- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Hear hear. We should respect each others beliefs and get back to waiting for Halo 2. It takes WAY too long to type this -blam!-...
Here's my hypothesis on the forerunners, lifted from the other thread. It's long, but i think it's good.
I believe that the forerunners were human. Here's the reasons, and i'll be using examples and references from the first game and the books, so spoiler warning if you haven't read them. Oh, and it's kinda long. Sorry.
Let's see, 343 Guilty Spark calls the Master Chief "Reclaimer" as if it KNOWS him, or at least beings like him, from experience.
343 is "the monitor of installation 04" right? So there must be AT LEAST 3 other forerunner installations out there. Plus 343 also says "Technically, this installation's pulse has a maximum effective radius of 25,000 light years. But, once the others follow suit, this galaxy will be quite devoid of life." Others? So logically, there must be a ring world spaced roughly every 15-20,000 light years in every direction from Halo, to ensure even coverage of the galaxy and ensure that there is no food (read:life) left for the flood.
BUT, the forerunners would like to exempt themselves from destruction, surely. When you put circles together on a map, you get gaps. So by putting some rings in the 'wrong' place, they could create a gap to spare earth from totally being wiped out.
But they'd want to let the flood die first, so they create a primitive colony in a 'Halo hole' on earth, activate the halo NETWORK, which is what it would have to be to cover the ENTIRE galaxy, in full knowledge that by the time we crawl back into space, the flood will be dead, all bar the ones kept in containment on the halos for study.
Hence 343 says "Why would you hesitate to do that which you have already done?" not only that, but in the books, several references are made to John-117 recognising the forerunner writing, but what he can't put his finger on is from where. Maybe a sufficiently advanced race could use a language based not on letters but on instinct, or one that speaks directly to the brain, or something like that. It would certainly be faster.
Also, Cortana "cracks the code" on the stone the brutes were looking at on Sigma Octanus IV, and uses the co-ordinates as references for the jump made while initiating the Cole Protocol at the end of the Reach conflict. These lead STRAIGHT to Halo, also, accidentally, leading the faster covenant ships there. The Covenant, being faster, get there first, and we all know what happens from there. More of these artifacts are later found on Reach, with strong hints that there are more, possibly on Earth, the worlds WE are most likely to reach, and therefore to explore fully, find these artifacts, and 'get back on our feet' as soon as possible, to give us a helping hand as it were, back to our former level of sophistication.
I could keep going, but I know you're all sick of reading by now, so i'll let someone else take over. Sorry bout the big post.
[Edited on 4/21/2004 4:33:05 AM]