HaloMods "Classic" Read-only Archive

Alright, I figured I'd post here, since it's an active discussion forum, and it does pertain to Halo 3 some.
Has there ever been a real-world specified location of the Halos, Covenant homeworlds, or the Ark? I'm wondering this because I just downloaded Celestia (space simulator), and I'm thinking of adding in some Haloverse objects. My only problem is knowing locations.

So I ask you, HaloMods, can you halp me? (And feel free to debate these locations as well...if we can figure out something, that'll be cool as well.)

first off the ark is not in our galaxy that's im sure off.

CDK908 wrote:first off the ark is not in our galaxy that's im sure off.

Yeah, that much I know. I could kinda guesstimate that by eye, by looking at the galaxy from some screenshots.

CDK908 wrote:first off the ark is not in our galaxy that's im sure off.

I think Chief said it was at the edge of the galaxy, and 343 said it was like...2^18 light years away from any life or something. I don't know the exact number/quote.

The Ark is located on the planet Earth..... isn't that rather clear in Halo 2 ... and Halo 3? Just as it is clear in Halo that humans are the descendants of the Forerunner.

It is effectively out of the range of all of the other Halo rings (or something about a portal placing planet Earth in an alternate dimension type of thing.... I have to play through that again to figure out what that was all about).

As far as the other rings - we only have seen Installation 04 and ... 05 I think. The Ark not only serves as a place to ride out the Flood (hmm... would seem to fit the numerous religious implications in Halo), and constructs new Halo rings (and was rebuilding Installation 04 that was destroyed earlier in the game.... and we can only assume it will again rebuild Installation 04 since it got destroyed..... again.... in Halo 3).

Remember in the books that the Office of Naval Intelligence was investigating strange seismic activity in Africa. Also, the events taking/taken place on Onyx are rather interesting to note.

Aim-64C wrote:The Ark is located on the planet Earth..... isn't that rather clear in Halo 2 ... and Halo 3?

The portal to The Ark is on Earth, not the Ark itself.

They said in halo 3's campaign that the ark was at the edge of our galaxy, assuming that the covenant couldn't fly there they had to take a portal, they must be much closer to earth.

GametagAeonFlux wrote:

CDK908 wrote:first off the ark is not in our galaxy that's im sure off.

I think Chief said it was at the edge of the galaxy, and 343 said it was like...2^18 light years away from any life or something. I don't know the exact number/quote.

meh my sister was prob. yelling when it said that...but for some odd reason i can see the entire milky way galaxy when im on the ark. by the way i was just wondering. did the ark travel to the first halo or did the ark teleported the first halo to it?

Sorry mister Shadow, but I don't think the locations of any planets anywhere are given spcifics or even references to their locations...Most of these things happen to be blind jumps/random discoveries.

But then again, I haven't read Ghost of onyx and I may have missed the details in the other books...

At what season is our planet pointed to the center of the universe?

The only Place I can think of that is a place in Halo that outright says where is Mars.


...Oh...and the answer is Spring.

CDK908 wrote:

GametagAeonFlux wrote:

CDK908 wrote:first off the ark is not in our galaxy that's im sure off.

I think Chief said it was at the edge of the galaxy, and 343 said it was like...2^18 light years away from any life or something. I don't know the exact number/quote.

meh my sister was prob. yelling when it said that...but for some odd reason i can see the entire milky way galaxy when im on the ark. by the way i was just wondering. did the ark travel to the first halo or did the ark teleported the first halo to it?

Installation 04(Halo 1 Ring) was destroyed. It was not transported nor was the ark. The ark was rebuilding it.

INSANEdrive wrote:At what season is our planet pointed to the center of the universe?

The only Place I can think of that is a place in Halo that outright says where is Mars.


...Oh...and the answer is Spring.

Really do you have some proof to back that up?

1) our planet cant point anywhere its round, when 1 side is pointing 1 way the other is pointing the opposite way.

2) we dont know where the center of the universe is....

INSANEdrive wrote:At what season is our planet pointed to the center of the universe?

The only Place I can think of that is a place in Halo that outright says where is Mars.


...Oh...and the answer is Spring.

Australias spring if your Autumn / fall.....so you know.

Here's a post I found when reading up on Onyx:
For those that have'nt read the book, not that I have or anything but
Just thought I'd share......
I did not write this if you read 3 lines up it is a post I ran across digging some stuff up on Onyx.......


Alright since I assume everyone in this thread has read ghosts of the onyx you guys remember that one of the problems that the team of spartans along with dr halsey and mendez were presented with while on the interior of the forerunner structure inside onyx were to either go rescue team katana or go to the core of the onyx and try to recover whatever new technology they could find and then attempt escape aboard the UNSC Prowler Dusk and bring the technology back to Earth as it could be key to saving billions of lives and turning the tide of the war.

Now knowing the Onyx is referred to as the Shield World and the trillions of sentinels that inhabit the planet that were giving so many ships trouble to enter the Onyx planet had some pretty good shields do you guys suspect that the bubble shields which are now in Halo 3 was technology that was found inside the shield world by the people inside. Don't the Bubble shields kinda fit the description of the Sentinels that were attacking everyone on Onyx?

People inside Onyx's Shield World :

Spartan IIs - Kelly, Linda and Fred from Blue Team
Spartan IIIs from Gamma Company Team Sabre - Ash, Mark, Olivia
Spartan IIIs from Beta Company Tom and Lucy
Spartan IIIs from Gamma Company Team Katana - 5 of them are trapped inside Sarcophogi like cryo pods found inside the Forerunner structore on Onyx
3 Unknowns trapped in the other 3 Cryo Pods.
Dr. Halsey and Chief Mendez.


Reading how Ghosts of the Onyx went there is no way in hell they can possibly call Halo 3 any sort of completion without Master Chief having set foot on the Onyx Planet and you guys see that black planet in the background in the Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta? I believe that circular Black thing they're showing is Planet Onyx aka where the Shield World is located.

The Bubble Shield to me I definitely think is technology from the Shield World it fits perfectly. The Bubble Shield I think is a Slipspace Bubble which is why I think it's impenetrable to almost any weapon that fires at it.

Like Dr. Halsey said while they were inside the Shield World.

"I believe the sphere resides in the center of the planet, encapsulated and protected by a Slipspace bubble of compressed dimensionality" The only reason the slipspace bubble doesn't last as long on the portable one that Master Chief will use is because its portable and unlike the one covering the small sphere which is the gigantic shield world it isn't being powered by an entire planet.


Dr. Halsey said "I see. You do understand that while externally, this space may only be a few meters in diameter within the center of Onyx, internally, its compressed dimensionality gives it a surface area many times the surface of the Earth"

She said that in response to the Spartans as they suggested they search the entire planet for any forerunner technologies they could find and bring them back to Earth.

So this place that is so much bigger than earth is tiny on the outside, but gigantic on the inside and only way to enter or exit is if a slipspace field is open. I think the Spartan Laser can break the defenses of the Bubble Shield right? Do you guys think that was found on the Shield World? To get out they'll need something that can crack Slipspace fields.


On snowbound when you go inside one of those structures there are more shields you can't shoot through so I think with all these shield references it makes sense that Master Chief will be on the Onyx in Halo 3 at some point or maybe the other spartans will get off without his help?

The shield drainer kinda looks like one of the Sentinels too doesn't it? It also sounded like the Sentinels had a plasma redirect ability as well think there will be such a thing in Halo 3?

Actually the bubble shield doesn't fit the description of the sentinels I guess, but the bubble shield potentially being from Onyx makes sense I think.


Thought I'd add a little more: So here is something else that gets you thinking. Again for those of us who have not read the book.......

There is some data worth cleaning, however. Big Spoiler here: If Halo is transcribed correctly from the Forerunner hieroglyphics, it roughly translates into sword; Earth translates into the Arc, as in Noah's; and Onyx into shield. What Halsey and the Spartans learn is that the planet of Onyx is layered like an on onion with hidden meaning, but you'll only learn a fraction of it. It's a Forerunner drone factory that exists as a final hiding place, a place of final resort. The final chapters, thankfully, provide an excellent set of battles, some great scenes, and an interesting and very sneaky way to conclude a story without spoiling Halo 3's story.

Despite its obvious commercial motives, Ghosts of Onyx does some pretty nifty things. The writing is kept lean and consistent. The characters aren't overdrawn or overblown. In general, Nylund always errs on the side of restraint rather than indulgence. That keeps things tight and neat for Bungie and it gives us, gasp, at least two more books! And the idea of Onyx ghosts does sport literary value. You might have been wondering all along what the hell the Ghosts of Onyx means. I won't give it away, but just like everything in the Halo universe, I'll leave you with a riddle. The Ghosts of Onyx are like the remaining debris of starships; like Spartans missing in action, neither dead nor alive; like the nefarious Forerunner technology and its remaining purposes; they are like the drones themselves, which comprise the entirety of the planet itself. And finally, the Ghosts of Onyx is a nice analogy for what happens to the remaining characters in the book. Not dead, yet trapped like ghosts between one place and the next.

It's been a while since I've fully read Ghosts of Onyx, but didn't the planet fall apart/explode-ish at the end as the sentinels that made up the planet's crust fly away?

Also, even though Dr. Halsey said they went there to find technology, they never got back to spread anything they might've found, so that rules out the Bubble shield or anything being something they found at Onyx. The odder equipment items are probably mostly covenant-made and based off of forerunner stuff they have found.

Dr hasley was lying about finding the forunner tech, it was just to trick the navy into sending her more spartans so she can save them ^.^
and GS said the ark was 2^18 lightyears away from THE CENTRE of our galaxy

the ark was located outside the alpha halo's vector, it had made a new alpha halo to replace the one that the MC and Cortana blew up. as for specific references the 2^18 light years is the only one i think. other than that delta halo's location was found by following covenant lol so idk.

newbymodder wrote:other than that delta halo's location was found by following covenant lol so idk.

The Pillar of Autumn jump from Reach was a random coordinate.

yes but the location of the ark gave away alpha halo's location, because the ark was at the same location that alpha halo had been. and well the books don't mention exact places but Cortana calculated that jump for the data she got off Sigma Octavo or w/e the name of the planet was because the data strand was similar to a star patter, basically a map to something so at the last second she input those directions and made the jump, hence how they found alpha halo.

In the hologram of the Ark I noticed a planet inside of the halo. What is that, purpose?

Also is that Halo in the Ark Installation 04, the one being rebuilt.

Either re-built or a new one to replace it.