So I noticed this a while ago and never published it.
I think the Tempest multiplayer map may allude to Shakespeare's
The Tempest.
Points of interest:
The map is part of Bungie's final Halo DLC - Microsoft hired Certain Affinity to do the Defiant pack - and is frequently mentioned last of the three Noble maps (as in
the Noble trailer).
The Tempest is commonly regarded as Shakespeare's final solo play.
The Tempest is believed to have been written in 1610 or 1611. The Noble map pack was released in November of 2010, exactly four hundred years later. Not that this means anything but it's cool....
The Tempest takes place on an island, where Prospero and his daughter Miranda (yes, Miranda) have been shipwrecked. The Tempest map landmass is
nearly, if not completely, surrounded by water. It is also the site of a downed Longsword.
Prospero instructs his servant-spirit
Ariel to create the storm, or tempest, of the play's title in order to shipwreck Prospero's usurping brother Antonio on the island. According to
the Halopedia, "[t]he Forerunner structures on the map are weather control systems." I need to confirm this independently.
Possible points of investigation:
The above-mentioned weather control systems.
The radio chatter on the radio by the Longsword.
The Longsword's various number/letter combos:
UNSC 7-89
AF 9l 002
37TFW
The words beneath the Longsword emblem/insignia. (I'm assuming the winged sword is particular to the Longsword.) I'm thinking AD (Air Defense?) Combat Command, which seems irrelevant to the tempest connection, but...
There also appears to be an animal print on the longsword.
My sad file share footage of the above is
here.
Also, does the story of
The Tempest relate in other ways that might help in deciphering larger
Reach mysteries? I imagine it's just a cool map name for the final map, but are there further clues in the parallels? Prospero is a godlike figure, so intelligent he can work "magic." His daughter is Miranda. He is served by a spirit, Ariel, who is humanlike in personality and is often the true, if unseen, catalyst of events. We know from the datapads the AI's are controlling/influencing events and may have drawn the Covenant to Reach intentionally similar to the way that Ariel manipulates the weather to bring Prospero's enemies to the island. We also know that Cortana manipulates events by plotting the course that will take the Pillar of Autumn/UNSC - and the Covenant as well - to the first Halo ring. (
Fall of Reach, p. 336)
Bizarro update upon further research:
Shakespeare is widely believed to have gotten the idea for
The Tempest from the real-life shipwreck of the
Sea Venture, the flagship of the Virginia Company, which encountered a storm on July 24, 1609, on its way from Plymouth to Jamestown. This date leapt out at me because gameplay in
Reach begins on July 24, 2552. Quoting the wikipedia article (italics mine):
The Admiral of the Company, Sir George Somers himself, was at the helm through the storm. When he spied land on the morning of July 25, the water in the hold had risen to nine feet, and crew and passengers had been driven past the point of exhaustion. Somers deliberately drove the ship onto the reefs of what proved to be Bermuda in order to prevent its foundering. This allowed all 150 people aboard, and one dog, to be landed safely ashore.
