I respect your opinions Hammer, but the beginning of the Gallery section of the HGN never explicitly stated the works weren't cannon, it just says that each one is "a new vision of what their vision of Halo is". Granted, Mister Chief is not cannon, but nothing said that all the works were or were not. As for evidence, the discussion between ONI spooks seems to be referring to attempts by "charlie hotel 4695" on the Gettysburg and "juilett alpha 20101"(whose described as an ass, not unlike a certain Colonel responsible for a heck of a lot of black ops.) to find out more about Johnson's past. In FS, we learn Dr. Catherine Halsey did some probing on the frigate the Gettysburg to learn what made Johnson immune from the Flood. The discussion also talks about Johnson as a "one" and his closeness with a "two". Also, the second blurb is from an ONI security AI as it intercepts a data request from a user called HALSEYSRB469S to the UNSC's marine medical database about a medical file tagged with Johnson's serial number. The security AI then switches out the requested file for another one. The time stamps on both the data intersection and the spooks' discussion is 9/12/2552, the same day Dr. Halsey talks to John about Johnson. Personally, I find it hard to dismiss this "artists rendition" , just because Mister Chief is in the same section. I'm not saying this theory is definite fact, but it does seem to be a little much for just a coincidence. [Edited on 08.02.2007 1:30 AM PDT]