You're looking at one of the many temples built by the Covenant, a conglomerate group of aliens who collectively decided to become warlike in their method of spreading their message of the Great Journey, a journey one can take by travelling along various terraformed rings known as halos. I know, I know: sounds like Lord of the Rings or even Christianity. May I suggest Halo as an allegory for Scientology? Keep in mind, analogies do not work when there is an easy 1:1 correspondence. In fact, the two things being compared need a degree of mismatch for it to work--two unalike things work best because they highlight where the comparison works while granting where it doesn't.
Having recently purchased Halo 3 and thus essentially portalled into another dimension, I'm probably no where near the head space as anyone reading this blog, but here goes.
The Spartan warrior who destroyed one of the rings in a previous storyline is now friends with The Arbiter, leader of the heresy against the Prophet of Truth, i.e. L Ron Hubbard, who deliberately deceives his people by not telling them of the greater dangers of The Flood, a parasite that turns all forms of life into its zombie-puppets (lets call Gravemind, their leader, "Xenu," noting, however, that Gravemind does not have the same Yahweh-like powers as Xenu). The Spartan warrior you play as can travel through many levels of gradual revealing of the truth--or the truth of the Prophet's lies. It's like going deep undercover as a Scientologist.
When I play the game and fight The Flood, I'm always scared that one of the little infection modules will facehug onto some dead body and animate it, which will then divert my attention away from more incoming infection modules. Kinda like fighting Scientology and The Twelve Tribes at the same time--I turn my back on one and miss a body-snatching. (OK, so I've involved the TT--remember, the Covenant is not a single race, but a conglomerate. Feel free to insert any zealous group.)
The humans have recently allied with the Elites, lead by The Arbiter. I see the Elites as Crusaders turned good Christians--doubters of a "single path" to enlightenment, unlike their orthodox former friends in the Covenant. To mix comparisons even more, it's almost like Ishmael Reed's novel, Mumbo Jumbo. I fight alongside them, but wonder if they won't eventually give into their previous single-minded zealousy and forego their "common enemy" stance.
Last February 10 somehow became anti-Scientology day, with world-wide protests led against the church. What I don't know is if Scientology has drummed the whole thing up in order to appear the victim or if it's real. Apparently some hackers crashed the church's sites and have also made sure the Tom Cruise-is-batshit-crazy-videos don't disappear. What I do know is that some years ago The Free Zone dedicated itself to believing in the Hubbard-Xenuverse, but offered info entirely for free. What keeps me sane is knowing that I actually like it when humans believe in little fantasy worlds--I encourage it! I do it! It's when fantasy and reality merge at the corporate level--scary. I think I might actually like some of those Free Zone people--maybe. I like knowing that I am not like The Flood, an indiscriminate eradicator of all that stands in my way. Unfortunately, my TT and Sci family members think of me this way, as a Suppressive Person/the Devil, rather than as a defender of critical thinking, a destabilizer of orthodox, concrete, unwavering thinking. One of my ex's used to demand that I immediately make known my religious beliefs. I declared that I could, but that I also had an unconscious. She happened to be a pretty hardcore Christian, though she hid that from me for a long time. She accused me of being "patchwork" in my worldview. "You take a little of this and a little of that--but who are you?--what side are you on?"
And for that, I do not have an answer. I may not always know what I'm for, but I know that I'm against Scientology and the Twelve Tribes, and take great pleasure in imagining them as little AI beings that I can kill. I love not taking things literally.
