i know im a little late getting to this, and plus i skipped from page 7 to this page, but i have some info on the ark, (stop me if what i say has already been said) but if you watch the bonus dvd of Halo 2, in one of the ctuscenes almost off o;f the screen is a starmap of the loctaion of all of the Halo's, and it is in the shape of the constellation Orion, but the middle star on Orion's belt is missing. which hints to me that the middle star is the ark, being that it would be in the center of all the Halo's for remote activation. THEREFORE, the Earth is not the ark, neither is the ship that MC is on at the end of Halo 2. BUT Earth does have important signifigance because (im guessing) that that is where the covenant have ot go to see Orion and go to the middle star which (guessing again) would be the ark. So, now i call the earth the Pathfinder (a name of my own creation) where one would need to go to find the location of the Ark.