiped her out of existence, or at least damaged her enough that she cannot remain online to assist. Without her to help him run the city, he can't handle things, especially when he has been damaged. He proceeds to trying to classify things.
"Pardon Our Dust": "I guess every single street in the city is under construction." This is said by Bungie when you have reached an error in their site, or if their site is under construction.
"Proceed with Caution": "I don't know what happened, so just try to be careful!"
"Danger: Flood Zone": "The only major catastrophe that could have caused this is a massive flood!" Also, this does NOT mean the Flood found on the Halo installations. This simply means the water flood, not the Zombie Alien Flood.
"Final Notice: Bill Past Due": "I guess since everything is shut down, no one paid any of their bills."
"Keep it Clean": "Try not to make more of a mess than there already is." As I mentioned earlier, this is also mentioned in Halo 1, as well as throughout Bungie.net.
Desperate, the Superintendent tries to reboot to make sure all his systems are all right.
There is a jumble of numbers that scroll across the screen. Among these is the date 1/06/09, supposedly, but I couldn't get a good picture of it due to my crappy screen-capping software (Windows Movie Maker, if you're curious):
I DID manage to find a good picture on Ascendant Justice, however:
Finally, he tries to contact emergency services. This leads to a conversation with a Comm officer, and the log of this conversation was posted on Bungie.net and is also quoted later on in this article.
Now we return to the city. It is even more damaged than it was before, and the Superintendent continues to be in his "Depressed" state.
The camera zooms out to see the full extent of the damage. Please note that the population is still listed at 0.
Also, the Space elevator is still standing... For now. Just before the scene shifts, it looks as if it is collapsing. It makes sense that it would take a while, as the elevator is HUGE, don't forget.
Now the image of the Superintendent begins to "Fragment". This could possibly be because of the EMP wave, or it could be just as he begins to lose power.
The scene shifts to a street, the same street we saw earlier.
There is a frame-long "Flashback" to show the extent of the damage.
It goes back to the street, but this time there are ODST pods headed towards the camera.
I have put a red circle around the location of the pods and marked 4 possible pods with a red dot under the pod.
The scene then shifts to 2 new buildings. This COULD be Hotel Zanzibar, but I'm not sure. There are more ODST pods flying towards the camera above the building.
The camera changes once again, and this time it's pods that land on Earth and use their airbrakes, which is trailing behind the ODST drop pod.
The screen goes black and there is text that says "Halo 3".
For a fraction of a second, this is replaced by the more traditional logo.
The camera turns back on, and we see one more lone pod, presumably the player of Bungie's new campaign.
This pod flies closer to the screen, and we see a time anomaly. The clock progresses 7 seconds per frame. This is both an exercise in Bungie's 7 fetish and the SI malfunctioning due to the EMP wave.
Or, it could be a timer counting UP, that reset on the EMP wave. This would make sense, since the EMP wave would have wiped out the internal clock, and one frame is equal to .7 seconds normally. Why this pod hits the ground 16 minutes later, however, is unknown.
Finally, the player's pod lands... On the camera.
We then see 6 different versions of the text "Prepare to Drop", with some versions simply saying "Prepare to".
Cue the Bungie name... 3 different ways.
And Microsoft's logo 3 different ways...
Then... Then we have an anomaly.
This:
Somebody said it was the Superintendent, but it does not look like him. It looks like an inverted image, a photo negative.
Inverted, it looks like this:
It looks like a piece of cloth because of the holes, or a piece of metal maybe? I don't know, but I'm puzzled.
Finally, we see the Xbox 360 logo:
And the words "Jump In":
...Twice.
OK, so now we know Bungie's working on something big. It's not a new game, but more than likely an extension of the Halo 3 campaign, as the Halo 3 logo was seen during the clip.
So what is this extension?
More than likely, a squad-based shooter, probably using many assets from Halo 3's engine.
http://www.gamespot.com/forums/show_...0&subj=6193720
"The source says that the upcoming Halo game is a tactical shooter that will follow a squad of colonial marines or orbital-drop shock troopers engaged in "intense" fighting on the ground. Gameplay details were scant, other than the fact that it will reportedly let gamers play as an entire squad in co-op mode through the entire campaign. The exact number of co-op players has yet to be finalized, but it could be as high as eight."
Since there are 16 pods that survive, it may just be possible that the number of people that can play co-op in the expansion may be as high as 16. It will be interesting to see how Halo's classic "Shields" system would work, as marines have demonstrated time and time again that they do not have shields (Even though, technically, they do, as if you delve into Halo 1's coding via Halo CE and the "Guerrilla" software, marines DO have some shields, but they are nowhere near as powerful as Chief's). Perhaps it will a be Gears of War-style red mark in the screen that fades away with time? Only time will tell.
Your team could have 3 possible objectives:
1. Locate "Maddie", the other AI. The SI says that she has gone missing, and a Smart AI is a very valuable piece of equipment. It cannot be just lost, nor can there be any possibility of it falling into Covenant hands, per the Cole Protocol.
2. Repair the Superintendent. He has suffered major damage to his Core, and the Comm officer tells him that they are sending a team to help.
3. To quote 343 Guilty Spark, "Why, the Ark, of course!"
The Ark?
Humanity knows about the Ark, as depicted in "Second Sunrise over New Mombasa".
Why did the Covenant come to Humanity's homeworld so unprepared to fight the humans on their own planet? They didn't know we here here. They came to secure an ancient artifact: The Ark.
We would NEED to secure the Ark to have any kind of advantage over the Covenant. This is probably the primary objective.
As for who fills the role of Cortana, it may just be the Superintendent. Due to the Superintendent's malfunctioning nature, however, he may not be the most reliable source.
It may also be Captain Dare or a higher-up in Section One, as Dare states in a transcript published by Bungie and quoted later in this article:
[DARE.V.500341(S1)]: "Sir. I don’t report to Fleet."
[DARE.V.500341(S1)]: "And the men I want? Now they don’t either."
Let's try to see how all this fits in with the story, shall we?
Before the video was posted, there were 2 transcripts of dialogue on B.net. They are as follows:
<\\> UNSC OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE
<\\> TAC-OPS LOGISTICS DATABASE [ONI.SEC.PRTCL-1A]
<\ * PRIORITY! * RESOURCE RE-ALLOCATION REQUEST
>> SENT: [DARE.V.500341(S1)]
>> RECEIVED: HEAVY CRUISER “SAY MY NAME” [SMN.ACTUAL]
\ PARTIAL VTT TRANSCRIPT AS FOLLOWS...
[SMN.ACTUAL]: “The situation on the ground isn’t my concern.”
[DARE.V.500341(S1)]: “I understand, Admiral. But I need --”
[EXPLOSION (4.0098s)]
[SMN.UNKNOWN]:[UNINTELLIGIBLE > PANIC(?)]
[SMN.ACTUAL]: “Empty archer pods six through twelve!”
[SMN.ACTUAL]: “Ready the MAC, and come about!”
[SMN.UNKNOWN]:[UNINTELLIGIBLE > INSUBORDINATION(?)]
[SMN.ACTUAL]: “It may have passed us, Lieutenant, but it’s still in range.”
[SMN.ACTUAL]: “Come about. And shoot it in the ass.”
[EXPLOSION (2.3482s)]
[STATIC (3.8761s)]
[SMN.UNKNOWN]:[UNINTELLIGIBLE > COMPLIANCE(?)]
[DARE.V.500341(S1)]: “Admiral, about my squad?”
[DARE.V.500341(S1)]: “I’ve forwarded their NCO’s name to your --”
[SMN.ACTUAL]: “Enough, Captain!”
[SMN.ACTUAL]: “If I survive this attack..."
[SMN.ACTUAL]: “I will deploy per my orders from Fleet HQ!”
[DARE.V.500341(S1)]: “Sir. I don’t report to Fleet.”
[DARE.V.500341(S1)]: “And the men I want? Now they don’t either.”
[DARE.V.500341(S1)]: “Please. Read my request.”
[STATIC (2.8179s)]
[EXPLOSION (3.0194s)]
[STATIC (7.4501s)]
[SMN.ACTUAL]: “Didn’t think you S1 types ever left your cave.”
[DARE.V.500341(S1)]: “Desperate times...”
[SMN.ACTUAL]: “Alright, Captain. You’ve got your squad.”
[SMN.ACTUAL]: “If I survive the attack."
[EXPLOSION (2.9016s)]
[SMN.ACTUAL]: “And right now? That’ll take a genuine act of God.”
[DARE.V.500341(S1)]: “I’ll see what I can do.”
\ ~ REQUEST COMPLETE
\ DATABASE CLOSED \>
<\\> UNSC OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE
<\\> CLASSIFIED SIGNALS ARCHIVE [ONI.SEC.PRTCL-1A]
<\ OPENED PER OFFICIAL REQUEST [DARE.V.500341(S1)]
\ SOURCE: URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE A.I. [SUPERINTENDENT]
\ RECIPIENT: PROWLER “TOKYO RULES” [COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]
>> NOTATION KEYWORD SEARCH: “EMERGENCY” “DATA” “CORRUPTION”
>> (...) ~ QUERY RUNNING
>> (..)
>> (.) \ VTT TRANSCRIPT AS FOLLOWS...
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “METROPOLITAN EMERGENCY!”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “METROPOLITAN EMERGENCY!”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “METROPOLITAN EMER--!”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “We know. Personnel are en route. Can you--”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “DETOUR! PROCEED WITH CAUTION!”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “--put Kinsler on the line?”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: [UNITELLIGIBLE > DOG GROWLING(?)]
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “Sorry, what?”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “BE A HERO! REPORT VIOLATORS!”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “Oh, come on... ”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “METROPOLITAN EMER--!”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “Listen. We have a report of core data corruption.”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “I need you to upload your--”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “PARDON OUR DUST!”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK!”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER] “--logs for the last twenty-four hours!”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “KEEP IT CLEAN!”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “KEEP IT CLEAN!”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “KEEP IT CLEAN!”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: [UNINTELLIGIBLE > PROFANITY (?)]
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “We're sending a team, alright?”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “Until they arrive, all additional comm needs to route through me.”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “Repeat and acknowledge.”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “OBEY POSTED LIMITS!”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “YIELD TO UPHILL TRAFFIC!”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “I'll take that as a ‘yes’...”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “PLEASE REMAIN CALM!”
\ ~ QUERY COMPLETE
\ ARCHIVE CLOSED \>
Presumably, the video follows soon after the first transcript.
Now to piece together what happens.
This is the first Battle of Earth, in the middle of Halo 2. At the time of the first log, Master Chief is probably currently blowing up a scarab and being a badass in general.
A marine deciphers the Covenant language and learns about the Ark, as shown in "Second Sunrise over New Mombasa". This is reported to Section One, who will take appropriate action: Secure the Ark.
A captain from section 1 (In the transcripts listed as "DARE.V.500341(S1)") wants the admiral aboard the cruiser "Say My Name" to send troops down to Earth to secure the artifact. Among these troops is the main character from whatever new campaign Bungie is making for Halo 3.
S1 is NOT, as many people have suggested, the Spartan I project. The Spartan projects use Roman Numerals to designate their numbers (Spartan II, Spartan III), while Section 1 has always used regular numbers.
The admiral complies, as long as he can survive the attack. Obviously, he survives, as he sends ODST pods to Earth.
16 of these pods, presumably Dare's men, break off from the Main Group as the Prophet of Regret makes a slipspace jump inside the city.
Their mission is secret, even the Superintendent doesn't know about it. He attempts to classify them, but they have no authorization.
These pods are the only ones that survive to land; the others are engulfed in the massive explosion that wipes out the city.
Just after the Slipspace rupture, after the the Superintendent reboots during the video, he attempts to contact emergency services.
A comm officer responds to the Superintendent's request, and the second transcript between the two transpires as the video is taking place. The Superintendent, in the video, says that there has been a data leak on level 9:
This marine asks for a log of the last 24 hours, mentioning "Core Data Corruption".
The Superintendent DOES keep a log of this conversation, meaning at least THAT part of the AI is working. It has to be the Superintendent and not a different AI as the transcript's source is "URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE A.I. [SUPERINTENDENT]".
Contrary to popular belief, Superintendent is NOT rampant. Rampancy is when the AI begins to think for itself, it becomes too smart and begins to disobey orders in order to protect itself and further its own goals. Superintendent, meanwhile, has had a "Core Data corruption", meaning he is merely malfunctioning. More than likely, the explosion wiped out part of the Superintendent's databanks, throwing the Superintendent out of control.
Dare's ODST pods land, the video ends, and the game begins.
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