this thread jumps everywhere and since i missed the first part about theories of Halo i want to throw what i thought out real quick so dont yell at me. i agree with Leadphalanx first theory i thought of it too when i played halo 2. in the middle of the game when the history about the forerunners was talked about i had this feeling that the forerunners: were human or descendants of them, all the clues point to Earth and John has those, familiar feelings. just my two cents.
as for the books. they are well written but, as many of you probrobly noticed, it has a few contradictions itself, i dont have teh books handy but from memory this is ones i noticed. in first strike it says that a pelican is used as the dummy plane. while the crew is in the longsword, but when they are on the covie ship (whatshisname) calls john down to see linda because they were searching the pelican?? there are a few more things like this, usually with numbers of people, this is my only grief with the books. any case they are a must for anyone who wants to hold an intelligent conversation on this site. if i am wrong just tell me its been a whilr since i read the books. sry for the lengthy reply but i had to get some of this out.