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This topic has moved here: Subject: Speculation on Covenant motivation
  • Subject: Speculation on Covenant motivation
Subject: Speculation on Covenant motivation
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In light of Frankie's article about the covenant and the posts afterwards, I have been struck with an idea.
Prophet ceremony and purpose is not generally known to the Covenant population, most of whom simply trust in their wisdom to further the goals and territory of the Covenant.

So the nature of Prophets is more or less unknown to the other Covenant castes. I believe it also said in one of the books that the Prophets live on a world where the Forerunner had lived before they abandoned it for unknown reasons. Now here is where I make a few assumptions. Lets say, for the sake of argument, that humans are or are at least related to the Forerunner. The Prophets obviously know a lot about the forerunner and are in control of the Covenant because of their understanding of and the mysticism of the long-departed Forerunner. Now, the Covenant run into a human ship and blow it up, why? The Covenant have been studying humanity (and vice versa) for a little while before contact was made according to FS. If the Prophets realized that humans are or atleast are the only/closest relatives of the Forerunner, then they'd a pretty good reason for eliminating them.

First of all, if all Covenant castes knew that the humans, with their inferior technology and mannerisms were direct decendants or were forerunners, then their faith in these 'godlike' beings would be shaken to the breaking point. The millenia of semi-worship of Forerunner and pursuit of their level of greatness would seem to be completely wasted if they all ended up as some lowly imperial race with sub-par technology. Plus, if the humans are Forerunner and are the result of some kind of self-induced apocalypse, then trying to attain their level of greatness through the Prophets guidance would be folly because it would only lead to their own destruction. The Prophets are ultimately dependent upon the other races to keep themselved defended, and without those races loyalty, they are vulnerable to the same kind of extinction they pose to humans.

Now, the Prophets realize this before any of the other Covenant (or they assassinate anyone else who knew the truth. Remember in Halo:The Flood when Zammamme goes through all the security checks because of recent assassinations?) and the concequences of the rest of the Covenant knowing the truth. They decide to protect their position as the head of the Covenant and maintain the enigmatic nature of their Forerunner idols by destroying any and all evidence that they may be these newfound humans. That would explain why they go to such great lengths to destroy every single human and their buidings on every single planet they inhabit while maintaining their phoney motive of pursuing forerunner relics and killing the infidels who have set up camp on top of them.

Frankie's Covenant info hints that there will be Civil War among the Covenant races (the evidence is so great it screams at us). The elites aren't keen on the idea of protecting and listening to the Prophets in the first place, so how loyal would they be when they realized that Prophet dogma and religion was all a lie?


heh, I think I actually may have hit paydirt with this one, but feel free to discuss and thoroughly tear apart my theory.

  • 04.30.2004 5:45 PM PDT
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Wow, u R gud at da typpping. AHH!!! lol Those are some good ideas there.

  • 04.30.2004 5:47 PM PDT
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wow, I was expecting more people to throw in their two cents. Shia hulud and you other speculators, what gives? where's the 2 cents?

  • 04.30.2004 6:48 PM PDT
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I think they are still reading it =D

  • 04.30.2004 6:59 PM PDT
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good thinkin but the covenant knew bout us before we knew bout them. and i dont think forerunners are humans mainly becaus dont u think we would know if we made halo. unless some tragic thing happend and we lost all memory and technolgy cuz forerunners tech is better then ours. i have heard some ppl talk about weird time travel theories and to me it just doesnt sound haloish . new word.

  • 04.30.2004 7:12 PM PDT
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It's a very convincing argument to why Humanity would be an "affront" to their religion.

  • 04.30.2004 7:22 PM PDT
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wow. if there was a covenant civil war what do you think would happen with the story line? Would the humans have to side with the Prophets so both races can avoid extinction. If they both join forces in the game maybe we will really learn the true nature of the forerunners by gaining intelligence from the prophets. and if the prophets hold all the technology. an alliance with them would lead to some pretty kick ass weapons. oh the possibilites.

  • 04.30.2004 8:25 PM PDT
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wow. if there was a covenant civil war what do you think would happen with the story line? Would the humans have to side with the Prophets so both races can avoid extinction. If they both join forces in the game maybe we will really learn the true nature of the forerunners by gaining intelligence from the prophets. and if the prophets hold all the technology. an alliance with them would lead to some pretty kick ass weapons. oh the possibilites.

  • 04.30.2004 8:26 PM PDT
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how did i reply twice?

  • 04.30.2004 8:26 PM PDT
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In reply to "grunty go splat": After/During the Dark Ages people forgot where they came from and much of the tech that Rome had (concrete, aquduct, ect.) was lost. So, if a huge apoc happened then it is entirely possible for the Forerunners to have forgoten what they had and became us.

I think a civil war is one of the few ways we could actually win this war. Think about it for a second; the covies got better tech, and more numbers, and are kicking our butts. Even if MC killed every single covie (he could do it) Earth would be glassed way before he could accomplish the task. The human race would be destroyed. But if there was a civil war, the covies would have to redirect their attetion, saving us at the brink of defeat. Cause whos more of a threat? Race with one beat up planet and one super soldier of doom or any covie race. Even grunts could be a threat with thier numbers.

Another scenario would be; another race (flood or something) coming and siding with us or just destroying anything they came across meaning covies.

  • 05.01.2004 12:57 AM PDT
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I read in some article somewhere that a 3rd race was pretty certain for Halo2. After all Bungie loves a 3 sided free-for-all in wars.

If humans were decendants of Forerunner, that would explain why the MasterChief inheritly knows how to work the panels and such on Halo. In the books it says he didn't know which button he should press, but the correct one just felt right. Of course, this could simply be a very intuitive interface on Forerunner technology which would be universally easy to understand, but I think it might be linked to something buried in the chief's collective unconcious. Plus, 343GS seems to recognize the Chief, or atleast his general figure or armor, so somewhere GS has met something at least similar to the MC.

  • 05.01.2004 1:17 AM PDT