203 – Manipulation
↓ Transcript
Image of a starfield.

TRAN

Here's the way things went down...

TRAN

in the 20th century, human scientists postulated that the universe is expanding.

Planet with a barely visible ring around it.

TRAN

they were surprised to find that, not only is it expanding, but that galaxies are actually accelerating away from each other.

TRAN

this discovery changed the way we look at our universe.

A planet and its distant star.

TRAN

numerous experiments and calculations led scientists to the conclusion that matter we can observe and measure makes up only about four percent of the universe's total mass.

TRAN

The rest we arbitrarily lumped under the headings of dark matter and dark energy.

A star with a halo of light around it.

TRAN

Even now, 500 years later, we have very little notion of what sort of particles might reside in dark matter.

TRAN

the best we've been able to do is infer its existence based on its gravitational effects.

Another planet with its star.

TRAN

And here we've met several artifacts of a long-lost race who not only understand dark matter...

TRAN

...but are able to manipulate it in its various forms to very specific ends.

The Reclaimer facing down Intuitive Portent across the top of the Narrows.

TRAN

How the Commander was able to intuit his plan with little more than that to go on, I may never know.

TRAN

Personally, I think he just got lucky.



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Discussion (29) ¬

  1. @adamwithabeard

    I love these images. Were these pulled from Halo 3 or from other sources?

  2. Jim Stitzel

    I pulled the first five panels from the community screenshots on Bungie.net. There's some amazing in-game artwork, to say the least.

    • @adamwithabeard

      I love the third panel. Could you drop me the link for the image?

      Loving the Twitter bubble too!

  3. Jim Stitzel

    Yup, it's this one: http://www.bungie.net/Online/Halo3UserContentDeta…;

    Yeah, I'm kind of liking the Twitter bubble, too. I think it fits well into the site as a whole.

    • corvairluver

      I like the Twitter bubble as well, but I do miss the calendar to choose the episode we want. Just a thought. Keep up the great work on the comic!

  4. RobRocker7

    Nice job on today's comic! Beautiful shots… sometimes Bungie amazes me on what they have done with this engine.

    • Jim Stitzel

      Definitely a lot of time and resources put into creating it. Well worth the wait between it and Halo 2.

      • SnowXing

        The engine of Halo 1 was more stable than Halo 2. If the third comes out on the PC and I get to play with it I'm willing to bet the curve would continue.

        Not to say it's bad, in fact it's still superior to Halo CE but I think people should take the Source or Unreal approach to designing games. If you reuse a game engine with a few small modifications production time goes down a little bit.

        • Sangheilioz

          Perhaps it cuts production time, but it also constrains the gamemakers. I mean, if they used the same engine with modifications for Halo 2 and 3, then there wouldn't be a whole lot of improvement would there?

  5. Lupus_Cruor

    I loved the first 5 panels Jim, and the dialogue was pretty interesting too, keep up the good work!

    • Jim Stitzel

      I love astronomy, and dark matter/dark energy is fascinating to me exactly because it makes up so much of the universe and we know practically nothing about it. I also find it equally fascinating that there are good odds that the Precursors and maybe the Forerunners would have been well advanced enough to know what makes it up and even be able to possibly use elements of it.

  6. Visitor at home

    All the artwork does look good. Once again Jim, your eye has done a wonderful job in picking out some brilliant pieces.

  7. Captain_EVA

    That was Tran speaking right? I assume so because of the fact that 'she' said "the commander". ANYWAY, great use of Bungie.net yet again, some people really do know how to get shots that are great, and you are a natural at picking out the best of them.

    • Jim Stitzel

      Yup, if you're ever in doubt, just check the transcript. ;)

  8. HSAR

    Ah, dark matter. Of course, much used in the fan fiction part of the RCverse already.

  9. Robert C Johnson

    Hey guys, looks like I can now use my facebook account for my Intense Debate login… This is RobRocker7

    • Jim Stitzel

      Yup, that's been active as a feature for a week or two now. :)

  10. Jim Stitzel

    The Halo community provides some great shots—which I'm more than happy to make use of. :)

  11. Andrew

    So i dont post much but i saw your 202nd comic a couple days ago and had to go back and read all of them. This is probably the most interesting comic i have read! Very impressive, great story, love the art. Keep it up Jim really looking forward to see where you take this

    • Jim Stitzel

      Thanks for dropping in, Andrew! Glad you're enjoying the comic, and hang onto your hat! It's gonna be a wild ride!

      • Durin

        Great, more plot twists :P

        • Ho Ho Po

          It can Only Get better….

  12. Ilyich

    Very nice job on todays comic. Just enough information to explain it to those who don't know, not enough to be over-doing it. Guess that answers my questions from Friday's comic too, hm? ;)
    I kinda lol'd when I first saw the Twitter thing. Unexpected.

    Also, I know you said you weren't sure what you were going to do with the latter 3 of the Mythic maps, but do you have any plans to use, say the ODST campaign/firefight for anything?

    • SnowXing

      I hope the ODST's are used as secondary characters. It would be hard in firefight with covies after you but it's possible.

    • Captain_EVA

      Firefight seems very promising actually, seeing as we can then add Johnson and some ODST's into the storyline. I'm DEFINITELY going to use it. :)

    • Jim Stitzel

      I'm going to have to play with ODST and Firefight a bit before I decide whether or not I can use it for this series. :)

    • bjb yo

      Yeah Jim, I was thinking that you could use the ODST as a survivor from archimedes.
      Oh, and when are you going to put it back into the storyline? It's been driving me crazy ever since a comic noted that The Flood, The Covenant, and Humanity were all using the same language!

  13. bjb yo

    Dark matter… you could do just about anything with that!
    I can't wait to see how you use Dark Matter in RC's struggle with Portent.

  14. scorpionridge

    Wow. I do have to say I am now officially hooked on this comic. LOL, I just finished reading it from beginning to now, it took me a couple of days but I loved every minute of it.