Meaning Behind Halo Infinite's Ancient Easter Egg 

This is the kind of community-driven mysteries that I’m happy Halo infinite brought back

Hot damn, this is really good! When you mentioned the symbol that seems to be a combination of the symbols for "Guardian" and "Shield World", I was reminded of Bastion, a shield world mentioned in Halo 5 (a game about Guardians) and that recently appeared in the book "Halo: Point of Light". In that book, the Shield World was revealed to be carrying seeds that would lay the foundation for the return of the Precursors. It might be coincidence, but the parallels are rather interesting.

_"Defeat is merely the addition of time to a sentence I never deserved"_

Your method of conveying information grabs the viewer’s attention so well, the quality of the videos is fantastic.

About chapter 2 Very interesting. I'm glad you came to the same conclusion that the third voice is Bornstellar / the Iso-Didact, but I'd been under the impression that the 2nd was Pyre, however Chant-to-Green makes perfect sense too. I'll also add, in case anyone is confused about the voices being the Iso-Didact / Chant, since they left the Galaxy to die a primitive life after reseeding: The story "Promises to Keep" mentions that the reintroduction of life to the galaxy took over a century, and as the Legendary ending is only 77 years after the array firing, Bornstellar and Chant would've still been in the galaxy. I really hope this story gets continued more in the first DLC

What a journey it's been so far, and I couldn't have walked it with a better community.

I literally just finished part two 5 minutes ago. I wondered when the next part will be out and to my surprise this came out. I am so excited.

Bornstellar is my favorite character in all of halo, so potentially getting to hear his Canon voice has me giddy as hell.

"no being will ever learn the truth about what we have done today." nomster: "yeah, about that..."

Stuff like this is why I love playing through Halo campaigns, there is always the possibility that there are things hidden in plain sight around you that carry significance or meaning. Thank you for these videos, I can't imagine all of the work that went into all of this.

I am very much blown away with how many of the text instances escaped either my memory or straight up my eyes, throughout all the games. Says how much was buried, how much was failed to be implemented in the far past.

The three being the iso didact, chant-to-green and the grand edict makes a lot of sense. The one has halo 4 style designs, like that of didact, the other is very plain akin to designs from the original trilogy which i have always interpreted as being linked to the lifeworkers and the other one is a little more ornate akin to the designs in halo 3 which seem more linked to the ecumene council/juridicals etc. Akin to the important chambers around zeta.

Wow this is fascinating. When you showed the text was even on Guardian after all the prior correlations, it blew my mind. Maybe in DLC we will get to see the Criterion in flashbacks or holograms. I also noticed this. At the end of the game, when Chief reappears on the other side of the portal in the desert, the rings he is standing around. There are 7 rings there. One is missing a small section, indicative of Zeta Halo, and one mostly broken except for one piece protruding from the ground, as if representing Alpha Halo being destroyed. It seems like that area is very specific to something, and why would the portal dump them out there in particular? I'm sure everyone has seen it, but I don't get to talk about Halo much so I enjoy these spaces!

This is some next level stuff... I really do hope this mystery is continued through DLC

one thing I find very curious is why there are Human cylix's around the Silent Auditorium, they have to be the ancient humans before the devolution

I loved this series! Just a quick note, those are a type of sentinels called guardians, not actual Guardians like the ones in H5

This is my new obsession, Love this deep dive content. Great work on the video!

The dedication you and your discord chat have done for this is commendable, it truly is the fans that make the game so loveable to me

This is one of my favourite aspects of Halo. It isn’t just a legendary FPS, it also offers a variety of decade old mysteries which are intricately designed.

God I love the halo franchise and THE community ... I would have never imagined this Easter egg becoming more important ... I too have noticed the text in Sandtrap and was curious but you sir are a genius. I’m going to replay old multiplayer maps to see if I see other artifacts can be seen, very cool

"buried with these rings" So they're clearly referring to the rings from all over zeta Halo. Cortana 2.0 talks about how they are a confession of sorts and a warning.

my god, i have goosebumps again.... man I thought I lost my fav game but they finally made a great game...

Iso-Didact and the Chant-to-Green are definitely the best options. I would guess the final male voice is the representative of the Builders at the time.

It makes so much sense though. The mantle was the forerunners entire driving motivation basically. Like the 10 commandments. It's so intimate with forerunner lore that it makes sense to be featured yet again. Also it goes with infinites theme of shame... The mantle of responsibility was meant to be protective, uplifting of species... But the forerunners used the mantel to imprison as well. Its like using nuclear weapons to prevent a war, but living with the everlasting shame of having used nukes. Side note, who else wants the endless to actually be the precursors who turn into the flood? I think it would wrap precursor lore up really nicely into the main campaign

I think you dismissed that "De: 10" translation too quickly. We know that Forerunner translation schemes take the recipient's cultural knowledge into account when translating. As explained with the "Maginot Line" analogy. Forerunner tech also may have, if not actual mind reading (potentially based off of Precursor "neural physics" tech), some form of neural imaging feedback system to determine a translation schema far faster and with fewer samples than otherwise (see: "Ghosts of Onyx".) It wouldn't surprise me if the tablets were designed to translate themselves for the reader and, due to age, incomplete access to the Domain, etc, the translation fails or doesn't process fully. This would explain why the text has varying degrees of similarity to English in addition to the De reference. That said, the De citation notes a SECOND tablet...

Small thing probably, but sandtrap is clearly some kind of monument/entombment structure. The Cylix are analogous, as you could view them as a form of entombing a person or species. Sandtrap is in a desert, and the biome Chief is teleported to seems to be a desert as well. Sandtrap is a Brute dig site, but those brutes could easily be Banished brutes. And on, and on, and on. At this point it's like 343 read this part of the iceberg, and was like "hold my fuckin beer".

when this mystery first started, all i wanted to do was take some paper and pencil to do that transfer with a pencil when you put the pencil lead sideways to shade in and see the pattern underneath. the symbols on the text always looked like indentations from something that someone wrote and ripped the page out of leaving what we see today. as you post more the mystery seems to focus down more and more and i am so excited to see what happens next!

You are blowing my mind here. This is more exciting than anything on netflix for me.

I literally found your channel 5 minutes ago and now not only do I discover this secret but you have multiple videos on it.... win

I wonder if Installation 00 is gonna dig this deep given his mastery level of lore. 😅😆

Oh god this is so much for me. Maybe not understanding all of the Halo lore makes this a bit more difficult but when it comes to chant-to-green and pyre, I just get lost into the whole meaning and understanding of this ancient text series. Maybe I’ll have to do more research and come back to these videos. Even if I don’t fully understand them, they were so well done and thought out. Bravo!

9:04 That was delivered so good.

Was there ever a cryptographer mentioned in the credits of halo 3 ? perhaps if we can identify the person that made these texts we might find similar works and perhaps more info that way?

Although it makes sense who you tied to the ancient whispers, when I first heard them my mind immediately went to the halo 4 terminal where the the Didact (halo 4), the librarian, and the master builder were having a counsel on whether or not to attack the humans for destroying one of their worlds. The female voice definitely sounds different from the librarians listening to it again but I would argue the voice acting for the line "there is" sounds eerily similar to the Didact from halo 4. And I would say isn't the same voice as the one from the legendary ending since he is almost certainly voiced by Darin De Paul (voice of Escharum, but he also voices Valkorion in Star Wars the Old Republic).

Imagine if they made campaign DLC where Chief ends up going to the ruins of Sandtrap and it ends up being where the Endless were kept

This is fantastic. I just watched James web deployment video. I’m fully onboard as a halo nerd on this archeological discovery. Even if it’s just fantasy- it’s just simply fun to fantasize and imagine. A brilliant series

your commitment to this is astonishing this has been a great journey thank you for these vids!

"No being will ever learn the truth of what we have done today." Red Nomster: Challenge accepted Also if this ancient writing is about preserving life it is ironic it shows up on sandtrap. However, it makes a lot of sense that if the text is so important to the forerunners then it could likely indeed be the mantle of responsibility as you talked about. Really cool ideas! Edit: Dang I took a look at my comment at the perfect time. I got the nice number lol, also thanks for reading my comment, normally they just get sucked into the void.

Yes more halo mysteries to feed my addiction XD

Love it. That said, I doubt it is the Mantle itself. Bornstellar makes a remark about contemplating the tenants of the mantle at some point.

Grand Edict Voice Actor is sooo good. Gives me goosebumps 😳

just got done watching all three parts and i don’t know HOW i didn’t see this sooner. this is some next level thinking and digging that would take me centuries to even come up with. mad props to ya, this is insane work :)

Wow, thank you! I'm binging your Mysteries series right now! Keep it up 💫

I think you already nailed it. The text is the mantle of responsibility itself. It's their Ten Commandments.

I was just playing this part earlier today and was walking around before I started the battle (playing legendary and it's been rough). I was confused when I heard the voices because it wasn't the normal voices. This is pretty cool finding out all this lore! Good luck and hopefully it will pay off!!

You got a subscription from me. Excellently laid out and presented, in addition to an incredibly calming voice and the atmospheric music. Thanks for making these!

You're basically Daniel Jackson from SG-1. I fucking love it.

Has anyone researching this project thought to check out Halo 3's Sandbox? The whole map, as well as the forge spawned assets, are plastered with what I believe to be this ancient text. Perhaps Bungie even left clues in the item names? To add fuel to that fire, the guardian towers in that level would even directly laser you if you tried to escape containment (leave the playspace). Being that its map setting is nearly identical to Sandtrap, this would be the place to look for clues prior to 343 claiming the mantle. Edit: I went to go check out Sandbox for myself on the MCC, and discovered that the line of text found at 1:15 is singled out on an asset called, "Fin" in a nearly identical way, however the text is mirrored and upside-down when comparing it to Halo Infinite.

Wow, what a turn around on how you managed to literally put gas on the petal and commit to figuring this out (for now …) . Great stuff man, i will be around to see more content like this from you! Keep it up.

I just wanted to say that I am rooting for you. I have been following you since your first video you made about this. You have completely trapped me into wanting to know the truth! These videos are what make me love Halo. You finding this mystery absolutely shocked me for joy. I could only imagine your reaction when you were piecing this together

Sandtrap... Hmm... Sand is often associated with time (I.e. the sands of time, hourglasses), and trapped referencing the endless' imprisonment. Just a random thought! I love these videos, thanks for sharing and exploring this mystery!

This is incredible. It keeps getting more real. I love it.

I'm about to play some Halo Infinite Campaign in a few minutes... *AGAIN!*

I love the cut to black edits that force you to listen. Keep up the great work dude!

Subscribed, absolutely stellar job my friend. It feels so good to be a Halo fan right now.

I spent hours of my latter teen years staring at the text walls in Epitaph just wondering what it all meant and your videos have harpooned me back to those times. phenomenal work!

So something that I'm hoping sparks an idea for somebody more well versed in Halo lore than I am (I've been playing religiously since H2, but only started seriously digging into the lore since Infinite), but I noticed that in the audio logs of Infinite the date changes when Cortana does whatever she does that breaks the ring apart. I'm fairly certain that the Silent Auditorium messes with time. Possibly where the forerunners were trying to figure out how to go back in time to before the Precursors were forced to dust themselves in order to prevent the Flood. Considering this and 117 being forced forwards 3 days at the end, I think when Cortana did her thing she threw Atriox back in time to a point where the Endless could be freed and sent him instructions or the key to free them. As for the Courtroom, Prison, and place of Execution comment, I think the Silent Auditorium is literally where they are holding the Endless outside the bounds of time. They judged the endless there, held them there, and intended for them to die there at the end of existence. They shove a lot of "forever" and "eternal" in a game called Infinite, so I don't think I'm too far off here, at least.

Ok, now I REALLY want more of the Infinite campaign!

Sorry but something in the dialog when you playing the CONSERVITORY mission and it got me thinking not sure if other picked up on this but the dialog spoken with all Seven Artifacts all over Zada Halo seem to me that fit with this study of yours. Its just my thoughts or just Gibberish. This mystery stuff is soo illuminating great work!! KEEP IT UP!!

I always thought that text was the written interpretation of the mantle of responsibility, because of it’s appearance on the lesser ark. It’s nice to know my theory was correct after watching this series. Great work putting this all together!

Do you believe that there is currently a cipher that exists for this language? A Rosetta Stone if you will. Or do you think it’s more random symbols that still do not have a language we know correlated to them.

omg dude I love how there is more content on this mystery from yourself! These videos are great and the mystery wonderful!

just discovered your channel and I'm hooked. 💙💙

You know it gud when da bible show up

I think they are actual epitaphs.... They appear only in places where things are/were buried away.

Bravo! As someone who has played halo since the first game dropped I think what you are doing is fantastic. And clearly on the right path.

Wow. The end of this was crazy. I cannot wait to see where this goes.

I wonder if bungie actually had a specific intent for this text, since they atleast had some of halo 4’s idea planed out (halo 3’s legendary ending) maybe the mantle was actually a thing all the way back in 3 before it’s mention in 4

Red, I cannot thank you enough for all your hard work. Very entertaining and thought provoking stuff!

Knowing that halo 3 is shutting down its servers it’s the end of a long mystery that bears fruit

I wonder if the relation to the cylex's, which are used as prisons for the endless, and mentioned in the dialogue, that the OG text from Halo 3 is reference Mendicants imprisonment on the Ark.

My mouth was just gaping in the last three minutes of this video. Great work!

Ignoring the text for a moment, I think the identities of the criterion are a great find by themselves. Judgement, execution, imprisonment, Grand Edict, IsoDidact, Chant to Green

I can't believe that all the clues are placed intentionally, its just too crazy

Seems like the endless were immune to the rings. That’s why they found them after the firing. The reason why they were sealed is because they would have taken over the Galaxy. They came to the forerunners for help after the firing.

this series earned you a subscriber good sir!

It makes me so happy to see halo return to the mystery and lore sparked by the original games. I enjoyed the heck out of infinite and I hope that it continues.

every time i see these glyph i can't help but feel i have seen them or something similar, the epitaph glyph scrolling remind me of the code seen in the matrix films looking at the release dates for the last matrix films produced before halo three was four years prior to halo three release, i may be just reading too much into it but thought i put it in just encase good luck with this honestly

I wonder if the Ark will be revisited, perhaps uncover the secrets underneath Sandtrap.

Well this is a channel discovery that has set 2022 off to a solid start. Halo 1 came out when I was in first grade. Everything about it is fascinating. This is the deep digging commentary that warms my soul.

I love the biblical references whether it's in movies or games, but for it to be in Halo just makes it that much cooler.

These are the kinds of videos that make me realize just how dumb I actually am. I think you're on to something and those symbols aren't just decoration. Cool video series.

Great videos. I struggled to keep up with all that (I've no idea who these forerunner characters are) but the De:10 thing blew my mind. That has to be intentional I love this shit. At the end of the day it's all pointless. But it's so interesting at the same time

I'm way to excited to watch these lol love it

The rabbit hole only goes so deep before it connects to other warrens.

Current theory: it wouldn't be surprising if there are other prisons for the endless beyond zeta halo, and given the desert biome at the end of halo infinite campaign, we will see sand trap type structures. So halo 3 sand trap was a prison for the endless, protected by guardians and covered up (and literally allowed to be covered by the sands of the desert) by the forerunners to save face and maintain the mantle.

If I remember right some of the Halo 2 and 3 soundtrack featuring the Gravemind speaking used reversed recordings of various excerpts from books, or at least one specific book(looked it up, some from Halo 3 used parts of T.S. Elliot's poem "The Hollow Men") meaning it's possible the Forerunner text could be another excerpt.

Happy to note I may haven't helped with this Solving of the Great Easter Egg but I was in fact happily the 1000th Like on this Epicness of a Video I am now checking on out. *Where do we start digging first?* Great Videos and Good Job making what you've made so Far on Halo Infinity

What a ride. Respect to you for the amount of research commitment, and passion you must have to put all this together. Also, respect to 343 for building on this easter egg so many years removed. I Can't wait to see what the future holds.

3:21 Yeaaaah....about that

You have 110 percent convinced me that the text is not just a copy pasted pattern used to make shit look kool

I would like to think that this is a written form of the mantle of responsibility. Like a creed literally set in stone about preserving life which is why it is always paired with stored genetic code of all living species.

Excellent work.

These videos are great and addictive.

According to the Halo wiki (and I think the Halo Encyclopedia) that "Guardian" hologram in Halo Infinite is Offensive Bias which makes more sense since he was deployed to assist Despondent Pyre

Another point in favor of the Precursor and Endless connection is that much like how the Forerunners originally wiped out the Precursors and covered up their dark secret, The Criterion more or less did the same with the Endless.

it may just be that the flood is the endless. it kinda makes sense from the ancient whispers and the theme of infinite. maybe it was an experiment into immortality gone wrong? maybe to cure disease? or perhaps as a population control. it may be worthwhile to try and translate those smaller strings of texts. maybe you could find a new symbol or symbol order.

The video we have been waiting for. Now... We watch.

Remember that E3 trailer a few years ago with Poncho Chief finding a Guardian in the desert? That wasn't a Halo 5 trailer, 343 said it was a concept of what was to come in the future. Though the story has been rewritten a fair bit since then, what if that was originally meant to be Halo 6, chief on the run in a galaxy controlled by Cortana & The Created, and it was Cortana's plan to release the Endless, not the Banished, which Chief is trying to stop? Is the Guardian that chief sees is actually protecting the Endless tomb, which maybe back then was planned to be on the Ark?

Space Indiana Jones. You're the hero we needed, and deserved. I. Love. This.