MINERVA - read-only archives

I want to apologize in advance if this has already been spoken of. I'm new to the forums.

Today, because I was bored and in the mood, I decided to play through Someplace Else, our dear Minerva's first appearance. While close to the end, I saw something on a screen that made me jump.



See the image on the screen? Does anyone else recognize it? If not, look at this.



This is the Pillar of Autumn, the human ship from the original Halo game. As you can see, the same exact symbol is on the side of the ship. It's also at other points in Halo, and in the other classic Bungie series Marathon.

Is this some sort of hint to a connection or is Adam simply paying homage to two other great FPS series? I wanted to hear other people's theories on this.

That's the Marathon logo, Adam's just paying homage. Unless he's decided to yoink it and use it in his story for himself, it's just a little nod to the Marathon game series.

[edit: tiny typos]

Yeah, a homage does make more sense. It's just that I had to post this once I saw the words "This is the way the world ends" on the top of the forum index page. Cortana says that line in a couple things.

If you look very closely at the doors in SE (or if, like me, you are obsessive enough to look through WAD (texture) files that come included with most mods and maps) it's imprinted on those as well.

Good call there, gentlemen, I'd wondered what that symbol was. I've never played any of the Marathon games so I didn't know what it was. (never played System Shock either so I may be missing a few references). It could be just a "nod" to Bungie, but maybe it could be more? That symbol is quite prominent, it's on almost every one of those screens. For anyone who's played Marathon, how is that symbol used there? Does it have any particular meaning? Is there any sensible way to interpret its appearance in Someplace Else as anything other than just a nod to Bungie?

I wonder what the odds are of Minerva herself commenting on any of our recent speculations?

[edit: tiny typos]

To be honest I've never even heard of System Shock, but what the reference could be is the fact that Minerva is an AI. I saw in another thread that theory was dismissed, but consider these ideas about AIs from Marathon and Halo.

Marathon: This brings up the idea of rampancy. In case some of you don't know what rampancy is, it's when a smart AI begins to think for itself. They gain more and more traits of humans. This could be why Minerva develops a sense of caring for the player near the end of Metastasis.

Halo: Now comes the thing that almost has me sold. Smart AIs in the Halo universe aren't just an advanced program. They're flash cloned brains. It takes the intelligence of the cloned brain but mostly erases the memory. An example is Cortana- her brain was that of Dr. Catherine Halsey, the creator of the Spartan II project (of which Master Chief, Spartan 117, was a product of). Now, I said memory is MOSTLY erased. It is possible to unlock those memories. In the alternate reality game I Love Bees, and advertisement for Halo 2 considered canon by Bungie, the AI Melissa (called Durga for the majoroty of the story) believes she is going rampant, and later she remembers who she was.

This shows that Minerva could be a rampant AI, and could remember who she was before she was turned into one.

Of course, this is all speculation, and if it is true, it may just be that he took inspiration for it, but it makes you think...

And I would be interested in hearing a word from Minerva as well.

Also, I'm sure the similarity of the layout of the Metastasis map to a certain island-based map from another Bungie favourite is entirely coincidental. *cough*

It still seems to me if he was making a reference to Halo he'd have used a Halo symbol of some sort. (I seem to recall reading somewhere that Bungie said that Halo and Marathon take place in different 'universes'.)
Anyway, usually references to other games within games are small and obscure, like easter eggs, as that Marathon thing on the side of a ship in Halo is. That symbol is very prominent in Someplace Else. But, who knows. Well, we know who knows, but that doesn't necessarily help us too much.

And am I being singled out for correction of [tiny typos]? I don't know what I did wrong :(

Actually... didn't even notice that the tiny typo thing was in there. My bad.
I'm new to forums. Could you tell?

No, quite alright, it was someone who has moderator privileges who put those in, not me, and he probably put it in your quote too. It's not a big deal, I just didn't notice them doing it other places, but just to both mine on this thread. But, I'm probably being paranoid.. (I don't suppose that was Minerva commenting on our thoughts? They have typos. hmm, not as insightful as I'd have hoped for!)

Edit (my edit): Never mind, I guess the moderators have been doing some cleaning up, I saw similar messages elsewhere, just not in tiny text before..

edit 10/19: aargh, now it's gone again, making this snippet of conversation gibberish!

I'm sure that you've all noticed that the big hulking symbol used as the image header in this forum is the picture used in Marathon" on the unlocked doors. And the Steam one (Inverted & Red) is the picture used in Marathon on a "Locked" door.
Comparisons galore!
On the topic of Cortana (That Google image search was.... disturbing. And it's even worse with Safe Search Off), she seemed too deep a character for a game such as Halo. But then again, Bungie always have been a little... bipolar, perhaps, when it comes to their games. One level will have an incredibly poetic title, the next will be, essentially, FRAG KILL GORE! The Cortana Letters are certainly one of the more interesting pieces of the Halo universe out there, and while MINERVA does have its comparisons, I reckon that Our Goddess has become distinctly different enough from the inspirations to hold her own.

[edit: typos]