"The screen's showing that weird symbol again! What do I-"
Raising an eyebrow, Nichols nonetheless did that. And as his battle brother said, the symbol that had appeared on it disappeared, replaced by a slightly less meaningless symbol of a bird with the letters "UNSC" below it.
Unasche? Unsche? How do you pronounce that?
Well, pronunciation didn't matter. All that mattered was taking everything this ancient ship had to offer back to the Last City before the aliens that roamed Earth took the New Monarchy knights apart instead. And in the case of Dablova and Nichols, this included trawling through the data from the ship's terminals.
"Oh, for the Traveller's sake!"
There was the symbol again. A circle with a smaller circle within it. Nichols watched as Dablova walked over, looking at his superior with a mix of desire for help, and embarrassment that he couldn't solve the problem himself.
"I'm telling you, these terminals are fragged."
"I'm sure," the elder knight murmured, walking forward and prompting Nichols to walk out of the way.
"No, really, I mean, they're fragged. Every time I access them I get this symbol popping up. Or some text involving mendicant librarians and a biased didact. Or I get the…un...un…
"Yeah, the Unsky logo popping up," Nichols murmured, wondering how one got that pronunciation from the letters. "They're always popping up."
"Well, the past doesn't stay silent," Dablova said, continuing to type on the terminal's keys. "But it doesn't matter. I've disabled the pop-ups."
"You can thank me by getting the rest of the data."
And with that, Dablova went back to his own terminal. Silently, Nichols turned back to his.
Once, this had been a warship (well, part of a warship) on display. A monument to history. The history of a war fought two centuries ago against another group of alien species. A period where Man had been at his apex, only to crash and burn soon afterwards. The city, like every other city on Earth, was in ruins. He didn't even know what the city was called, only that it was located on the east coast of what was still called Africa. This ship, facing east towards the dawn, had somehow survived. So it fell to the knights of the New Monarchy to pick it clean for anything useful. To defend themselves from the aliens, the other factions, and to show the Traveller that they were the true custodians of Earth. Which, given the specs that were flashing across the screen, seemed to be more and more likely.
"Wow," Nichols breathed.
"These specs," the knight said, gesturing over to his counterpart, pointing to the armour displayed on the screen. "I mean…look at this. If we can replicate it…"
The armour disappeared. The circle appeared again.
"Oh come on!"
Nichols turned to Dablova in embarrassment. Dablova didn't look back at him though. Instead, his eyes were fixed firmly on the screen.
The knight kept staring.
Kept staring until his gauntleted hand smashed through the terminal.
Nichols just stared at the knight before him. The knight of his attention kept staring at the shattered screen. Eventually he reached down and extracted the data chip from the terminal's socket.
"We're done," he said, handing it to Nichols before turning to exit the room. "Let's go."
"Are we?" the younger knight asked.
Dablova stopped walking.
"The Unsky symbol. You didn't react like that when you saw that one. What's so special about the circle?"
"There's nothing special about it."
Dablova turned around. "What did you say?"
"I said bullshit."
"You're treading on thin ground Nichols."
"Perhaps. But unless you want me to blab that you lost your cool and destroyed a valuable source of information, you'll spill it out."
Dablova's hand reached for his sword. Nichols's reached for his pistol. But eventually both hands were taken away from their respective weapons.
"That symbol," the elder knight said. "It means Reclaimer."
"A designation used by another species for us. Another species that belongs to the ancient myths. A symbol that some say appeared on Deimos Station before the Fall."
"Wasn't that going to be turned into a spaceship?"
"So the legends say. But that symbol…"
"What?" Nichols asked. "It's just a symbol."
Dablova sighed. He took a swig from his hip flask.
"Look around you," he said. "Around the world. Around the solar system. What do you see?"
"Ruins," Dablova spat. "Ruins, ruins, and more ruins. Ruins that some say, we're supposed to reclaim."
Nichols remained silent.
"Well, I've been there," the elder knight continued. "I've served the Last City and the Traveller all my life. I've seen what we're meant to reclaim. And I see what anyone with a lick of sense can also see – we can't reclaim it. All we can do is hold onto what little we have left."
"But it's just a symbol…"
"I've seen that symbol pop up more times than you know," Dablvoa murmured. "It pops up everywhere. And it mocks us every time."
He took another swig from his flask before returning it.
"So yeah, I don't like seeing it. But if you want to dwell to your past, go ahead and do it Nichols. Me? I'll just face reality."
"But not computer screens."
Nichols just stood there. Scowling, Dablova walked out.
Glancing back at the screen, Nichols wondered what the other symbols and words meant.
He also wondered if Dablova was right.
So yeah. It wasn't long for theories to spring up that Halo and Marathon were in the same universe, so I guess I can get a head start and toy around with the notion that Destiny is in one or both of the same universes. That, and the Reclaimer symbol appears on the Destiny beta page. And that for once, I can write something for Destiny that is actually based on what we know of the game and not completely wrong guesses about its content.
...what? Bungie showed us windmills as a concept image. What else did I have to go on? 0_0