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but·ter·fly ef·fect
noun: butterfly effect; plural noun: butterfly effects
1. (with reference to chaos theory) the phenomenon whereby a minute localized change in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere
It is said that the beat of a butterfly’s wings in New Mexico has the power to cause a hurricane in China. A small, seemingly insignificant event can begin a complex chain reaction resulting in remarkable change. The series of events that facilitates this story does not begin with a butterfly, but rather with a misprint.
Lito’Mafamee was a Sangheili scout searching for human military outposts in the early days of the Great War. In order to minimize resistance to incoming forces, Lito’Mafamee was to seek out human installations in his scouting vessel, transcribe the labels affixed to their structures, and transmit them to his superiors. The labels would be translated into the Sangheili language, and Covenant strategists would use the data to select and prioritize military targets. The current installation was the last in Lito’Mafamee’s scouting quadrant, an impressive (by human standards) group of concrete buildings. The largest of them, an ugly, square, gray thing, was surrounded by structures ranging from half to a quarter of its size. In the light of the setting sun, the complex was swarming with humans scurrying from building to building, some clad in uniform, some not.
But Lito’Mafamee cared little for the architecture, and even less for the inhabitants. His top priority was recording the gibberish human writing on display so he could leave this vermin-infested rock. Catching sight of a large white sign on the chain-link fence surrounding the complex, Lito’Mafamee hurriedly typed the alien script into his ship’s computer. In his haste, however, Lito’Mafamee misspelled the name of the compound. A small mistake, nothing that would render the name illegible to a native English speaker, but capable of wreaking havoc upon its translation into the multi-layered Sangheili language.
In another world, in another life, Lito’Mafamee double-checked his work. He discovered his mistake, corrected it, and the UNSC-contracted research facility he was observing was properly labeled as just that. The facility would have been deemed unimportant, and the Covenant would have moved on to another target. But he did not, and the government-funded complex was marked as a fully functional military base. As such, the Covenant soldiers who were dispatched to destroy the compound were startled to find it staffed not by soldiers, but by scientists, civilians and non-combatants. Perhaps the revelation gave some of the alien warriors pause. But orders were orders, and orders had to be carried out.
In the end, the mistake made little difference to the Covenant.
But to Corporal Allison Church, staring unblinkingly at the smoking ruins of the research base which had been home to her husband and daughter, it made all the difference in the galaxy.