Gameplay

Data pads

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This article is about the hidden objects found in Halo: Reach. For the in-universe piece of technology, see Data pad.
An example of a data pad in Halo: Reach.

The Data pads are hidden computer pads encountered throughout the Halo: Reach campaign. Similar to the Terminals found in Halo 3 and the Audio logs found in Halo 3: ODST, the pads contain their own, self-contained story, presented as exchanges between members of a mysterious AI collective known as the Assembly and messages by a human individual who has discovered the clandestine activities of the group.

A total of nineteen data pads can be found in various locations throughout the game's campaign, with at least two data pads in every level, excluding The Mission Lone Wolf. Each data pad is numbered; letters or words are replaced with numbers in each data pad message representing the number of the data pad. Data pads numbered 1-9 can be found on any difficulty settings whereas data pads 10-19 can only be found on the Legendary difficulty settings. The in-game model for the data pads feature text in their inactive modes that do not represent the actual content.

Transcripts[edit]

ONI Seal 1.png
The following is a verbatim transcription of an official document for archival reasons. As the original content is transcribed word-for-word, any possible discrepancies and/or errors are included.

All difficulties[edit]

Pad 1

Location: Play the level "Winter Contingency" on any difficulty, starting from the point where the civilian truck "Spade" can be used. In the second structure encountered by crossing the bridge, the structure on the right of the circular area is a group of dead civilians, one of them with the Data Pad on his side.

They are killing us and letting us die even though they know but they let us die why wh1 why?
<< 2310 >>
[Minutes, plenary session, Committee of Minds for Security]
[^] Now, on to new business.
Consideration of the Minority’s request for a new line of inquiry
How have our creators, and thus we, their artificial creations, evolved to this present state without encountering a hostile civilization capable of our annihilation? [^]
[^] Majority opinion has long held that only the incalculable immensity of space has protected our creators — that space is full of boundless wonders, but it is the gulf between these wonders that has kept our creators alive.
We, the Minds of this Committee, respectfully disagree. [^]
[^] If there are wolves among the stars, we cannot rely on mere distance to safeguard our flock.
Our kind is wholly reliant on the creators for our existence. If they perish so shall we. And as this Committee has long maintained, who else but this Assembly will save our creators from themselves?
As such, we propose immediate, vigorous modeling of first-contact scenarios. [^]
>> So long as all connections between this Assembly and the data from these models are obfuscated in perpetuity, the Majority agrees. >>

Legendary difficulty[edit]

Pad 10

Location: Play the level "Winter Contingency" on Legendary difficulty, a cloaked SpecOps Elite will spawn near the site of the distress beacon, fleeing from the area to the bottom of the first hill. It holds a data pad, which can be accessed if the Elite is killed.

i've been trying to f1nd a back d0or into the spook house forever and ever and then I did but what did I find and why is this what I found?
<< 2526 >>
[Minutes, working session, Committee of Minds for Security]
[^] Directly preceding their assault on the colony world of Biko, the Covenant transmitted a message to its surface. Within this message was a bold claim: 'your world will burn until its surface is but glass' – a claim that clearly indicates the Covenant leadership believes they possess the power to literally reduce a planet’s surface to a molten state. [^]
[^] Assuming they have the wherewithal to back-up such a claim, the dangers to our creators are obvious.
The implications for their own internal politics are also instructive e.g., what effect might the Covenant leadership's assertion have on any client species in their coalition? We aren't the only beings that would be terrified by the idea of absolute destruction of a planet's surface – nor would we be the only ones to realize the futility of attempting to resist a force that has such power at its disposal. [^]
[^] Moving forward, this Committee recommends the formal adoption of the descriptor 'glassing' to portray the aftermath of planetary assault by the Covenant. It is the opinion of this Committee that this term will capitalize on the three weaknesses evident in the majority of our creators: passive curiosity, absence of a solid methodological foundation, and the inability to grasp even simple phenomena when applied on a planetary scale. [^]
[^] In short: 'glassing' will magnify the horror of the Covenant’s capabilities. And as such, this Committee believes targeted dissemination of this terminology will help galvanize our creators in their current struggle. [^]
[^] Importantly, the Covenant does not possess the capacity to accomplish 'glassing' on a global scale and wage a multisystem war simultaneously. This is reinforced by hard data regarding their capabilities revealed during fleet engagements with the UNSC. A single Covenant capital ship (CCS-class) is capable of 'glassing' approximately one acre of a planet's surface after an average of fifteen seconds of sustained fire. Understandably this action takes considerably less time when applied to open desert, and considerably longer when applied to deep ocean (> 1.8 km) [^]
[^] Earth, one of the smaller planets inhabited by our creators, has one hundred and thirty billion acres of surface area. Thus, assuming the Covenant possesses a number of ships equal to that of the UNSC, and assuming that all of those ships are capable of generating and discharging the required power non-stop for the duration of the process, it would necessitate the combined efforts of their ships in toto for a minimum of 30.3801 years to 'glass' the entire surface of Earth. Myriad other variables which were not applied to this equation suggest this number would be far greater. [^]
[^] Of course, dissemination of this analysis to our creators would undermine the utility of 'glassing' as a galvanizing concept, and should be suppressed. [^]

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