Season 03: Echoes Within Intro Cinematic

Cutscene Transcript

{Introduction Cutscene}

The cutscene begins with Hieu Dinh lying down in a bed. Vital monitors beep around him as voices from the past begin to speak.

• Marine Medic: His neural link is corrupted, ma'am.
• Laurette Agryna: Eklund. What exactly did Spartan Dinh put inside his head?

The camera shows a brain monitor. The fingers on Dinh's right hand move.

• Eklund: A Banished AI. The first I've ever seen.

The camera shows the back of Dinh's helmet. The AI slot glows red. Dinh's head shakes.

• Iratus: (Furious roar)

The brain monitor beeps much more rapidly now. Dinh's entire body shakes, and his head violently shakes.

The scene changes to Dinh standing on a desert planet, armored, but without his helmet. A Forerunner structure stands before him. The camera moves towards Dinh's face.

• Dinh: Why? Why here?

The camera shows Dinh's face, with closed eyes.

• Iratus: Because you refuse to see.

Dinh opens his eyes. A UNSC-designed door appears in front of him.

• Dinh: There's nothing you can show me that I haven't seen a thousand times.

Dinh walks in front of the door.

• Iratus: Except the truth.

The door slides open, revealing a gray fog inside. Iratus appears behind Dinh, then hovers in front of him. Iratus: Go on. I dare you. Dinh walks through the door. He appears in front of the Forerunner structure, now at night. A flaming Razorback is in front of him.

Dinh: I told them. Go at night. Airborne. It would have been different. Dinh crouches down and picks up a VK78 Commando.

• Iratus: Would it?

Iratus shows Dinh what would have happened in that scenario. He shows Dinh a Pelican being shot down by plasma shots. Dinh becomes infuriated at Iratus.

• Dinh: Get Out! Get Out! (angry roar) Get! Out!
• Iratus: (Cruel chuckle) But there is so much more to see.

Suddenly, Drones emerge from the sand around Dinh and they pull him under the sand.

• Dinh: (Pained groan)
• Dinh falls through the interior of the Forerunner structure and lands on the ground. He rises to his feet.
• Iratus: I smell...(sniffs) fear. How disappointing.

The same door from the desert is in front of Dinh. Iratus once again appears beside Dinh.

• Dinh: You weren't here. And I'm not gonna let you go any further!
• Iratus: Ah! There's that Spartan spirit! Delicious!

The door slides open, revealing a blinding white light. Dinh is forcibly pulled into the door.

• Iratus: But, in the end, pointless.

Dinh is taken into a room with dead Drones littering the floor. Dead Spartan-IVs are scattered among the corpses.

• Dinh: You don't know anything.

Dinh walks to a pillar in the center of the room. A dead Spartan is against the pillar.

• Iratus: Because the truth is this: it always ends the exact same way.

Dinh removes the Spartan's helmet, revealing himself, but with shorter hair. His doppelganger opens his eyes.

• Doppelganger: Death for you. And triumph-

The doppelganger grabs Dinh.

Iratus, through Dinh: -for me!

Dinh rises in the bed, and the camera zooms into his helmet.

Cuts to black.