Halo Maps Forum

UPDATE: POST 155

UPDATE: POST ...180

UPDATE: POST ...206

UPDATE: POST ...212... I'm getting worried.

UPDATE: POST 265.

UPDATE: POST 329.

Quote: --- Original message by: Jesse
Dennis is now a powerful business tycoon that secretly controls the world through a shadow government with Halomaps as a front.

Our friend Jesse has discovered something amazing – something I hope you all can take to heart. In fact, I suggest you do, given the horrors I am about to relate to you all. It all began one evening, when what seemed to be an innocent tag release turned into something much, much more sinister…

As I sat in front of my computer on my late-night watch shift, sipping my mug of Red Bull, I happened to notice a certain thread. “MP Elites”, it was titled – certainly a tantalizing offering, but nothing out of the ordinary. Still, as a night watchman with much time to kill, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a distraction.

This thread, of course, belonged to one ‘ASP GRUNT’. He had decided to leak 05-032 Mendicant Bias’ Elite tags. But, as I am sure you all know, a much more complex, almost touching story began to present itself. In that thread and in young GRUNTS' actions, I saw a little boy in love, longing for the soft bosom of a salty young female… But I noticed something a little odd. On the Elites’ thigh there was a tiny little splotch of green. In all of the Halo games, from 1 to 3, there hasn’t ever been an Elite with a Green coloration. The Green splotch seemed to be a little triangle, just a randomly assigned permutation or a cubemap, no big deal. Then it hit me: the splotch formed a little arrow which seemed to point to the “Halo CE Chronicles” button on the top of the forum.

Something here just wasn’t adding up.

After clicking the ‘Halo CE Chronicles’ link, I got to the main page. Just glancing through the back story, I came across this sentence: “More that 15 years before the Fall of Reach and the events that took place on Halo, a deep space survey ship stumbled upon the first Ring World”

“This…. this is really peculiar”, I thought. Out of curiosity, I went back to the thread, and I saw something that would change my life forever.

032 Mendicant Bias, or by the full name ’05-032 Mendicant Bias’ was the woman that Grunts had fallen for, known to the community as ‘Yoko’. Take a look at the full name again. ’05-032’. Flip that around and it makes ‘230-50’. If you subtract 50 from 230, you get 180. On a clock, 180 degrees from 12 o’clock is 6. The month the post was made was June—the sixth month of the year.

I rushed back over the Halo CE chronicles page, and things began falling into place. ‘More than 15 years…’ 1+5 is 6.

“…Years before the Fall of Reach…” The Elites that were posted were ripped from the game Halo 3 which, in series production chronology, was made ‘years’ before the next Halo game, Halo: Reach.

I had clearly stumbled onto something big. By now the sun was up and my shift was over – I hastily punched out my time card and headed home to think about what I had discovered. For days, I sat awake in bed trying to piece this all together. Finally, I decided to go to the Modacity archives – a grim, empty place where information goes to die. I hoped that somewhere among its dusty cabinets and dilapidated shelves, could find some explanation for this. After hours of tiresome searching, I came up with nothing…

…But on my way out, in the corner of my eye, I spotted the wood-patterned plastic on the backing of a bookshelf peeling in a most unnatural fashion. To this day, I still believe it was luck that I happened to see it: closer inspection revealed what looked to be a vanilla folder was slid between the plastic backing and the wood that made up back of the shelf. After some ‘gentle’ coursing I managed to yank the folder out of the shelf, dropping a roll of data tape at my feet.

When I got home, I put the ancient-looking tape into a jerry-rigged system I created with a Walkman and an iMac and poured myself a glass of whiskey. I started the tape. After a few minutes of analysis it became clear that stored on this tape was an audio encoding of a conversation – one that someone probably hoped would never be seen again. It began in the middle of what sounded like a very stiff discussion between a small child and a girl; it sounded like they were reciting lines. “There will be a release soon, anyways. Just a matter of a day or two, anyways”… but soon it faded to silence. The façade of silence was then broken by a third voice, a voice that I couldn’t quite put a bead on. The third voice was much louder – it was as if another bit of audio had been spliced in. The voice was outlining orders of some kind—all revolving around an event called ‘Vertigo Zero-zero-zero’. The man’s breathing sounded labored and heavy. He ranted for what seemed like minutes, incoherently babbling about Halo 2 and “Grunts without masks in test tubes”. After a while, I realized this was going nowhere. Where had I gone wrong?

Frustrated, I turned back to the thread which had first sent me on this wild goose chase. On a hunch, I looked at the Megaupload link that had been posted… the last few characters of which were ‘987HXHS’.

You can clearly notice the numbers 987. You know what comes next? 6. Once again, this mysterious and elusive number had popped up. Suddenly, I realized how to begin piecing everything together. In Halo Reach, you take on the role of Noble Six. Halo Reach provided approximately 6 hours of gameplay, and it cost $60 dollars. If you're clever, you'll notice that the first number of 60 is 6.

I then looked at the date that the thread was posted: June 27, 2011. Let’s look back at some things that happened on June 27th –rather, some that caught my eye.

1950 – The United States decides to send troops to fight in the Korean War.

1974 – U.S. president Richard Nixon visits the Soviet Union.

But of course, there had to be more to it. I subtracted 6 from the 27th, and looked up events that happened on that day. Slowly, I began to realize with horror what was going on.

June 21

1982 – John Hinckley is found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

The connections began to stare me in the face. Hoping I was wrong, I decided to take a look at another clock of great importance: The Doomsday Clock. There have only been two times the clock has been 6 minutes to midnight:

1988 - The U.S. and the Soviet Union sign treaty to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear
forces, relations improve.

2010 - Worldwide cooperation to reduce nuclear arsenals and limit effect of climate change.

It’s really funny that last year’s bulletin was 6 minutes to midnight, isn’t it? Both regard limiting nuclear arms. It wasn’t funny to me though, because I then understood that terrible gravity of what was about to happen; the terrible curse of the information I had been burdened with ever since opening that thread so many nights ago.

In a last-ditch effort, hoping to prove to myself that I was somehow mistaken, I resumed playback of the data on the tape. Almost immediately, the third man’s tone changed as he uttered a line that still takes the breath out of me to this day.

“The charge is to be placed at the convention-centre, where the viewers will be caught in the blast. Get out of the area as quickly as possible, fallout doesn’t discriminate.”

Though crushed by despair, I was also seized by panic – my worst fears had come true. I shot up from my chair and looked through a local listing of all the upcoming events… there was only one: The CE3 Expo.

They were going to place a bomb in the audience of the CE3 Expo.

I went to bed that night knowing when I woke up, many of my fellow forum goers may not be around. Miraculously, around noon the next day, I found out that the CE3 Expo had gone exceptionally well and had a great turnout. What had happened? Had something gone wrong with the plan?

Looking at the ‘Vertigo zero-zero-zero’ event, I can only come to one probable conclusion: there are plans for a communist coup aimed at taking over the administration of Halomaps.

What Jesse said is true. Dennis has become a more powerful man than any who have come before him. His leadership on these very forums got the attention of the puppetmasters, and it was only a matter of time before he found himself running the entire world behind the scenes. Now, the Reds have decided they want a piece of that sweet, delicious pie. The leak thread served as a distraction, the feud a means of entertainment to keep us - the squishy masses - from looking over our shoulder and seeing another October revolution occurring right under our noses. Mappers are running wild in the streets clutching all of their hard-earned tags in their hands, picking sides of a fight that doesn’t even exist. It’s exactly what they want. They are trying to push Dennis out of power, take your tags and rule this forum with an iron fist. Whoever the voices on the tape were, whoever ‘ASP GRUNTS’ really is, and whatever went wrong, higher powers are clearly at work. There is no way an ordinary member could sneak a bomb into the audience of an online meeting taking place in a video game. There must have been help… from someone higher up in the community. Maybe it was the third voice, maybe even he answers to someone else… But regardless, someone is out there… and it seems like they have a score to settle.

Edited by Gurdy on Aug 20, 2011 at 02:08 PM
Edited by Gurdy on Nov 2, 2011 at 01:12 AM