Meta

Agent Maine was an Agent in the Special Operations program Freelancer. Now known as The Meta, Maine is systematically hunting down the Freelancers; stealing their Armor Enhancements and AIs in the process. The Meta is the main antagonist of the Recovery One Mini Series and the Reconstruction sequel to the Blood Gulch Chronicles. It is (currently) represented by a Spartan-character model with a white EVA helmet and Scout torso with CQB and EOD shoulders and is the only character thus far not to have the Mark VI shoulder pieces. It is unclear if Meta is an alias adopted by Maine or the manifestation of a new entity as the result of collecting and implanting multiple constructs. Also for an unknown reason, The Meta growls and breaths in a similar way to the Predator. This is probably due to the insanity from having so many A.I.'s in his head at one time.

Role in the plot
The Meta first appeared in the Recovery One miniseries as someone (or something) that was hunting down Freelancers. Most of Agent Washington's Priority One signals were a result of the Meta's actions. However, the one signal that was not caused by the Meta, Agent York, would prompt the Meta to begin hunting down Recovery One. It presumably killed Freelancer North Dakota and left the Agent's sister, South unconscious at the scene to slow Washington down (it was later revealed that South positioned her own brother to be killed by the Meta and by allowing it to scavenge his body to escape). It tracked down Washington and South while Washington was convincing South to implant the Delta AI. The Meta was unable to secure Delta at that juncture due to South informing it of a timed charge on Washington's armor. Given the option of it being able to retrieve Delta later, the Meta allowed South to escape.

It is revealed by the lone survivor of Outpost 17-B: Valhalla that the entity that attacked Recovery Six and Recovery Nine is called the Meta. According to Agent Washington who, for reasons as of now unknown, was spared by the Meta, the entity that was described by Private Walter Henderson matches the profile of the being he had been tracking. The Private being debriefed on the incident indicates that the grounded ship had someone in it, "she looked like him.", and that after leaving Blue base he could no longer see the Meta. Recovery Command tells Washington that the Meta may be in possession of the Omega AI. This indicates that the downed Pelican reported by Recovery Six and Nine is the same that Tex and Wyoming left Blood Gulch with, and that the Meta stole her armor enhancement and AI.

As of Episode 4, it has shown the ability to manipulate a recorded radio transmission to trick Sarge into eliminating Washington. Later, it demonstrated an ability to manipulate time just like Wyoming, which means that it has acquired both the time-distortion mechanism and Gamma, the only AI that can use it. However, it is wounded in a battle with Agent Washington, Church, and Caboose when it attempted to kill South. In Chapter 7, the Meta was revealed to be a Freelancer itself, Agent Maine. It was last seen in Last Resort/Zanzibar in O'Malley's old fortress attempting to recharge its power supplies. Although it was nearly defeated, the Reds interfered at the last minute, allowing it to acquire Delta. It also seems that Maine has acquired more than the three initial AIs, since several AIs emerged to confront Delta shortly afterward. It is also revealed that if a Freelancer (or anyone else) uses more than one AI at a time, they tend to go insane or possibly lose their free will to the AIs. This speculation can be backed up with the example of Agent Carolina; a Freelancer who Delta says received two AIs at once and went insane as a result.

In episodes ten and eleven, it attacks both Washington's team and the reassembled reds led by Sarge. Washington eventually rips off a turret and chases it away after inflicting several wounds. Eventually, in Chapter 14, it climbs on the back of a tank driven by the reds and Caboose to infiltrate command.

The Meta made an appearance in Chapter 16. As Sarge tells Simmons to save his ammo a cloaked figure runs under the window from right to left. It is difficult to see, but easily heard.

In Chapter 18, as the white freelancers attacked the Reds, the Blues and Washington, the Meta disengages its cloaking, and appears before them. The white freelancers attack the Meta as the others escape to the motor pool. It later follows Washington and Church and wounds the former, but it stopped from killing him as the Alpha (Church) jumps into his head.

The Meta is shown to have survived the EMP and makes a reappearance in Chapter 12 of Recreation. Appearing at Blue base, the Meta surprises Donut, who thinks that Maine is a new blue sent to the base. Donut assumes the reason for Maine's silence is that he's the 'strong, silent type', or foreign with a well-suiting accent. Donut tries to move Tex's body, and assumes the Meta's attempts to shoot or melee kill him with the Brute Shot are just acts of helpfulness. As he has Donut at gunpoint, Simmons arrives with news of the wrecked Mongoose but freaks and runs off when he sees the Meta.

Later, the Meta is seen chasing Simmons across Valhalla, shooting at him with the Brute Shot. Simmons warns Lopez about the imminent danger, and while Lopez runs in the base to get weapons and Simmons gets the rocket launcher the Meta comes over the hill. Simmons fires at it and misses, instead hitting the Mongoose and sends it flying over the Meta's head. The Meta prepares to return fire on Simmons, but Lopez hits him with two shots from the Missile Pod, forcing him to retreat a small distance before recovering. But not before losing a huge amount of power. He then screams in frustration (in a regular human voice) and charges at Red Base.

Most likely, the Meta has proven that it is now finding AIs on it's own free will (proven because the E.M.P went off and destroyed all the electronic equipments including the AIs. Note that the Meta is NOT a machine). It is most likely that the Meta is now looking for Epsilon or trying to kill Donut because Donut may know something about Church after Tucker's distress beacon(other than the fact that Church is an AI)

Acquired A.I. and Armor Enhancements


The A.I. that the Meta has presumably acquired are:
 * Alpha just before the EMP went off at Command
 * Theta from Freelancer North Dakota (confirmed by Delta)
 * Omega/O’Malley from Freelancer Tex (confirmed)
 * Gamma/Gary from Freelancer Wyoming (confirmed by Delta)
 * Delta from Caboose (confirmed)
 * 3-5 Unknown A.I.-One of which could be the AI that Agent Maine was originally assigned, though if he had one at the beginning is unknown. If he did, it may have been the Alpha's ambition or resolve, given Maine's drastic actions. The others are presumed to come from the agents that Wash had to recover prior to Recovery One. Two of these AI may be Sigma and Xi, whose Greek letters are in the Meta's logo.

If Maine did have an original AI, it is possible that it was Beta and that he made his new title of the Meta by mixing the first letter of his name, Maine, and replaced the B in his AIs name, Beta, to create Meta. This is probable as both Omega and Gamma have done this, to become Om-Ali and Ga-Re (Gary), respectively. Another possibility is that Command identified Maine, after he went rogue, as the Meta in reference to the Greek word meta, meaning "encompassing," as his primary goal seemed to be to find and absorb all of the AI fragments. One of the A.I. could also possibly be Sigma, an A.I. which was originally the Alpha A.I.'s creativity, mentioned in Chapter 16.

The Meta's symbol, which is comprised of Greek Letters, consists of: Xi; Delta; Omega; Gamma; Lambda; Sigma; Tau and Epsilon.

He did not possess Delta when he used this symbol in Rat's Nest, though he did take it later on. It may be possible that these were eight AIs that he required for his mission, claiming other AIs if he meets them. This may explain why he continued to follow Washington when he had Delta, but ceased when he got the AI. He was later seen searching for the Epsilon AI, also in his sign. As Wash mentioned Sigma in Chapter 16, it is possible the Meta possesses Sigma and Xi also.

The Armor Enhancements the Meta has acquired are:
 * Cloaking Device from Freelancer Tex
 * Temporal Control Unit from Freelancer Wyoming's Helmet
 * Motion tracker enhancement from Freelancer North Dakota
 * He is able to simulate different armor colors in a chameleon effect, so long as he is not utilizing too many other enhancements as well.
 * Freelancer Washington's Armor Enhancement. Unconfirmed that Washington had any enhancements after the removal of Epsilon
 * Energy Shielding

Possible Goals

 * It is possible that the A.I.'s & Maine are working together to get the Alpha A.I. As mentioned by Washington in Chapter 7 of Red vs Blue: Reconstruction, the A.I.'s who'd become obsessed with the idea of the Alpha & that some had taken drastic steps to get to it. Since Church is the Alpha A.I., an unknown twist is added into the mix.


 * It is also possible that Maine intends to unify all the "experimental" A.I. into a single AI. This is due to the fact they are all fragments copied from Alpha, if all were collected and then unified, you would theoretically be in possession of a smart A.I.- like the Alpha.

Abilities
The Meta is one of the series most lethal Freelancers and characters overall. Before the events of Recovery One it had killed four other Freelancers who were (according to Delta) better fighters then Wash. Later, when Wash was confronted by it at the Zanzibar power plant, despite it not being able to use it's abilities (due to insufficient power), it still managed to defeat Washington. The Meta is most likely (with its several armor enhancements) a more deadly and capable fighter than Tex; when the Reds ask what it is Church describes it as being "like eight of her." He is also seen to survive hundreds of Machine Gun Turret rounds and still run away, though this may be because of Yorks healing unit.Considering this, it can also be surmised that, with the AI and enhancements, it is as strong as, if not stronger than, the Master Chief and other Spartan-IIs.

Weaponry
The Meta wields a Brute Shot (Known to Donut as a kick-ass broom) as it's signature weapon, and can use its grenade launching abilities and blade to deadly effect. Also, it wields a Magnum pistol as a sidearm and has tried to kill Wash with it many times. Since he is a Freelancer, he might have an original A.I. (at this time it is unknown if he did, due to knowing Agent South had not been implanted with an AI after the problems faced after Epsilon's "suicide" as well many Freelancers A.I. were removed after this as well. He may never have gotten one, or lost his original.The speculations of what his armor enhancement is have seen three theories. Either his ability to change armor color, record and alter radio transmissions, or energy shielding. He also has the abilities of all the Freelancers he has killed or found dead. In Chapter 3, while watching Caboose and Agent Washington depart from "Rat's Nest", the Meta carried an Assault Rifle, and Chapter 4, the Meta is briefly seen using a Battle Rifle when making the fake transmission. In episodes 10 and 11 of Reconstruction, The Meta threw a Warthog and several other large objects at Grif, the Reds and just in general. The Meta, being as powerful as it is could be itself considered a weapon.

Armor
The Meta's armor set consists of the EVA helmet, Scout chest armor, CQB left shoulder armor and EOD right shoulder armor. Primarily he is white coloured with brown shoulders, but can change colour from red to blue as well.

It is debatable whether or not Agent Maine is acting of his own accord, or being controlled by the AIs as a puppet. He never speaks, and in Chapter 19, the AI tell him what to do, and speak in his stead to the Director and Counselor.

Of note: The vocal modulator has 'Epsilon' on it. This might have been Wash's armor enhancement. The active cloaking that Tex possesses is not the same as the camouflage that the Meta uses, though they are similar. It's assumed that one of the upgrades allows for the cloaking of the radar (something which Wyoming managed to work around before, but hasn't been duplicated since.)

Kills

 * 3 or 4 Freelancers, including North Dakota and possibly Carolina.
 * Recovery Six
 * Recovery Nine
 * 3+ Valhalla Reds.
 * 4 Rat's Nest Blues, including Lieutenant Miller.
 * Burke, Dellario, Tubbs and at least 3 Last Resort Reds.
 * 10+ Command soldiers.

Pop Culture
It's intention to kill and steal the enhancements from the other Freelancer Agents is somewhat comparable to Gabriel "Sylar" Gray's rampage from the popular American TV show "Heroes".

It also has traits similar to the Final Fantasy VII antagonist J.E.N.O.V.A., in that the AIs seem to have a tendency to reunite with the original entity; in this case, Alpha.

The Meta also has some similarity to the Predator in the 1987 film directed by John McTiernan, in that both growl &amp; roar, both can use highly advanced weapons, they both can turn invisible &amp; they also have the ability to record and alter voices.

Trivia

 * The Meta is one of the few characters to have his own theme music. The only other characters to have there own theme music are Tex, Washington, "The Warthog", Wyoming, and Omega. The music played for the Meta is the same music that is played in the Reconstruction trailer & has played in every chapter the Meta has appeared in with the exception of Chapter 11.


 * The Meta appears in Recovery One but only his arm reloading a brute shot. (If a pause is timed just right, the Meta can be seen running across the screen. It's armor color is brown with red trim.)
 * Going along with The Meta's armor, the detail color also seems to change. In episode 4 of Reconstruction while the Meta is using the voice changer, you can see that the detail color is blue but later on changes to red. It could be that when the Meta changes its color (it's seen as blue and red) and changes back to its usual white, the last color is its detail color.
 * As stated above, The Meta is the only character in Reconstruction that does not use Mark VI shoulders.
 * Barring characters that use the default Mark VI armour, The Meta is the only character that can be recreated in Halo 3 without playing online matches. All that is needed to unlock all pieces of his armour is to complete the campaign on Normal (EVA helmet), beat The Ark on Legendary (EOD shoulder) and to get the Too Close to the Sun achievement (destroy a Banshee with a Spartan Laser, Scout chestplate.). The CQB shoulder is unlocked from the start.