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April 1, 2006

Monkey Mountain

UrsusArctos takes a moment to tie together speculation on The Monkey King with First Strike's King Under the Mountain, asserting that the latter, too, might be of Chinese origin (and not a Tolkien allusion after all). Tartarus and his "Fist of Rukt" ('Blood' in Hindi, eh? Neat!) are thrown in there to boot.

Read on.

permalink | Rampant Speculation

-Finn


September 13, 2004

King of the Mountain: Alternate

GryphonOsiris gryphonosiris@aol.com has posted an extended look into the possible meanings of the "King Under the Mountain" (A quick search will reveal more regarding this). This time it is based on Frederick and German lore. Excellent conversation continues from there. Read on...

permalink | ONI

-Finn


February 19, 2004

The Arkenstone

Daniel Nadal (dmnadal@hotmail.com) writes:

I've always been intrigued by the 'tru7h', as you guys put it. In essense: The Halo Backstory.

Of course, being the Tolkien enthusiast (/not/ LotR, mind you, as Tolkien encompasses so much more),†I always thought that it would be interesting if the Bungie folks took some inspiration from there. So, reading through the story page (I've been bad, I havn't†been reading it much, lately, shame me) †I was interested in this post.

Alas, it didn't satisfy my thought. Because, in all truth (tru7h, I mean), I wasn't entirely happy with the parallels. Enter this post:

"But more importantly we got the "King Under the Mountain" folder. What does this stand for? Well, the office IS in a mountain, right? And what does Dr. Halsey find under the Mountain? The "holy of holies", the Holy Light, which is apparently of enourmous significance to the Covenant."

The tru7h is right under several noses. Lets take a sojourn into the wonderful land of the Hobbit. There are different parallels to take: 1) exact parallel. 2) bits and pieces. and 3) tiny

1) Exact parallel. Unfortunatly, all I know is what I have from this, so let's go and look at the different stuff I do know, from reading the Hobbit. Thorin, who is supposed to be the King Under the Mountain, has one gem in the hoard (Smaug took over from a while back, hording all the jewels) that he wants above all others, he values it above a river of gold. Guess what it's called? The Arkenstone. Now, this doesn't make sense, till we look at it's description. It's this multi-faceted gem that reflects and refracts light, so it looks like the light is coming from it. Oh, feh, just read the Hobbit for the description, it's in the 'On the Doorstep' chapter, I believe.

So, continuing on with the parallel. Enter Bilbo Baggins, the Hobbit. He's also supposed to be the burglar. So, he goes in, and finds the Arkenstone, and hides it. Make a long story short (it's a pretty short story, actually), he gives it to the people who are at the doorstep demanding recompense for a burnt town (read: dragon), etc. Okay, so we have this gem that was stolen from the King.

What does this mean for Halo?

The gem is located in the Mountain, there is a king to it, who's coming back with a band to retake the mountain, which has hostile forces in it. One of the guys sneaks in, turns burglar (his job) and takes the gem (holy light?) and uses it for bartering tool.

2) So, we have the gem, and it's found in the mountain. You know the story. Yadda yadda. We can probably relate this off to the 'index' and the previous post about the MC being the reclaimer. So, we have MC boogying on into Halo, grab the index, and then getting out of there. Here's how I see it, in this case we have the MC switching places, and "he's" the burglarer. In all actuality, some other person is "the" Reclaimer. And, because of his armor, 343GS is all confused about who it is (all the Dwarfs get mixed up in the books, too, the first time through)

3) Part, we can grab bits and pieces. Arkenstone and the holy light. King Under the Mountain, the mountains been taken by hostile. etc.

Now, unfortunately, this all doesn't sound half as brilliant as it looked in my mind. Ah well.

Enlightening nonetheless. It seems rather clear that this is the allusion Bungie intended with their King Under the Mountain reference. But what more does it hint at? Using the "Arkenstone" (or something of its ilk from Earth, 04, a new Halo, etc.) as a bargaining chip indeed...

permalink | Rampant Speculation

-Finn


February 3, 2004

King Under the Mountain: A Tolkien Perspective

Mike Elliott (mike_elliott@snet.net) writes:

Quoting from the Encyclopedia of Arda (the online Tolkien encyclopedia, if you've never heard of it):

The title taken by Thr?in I, founder of the Dwarf-kingdom at Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, and maintained by those Kings of Durin's Folk who dwelt there. The line was broken twice, once by Thorin I (he and four generations of his descendants ruled from the Grey Mountains, not Erebor), and once by the dragon Smaug (who claimed the title for himself). In both cases, the line was restored to a rightful heir.

In both cases, the line was restored to a rightful heir.

(Going out on a limb...) This could very well be a reference to the Master Chief--I'm willing to bet (not a large sum of money, mind you, but still bet)--aka "The Reclaimer". Since Guilty Spark has clearly seen the Master Chief/John-117 or someone like him before, is it possible the the Master Chief is the second rightful heir--the second reclaimer?

Excellent. How then, if at all, could this relate to the Covenant's "Ninth Age of Reclamation", a line with obvious portent and relationship to the Master Chief's title?

permalink | Rampant Speculation

-Finn


January 21, 2004

Ackerson's King Under the Mountain

Jesper (tf2tiic@hotmail.com) writes:

Now there's one episode in the First Strike, where we really learn ONI Sector Three's mission. When tapping into the ONI complex's computers, Dr. Halsey meets the Colonel Ackerson's AI, Araqiel, apparently attempting to steal SPARTAN-II information according to Dr. Halsey. Anyway, she destroys the AI and begins to look through its files. There are two folders: "S-III" and "King Under the Mountain"...

The first folder very possibly stands for SPARTAN-III as already speculated [Note: Or merely Section III]. This just again reaffirms Ackerson and ONI Sector Three's interest in the SPARTAN project and maybe their own wish to take control of it and continue with it without Dr. Halsey involved.

But more importantly we got the "King Under the Mountain" folder. What does this stand for? Well, the office IS in a mountain, right? And what does Dr. Halsey find under the Mountain? The "holy of holies", the Holy Light, which is apparently of enourmous significance to the Covenant.
And what does this folder contain? First of all, a much larger blueprint of the CASTLE base than Dr. Halsey had ever seen! But the folder†also had detailed information on John-117's attack on CÙte d' Azur, where he found the strange alien artifact (that eventually led to Halo if no one remembers). And also detailed information on the symbols found on the artifact!

But this just leads to new speculation. Dr. Halsey does in fact say, after discovering this, that Ackerson had kept a very dangerous secret. Does she mean that he actually knew Reach would be destroyed [or was at risk]? But how would you be able to know that just from some star coordinates on an alien artifact? And, how can it be Cortana and Dr. Halsey found two different coordinates on the same artifact [Halo and then Reach from ONI/Cortana's analyses and the signal captured by John's camera, respectively] and does that mean anything? Could the artifact hold all the different coordinates to the greatest Covenant holy places, and thereby also Earth? (If we consider Earth another place for an alien artifact since the Covenant does not seem to glass it!).

This is a confusing bit of the story thus far. The analysis of the rock from Sigma Octanus did lead Cortana to Halo (FoR p. 336, as mentioned above), but apparently the captured images made by John off of the same rock create the coordinates of Reach (Epsilon Eridani) itself (FS p.130). Bizarre, unless each rock contains several sets of markings... is there something we are missing?

ONI may have previously known of Halo, and a lot of other things, if this trail is followed a while. Ackerson has a folder entitled KING UNDER THE MOUNTAIN. There are Forerunner facilities (not all of which were necessarily seen by the Spartans and Halsey) beneath the ONI base on Reach. So, doesn't this imply that Ackerson (and ONI) may have been well aware of these caves on Reach, and through co-ordinates gleaned here and there, on other planets as well, for some time? If so, what have they been doing with this information? Waiting for the... mood to be right? :P

permalink | ONI

-Finn


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