Halo

Halo: Plot Synopsis

Precursors

The Precursors were a Lovecraftian-esque race of beings preceding and possibly mythologized by the Forerunners, who believed them to be theoretical "Transsentient" beings, having the ability to travel among galaxies and accelerate the evolution of intelligent life. The Precursors achieved a higher level of technological advancement than the Forerunners, being Tier-0, or Transsentience on the Forerunners' Technological Achievement Tiers.

The Mantle of Responsibility

The Mantle of Responsibility is the belief that the most developed species was charged with tending to all life in the galaxy. Competition is allowed under the following of the Mantle as long as the galactic ecosystem remained intact. One of the founding ideas of the Mantle is the concept of Living Time. Essentially, it is how life interacts with the cosmos.

Forerunners

Halo: Primordium

The Forerunners (first born) was once a highly advanced and ancient Tier 1 species whose empire, the Ecumene, was spread across three million fertile worlds in the Milky Way galaxy approximately 100,000 years ago. The Forerunners were the creators and builders of many significant installations, including the Halo Array, the Ark, and the Shield Worlds, as well as numerous lesser artifacts later found on many worlds.

Halo Array

Halo doesn't kill Flood. It kills their food. Humans, Covenant, whatever - we're all equally edible. The only way to stop the Flood is to starve them to death. And that's exactly what Halo is designed to do: wipe the galaxy clean of all sentient life.

Ark, "Shield World"

The Ark is located just outside of the galaxy where the Halo rings were constructed.

Humans

Humanity once had a massive and sprawling prehistoric interstellar empire. This original empire ended some 10,000 years. Forerunner-Human contact: The Florians, Ancient Tier 1 species, as they were known by the Forerunners, taxonomically referred to as Homo floresiensis. The Florians, called Chamanune by contemporary humans, surviving up until around 13,000 BCE and possibly as recently as 10,000 BCE, living contemporaneously with "modern" humans, Homo sapiens. This original empire ended some 10,000 years, when they went to war with the Forerunners and were utterly defeated. As punishment, the surviving Humans were devolved by the Forerunners and exiled back to their planet of origin, a world called "Erde-Tyrene" (known in the present as Earth) in the Sol system. The Human species was split into about half a dozen sub-species to reduce the chances of it once again allying and becoming strong.

Human Formula

Domain on Genesis:

The Domain was a collective intelligence that the Forerunners used to access the ancient ancestral knowledge of their forefathers. The Domain was also the Organon, a device long sought after thought to be able to activate all Precursor artifacts in the Galaxy. As the Domain was the knowledge of the Precursors. Domain remained active on the planet Genesis, a planet devoted to connecting the extant realm with the digital Domain.

Forerunner-Precursor War:

The Forerunners had rebelled against the Precursors. Precursor Path Kethona sought vengeance against the Forerunners. As the Forerunner-Precursor war drew to a close, the few remaining Precursors that were pushed out beyond the edges of the Galaxy as few Precursors were spared by the Forerunners.

10,000 years ago before the Forerunner-Flood War:

The story opens on a Human steam boat on Earth, then called Erde-Tyrene. Chakas (Chamanune), Riser (Florians), Born are on Erde-Tyrene (known in the present as Earth) in the Sol system. Florians had extensive contact with other human species, and one, Morning Riser, served as a guide to a young Forerunner looking for Precursor artifacts. With them is the young Forerunner Bornstellar-Makes-Eternal-Lasting, who prefers the name his mother used for him: Born. They are sailing across a sea filled with kraken-like monsters which must be pacified by singing a lulling song. Riser approaches Born and instructs him to remove his Forerunner combat skin as it is upsetting the song. Born then consults with his armor's ancilla first; it is described as a disembodied intelligence, in a role similar to another famous A.I. It explains that electrical and magnetic fields, other than the ones caused by the planet's dynamics, throw the krakens into a frenzy, which is why the boat is powered by a primitive steam engine. She assures him that the armor will have no value to the human crew, so Born begins to remove his armor as the florian fetches him sandals made of reeds.

Born, who is a swap-member of the Builder caste in the Forerunner hierarch, shows the desire to turn his back on his future as a Builder and instead become a treasure hunter to search for long-lost Forerunner and Precursor artifacts.

Forerunner Cryptum:

After exploring an island near a large crater, Born stumbles across a Forerunner Cryptum: a vault where Forerunners are interred in a state of neverending sleep and contemplation. Born encounters the AI monitoring the Cryptum and assumes that its occupant is to be revived. He hesitantly complies and reawakens the Forerunner inside. This Forerunner turns to be the Ur-Didact, a member of the dismantled Warrior-Servant caste who was interred in the Cryptum over a thousand years earlier. The Didact, upon awakening, assumes that his wife The Librarian (a member of the Lifeshaper class) sent Born and the humans to awaken him for some purpose. He takes Born and the two humans upon some recently arrived ships to retrace his steps prior to being put into the Cryptum, desperate to see if "it" was fired.

Forerunner-Flood War:

The Flood Origin, while Forerunners became a dust which could regenerate into their past forms. Over time this dust became so corrupted that it could only cause horrific disease and mutation. The Precursors, driven insane by the rebellion of their creations, embraced this corruption and became part of it, becoming the Flood to destroy the Forerunners as a final act of vengeance against them. They sent several ships containing this powder to Forerunner controlled planets.

The Flood was responsible for consuming most of the sentient life in the galaxy, notably the Forerunners, during the 300-year-long Forerunner-Flood war. The Flood presents the most variable faction in the trilogy, as it can infect and mutate Humans and Covenant species, such as Sangheili and Jiralhanae, into Combat Forms. They are widely considered to be the greatest threat to the whole existence of life, or more accurately, biodiversity, in the Milky Way galaxy.

Human-Forerunner wars

The Ur-Didact and a group of Prometheans gained access to the Precursor prisoner. It told the Didact that it was the last Precursor, and that the Forerunners had rebelled against the Precursors. The Didact told none of this to any, save the Librarian. When Mendicant Bias tested a Halo in the Charum Hakkor system, the Halo's energies shattered every Precursor structure on the planet, including the prisoner's stasis capsule, thus freeing the prisoner. Realizing what he had uncovered, the Master Builder had the prisoner taken to Installation 07 so that it could be interrogated by Mendicant Bias. At some point during the long interrogation, which lasted roughly 43 years or 379,807 hours, the prisoner convinced Mendicant Bias to betray his Forerunner masters. From this point on, he began conducting experiments on the Human and Forerunner occupants of Installation 07, consisting of infecting individuals with the "Shaping Sickness," known more commonly as the Flood. At the end it is revealed that the prisoner is actually a Gravemind, re-enforcing the established canon concerning the betrayal of the Forerunners by Mendicant Bias.

The four travel to a series of worlds that served as battlegrounds in the Forerunners' war against the humans, all of which show no signs of sentient or complex life, much to The Didact's dismay. He asks Born to accept a brevet mutation to gain some of the Warrior-Servant caste's traits and to allow access to his memories and those of his class, anticipating the urgency that his knowledge must not end with him. Born accepts, and gains access to the Didact's memories, learning that he holds deep regrets about his war with the humans.

The humans had been fighting a two-front war: one against the Forerunners and another against an extra-galactic threat known as "The Flood." The Flood originated as simple cells inside automated transports that made their way into the human's part of the galaxy. Initially they showed no noticeable signs of life or any sort of activity apart from making animals more docile. Humans and their allies, the San'Shyuum, used the spores on animals to domesticate them as pets. Eventually the pets began to mutate and become aggressive, as did the humans who handled them; the first variation of The Flood was born. The humans, fleeing their ravaged worlds, encroached upon Forerunner territory, who went to war as well. Although they lost to the Forerunners, the humans were able to defeat The Flood by injecting themselves with a formula that made their genetic material toxic to The Flood. The humans refused to tell the Forerunners how to beat The Flood when they returned.

The humans, fleeing their ravaged worlds, encroached upon Forerunner territory, who went to war as well. Although they lost to the Forerunners, the humans were able to defeat The Flood by injecting themselves with a formula that made their genetic material toxic to The Flood. The humans refused to tell the Forerunners how to beat The Flood when they returned. The Didact then takes Born and the humans to the San'Shyuum's world where they have been in isolation since the end of the Human-Forerunner war. The cities are in turmoil as the Librarian's latest visit to procure "specimens" was seen as a sign for the San'Shyuum to rebel against the Forerunners. Humans and their allies, the San'Shyuum. The Humans and their allies, the San'Shyuum homeworld a portal appears and through it a large ring-shaped construct appears. The four are apprehended by the Master Builder, who is in the system to witness a test-firing of a new creation against the unruly San'Shyuum. Firing the Halo Array is October 2558. No single species after the firing of the Halo Array had attained the Mantle until in October 2558, when a group of artificial intelligences, led by Cortana, seized the Domain and began awaking Guardians.

The Didact then takes Born and the humans to the San'Shyuum's world where they have been in isolation since the end of the Human-Forerunner war. The cities are in turmoil as the Librarian's latest visit to procure "specimens" was seen as a sign for the San'Shyuum to rebel against the Forerunners. Some distance from the San'Shyuum's homeworld a portal appears and through it a large ring-shaped construct appears. The four are apprehended by the Master Builder, who is in the system to witness a test-firing of a new creation against the unruly San'Shyuum. Born is handed over to his family and escorted home. During his trip home the Didact's memory tells him that the creation of the ring-shaped construct, called Halo, was the reason he was placed in the Cryptum. He opposed their creation in favor of safe-haven "Shield Worlds." Shortly after coming home, Born hears his father arguing with a member of the Forerunner council and decides to confront his father about the true nature of the Halos. He confirms that three-hundred years before, The Flood re-emerged in their part of the galaxy and the Forerunners were at a loss to combat them. He and the Master Builder decided to move forward with the construction of Halos. Each Halo has a powerful, energy-based weapon that can eliminate any life-forms with sufficient biomass to sustain The Flood in an entire star system. To his horror, Born learns that Halo was test-fired on the human worlds he visited (at low power) and the Master Builder recently test-fired another on the San'Shyuum's homeworld.

The Forerunner Council learns of the Master Builder's actions and summons Born to a criminal trial against him. High above the Forerunner homeworld sit eleven Halo rings, with one having been missing for many years. The trial is interrupted by Mendicant Bias, a rampant AI, who causes havoc with the Forerunners' computer and defense systems. Bornstellar and a group of others are rescued during the chaos in a small ship. Above them some of the Halo rings separate from the others and prepare to fire. The Forerunner fleet quickly assembles and begins attacking the renegade Halos, quickly destroying three of them, but a gigantic slipspace portal opens and allows the seven other rings begin to escape through it. Born's ship manages to escape through the portal before the Halos activate, wiping out all Forerunner life in that part of the galaxy.

Born is knocked unconscious during the Slipspace jump and recalls The Didact's memories. He finds out (or remembers) that Mendicant Bias was an AI tasked with safeguarding the Halo constructs and overseeing their firing systems. After a test-firing over a human world, Mendicant Bias and the Halo disappeared with a much-feared creature held deep in a Precursor facility the humans had built over. Soon after, their ship arrives at the Ark, a "Shield World" located just outside of the galaxy where the Halo rings were constructed. There he meets the Librarian, who sees him as her husband now. According to her, the Master Builder had the Didact executed shortly after triggering the Halo above the San'Shyuum homeworld. They hypothesize that the creature that escaped from the Precursor prison somehow corrupted Mendicant Bias, who attempted to gain control of all the Halos but only succeeded with five. The rest, as well as The Ark, were co-opted by the Librarian as vessels on which numerous life-forms across the galaxy could live. The novel ends with Born recalling the Didact's contact with the captured lifeform: it revealed itself to be the last of the Precursors and was planning revenge on the Forerunners who wiped them out in ages past.

Forerunner

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

HOMEWORLD

Ghibalb (formerly)

Maethrillian

PHYSICAL INFORMATION

AVERAGE HEIGHT

198 centimetres (6 ft 6 in) - 414 centimetres (13 ft 7 in)

AVERAGE WEIGHT

110 kilograms (240 lb) - 377 kilograms (830 lb)

SKIN COLOR

Greyish-Pink

AVERAGE LIFESPAN

Thousands of years

DISTINCTIONS

Tall, thin, flat noses, very human-like

MILITARY AND POLITICAL INFORMATION

EQUIPMENT

Combat Skin

Hard Light Weapons

Ancilla

AFFILIATION

Ecumene

NOTABLE INDIVIDUALS

Ur-Didact

The Librarian

Faber

Iso-Didact

Filial Devotion

OTHER NOMENCLATURE

Holy Ones

The Ancients

The Creators

The Gods

History

We are Forerunners, guardians of all that exists. The roots of the galaxy have grown deep under our careful tending. Where there is life, the wisdom of our countless generations has saturated the soil. Our strength is a luminous sun towards which all intelligence blossoms and the impervious shelter beneath which it has prospered.

One hundred thousand years ago, the galaxy was populated by a great variety of beings.

But one species, eons beyond all others in both technology and knowledge, achieved dominance.

They ruled in peace but met opposition with quick and brutal effectiveness.

They were the Forerunners, the keepers of the Mantle, the next stage of life in the Universe’s Living Time.

And then they vanished.

This is their story.

THE UR-DIDACT

The Forerunners ("first born") was once a highly advanced and ancient Tier 1 species whose empire, the Ecumene, was spread across three million fertile worlds in the Milky Way galaxy approximately 100,000 years ago. The Forerunners were the creators and builders of many significant installations, including the Halo Array, the Ark, and the Shield Worlds, as well as numerous lesser artifacts later found on many worlds.

The Forerunners had taken up a role as custodians of the galaxy and believed that the "Mantle of Responsibility," the center of their society and culture, had been passed down to them by the Precursors, an even more powerful race that preceded the Forerunner civilization. "Forerunner" is a literal translation of the species' name for themselves; they identified themselves as such because they believed that they held an impermanent place in the universe's Living Time and that they would be succeeded by other, better races.

Before their disappearance from the galaxy, the Forerunners would name humanity their successors, identifying them with the title "Reclaimer." The Mantle of Responsibility was a Forerunner philosophy.

UR-DIDACT

Forerunner mythology held that the Mantle was passed down to them by an even earlier and more advanced race, the Precursors; the verisimilitude and commonality of this belief are unknown. The Forerunners seem to have handed their Mantle down to humanity; it may play a significant part in humanity's Reclaimer status. After the Forerunners and humans had reached Tier 1 technology, the Precursors had intended that the humans take on the role of inheriting the Mantle instead of the Forerunners. The Forerunners discovered the Precursors' plot and rose to seize the Mantle by killing almost every Precursor. The Mantle of Responsibility, for all things, belongs to Forerunners alone!

The Mantle and religious beliefs of individual Forerunners entirely dictated the governance of the Forerunner Ecumene. Bridging the social strata between an interstellar Marshall Plan and a benevolent, religious stewardship, the Forerunners took responsibility for the protection and cultivation of the species and planetary systems within their domain. Rather than allow species to rise and fall, the Forerunners, following their Mantle, protected them against any threats that might have forced technological or cultural progression. However, they went with a new approach of inspiring peace throughout their domain by minimizing their military capacity and disarming their weapons cache proved costly when the new alien threat emerged. Another unforeseen side-effect was that only the Forerunners were able to hold their own against the Flood (at least once they rearmed) while their charges were defenseless; the Forerunners had unintentionally left the galaxy vulnerable to Flood infection.

Ancient Humans:

Florian

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

HOMEWORLD

Earth

PHYSICAL INFORMATION

AVERAGE HEIGHT

Roughly one meter

AVERAGE LIFESPAN

Hundreds of years

DISTINCTIONS

Small stature, no chin, "elegant" and mobile lips

MILITARY AND POLITICAL INFORMATION

AFFILIATION

The Librarian

NOTABLE INDIVIDUALS

Riser

OTHER NOMENCLATURE

Chamanune, Homo floresiensis, Hobbits, Menehune

The Florians, as they were known by the Forerunners, taxonomically referred to as Homo floresiensis, and called Chamanune by contemporary humans themselves, are a now-extinct species of human native to Earth, later specific to the island of Flores in Indonesia, surviving up until around 13,000 BCE and possibly as recently as 10,000 BCE, living contemporaneously with "modern" humans, Homo sapiens.

Before the activation of the Halo Array, Florians had extensive contact with other human species, and one, Morning Riser, served as a guide to a young Forerunner looking for Precursor artifacts. The Librarian had imprinted Riser's ancestors with a geas that made the subsequent generations seek a way to bypass the defenses around the Didact's Cryptum in the Djamonkin Crater.

They had some form of complex civilization, due to the fact that they had developed past primitive tribal and even Chiefdom-based society, proven in the fact that they constructed the city-state of Marontik. Whether or not the civilization itself was embryonic or advanced is unknown.

Cortana

SERVICE INFORMATION

Cortana

SERVICE NUMBER

CTN 0452-9

BEGAN SERVICE

November 7, 2549

PHYSICAL INFORMATION

GENDER

Female programming

DESCRIPTION

Tall and slender with short hair

NORMAL COLOR

• Normal: Blue/Purple, Green while inside Alpha Halo's central computer.

• Angry: Pink/Green

• Flattered: Pink

VOICED BY

Jen Taylor

HISTORICAL INFORMATION

AFFILIATION

• UNSC (formerly)

• Created

PRIMARY FUNCTION

• Software Infiltration

• Capture of a Covenant Prophet

• Assisting the SPARTANs

NOTABLE BATTLES

• Human-Covenant war

◦ Fall of Reach

◦ Battle of Installation 04

◦ Raid of Reach

◦ Battle of Eridanus Secundus

◦ Battle of Earth

◦ Battle of Installation 05

◦ Raid on Installation 08

• Post-war

◦ First Battle of Requiem

◦ Raid on Ivanoff Research Station

◦ New Phoenix Incident

◦ Battle of Genesis

◦ The Reclamation

Cortana, UNSC Artificial intelligence (SN: CTN 0452-9), is a smart artificial intelligence construct. She was one of the most important figures in the Human-Covenant war, and was also John-117's partner in various combat missions as well as serving as the AI for the Halcyon-class light cruiser - UNSC Pillar of Autumn, Orbital Defense Platform - Cairo Station and Charon-class light frigate - UNSC Forward Unto Dawn. Cortana is the UNSC shipboard ai of The halcyon class cruiser pillar of Autumn. Cognitive Impression Modeling, On November 7, 2549, Cortana was first activated on Reach.

Following the Cole Protocol, Captain Jacob Keyes, the ship's commanding officer, prepared to abandon ship. Because the Cole Protocol forbade the capture or destruction of any AI construct, John-117 was charged with protecting Cortana from the Covenant

Halsey turned Cortana over to the Spartan Noble Team, specifically, Noble Six.

In addition, she held vital data pertaining to the Halos, including the Activation Index from Installation

Meeting John-117

They let me pick. Did I ever tell you that? Choose whichever Spartan I wanted. You know me. I did my research. Watched as you became the soldier we needed you to be. Like the others, you were strong and swift and brave. A natural leader. But you had something they didn't. Something no one saw, but me. Luck.

CORTANA

I'm offering people a chance to be more than they are naturally.

CORTANA

Both the Ur-Didact's composition of human specimens and the firing of the Halo Array contradict the Mantle.

No single species after the firing of the Halo Array had attained the Mantle until in October 2558, when a group of artificial intelligences, led by Cortana, seized the Domain and began awaking Guardians.

It was here that Cortana took charge of the Mantle of Responsibility, and began her usurpation of the galaxy's sovereignty.

Bibliography

Halo Cryptum: Cryptum is the first novel in The Forerunner Saga by Greg Bear. It was released on January 4, 2011.