Ring Motif in Halo

Check out that door design in one of the two interior Halo screenshots and compare it with the background design in the Halo logo. Now how's that for detail.

Max Dyckhoff <mcbd100@york.ac.uk> writes:

I actually noticed when looking at that picture that the wall behind the two aliens in that corridor (to the right of THAT door) also seems to have some funky designs on it. You may have noticed them already, but they look like more rings... (especially behind and around the foremost alien's left elbow...)

See here for the points Max describes.

Owen Borstad <Owen@borstad.com> writes:

I was playing around with the logo trying to make a skin for Audion (I'll send it when I'm done) and got a partial reconstruction of the texture used in the logo. I've attached it for your viewing pleasure.

Thanks Owen. Here's a reconconstruction I made some time ago.

In addition here is another reconstruction by Ian and Colin Jackson <bohrhead@freeuk.com> of the Total Halo site. This image was submitted to the Miscellaneous Art section of halo.bungie.org.

Does this reconstructed image represent an alien mural? A mural depicting the Halo world? Given that the same image appears on an interior door we might conclude that the mural was created by the same "third alien race" who built the "ancient ring construct" itself.

Circular designs on doors can also be found in Marathon. Remember the ornate S'pht door on the Marathon 2 level "Waterloo Waterpark"?

Click here for a closer look at the same door. Notice the similarity. And who created the S'pht? ;-)

Alan Greene <alan@fontshop.com> writes:

I wanted to point out that the pattern on the other side of the H in the Halo logo, looks like the structure of the walls in the hallway in that picture. It has that same low-angled sub-divided look, which could be just pure coincidence, but they're proportioned in very much the same way.

Here are the images. One is of the two images next to each other, so you can see how the angles in the logo look like the hallway. The second image is an overlay, so you can really see how the proportions are similar.

On Bungie's present Halo page (which went live on Oct 4th) you'll find a navigation bar with distinctive left and right arrows (see below).

Join the arrows together...

... and you get something very like the frame of those Halo doors above.

David Johnston <de.johnston@sympatico.ca> points that part of the Jjaro logo from Marathon Infinity bears a striking resemblance to the '0' in the Halo logo. Here's a comparision pic. Note the spur that extends from the 'O' and then a similar spur extending from the Jjaro space station in the background of the Jjaro logo.

Chris Hebner <chebner@erinet.com> sent in a pic showing the Jjaro logo overlaid over the full Jjaro space station. Note how the end of the spur is cut off in logo thus excluding the round part at the end. This would seem to counter any suggestion that the 'O' of the Halo logo was designed to look like part of a Jjaro space station. Unless of course the inspiration came from the Jjaro logo itself rather than the space station. Chris goes onto to say:

There could still be an interesting correlation between the 2 symbols. The Jjaro uses a map as a backround, the Halo uses a (?wall) texture.

Sarwat Khan <sarwat@interlog.com> writes:

You know that Halo door pattern that everybody loves to talk about? It's also in the Jjaro logo from Infinity, as you can see in the attached pic.

Mike Schapiro <mikeschappy@ameritech.net> writes concerning the map hologram room first seen in the Macworld Expo New York movie:

As I was watching the new (day4) Halo footage, I noticed something about the big room we first see the marine standing in. A) The room is quite circular with a hall way leading out the bottom/back/whichever direction you feel like. B) Except for a narrow walkway, there is no floor. I drew a very rough floorplan in Photoshop, and it's pretty interesting, to say the least.

P.S. It's color coded: Blue is a wall that may or may not exist in that shape. White is the walkway + the hallway. Yellow is a wall seperating the Holograph room from the rest of the base.

Very nice. The Halo marine does stand on a circular platform in the middle of a spherical room. And the floorplan is oddly familar... as if it were from an old dream, but you can't exactly remember...

Rob Swenson <noctavis@rampancy.net> of rampancy.net has scanned in a two page Halo spread (304K) from the July edition of IncitePC magazine. Very nice large shot of the E3 Halo banner including some interesting additional details to the far right. Note the ring symbol on the side of the building and the somewhat Aztec or Mayan looking hieroglyph/mural at the base of the building. Covenant design or something much older? Based on what we know of the Official Halo Backstory the ring would appear to have been abandoned for some 100,000 years. If so then the structures we have seen so far were created by the same "third alien race" who built the "ancient ring construct" itself. So unless the Covenant are heavily into graffiti the ring symbol and hieroglyphs (above) belong to that "third alien race".

This is another indoor screenshot showing the circular door more clearly in the background.

Claude Errera <errera@bungie.org> kindly sent in a composite shot of the full hologram screen seen in the E3 Halo movie trailer. It appears at 1 min 7 secs into the movie. Note the strange symbols (glyphs). Claude also points out the glyphs appear to change as you advance through the movie.

Diego Rey (aka Decameron) <decameron@tiscalinet.it> writes concerning the strange symbols seen on the hologram screen in the recent Halo E3 movie trailer:

It seems like those strange Glyphs are Covenant text or a logo to identify structures (in which case the console would be a map). If you go through the E3 pre-preview released by DailyRadar, you'll notice that we can see a very similar symbol in the big structure.

This symbol appears to be similar to the one seen in the two page Halo spread from IncitePC magazine (July 2000).

On the back of the red Covenant leader in the E3 Halo movie you'll see some strange glowing symbols which are remarkably similar to those on a hologram screen and on the side of a building.

Question: Why are the Covenant sporting symbols similar to those seen on the Halo? Is there a connection between the Covenant and the mysterious builders of the Halo?

Based on what we know from the official backstory the Halo is an ancient ring construct abandoned by its builders long ago (perhaps 100,000+ years) and both the Covenant and the humans are searching the ring for a secret(s) which for the humans will turn the course of the war. So the Covenant are also new to the Halo yet they wear symbols once used by the builders of the Halo. How could this arise? Here are some possibilities:

1. The symbols are simply some common but ancient universal language shared by many races in the galaxy;
2. The Covenant are descendants or client races of the original builders and have retained the original language;
3. The Covenant have encountered the technology of the builders before and have adopted (stolen) their language or place enough significance on their ancient symbols to wear them (possibly with reverence);
4. The Covenant have wiped out or enslaved the original builders and assimilated their language.

As for this world I encounter new ghosts every day. What I have found will either save or destroy you. This sanctuary, this unbroken circle, has effectively concealed its power for how long? Perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. Whoever made such a place must now live in chains; there is no other explanation for their absence.

This enemy - YOUR enemy - has proven more irritating than I anticipated. They own nothing which they have not stolen. I can barely make sense of their incessant rhetoric, except to know that you seem to be their Devil. Congratulations - you manage to make friends wherever you go and, apparently, places you haven't.

The Covenant view the Marine (the player) as "their Devil"? Is this simply because he's pretty good at killing them or because they abhor who he is or what he stands for. All indications are that the marine in Halo is a military cyborg similar to the one in Marathon. It is generally assumed that the Marathon marine has Jjaro implants. The final screen in Infinity relates:

But you were dead a thousand times. Hopeless encounters successfully won.
A man long dead. Grafted to machines your builders did not understand.

If the Halo marine is similarly endowed then perhaps this is the reason why the Covenant view him as "their Devil". We might speculate further that since mankind have created the marine they have committed some form of sacrilege in the eyes of the Covenant and thus must be destroyed with religious fervour. This might also explain why the whole Covenant fleet at Reach follow the single escaping human corvette... the Marine was on it. The Devil must be destroyed!

Claude Errera <errera@bungie.org> notes another glyph-like symbol in the E3 Halo movie this one is located in what appears to be part of a door mechanism. This gives further credence to the theory that these symbols are part of the original building and are perhaps the writings of the creators of the ring or the race that once lived there. Of course it still begs the question why the red Covenant leader sports the same symbols on its back.

Rich Cameron <RComet@mac.com> writes:

The door pattern from the old build of Halo doesn't seem to be in the new build, but it still gives an insight into the madness of Bungie. I noticed a similarity between the door pattern and the letter pattern. this similarity has been noted before, but I pieced together an image of the entire door and did an overlay. The similarity is more than I originally though. I have attached two images that illustrate this. Notice not only the that the ring part is identical, but also the angled lines around it correspond to the walls of the hallway (sorry it doesn't quite match up, the hallways in the screenshots I used were at a weird angle and covered by some part of a covenant warrior.

Interesting point about the new build (as seen in the E3 Halo movie) not having the above door pattern. Unless of course we're talking completely different areas and styles.

The official Xbox Halo site has an interesting Flash animation involving a ring design. Here are some captures:

Note that the ring design is exactly the same the one seen in this hi-res screenshot (465K). Note also that the background design of the whole Flash animation itself is based around part of the above ring.

At the beginning of the Halo demonstration at Microsoft's Gamestock 2001 there is an opening screen of the player character and the Halo title. Note the ring design behind the player. See below for an enhanced image:

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