They were used as a precurser to Halo, to build interest kind of like an viral/ARG. They were relevent to halo only, however it is believed that they (Bungie) have gone back over the letters and brought them back in to focus(realignment) with the original halo story that was mapped out and in particular now; Halo 3. Whilst there are not any definitve links to the halo 3 story and it must be stressed again "THEY WERE FOR THE ORIGINAL HALO", information can be gleaned from them to see the progression to where we are now in the story arc. The biggest thing of all in my opinion; after studying them on more than one occasion is the reference to rampancy with cortana , this was a major hint in the end of Halo 2 and the theatrical trailer for Halo 3. The poetry used in the theatrical tralier (h3) also ties back to the Cortana Letters but with variation. Not with a "bang but with a whimper". Its a nice topic and one i dont think will go away until halo 3 ships. Then we can look back at the letters and see what was relevent to the story arc. I must add they have no relation what so ever to ILB ARG. ILB was independant. Regards Camperman

I believe the Eliot she speaks of is Nobel Prize winning poet T.S. Eliot who wrote the "The Hollow Men." The final stanza reads: This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. If he was wrong then well... Master Chief is screwed. :(

Hmm, that does give this a strange feeling, the only explanation i can come up with is that Halo's storyline is based off the Cortana letters? right?

the cortana letters, in relality,. were written back when Halo was originally to be a Real-Time Strategy only for the Macintosh. The Master Chief hadn't even been concocted yet. However, it is creepy to note how similar the events taking place now are to the Cortana Letters.

ya i just heard about them awhile ago and i have read them and tried to understand them for awhile now but it just seems like a bunch of halo giberish to me haha all that i can put together is that she is still inside the covie mainframe on installation 05 and her and grave mind have been chatting for awhile and either he corrupted her or he opened a door where she might see things differently

The letters served as a sort of bridge between the Marathon community and the future Halo community. They were released before Halo:CE was ever finished, and in some ways were sort to H1 what "iluvbees" was to H2. They can be interesting reading if you are a dedicated fan of all things Halo, but don't expect them to explain anything or to ever be fully explained.

Well, I've only done a little bit of reading up on the cortana letters (this was a while back) and you can definitely see in the first one some refrences to events happening in the Halo universe [quote][b]Cortana Letter Number 1[/b] From: "Cortana" To: Subject: Closure Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 10:50:20 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 I have walked the edge of the Abyss. I have governed the unwilling. I have witnessed countless empires break before me. I have seen the most courageous soldiers fall away in fear. [I was there with the Angel at the tomb] I have seen your future. And I have learned. There will be no more Sadness. No more Anger. No more Envy. I HAVE WON. Oh, and your poet Eliot had it all wrong: THIS is the way the world ends. a friend of a friend [/quote] It appears to be Cortana writing it, but is without her normal nature, therefore we could possibly conclude that this is Gravemind speaking through Cortana or something along those lines. I say we get a discussion going.