Talk:Sarcophagus

Sharpened Shield

The closest Forerunner reference to the "Sharpened Shield" was in terminal five. "relocate evacuated populations to facilities such as those described in the [Onyx project]"--Halo face 20:58, 28 October 2011 (EDT)

Name

Should this page be titled "The Sharpened Shield"? It was given that name first by the Forerunners, so wouldn't that title have precedence over ONI's? SPARTAN-347 23:18, 31 October 2011 (EDT)

See this.--Lt. Commander 光环的家伙1234 Talk (Contribs) (Edits) 23:27, 31 October 2011 (EDT)

Even with that, I'm not fully convinced about the name either. We usually tend to use the original names for things, such as "Sangheili" or "Unggoy" instead of "Elite" or "Grunt". ONI's name isn't even a rename per se, it's just an alternate name used by the humans who don't know the original name which, to me, seems more proper in this context. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 05:36, 1 November 2011 (EDT)

Even then, we don`t always use the original Forerunner names. For example we call it Earth and Mars, not "Erde-Tyrene" and "Edom".-- Rusty - 112 00:03, 8 November 2011 (EST)

True, it's not that clear-cut. However, I would still say that there is a difference between a planet and an artificial construct in that the name given by the builders is likely to be the most proper or neutral in the case of the latter, not to mention it would be consistent with us using the Forerunner names for the Halo installations. A planet is essentially eternal as far as the known history of the Halo universe is concerned, and they usually aren't built by anybody, so in their case it makes sense to use the newest or most well-known name. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 02:03, 8 November 2011 (EST)

Name v2

It seems we might have to reconsider the primary title of this article. Taking a look at the edit history of the page Sharpened Shield or its talk page, I noticed that the name "Sharpened Shield" was originally used here, on this site. This was quite a surprise, since I had assumed it was coined by the Encyclopedia writers. Instead, this is another one of those things that the Encyclopedia actually borrowed from here.

What makes it even more bizarre is how the page "Sharpened Shield" was eventually redirected to "Shield World", because people here realized it was never an official title. It appears to have been derived from a piece of Forerunner text which appears a couple of times in Ghosts of Onyx; "And bless the Reclaimers that may take refuge behind the sharpened edge of the Shield..." but the name "Sharpened Shield" never appeared in any official material before someone here on Halopedia decided to use it.

The question is, knowing the facts, should we consider this as a mistake or just let it be? I say we go back to the title "ONI Research Facility Trevelyan", and mention the Sharpened Shield issue in trivia, like we've done with some of the other mistakes in the Encyclopedia that are the result of using outdated content from Halopedia, such as the "United Rebel Front" or the "First" and "Second" battles of Earth. It's surprising how common these things are; just means one has to be way more careful when using anything from the Encyclopedia. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 01:36, 19 March 2012 (EDT)

Agreed. There's another issue on CHARLEMAGNE. One would need to question if the author(s) of the Halo Encyclopaedia simply copy+paste from fan websites and fan materials without giving any acknowledgment of their contribution to the franchise. Quite sad if that's the case.— subtank 13:09, 19 March 2012 (EDT)

I'm not sure about other sites, but it's very obvious that a lot of the content in the Encyclopedia was lifted from Halopedia. Something like this calls into question whether we should just ignore everything in that book (it would certainly simplify things), but there's some material here and there that seems to expand on the fiction without being blatantly copied from Halopedia or fan fiction (more so in the new edition; the new content seems to be of better quality than most of the old). But, like I said, it's sometimes too easy to confuse "original" official material and things that actually originated from here, such as the Sharpened Shield issue. I actually used to believe "the Sharpened Shield" was a legit, official name given by 343i, but a look at the edit history proved me wrong.

As with the previous Encyclopedia canon issues, one could always argue the names become official when they're presented in an official source, but for the sake of fictional cohesion, I believe it's still best to simply ignore material that can be blamed on the writers' laziness in looking up sources other than a fan-made online wiki. Besides, 343i employees have officially acknowledged the faultiness of that book, which is a statement on its reliability in itself. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 14:55, 19 March 2012 (EDT)

Once again, just giving my support to rename the page. On a related note to the discussion, it just so happens that some of the wiki's write-ups (before the migration; not sure for present) ended up on Halo Waypoint's Halo Universe articles.— subtank 08:56, 11 April 2012 (EDT)

There's some of our old content in the Essential Visual Guide as well, like the name "New Mombasa Orbital Elevator" (never used in official sources before) and the rank Kig-yar Zealot (which proved to be a misinterpretation as opposed to a real rank). Not sure if there's more, but at least it's nothing as extensive as in the Encyclopedia. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 09:17, 11 April 2012 (EDT)

Regardless of where it originated, doesn't the name's place in the Encycopedia make it canon? So the fans came up with it first, what's the big deal? Why does an official source adopting something fan-made make it any less canon? The Sharpened Shield seems fine to me, and being the actual Forerunner name for it, is a sight better than the UNSC designation. - File:Black Mesa.jpg Halo-343 (Talk) 10:43, 11 April 2012 (EDT)

I realize it should technically be taken as canon, but I believe the origin of the name should be taken into consideration. It's well known how flawed the Encyclopedia is, and to me, using the name is only benefits the random fan who happened to come up with it. If they were lucky enough, any fan could've inserted their personal fanon here at the right time and it would've been incidentally "canonized" when the Encyclopedia writers browsed the wiki for their source material. To add to that, the Encyclopedia wasn't apparently even written by 343 employees for the most part, just "in collaboration with 343 Industries" as stated in the back cover blurb. This, in addition to the numerous other mistakes in that book, makes it an issue to me. Besides, we've already decided to ignore other similar cases, like "United Rebel Front" or the "First" and "Second" Battles of Earth, because they originated from here, despite them appearing in an "official" document.

If the name had not originated from a random fan, however, I would've definitely preferred it as the main title as opposed to the UNSC one. In fact I did, before I realized where it came from. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 11:11, 11 April 2012 (EDT)

Oh yes, I absolutely understand that we should always be wary of information within the Encyclopedia, but the difference here is that there is no contradictory evidence within the established canon to suggest that it isn't called The Sharpened Shield. Examples such as the "First" and "Second" Battles of Earth were known to be false precisely because there was previously established canon to tell us otherwise. This isn't the case with "The Sharpened Shield", which something new altogether. - File:Black Mesa.jpg Halo-343 (Talk) 11:56, 11 April 2012 (EDT)

This shows how much influence the wiki has on official media and development, and how disastrous it could be if we - the editors - do not scrutinise each official source made available to us. It also made it more apparent that we need more quality control to make sure that anything and everything added to the wiki must be assessed critically to make sure that misinterpreted information don't get "canonised" (nifty word). I guess the ilovebee rule ("the content should be considered canonical unless contradicted by more authoritative sources") would apply.— subtank 14:39, 11 April 2012 (EDT)

It's clear to me that more care needs to be taken by our wiki to ensure fanon does not sneak on again, thanks to things like little nitpicks of "50 times this size" ending up misleading the Encyclopedia, and there are places where that still may be happening. That said, I think this specific issue isn't worrisome. Say "The Sharpened Shield" had come from a fanfic, that wouldn't make it less chosen to be canon. The owners of Halo have seen something community thought up, decided they liked it, and thus chosen to keep it. Since it's been their decision to make it canon, and doesn't contradict any previously established material, keeping this name shouldn't be a worry. Tuckerscreator^(stalk) 00:14, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

So, I guess our policy on matters like these would be to keep it if it doesn't contradict with superior canon material, regardless of its origin? That's fine, I guess, except for the concern I voiced in my previous post. Though I doubt that most of the material that ended up in the Encyclopedia was the result of careful decision-making on what they should or shouldn't make canon; rather, I envision the process as being more like "An unspecified DK writer browsed through a fan wiki for stuff to fill their book and couldn't be bothered to check if it actually appeared in any official material beforehand. 343i didn't have time or resources to do a comprehensive fact-check, so things like this got in." --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 01:04, 12 April 2012 (EDT)