The Prophet of Truth’s Plan Finally Revealed! - Halo Lore
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- čas přidán 30. 06. 2024
- The recent release of Halo: Divine Wind has brought, as usual, a ton of new information and lore! However, there were some bits of lore than few expected to see addressed, bits which provide insight on the Prophet of Truth.
0:00 Intro
0:44 The Confusion Surrounding Truth
3:53 Truth Revealed
8:21 Additional Speculation
10:37 Wrap-Up
12:16 Patreon
Ending music: "John-117" by Teknoaxe
teknoaxe.com/Link_Code_3.php?q...
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/ toa_freak - Hry
The quote:
“Tartarus, the prophets have betrayed us”
Hits even harder now
Shit, I wish I'd included that line!
I love the arbiter… one of the coolest characters in media i have ever seen.
"No Arbiter! The great journey has begun and brutes not the elites will be the prophet's escort"
@@thedrunkmenace2250 *sangheili charging noises*
@@GatoConBotas403 [blargh honk]
I think Truth is one of the San'Shyuum who never forgived the Sangheili for their war against them, and never get over the insecurity of them controlling the Covenant military.
Truth let A good percent of his own to the hands of the flood.
I just assumed the Elites were starting to doubt and question their religion (like Sesa Refumee) so Truth replaced them with the Brutes because they were generally dumber and questioned less (like Tartarus when the Arbiter exposes the truth to him)
@@nagger8216 when truth asked rtas if he is questioning his decision sums it up pretty good
@@nagger8216 You assumed correctly.
@@nagger8216 Plenty Elites questioned why the Covenant just started blasting humans away and didn't give humans a chance to join the Covenant. A lot of them found humans to be honorable fighters and towards the end of the Human-Covenant war, many young Sangheili were expressing their war exhaustion and even began to sympathize with humans as they questioned why in the fuck they were doing this to begin with.
That was definitely a roadblock for Truth's plans.
truth's voice acting in 3 still makes my soul hurt
Yeah. I LOVE Terance Stamp, he's a fantastic actor and voice actor, but Bungie really didn't make much effort to preserve Truth's character...
Indeed. Had they done what they could to at the very least get an actor that fit the character (I know Halo 2's actor outright refused to reprise his role), it'd at least be forgivable.
They changed him?
@@QrazyQuarian in the Japanese Dubs of 2 and 3 it’s the same VA
@@AnthonyDoesCZcams did you not play halo 2 and 3?
9:58 An alternative theory could be that he only gave the Index to Tartarus was more for the sake of keeping up appearances and - while still expecting him to fail - believed the Chieftain would be unable to activate the Halos due to being unable to restrain his natural Jirilhane anger and quickly exhaust his supply of Reclaimer prisoners rather than exterior intervention as Tartarus ordered all the prisoners held near the Scarab to be killed and in the cutscene where Arbiter catches up to him, he seems more than willing to tear Keyes apart to force her to activate the Array (and if he isn't then his delivery of the majority of his lines heavily implies that he's reaching his breaking point).
Fantastic insight!
If I were a megalomanic (and unlike Cortana, I'm NOT), the last thing I would do is hand the keys of a superweapon to a monke I was trolling while I was still within its range. I'd give him the Index, tell him to sit on it for as long as he can, then when I and my species were all in place I'd contact him with the all-clear and say, "All good, brah. Go eat shit."
That's one of the biggest gambles I've ever heard someone theorize about.
Truth's motives, according to this "new lore" just isn't right. It does not fit with the events that happened during Halo 2.
@Tyrant Edgelord But this is objectively false.
By default, firing one Halo ring triggers the entire array to fire. Truth was most definitely not out of range, since Miranda and Johnson had returned from 05 for a while by the point truth left to the Ark.
Truth would have 100% died if Tartarus had succeeded on 05.
@Tyrant Edgelord czcams.com/video/AE4H7relFX8/video.html
Go to 2:30 guilty spark makes it clear the other rings will ‘follow suit’ and how would they do that if everyone on 04 just died
I literally just finished Divine Wind. This is a perfect follow up to it.
Same here lmao
I'm 2 hours from finishing it on Audible. I'm losing steam, the narrator is TERRIBLE. Is it worth finishing?
@@QrazyQuarian I quite enjoyed the narrator myself, but I do say that it is worth finishing.
@@QrazyQuarian I liked the narrator 🥺 The way she voiced Olivia made me smile
@@londondeer Olivia is a minor character, and frankly the only one I felt the narrator identified with. It felt like she was narrating the Brutish characters the same way your girlfriend would try to imitate you to make you sound like an idiot, and it completely wrecked my immersion. But hey, she tickled your sensibilities with one minor character, good for you.
There’s one flaw with this theory, he still believed the forerunners became gods. He told sergeant major Avery Johnson ”I see now why they left you behind. You were weak and gods must be strong”
In the lost ending The Ark had another function besides remote firing of all the other Rings. There was a sarcophagus that Arbiter found that held the remains of a Forerunner which was being used as a template to guide humanities evolution. The Skeleton in there was of course one that looked like it belonged to a human being.
He intended to place himself in there so it would recalibrate to a San'Shyuum's genetics instead which would most likely reset the system to respond to his people and thus making him into the new Adam if you will.
I suspect this was supposed to be addressed in 3 at some point and or tweaked to further benefit him.
I remember reading on Halocanon that Regret helped Truth hold back his madness, and after Regret's death it was when he started losing his mind.
For sure, not only him but anyone else, like the Elites would've been challenges to his ego and would have held his pure madness at bay. With the elites replaced, the other prophets dead and the humans achieving some victories he would only lose his mind more. It makes total sense
I think the elegant and sophisticated Truth from Halo 2 was mainly a facade because if he acted like power hungry megalomaniac, eventually the other Prophets would've plotted to replace him.
After becoming the sole leader of the Covenant and getting rid of the honorable elites, he was free to do whatever he desired and allow his true nature to be shown.
Thank the Forerunners for this one. I just replayed Halo 3 and his plan still bothered me. It’s the one thing that made no sense to me for years despite my love for that game. The one question I have left is: how did Truth plan to activate the rings if the UNSC decided not to go with the Elites to the Ark? The only reason he came close was because he captured Johnson during the battle.
Lol honestly it's a safe bet to assume that the UNSC will blindly follow them into random portals.
@@N38Productions OMG that would actually be a valid assumption
human prisoners i think
“Hierarch, how are we to activate the Sacred Rings without any humans to use the controls?”
“Wait for it….”
“Shipmaster! Human ships detected exiting slipspace. They must’ve followed us into the Portal.”
_”Just. As. Planned.”_
Well we know that the Covenant are willful ignorant. He might of thought it was possible to fire Halo from The Ark seeing as anyone on it would be 100% safe. We also know that this wouldn't of matter, if the UNSC didn't follow with the Elites, the Spirit of Fire would of ended up being the source.
The most likely answer for this is that Truth went crazy/full psycho when High Charity fell to the Flood, and for the same reason he let Mercy be taken by the Flood he allowed the other prophets be taken by the Flood because like he said to Johnson "Now I understand why you were left behind...you were weak" and in doing so he gets rid of potential rivals.
Also leaving Installation 05's orbit was the only option viable because High Charity was taken by the parasite and the elite's were overpowering the Brutes in space combat nearby while most of his fleet was on Earth unearthing the Portal.
I personally believe Truth did believe in the Great Journey but the revelation Humans were "Left behind" meant that those who weren't worthy/believed in the journey would be abandoned behind...or destroyed by the Halos the way the Rapture takes the faithful and damns the "unworthy".
in the real world the "Shelter from Halo's fire" quote and all of this inconsistent mess can be summed up as just bad writing. but then again that can be applied to Truth himself in all of Halo 3....the game is Halo 2's third act basically...and 343/Bungie made it worse by having the Forerunners be a separate species and not ancient Humans.
That was 343.
Guilty Spark states in almost the very end of Halo 3 (towards John) "You are forerunner".
343i just retconned the hell out of this, just like they did with many things.
@@Dennis19901 That's a really dicey topic tbh. From what I remember Bungie had not even decided in which direction they wanted to go regarding the relation between humans and forerunner. So the "human=forerunner" stuff was never really confirmed in the end.
343 in the end decided to go with one of the two alternatives. They didn't really retcon anything. There is even a video made on this whole fiasco by "SameToken"
@@Dennis19901 That could be up for debate. Halo Legends, which came out in early 2010 (Bungie would not leave Halo until Reach came out a few months after, and Legends was likely in development for some time) depicted ancient humans and Forerunners being separate species. This was also before that whole... Precursor thing, or humanity actually being an advanced species at that point.
@@Dylan-xx2tk That's a fair point, assuming Legends was made in tandem with Bungie
Opinion piece incoming:
I just don’t like the idea that Forerunners are ancient humans. I never did. It makes the Halo universe feel small and even more human-centric than it already is. I always figured 343GS was speaking metaphorically. Like we’re “honorary Forerunners”.
Another addition to the lore I don’t like is that ancient humans were advanced to the point where they rivaled the Forerunners. I’ve gotten used to it, but I’d rather they didn’t.
The idea that the Forerunners chose us as their successors simply because they saw our innate potential and loved/admired us is far more appealing to me. It’s biblical in the same way that “God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son”, Forerunners so loved humans/all forms of life, they sacrificed their entire civilization to give all the others a fighting chance. It made the Forerunners feel utterly benevolent and added to their mysterious, otherworldly nature.
The more 343i have given the Forerunners human-like flaws and asshole-ish behavior(penchant for ruthlessness, endless politics and caste systems), the more mystique they’ve lost, and hence the less compelling they’ve become.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re still really cool and interesting, but they’ve definitely taken a hit since their pre-343i days.
TED Talk over
Not a bad plan, honestly. If only they were Reclaimers.
There is a reason the forerunners never trusted the San-Shyuum.
@@jacobweatherford4696 because they were Jewish?
@@theguyof360 no because the prophets even back then were evil manipulative bastards.
@@jacobweatherford4696 that's basically what I said lol
@@theguyof360 jew moment
I always thought Truth knew Halo was a weapon. Remember in Halo 2, he sends Tartarus to activate the ring then immediately hauls ass to the Forerunner Dreadnought. To the Ark. To eliminate all life in the galaxy and reign supreme as the ruler of the few survivors he took alongside him. An ultimate “fuck you” to the so called reclaimers
Yeah I took it he was the sole Prophet that knew tbh
I think Truths plan was for Tartarus to fire the Halo array to get all Halo's into standby mode. I think all the Halo's will always go into standby mode regardless if the fire was aborted or not. So in other words, if Delta Halo did successfully fire, all the other halo's would go into standby mode. Why do I think that? Well think about it, why do individual Halo's need a index to fire, but on the Ark you can just activate every halo in the galaxy with the push of a single button? So I think a index had to be inserted into a halo, where it transfers its data to the Ark. In fact back when the forerunners fired all the Halo's, Zeta Halo was fired first prior to activating the other Halo's on the Ark.
At the same time, Delta Halo would've wiped out every Shanghili in the Covenant since only the loyal Brute clans know about the shield world. Only woman and non-soldier Shanghili would remain so they wouldn't be a threat while humanity was on its last legs and would've fallen without Shanghili support. Truth would've killed everyone who wouldn't be 100% loyal to him if it weren't for the Arbiter and Johnson.
And Tartarus would also die, which is good for Truth. They don't want another Atriox defying their will, Tartarus is kinda the Brute version of the Imperial Admiral Wattinree. He is the most powerful of his race, the smartest of his race (for a Brute), and most likely someone all Brutes see as a leader. With his death no other Brute could unite all the Brutes into one like Wattinree, the Arbiter or Atriox could. So if one Brute clan rebelled, they would be squashed by Truths forces.
This seems be the logical conclusion I agree with
Nicely done, it makes sense
" I think all the Halo's will always go into standby mode regardless if the fire was aborted or not."
This is stated nowhere in the lore. On the contrary, Guilty Spark indicates on multiple occasions that firing a singular ring, will trigger all the others to fire as well.
"why do individual Halo's need a index to fire, but on the Ark you can just activate every halo in the galaxy with the push of a single button?"
Because the Ark is supposed to be outside of the range of not only the Halo's, but also the reach of the Flood.
Guilty Spark even literally says why they go into standby mode at the end of Halo 2.
"Fail-safe protocol. In the event of unexpected shutdown, the entire system will move to standby status. All remaining platforms are now ready for remote activation."
He specifically states "unexpected shutdown".
There's just a glaring hole in this new lore and the supposed Truth's motives/plan.
The most logical explanation is that Truth and the Covenant did really believe in the Great Journey, and the mass suicide by Halo rings would take them there.
My exact thoughts, Truth WANTED the rings to be in on standby mode so that he could activate all of them at the same time from the Ark
@@Guaseth Doesn't work according to the lore. Halo rings don't just go into standby mode. If Tartarus had succeeded, Truth would have died.
Truth has got to be one of the most inconsistent villains I have ever encountered. Does he believe in the great journey or not?
I think you could describe him as a conspiracy theorist. Deep inside he knows his entire religion is wrong. But he wants to believe, because it is his entire identity. So much that he really thinks the great journey is correct.
According to the Halo Encyclopedia, he didnt at all believe in it. But then thanks to the years of lying and the fear of a massive flood outbreak pushed him over the edge into a crazy mindset to where he became a believer in his own lies.
No he believes in craig
He's to far gone and delusional.
@@sascher7461 I dont think conspiracy theorist describes him well at all.
The lesson learnt here: Halo 3's campaign lacks plot logic and consistency(even Truth's voice), so 343 writer need to write novel to fill the plotholes (and some people's imaginaition). Next 343 need to save Miranda Keyes and Johnson's death scenes...
This definitely isn't the first time 343 have tried to address plot issue in the older games :P
But yeah, after "solving" Reach (more or less), seems they've been slowly chipping into Halo 3.
It seems like everyone is starting to realize how bad 3 was. And I couldn't be happier about that
There is an ocean of difference between “not perfect” and “bad”.
Play Halo 5 again and then tell me which of them is bad
@@Arander92 yeah, 3. Terrible storytelling, inconsistent missions, bad acting. 5s campaign is also shit, but 3 is a bad game. The only thing from 3 that I would want to return is the community, because the game was garbage. At least 5 has amazing multiplayer.
And before you make the attempt, no I wasnt bad at halo 3. Its just a bad game
@@CodyRPierce Sounds like you were just bad at Halo 3.
We know the lighting of one ring will not spell the end of the Galaxy. It is more plausible that Truth intended for Tartarus to light the ring. Tying up loose ends in regards to the Covenant and Humanity. He likely intended to escape to the Ark before the pulse arrived at Earth, as I would assume that it would take a considerable amount of time for the pulse to travel to it's maximum effective range. Even if Truth was unaware the a single installation was not capable of cleansing the galaxy, he likely banked on simply outrunning the pulse, and we see in Halo 3 the final weapon is not instantaneous, as the Dawn was able to make it to the portal before being enveloped in it.
Welp this was pretty much my headcanon anyway so it is nice to see it made official.
This retcon has quite a large hole in its theory though.
It assumes that the reseeding of the universe would happen within the lifetime of Truth (and reasonably so)
The original explanation seems much more plausible.
Namely, Truth (and the Covenant) believing that the rings would kill them, and send them to an afterlife (ie. The Great Journey).
It's also stated on multiple occasions during the game's dialogue that, if you do not believe in The Great Journey, or do things against it, you will not end up in this afterlife.
We also mustn't forget that Truth was still digging away at the portal to the Ark when the events of the Halo 5 activation unfolded. If Tartarus would have been successful, Truth would have also perished at that very moment either on Earth, or on his way there.
Welp the theory doesn’t have hole but Truths plan does. Not sure how well automated the whole plan to fire halos is but I’d assume that without Forerunners spraying the planets with biomass breaking substances, the mass deaths of creatures could lead to pretty bad ecocatastrophies even preventing the reseeding.
But I don’t think reseeding the galaxy is even necessary for the plan though. It just mean that this ”God” had pretty small following lol. Hope they brought females with them haha.
I wonder if the Forunners just have it automated to reseed the galaxy after every halo ring fires. Seems possible.
@@dr.catherineelizabethhalse1820 But you're skipping over the part where Truth would have literally died then and there if Tartarus would have succeeded.
@@Dennis19901 I think truth had already leaved with the keyship by then, so probably it could have served to destroy the high charity fleet and leave him in power with his small personal fleet on earth
@@JuaniAlva You do understand that if you activate one Halo ring, they all fire right?
The only reason this didn't happen at the Ark was because Installation 04 was out of range of all the others.
Truth would have most definitely perished due to the firing of the Halo array if Tartarus had succeeded.
This is not any less confusing. He's surrounded by an army expecting him to deliver them to the afterlife. To say they won't be too happy when nothing happens would be putting it lightly.
I mean the ones in the halo blast will just die and he can tell the remaining survivors that the ones in the halo became gods.
@@67tedward And if he reseeded the galaxy with life, then they could more or less be an undisputed ruling class.
@@technology5979 Not very much is known about the reseeding process, let alone that Truth would fully understand this.
How many years does it take for this process to complete?
How many of each species is reseeded?
Are they reseeded on the game planet(s) as they were before?
Do all species get reseeded? Earth alone has 8.7 millions different species.
This new "explanation" has way more holes than it does explaining them.
@@Dennis19901 Yes, all species that are catalogued get reseeded, we know that to be the case.
They reseed at least enough to ensure species viability, which is at absolute minimum 500 people, with a far more likely number being in the thousands to reduce genetic bottleneck problems. Proper reverse engineering could likely cause the Covenant to activate reseeding procedures on demand.
And from the two examples of species we know of from both before and after the firing of the rings, (humanity and the Prophets) they were both relocated to either their homeworld before the firings, or at least what the Forerunners believed to be their homeworld. It's not unreasonable to assume this is the case, especially given how many species need specific requirements (especially the Grunts).
Really, the only thing that's truly in question is the reseeding time (which could be dealt with with enough study), and how much Truth knew. Everything else is there in the lore.
@@technology5979 Well yes, but no.
According to the lore, the last reseeding caused the extinctions of several species, including mass extinction events on some worlds.
And we do not know how many species are catalogued. Given how many species on Earth would be affected by the Halo array, and the extremely likely extinctions that follow from this.
The revelation I think is one of the more important recent developments in Halo lore. It turns the San'Shyuum from a near extinct species to one that is plotting and preparing something and that is very exciting.
If you look at the anniversary cutscene where Mercy is killed, you can gather that Truth had Mercy's throne sabotaged leaving the Hierarch vulnerable to assassination.
Yeah, the desperate tapping he does was likely to activate the same beam type thing Regret used against Chief (or the same shield Truth had in Halo: Uprising).
Yes, but that's the anniversary edition - the cutscenes made by Blur. While they do look stunning, they aren't perfect - the phantom flying backwards in the opening cutscene of Sacred Icon, for instance; and there are also a lot of subtle changes between the original in-game cutscenes, and the anniversary Blur cutscenes - such as In Amber Clad's desperate attempt to catch up with Regret as he's jumping into slipspace over New Mombasa being shot very differently.
Mercy's desperate button-mashing, I think, was just thrown in by the studio to make the scene look more dramatic and a bit less "all-over-the-place".
In the original game, he makes no such effort. The infection form just flies over a brute's head and immediately lands Mercy behind him.
My take on Truth’s words in H3 as follows:
Crows Nest: He believes that humanity would be left behind by the rings.
The Ark: He simply knows that the Ark is out of range of the Haloes, but believes that the Covenant will walk the Path anyways. That or he’s desperately trying to achieve the goal of the Covenant even though his knowledge puts the purpose of the Rings in doubt.
Oh shit New Truth lore dropped
The line "a shelter from halo's fire" always annoyed me so, so much, because it created an absolutely absurd plothole with just one line. He's still promising the great journey to the brutes, but at the time saying the Halo's wont propel them along the great journey... so... what the fuck is he advertising as the great journey now?
The brutes never would have just accepted a change in belief overnight
I'm glad 343i is trying to fix H3's ruining Truth, but this explanation still doesn't fit and I want to know what Staten's original plan in H2 was, and I disagree with you that H2 never suggests Truth knows what the rings do. Let's look at the opening cutscene of Sacred Icon. As you point out, Rtas/Half Jaw's dialog shows that Truth withdrawing the phantoms allowed Regret's killer to escape (maybe enabling the assassination in general) which follows up on Cortana's dialog from the prior mission where she says killing Regret may do Truth a favor, that Phantoms were sent to catch you and then called off at the last second so the fleet could fire on the Temple directly instead. Right off the bat, this cutscene clues us in that Truth is scheming (I would argue allowing Regret's death to happen and his killer to get away to have an excuse to put the Brutes in power and take out a political competitor).
Here's the important part: Truth THEN tells the Arbiter that he spoke to 343 Guilty Spark, and Spark told him about the Index to activate the Halo rings. But we know that Spark is happy to tell Covenant what the rings really do: It's the entire reason the Heretics that the Arbiter took Spark from even came into existence. It stands to reason then that if Truth really had a conversation with Spark, that he'd have found out what the rings really did, if he didn't already know. Plus, if he REALLY thought the rings would give transcendence, there's no need for him to have caused the Great Schism and let Regret and Mercy die. And remember, this is the same cutscene that more explictly primes us to know Truth is a liar and let Regret die and has schemes. To me, it's pretty clear that Halo 2 as written has Truth with some deeper plans then wanting to use the rings to bring about the Great Journey
For those who may not know, Halo 2 was primarily written by Joe Staten, who is pretty much singlehandedly responsible for all the Covenant lore focus. But Halo 2 had heavy development cuts, with a third of the missions being cut out late into development (and even more cuts before then). Joe also was not very involved writing Halo 3, as he was on a sabbatical at the time due to disagreements with other Bungie devs, so Halo 3, and Truth in Halo 3, was written by somebody else., hence the discrepancy. I'll also point out Halo 3 confusingly has Truth both depicted as knowing that the Rings kill things, but also depicted as believing that they give ascendance., not just one or the other.
This new explanation (as I understand it, I've only skimmed the novel for this purpose) doesn't really fit as it doesn't explain why Truth was killing off the other Prophets and pitted the Brutes against the Elites. If it was really about securing the Galaxy for the Prophets, why would he be killing off his fellow Prophets in Halo 2? I believe the book also has Castror saying that Truth believed the rings gave transcendence to the very end, which would contradict the explanation, but Castor could just be mistaken. I'll also point out that "Wages of Sin" in Halo evolutions has the Prophet author implying some if not all prophets knew the truth about the rings (though i'm a little unclear about how to interpret that line) and that he had spoken to Guilty Spark, but said that spark "Seemed Insane". In regards to Divine wind, correct me if I am wrong, but it also confirms that the Slipspace Shards Truth got from first light were then used to power the Keyship in the center of High Charity when it launched in Halo 2? Somebody mentions Truth recieviing shards shortly before he launched it, I saw when I skimmed it.
Which brings me back to Halo 2 as originally written by Staten and what I think Truth's actual motivations were: We know that early drafts of Halo 2 had Prophets (I don't think we know Truth in particular, but I suspect so) having a special medallion of some kind. I believe the Slipspace crystals from First Strike were used to make this medallion (which is when then after the Medallion was cut that plot point never went anywhere), and that the Medallion would have altered the functionality of the Halo array in some way. Perhaps when placed somewhere on the Ark or in the Keyship, it would do something other then or in addition to wiping the Galaxy clean, which would explain why he let Tartarus try to activate the array. Maybe in a sense the "Great Journey" was real, and it would give Truth access to the final place surviving Forerunners went... I don't really have a specific theory for WHAT the medallion would have done (and indeed these explanations do not explain why he was killing off Regret, Mercy, the Elites, etc), just that it was important.
I suppose it also should be noted that we could be reading into things too much: Maybe him speaking to Spark resulting in him finding the Truth wasn't something Staten considered, and he really didn't know in H2. Maybe Truth merely electronically probed him rather then talking to him. It should also be said that the Sacred Icon cutscene seems to imply Mercy also spoke to Spark, which is wierd since in Contact Harvest Staten implies Mercy is a true believer in Forerunner worship, wheras Regret and Truth only did so for apperances, something Halo 2 even itself implies with Mercy's "And this time, none of you will be left behind" line, which I always interpreted to be Mercy going along with Truth and Regret's plan because Mercy thought activating the rings would reunite humanity with the Forerunners, but if Mercy spoke to Spark too then that wouldn't make sense (though maybe I'm reading too much into Mercy's line). And of course, why he let Tartarus try to activate the array also is still confusing if we are to think Truth knew what the rings did, though I think that this is likely explained given that we know H2 had a lot of missions swapped around late into development, so I don't think that that alone disproves that Truth knew.
So, as I said at the start of my comment, I think we really need Staten himself to explain what the original intent was. There's simply too many unknowns still.
Nice read.
A thought I was having was, perhaps Truth can be interpreted metaphorically in what he says. I’d have to go back and rewatch cutscenes, but things like “I shall become a god” could be him referring to his overall plan of wiping out the galaxy and reclaiming the remains.
He was also broadcasting right up until Miranda arrived, so everything we hear him say until then is all is all part of the ruse to keep everyone inline to the very end.
Things like having Regret killed could be seen has him removing a possible threat to his power post-firing, and doing so fuelled the conflict that would allow for his more questionable actions to be swept away as a sort of ‘emergency powers’ sort of thing, a bit like Palpatine in RotS.
@@revolverswitch best ask Joe, Frank and Robert McLees, I guess? Jason Jones not so much, by that point?
Interesting thoughts.
*First Strike, not First Light
As we learned a couple years ago, there are multiple control rooms on each Halo. A ring has to be activated and then deactivated in order to set the entire array on standby, which would activate the Arc. Truth (Trusted Covenant under his control I mean) could've been in a different control room, ready to stop the firing after Tartarus initiated it in case Tartarus wasn't killed on time by the humans and elites. But by sending Tartarus he kills two birds with one stone, he gets to safely fire and stop the ring, and he also gets rid of Tartarus. This is an especially possible scenario because Truth had human prisoners on High Charity, which Bungie drew a lot of attention to while Chief was in the city. The Covenant rarely take any prisoners unless they're important for information purposes, like Keyes and his men were in Halo 1. But he'd need a reclaimer to stop the firing of the ring. This is all very in-line with his behavior as discussed in this video.
5:47 Well, Regret.
"But it sounds like you'd be doing Truth a favor."
I always thought that Truth and Mercy learned the primary intent of the Halo Rings when they questioned 343 Guilty Spark and Spark told them about the Index. That would explain why Truth was so quick to hightail it out to the Ark in the first place and why he'd be so keen to leave Mercy behind. That way the truth would rest only with him and Mercy couldn't backstab him if he had second thoughts.
Is somehow littlerally the most underrated character in halo, despite being the main villain.
Surely one of his main incentives of the great journey was the growing threat of the Banished? loosely referenced back in halo wars 1 by regret with "a war on multiple fronts" FYI.. Hence the suicide mission for Tarterus, if he were to continue to lead he would be influenced by Atrioux?
🤔Intriguing idea. I don’t think anyone’s considered that
8:30 the way i make sense of Truth commanding Tartarus to fire the array is from the ODST legendary cutscene where he finds the portal to the Ark.
By knowing the location of the portal, he could activate it relatively quickly and flee before the blast from the array reached Earth. By narrowly escaping the blast, he minimizes the amount of ships that can follow him through the portal, especially now that he knew it's humanity's homeworld.
It reminds me a bit of Marathon where one of the Ais believes he can escape the heat death of the universe and becoming a god or a precursor in other words. Interesting
I think it comes down to inconsistent characterization, but it's nice to think this way.
Long Story Short, Truth knew Halo would kill all life, he knew the ark could reseed that life, he knew he could reseed the galaxy and rule it with his new refuged covenant in the ark, effectively making them "like gods" to the primitive reborn galaxy, he always knew.
"I admit, i need your help, but that secret dies with the rest"
This is also why he was mad at Regret, when he discovered earth, the portal and the ark, before him, it was a powermove to avoid regret from being the one to activate the array, then rule the re-seeded galaxy.
I suspect that Regret likely didn't know about the ark's or Halo's real purpose, to me, Mercy and Regret always seemed like an actual believers of the Forerruner religion
The only reason the religion of the covenant arose in the first place, amongst the sangheili and san shy'uum, is detailed to us in the terminal in Halo 3, the religious view of the forerruners towards the mantle, and towards their trascendence, is literally referenced in one of the terminals, referred to as a "Great Journey"
The covenant is not necesarily guilty of ignorance, but of actually believing the Forerruner's self inflating view of themselves, very similar to our religions in real life.
If The prophets of old (Nuh/Noah Ibraheem/Abraham, Ya'akob/Jacob, Moussa/Moses, and new ages (3eesa/Jesus and Muhammad) could archieve trascendance through a specific "straight way" and divinization, we as believers of those religions (i mean we as in, the intended audience, i am not assuming we all believe in these religions) see ourselves as the inhereitors of the way to paradise that these prophets and books profess.
Much like the covenant naturally views themselves as reclaimers and inhereitors of the Trascendance of the Great Journey and the Mantle, of course, the belief of the Covenant is much more RELIGIOUS than the forerruner, but you can see in the premise the intended result.
My only question left is if Regret and Mercy knew about the truth or if they were actually believers.
Mercy's words to Master chief "They are going to earth, to finish what we started, and this time, none of you will be left behind" kind of imply that either he knew the real deal, or he believed in the bastardized version, which is the Halos literally take you to paradise, but burn away the heretics.
If he knew, why would he give the index to Tartarus and order him to fire the rings?
It would have killed him, as he was still happily digging away on Earth at that time.
""They are going to earth, to finish what we started, and this time, none of you will be left behind""
Or a far more plausible explanation; They would glass the entire planet and kill every human, just like they did with many other colonies.
Also, this new theory all assumes that the reseeding process would happen well within Truths lifetime. For which we have literally zero indication.
Idk maybe Regret knew the whole thing and that’s why he went to pursue the halo array and Earth, so he could claim all the power for himself ultimately leading to his demise.
The craziest thing about the Prophet of Truth is before halo 3 he manages to hide just how good of a manipulator he is and how power hungry he truly is so well I genuinely get the feeling that neither the Prophet of Regret nor Mercy suspected him as planning to get rid of them.
Simply put he was not only a unmatched master manipulater in the midst of those who saw themselves as master manipulators, but he also had an incredible ability to hold his composer and not to mention he's also not exactly dumb by any means. I mean Truths grand plans almost worked exactly as he planned! It literally took humanity teaming up with a cosmic sentient super parasite to stop Truth from activating the Halo Rings!
For me, Regret obviously knew. In multiple pieces of media, Regret even says he knows. But it comes down to kind of the Sith thing. Where you have a bond between two people, but their bond is built entirely on their DISTRUST of one another, so they're always trying to keep aware of the other's actions to see who will betray who first.
Hehehe whats up halo fans
The sky.
Banana boi is right, you know
Nothin much how about you
@@hexagonprism good
Hello there! Oops, wrong franchise!
Truth is quite literally the Judge Claude Frollo of the Halo Universe. He uses false pretenses of faith to manipulate those around him, gradually gaining power and influence from a brainwashed society. You could literally put Frollo in that exact last sentence and there'd barely be a difference haha! But for real, Halo's lore is just the best!
I still like to think that Truth basically went mad with power in the few weeks or so between Halo 2 and Halo 3,especially towards to the end of Halo 3. That's why he seems so much more "saturday morning cartoon villian" like in 3
Possibly he was planning a coordinated move to arrive at the ark when the ring would be activated so he could fire the other rings from there but was diverted to Earth because even Regret was surprised humans were there.
Also the prelate did mention that the key ship did shield them from the blast
Wait from the Rings? If so that’s actually really cool
That way Tartarus activates the Rings, everyone dies and then Truth can just dig up the Ark unopposed and then do everything with the Ark
my favorite part of the vid
"and finally, JumpySucksBalls" 12:35
It just struck me as odd that the Ark requires no Index to activate.
The contrast between H3 and H2 anniversary really show how amazing a Blur studios H3 cutscene remake would be.
I'll be back after I read divine wind. I'm working through everything I have Halo related from Contact Harvest on a timeline all the way to right now... Currently between H3 and H4...SO MANY BOOKS in that in-between phase
To be honest there wasn't much here that surprised me. Seemed kind of obvious at least if you're a longtime superfan and not a casual player.
My god, it all makes sense now. I had theories before, now I know more
When truth says to Mercy(the great Journey awaits no one brother, not even you) why didnt tartarus react to that statement?
Because he probably figured he was weak, not worthy and assumed he’d be with Truth in the end.
You've got the line wrong. It's "The great journey waits for no one brother, not even you". Basically he's saying we don't have time to save you from the flood, because we need to begin the great journey. It's a bullshit excuse to let him die.
finally a video about divine wind, loved the book
Can we also talk about the graveminds “plan” to just send all of high charity to the ark, and then somehow just lose control of the flood after that.
Like why didn’t he use his newfound power to ravage earth as well, high charity surely had more ships inside of it to send to earth while the elites were gone.
If the Halo ring is fired from the arc via the prophet then there is no earth to ravage
@@jakestakes9075 yes but why did he send ALL of his flood.
A single spore could have clapped Earth.
The flood only lost in halo 3 because the gravemind kinda forgot to place some backup flood litteraly anywhere else in the galaxy.
I honestly love how the beginning of the video sounds like some sort of intergalactic news anchor
Solid theory. One general question though: Considering that one ring was not in a position to properly work, wouldn't the firing of the rings not be perfect? I mean, one section of the Galaxy would pressumably remain intact (in a radius around the broken ring) and thus, Truth would still have enemies to face. Thank you
It would still kill the galaxy. The 7 rings when working together have a firing radius of 3 radii of the Milky Way. They have a combination effect
Just finished it yesterday on Audible. I loved it and yes this confirms Truth was stark raving mad! Gets told the "truth" (heh) but doubles down on genociding us and refuses to admit defeat and that his whole faith was a lie. I know the lore was still forming at the time of the trilogy games and had a couple of blips here and there but it has become more pieced together in the years that followed and I've collected the majority of it both in physical book and Audible format. I can never get enough of the extended lore!
I definitely did a double take when I saw this pop up on my feed lol
For the minor detail about slipspace, I thought it was only a generally long time of travel for Humans, whose slipspace drives weren't as advanced, and the Covenant's were much faster. Plus, the Forerunners could literally create entire artificial worlds, so it's pretty obvious they would have near instantaneous slipspace travel, right?
The senate vs the covenant council...
Who would win?
This was an excerpt of a discussion with a friend of mine when I was explaining the exact same exposition in this video to him.
"I don't think Truth actually knew The Great Journey was a sham! There's a character, a San Shyuum, who, without spoilers, was very close to the high Prophets. He has stated to members of The Keepers of the One Freedom (a Banished subfaction that still believes in The Great Journey much to Atriox's dismay) that Truth was dedicated to The Great Journey, and we as the audience get to hear this character's thoughts, which confirms that even though Truth knew things the rest of the Covenant didn't (such as the fact that humans were necessary to activate Forerunner installations), Truth confirmed for himself that he interpreted the Librarian's statements of the firing of the Array as a 'Great Journey'. Referencing our discussion a few weeks ago, I think we were wrong. Truth really did believe in The Great Journey! This particular San Shyuum seems sure of it."
Having had more time to ponder, while also getting that juicy campaign info-dump for Infinite, I have come to the conclusion that the San Shyuum are actually in the know of what Truth planned to do, to reset the galaxy with only San Shyuum to rule it. Truth stays on the Ark, safe from the firing of the array, while other San Shyuum stay in relative safety within a Shield World. I had some crazy thought too as I was reading the book, that Truth may also have access to seeds of the San Shyuum on the Ark, which may be necessary as the San Shyuum even before the Great Schism were already an endangered species due to the countless generations of inbreeding, causing many biological defects among their race--sterility chief among them. This became even more prevalent as the campaign overview released, and my understanding of the recent "Harbinger Leak" suddenly began to be swayed, especially with the Harbinger's words being spoken so... let's call it cryptic: What if, instead of what the leak originally depicted, the Harbinger was actually a Prealot? The timing of the release of Divine Wind seems to be too close, especially with the convenient description of a Prealot, an enemy type we have never encountered in-game before. A Prophet version of a Spartan? How did the developers pass up this opportunity when developing the game--knowing FULL WELL that a Prealot was in a book releasing so close to the game, so it's not like they forgot these guys existed--and why would they not even touch on it when the San Shyuum have been noticeably-absent since Halo 3?
Only took us many years. But it was worth the wait.
@5:50 That was the prophet of regret. Mercy was also allowed to die by truth later.
To back myself up he did say that they found out what they been looking for the Activation index and they got that by 343 guilty sparks memories
I also believe that Truth didn't FULLY expect Tartarus to succeed. If he did, fantastic, that's a lot of possible opposition out of his way. If he failed, then he probably found out at some point that the rings would be primed and ready on standby mode, awaiting for him to fire remotely them while on the Arc.
Do we know where delta halo is located in the galaxy? Is it possible that earth is out of range of delta halo and truth knew that?
Hey Halo canon, a Super off topic question over here: why cortana did not blew up the in amber clad's reactors when Tartarus lightened up the halo ring? 🤔🤔🤔
I know right? I have asked this question to quite a few people and nobody seems to know the answer/ bother answering it.
From what can be assumed however is that upon the Gravemind sending Chief and Cortana to High Charity, he must have had the knowledge that the In Amber Clad could be self destructed in some way and Cortana would know that.
After they boarded via In Amber Clad the Gravemind most likely had them disable the reactor. Or somehow disable Cortana's ability to get to it. Or her rampancy had kicked in, or the Gravemind had altered her so that she wouldn't.
My shock really is just how much faith he had in the Arbiter's capabilities to stop the ring's activation after he and Chief had failed in procuring the Index on High Charity. We never did see any Flood near the control room ready to assist.
I love the irony behind all of the prophets names
Mercy: Shown no mercy from regret after being Caught in the neck by an infection form
Regret: Regrets jumping to earth if no further knowledge of the world
Truth:
A large branch of the covenant revolts due to the prophets lies and was killed after they found out of the truth.
I like that there setting up the return of the San shyuum at least in the EU anyways.
I’m glad this was addressed, I was just wondering this like a week ago lol
I always thought this was the case with him. He knew that whoever restarts the galaxy gets to be akin to a god. Glad to know it's confirmed now and not just speculation.
if the arbiter is able to appeal to that super general's reason and get him to see the prophet's lied to him, he would be a hell of an ally against the created
Maybe truth wanted to leave halo and have it turn on because everyone else: mercy regret, Tartarus, arbiter, the elites, the council and now the humans and master chief were present so depending on the halo’s distance from earth he could have that turned on, kill them, then fulfill his goal still at earth wiping out the remaining humans, then take over at the Ark
Apparently a prophet can go so mad with power that he ends up changing voice actors in the process
I think Truth had to put on a persona in halo 2 in order to defeat his internal rivals to achieve ultimate power. He kind of had to a somewhat similar 4 dimensional chess game like Sheev Palpatine in Star Wars. Create situations and false narratives to justify gaining more power to his eventually rise to being one of the 3 high prophets. One he was a High Prophet he just had to even more of back seat and watch things unfold making calm calculated moves when he needed to.
He saw the Prophet of Regret as a young arrogant fool who could ruin his plans. But he knew he could use Regrets recklessness to his advantage. Regret was too careless and eager to find holy relics for the covenant while at the same known for destroying such ancient relics to prevent external threats like UNSC from accessing them like in Halo Wars one on Harvest during the 3rd mission. After he told Arbiter Rippa Moramee to do destroy and Rippa challenged the decision but ultimately lost the argument. While at the same time seeing him scold the Current or soon to be Current Arbiter Thel Vadamee for allowing the Master Chief to destroy halo. Which would give Truth another reason to dispose of Regret but he couldn't do it directly and make a public execution of it as it will cause a lot back lash and possible start a schism much sooner when he wasn't in a position to deal with it just yet.
So either intentionally sent Regret on expedition to earth and didn't want to inform him that it was humanities home world and he knew it was. Or counted on Regret to be to ignorant to do his research before hand and properly prepare for the eventual human resistance with a much more capable fleet of dealing with the defending UNSC forces. Knowing that he would just bring a small cobbled together task force with only 2 assault carriers and a hand full of support ships that all though would break through humanities orbital defense would never really be able to over power the UNSC Defense forces. In which the only ace up his sleeve inthe ground battle was a massive scarab excavation vehicle that managed to go on significant rampage for sometime but ultimately was cornered in canal system that had a large gate or wall it couldn't climb over. Which then Master chief was able to board kill the crew and kill the lekgolo worms that piloted it. Ultimately destroying it.
Which Regret instantly saw that his earth excavation mission was a total and epic failure making a slip space jump to delta halo. Which said actions also helped with truth being able to step and take charge more. Because he would see that although the Prophet of Mercy was seen as close "friend and possible mentor" In quotations. He saw him as too old and frail to keep on the covenant leadership despite how wise he could be at least from the covenants point of view. Which allowed for him to basically cast aside the Prophet of Regret deeming him reckless and liability to the covenants mission and great journey.
Then when Miranda, Johnson and the Master Chief found him hiding out on delta halo possible going to activate the ring . It was the perfect justification for calling Regret out on his actions and basically saying your on your own if shit hits the fan for you. Then showing up to delta halo with High Charity and the Covenant fleet. Ultimately allowing chief to assassinate the prophet of regret and that Cortana said to chief that he was doing the prophet of Truth a favour by killing regret. Now this was probably events that would have happened anyways he just used them to justify gaining more authority in power. But to have the ultimate power he needed to let Mercy to die off or from old age possibly. However he wanted him to die off as soon as possible now that the Arbiter had killed the Heretics at the gas mine facility and the changing of the guard due to Regrets death at the hands of the Master Chief.
While at the same time ensured that the glassing of the delta halo temple/ control room was glassed and any evidence of regret was removed. But didn't help that Detla Halo had a Gravemind lurking in the bowels of the ring plotting its escape and using its minions spread chaos and fear while consuming biomass and growing stronger. While gaining more knowledge from the rampant monitor and partially reanimated prophet of regret that now was an extension of the hiveminds will.
Which by sending the arbiter to achieve the index key from the library it inadvertently allowed the Sentinel containment forces to over be run and over powered. Speeding the Process for the already released flood to achieve a means to get of the ring and spread else where.
Which the flood ultimately gave a means to kill of mercy by attacking him with an infester pod that didn't succeeded in infecting and consuming the prophet thanks to chiefs intervention but he succumbed to his wounds after Truth declared him weak and should be left behind telling Tartarus not save him from the parasite.
Then by sending Tartarus to Delta Halo to activate the ring he was essentially typing up lose ends dealing with those who were of no use for him anymore and could be a liability to his plans even if not a threat. Tatarus was dedicated and loyal to the Prophet of Truth but he was a brute and a good example of one which meant he could be unpredictable and careless at times which could have hindered Truths goals.
Like even in Halo 3 he calls one his regular chieftains a Moron because Johnson wanted the Chieftain to kill him and he preferred to have him alive so he could activate the array from the ark because humans are authorized to use forerunner technology. Plus having Tartarus fight the Arbiter would allowed him to stall the enemy and get head start on his journey to the ark.
By the Time Halo 3 happened he had no more internal threats to his power only external threats which meant. He didn't have to put on a delicate political dance to defeat his enemies anymore he could do it conventionally head on in the heat of battle. So he was free to be himself show his true nature and intentions. But with ultimate power it went to his head and then he became the full on batshit crazy cult leader that we know him as in halo 3 at first I didn't like the idea of different voice actors but it makes sense to.
Often the more competent a dictator is the more likely they will put on a show or bit of theater when they know they have strong opposition and if they can do it from the shadows by lying and tricking potential threats into being their pawns for the short term and then have them killed off secretly they can achieve ultimate power
. Once they have it they can show their true and evil colours to the world or galaxy. Because internal threats you want to manipulate and confuse and make them be unwilling participants in your evil deeds and then dispose of them like trash when they are no longer of use for you. Once that is achieved then you can go full on pyschotic cult leader or ruler. As External threats you want to be as dangerous and threating as possible to scare them into submission making them feel like fighting your rule is hopeless and futile .
But one fatal Error Truth made and that was underestimating the flood and its Gravemind. As The Gravemind can out think and out fight Truth and the covenant because the Gravemind only gets smarter from consuming biomass. The Flood Gravemind pretty much wrote the book on how achieve ones goals by creating lies and deceit, the best way to spread chaos throughout the galaxy and consume biomass to grow stronger. Which played a huge role in his ultimate defeat and death at the hands of the arbiter
Whos ready for halo infinite and finally learning the weapons name stopping cortana and saving the galxey
The Infinite campaign looks like the most dissapointing, boring Halo campaign to date.
What were they thinking making this game "open world", where it will end up as the same repetitive nonsense as Far Cry, Gears 5, Assassins Creed, etc.
Be prepared to have 4 different side missions recycled 50 times in this "campaign".
@@Dennis19901 keep crying lmao
@@jetstreamsam7853 Are you ok in the head? That you get so upset that I criticize your favourite studio?
(That was a rhetorical question btw, of course you aren't right in the head)
A weight has been lifted off my chest
I didn't realize there was any uncertainty of his plan in this decade....
This plot was always obvious to me when Truth showed up at earth digging up the Portal. As soon as it was established his fleet was jumping to the Ark, it all made sense. This fool was worried they would get crushed fighting a 2 front war. The Ark was going to grant him his solution.
An interesting analysis, I always thought Truth’s piety was a ploy and he sought to achieve total secular power by removing those who posed a threat to him. Ultimately his efforts to do so backfired and led to the disintegration of the covenant. There’s always room for some good speculation in the halo lore, glad to see someone filling it
I always wondered why truth wanted to activate halo if he already knew what it actually did.
Truth could of looked into the information that 343 guilty spark had of the halos and realized the truth behind it and decided to look into it with more detail
Before this information came out, I knew it was just a lapse in writing or a result of the story changing between Halo 2 and 3, but I used to imagine Truth’s shift in personality was due to 1) addressing humans instead of the covenant, so he brings out the fire and brimstone, and 2) him slowly losing his mind as he realizes he’s backed himself into a corner. He has to fire the rings and risk the great journey being false, or face the possibility the covenant would learn he’d been lying to them all along.
It never dawned on me that Truth would be safe from the blasts on the ark. I knew the ark was shielded but I never connected those facts, so I just assumed Truth was on a mass-killing campaign that would take him with it.
“At last, his secret is revealed!”- gravemind’s quote from h3
Zo reskin would love to meet the other San shyuum. He talks about being lonely in the book and sad that he's the last one of his kind (to his knowledge)
When I first realised the oddities in Truth's plans, I had rationalised personally by thinking of it as a twisted way of destroying the Flood from the safety of the Ark, in a way kind of making him a "good guy", or at least giving his plan somewhat more sympathy. I had never thought about why he would send Tartarus to 05, but the explanation of him being a threat to Truth's power makes a lot of sense to me and was what I was thinking as you were first explaining the new details from the book. Alternatively, if you want to be more charitable to Truth like my initial thoughts on him, you could interpret it as being some kind of backup plan in case Truth wasn't able to make it to the Ark or otherwise couldn't activate the rings in order to ensure the destruction of the Flood, but I find it being a gamble to get rid of Tartarus more likely.
The covenant will always be my favourite part of halo maybe one day there will a return not a splinter group
This cleared things a lot of things up. But how did he get infected with the flood?
That probably just happened during that final push where the Flood are helping you. Some Flood must have gotten to him before Chief and Arby did.
Glad they finally caught this guy
Obviously they're trying to fill in a bunch of plotholes, but I think this is so far the best they could do with the material. Truth seeing godhood as him ruling over a bunch of unadvanced species (reseeded versions of the ones we know) and loyal followers is exactly how I'd expect a power mad schemer to think, especially given that he knows the location of the homeworlds of each of the major species so far encountered. I'd always kind of figured it was something like this, but it's nice to know I was right, and have further details.
As for sending Tartarus to activate the Rings, one thing does come to mind. According to Spark, it was only Tartarus' near activation of the Rings that allowed Truth the possibility of firing them from the Ark, by putting them all in Standby mode. This may have been since retconned, but it's worth it to consider. Still an insanely risky move, but if, building off one of your theories, he expected Tartarus to fail, he might still have expected him to get close enough that the Ark would get set up. And of course, megalomaniacal narcissists are not renowned for their ability to consider the flaws in their plans, which I would argue is a trait Truth has always seemed to possess in one way or another.
I wanna see a picture of truth stopping at a space 7/11 on his way to earth for some reason lol
5:47 I regret to inform you that it wasn't the Prophet of Mercy that chief killed here; it was the Prophet of Regret that he killed. Although you are indeed correct with what happens to Mercy from there onward. I'm sure this was just a typo of sorts. EDIT: I love your vids btw! I am always excited when a new one comes out.
Nice intro man
I'm only on Chapter 6 in Divine Wind, but I'll be fine hearing this. I should've listened an extra few seconds as this isn't plot related lol
I think he didn't know about halo being a weapon- or at least what exactly the weapons purpose was. As he doesn't seem the type to risk Tartarus actually succeeding.
But he learned down the line that it truly wasn't- and started to make an endurance plan. Perhaps he learned when they questioned 434, Or prehaps a prisoner, or intell they gathered down the line revealed enough for his absolute faith to be shaken about it.
The changing of the guard of course was always in the works, because the elites would not as easily blindly follow as the brutes would. They are smart, educated and honorable. While the brutes are dim witted, In the lower Tech tier, always fighting amongst each other and show very little reason to be a true threat like the elites. It's what religions are based off of afterall.
I think his plan towards the beginning was pretty cut and dry until he learned. Then it changed. And as all those who would question his motives or actions were taken out. The elites, the other Profits and high figures. His decent started full swing. No need to put on a show, no need to act refine when no one will say a word against you eitherway right? Absolute power, and the fear of possibly losing what he had just obtained- might have drove him to make his backup plan- his main one. As with the end of halo 2 and 3. He was Forsaking everything, throwing everything he had left just to get a chance to light the rings from the ark. He had lost too much of the empire at that point. Flood on the rise, their capital and good portion of the military gone or in civil war. And on the losing end of the war with humanity after so long having the advantage. The covenant surviving long term was just not a possibility in his mind anymore, he needed his plan to work. Or all was lost. Eventually even the voice of the Covenant itself
It might be possible that Earth is outside the pulse range of all installations except for 04 which was destroyed. Some overlap exists, as I believe the rings activate when they are hit by the pulse of another ring. (or activated via index) However, it's unlikely that every inch of the galaxy has dual ring coverage. 04's destruction created a safe zone from the Halo Array and Earth might have been in it. This also explains why activating the new Installation 04 over the Ark is described as a tactical pulse; the pulse would not hit any other rings in the Halo Array because of it's current position outside the galaxy. Guilty Spark has limited knowledge of installations other than his own, but he might have been aware of the Halo Array's overall pulse range and coverage. Truth, with this knowledge, took his loyal troops to the safety of Earth to dig up the portal to the Ark while Tartarus activates the Halo Array and wipes out the elites and most anyone else who would or could oppose Truth. His original plan for the Ark may not have been to activate the rings, but to probe it's secrets, reseed the galaxy with life, and rule his new galaxy from the Ark; a position safe from the gun pointed at the head of the universe. When he realized that Tartarus failed and some of the elites and humans followed him through the portal, he readjusted the plan and decided to fire the rings from the Ark instead, using captured humans to do it.
As far as whether or not Truth new about Tactical Pulse firing a Halo ring. I'd say he did know about it. In the cutscene for "Sacred Icon" you see 343 Guilty Spark restrained in a containment field... thingy, and later the Prophets say they prodded him with questions on how to start the process of activating Halo. It would be around that time that Guilty Spark would tell Truth about how the Halo Array works, and only firing one at a time.
People tend to forget that Halo lore was a mess even before 343 got involved. I still remember being mad when Reach came out because it contradicted The Fall of Reach book. And then 343 decided to make _both_ of them canon, so they had to figure out a way to make that happen.
Humans and forerunners being the same species makes more sense than being two separate species considering the story
But during 2 they talked to an oricle which they could easily learn about the emergency shutdown.
It's still kind of shaky that Truth was seemingly okay, at least outwardly, with Regret attempting to activate Delta Halo, which really only works with Truth under the assumption the Rings wouldn't kill him too. As is, Truth leaving Regret to be killed was a gamble at best, leaving me wondering what might have happened had Chief failed to kill Regret before he could potentially secure the Index and fire off said Halo.
Shadow of Intent is also a really good American death metal band. Oudenophobia from their album Melancholy is my favorite song of theirs. Reclaimer is also a killer album and so is Primordial.
I think the time discrepancy is due to time itself not being uniform throughout the entirety of the universe, especially in an unknown dimension like hyperspace.
First thing , talking about “escaping halos fire”
Meaning , the path to transcend… meaning , it never reached earth …. Meaning it “escaped”
Once the "great journey" goes from the entire covenant to truth and his lackeys ruling what's left, Truth adjusts his verbal output accordingly.
If this is what the book says, it's a very confusing reimagining of the story Truth originally had. The easy explanation should have been that he sent Hammer Monkey to fire the rings, legitimately, but went to the Ark either because it is seen as a bastion of the Forerunners, or in case Tartarus failed.
Taking away his belief in Halo's promise is an insane move, even with the knowledge Truth did have. Contact Harvest made it clear that his name was ironic because to complete the Great Journey, he would have to hide some of the truth. And that part is from his OWN thoughts.
I really enjoy the Halo novels, I love them, but that they seem to go out of their way to make the lore more and more confusing isn't a good thing in these cases.