Halo_ Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe - Eric Nylund [211]
We are being careful not to make too many assumptions, but the evidence in some cases is compelling. In others, ambiguous. I direct your attention to the photographs from Heian. There were obvious Forerunner elements in that architecture, but also unmistakable architectural themes from Greco-Roman, East Asian, and Middle Eastern eras. All of those buildings predated human travel to that world by perhaps hundreds maybe thousands of years. We find ourselves wondering if they borrowed from our history, or we from theirs. It is impossible that it was a coincidence.
Furthermore, now that we understand the Halo is an armed weapon array, we must revisit our prior assumptions about how inert other structures are. This applies to the Excession at Voi particularly, and careful exploration is being undertaken as we speak. Those concerned about ONI barging in as a military force needn’t be. The investigation is being undertaken with the greatest care and under rigorous scientific conditions.
We still don’t understand everything about Voi, but we do know that the structure is still active, still drawing power from an unknown source, and as far as we can tell, riddled with passageways and conduits that we have, as yet, minimal access to. There are more secrets locked under our feet than we dare speculate on. We’re looking particularly for answers as they relate to doors, encryption, and other passageways. This isn’t something we can blast or arcweld our way through. It’s something we must think through.
Again, I want you all to understand the entirety of the material you are now investigating. To those of you already at sites, I advise caution and diplomacy in equal measure. The Sangheili have promised nothing—and indeed warned us that they do not yet control either the Covenant client species, or even their own domestic situation. Hostilities may have ceased for now, but we should be alert and logical.
This may be the greatest archaeological boon we have ever received as scholars, but it is certainly the most perilous. Be careful. I expect daily reports filed regardless of slipstream delay. I will reassemble chronology later.
Good luck.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. William Arthur Iqbal
Department of Xenoarchaeology
Edinburgh University
* tiny aberration in the fossil and carbon records of Earth, noted by two Earth geologists in 2332—and matched on several other worlds, demonstrating a gap in certain species so tiny and uniform, that it had been attributed not to a biological catastrophe, but rather had been investigated and then abandoned as odd evidence of warping or stretching of spacetime itself. The Ross-Ziegler Blip is now being opened and reinvestigated in connection to the events of 2552.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The amount of work that goes into a project like this defies understanding. The behind-the-scenes of making a multi-author book that ties into the vanguard of modern science fiction could easily make the stuff of bad reality television. Juggling the franchise’s wonderfully high story expectations while simultaneously maintaining authors’ creative freedoms, all under fun and tortuous time constraints, requires heroic actions from many. This book wouldn’t have been at all possible without the Herculean efforts of Nicolas “Sparth” Bouvier, Alicia Brattin, Gabriel “Robogabo” Garza, Jonathan Goff, Kevin Grace, Alicia Hatch, and Frank O’Connor.
The amazing team at Tor has to be praised as well. Led by Tom Doherty and masterfully marshaled by Eric Raab, the unsung heroes of Karl Gold, Justin Golenbock, Jim Kapp, Seth Lerner, Jane Liddle, Whitney Ross, Heather Saunders, and Nathan Weaver and their efforts in the trenches to make it all happen is legend. Special thanks to Shelley Chung, Patricia Fernandez, and Christina MacDonald for desperately trying to make every story in here read without a blip.
Additional thanks to 343