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This topic has moved here: Subject: The Mantle
  • Subject: The Mantle
Subject: The Mantle

"Find where the liar hides, so that I may place my boot between his gums!" - Rtas 'Vadum

Okay so where does it come from?

A lot of people say that Precursor handed it to the Forerunner, and I can easily see why to be honest. The Terminals heavily imply that it was handed down. Most of the Terminal stuff has been analysed to death over the past 3 years so I won't spend to much time going over what everyone else probably already knows.

(In response to the Librarians suggestion to activate the Halo Array)
Terminal 2

D: No. Activation is murder.
A genocide larger than [this galaxy]
has ever known. We are sworn to
protect life not destroy it! That is
the Mantle we were given to carry.


L: The Mantle. You still hold to
that [fairy tale] after all that
has happened?

So it seems to be a hereditary thing. It also seem as though its origins are shrouded in mystery; grounded in faith from the term fairy tale.

Terminal 2

D: The Mantle has not failed!
I've already razed scores of worlds
- sterilized systems, routed and
[disintegrated] the parasite! We're
learning its tricks and strategies.
We can halt this thing! And we can
follow in Their footsteps!


There are no unstoppable forces in
this universe. There are no
immovable objects. Everything gives
if you push hard enough.

L: And what about us, Didact?
We've been irresistible and
immovable for too long.
Maybe it's our turn to give.

// FRAGMENT ENDS

"Follow in Their footsteps". In all the online versions I can find, "their" has a capital T. Who is "their" implying as well? Who would the Forerunner possibly aspire to imitate?

Terminal 4 (Legendary Difficulty)

MB.05-032.> {~}(They?) choose to remain
beholden to ancient myths {~}(It?) does
not matter where they claim their
authority originates
{~} obstructs
the path of universal evolution and
must be removed. No matter how well
intentioned, their obstinacy in the
face of the inevitable progression
of nature can no longer be tolerated.

The curved brackets "()" are not actually part of the text. Again the idea of mythology, belief. The second bold part implies absolutism. You usually only find moral absolutism with the belief in any sort of deity. Who would the Forerunner possibly revere?

Terminal 5 (Easy Difficulty)

Understand this: the Mantle you have
shouldered I do rescind - with far
more consideration than it was
granted
.

Suggests inheritance.

As I said that was quite brief; it has already been analysed and I do not want to tread on anyone's toes. So the idea of the Precursor handing down the Mantle to the Forerunner seems like a pretty comfortable idea to have from the above.

So along comes the Halo Encyclopaedia.

Page 26
150,000 BCE

The Forerunners rise as the pre-eminent species in the Milky Way Galaxy by advancing technological discoveries gathered from the remnants left by prior ancient races. Believing themselves responsible for the lives of all those less advanced than they, the Forerunners initiate the Mantle, a galactic plan to steward the lesser races of the Galaxy. Note: All Forerunner era dates are approximate, based on available translation and scattered historical data.

(Strangely enough their "rise" roughly coincides with the war against Humanity revealed in Cryptum.)

Page 164
The Mantle

The Forerunners' respect for for life and their sense of duty to allow the species they encountered to evolved naturally led them to create an ethical code of conduct called the Mantle. Bridging the social strata between an interstellar Marshall Plan and a religious, but benevolent, stewardship, the Forerunners took responsibility for the protection and cultivation of the species and planetary systems within their domain. With this grand purpose, their social structure evolved into a caring and community-minded populace. Their central government was entirely dictated by the Mantle, as were the religious beliefs of individual Forerunners. However, inspiring peace throughout their domain by minimizing their military capacity and disarming their weapons cache proved to be a costly approach for the Forerunners when the new alien threat emerged.


The Mantle, being over 50'000 years old by the time of The Didact and The Librarian conversation, may very well have been mythologised over the millennia. They may also have been referring to how their ancestors passed it down from generation to generation. It does not, however, explain away the lines spoken by Mendicant in Terminal 4 (His second point, about authority.) or the lines spoken in Terminal 2 about following in "Their" footsteps, and referring to the Forerunners as taking their turn to yield.

tl;dr: Why is there an apparent inconsistency between the Terminals and the Encyclopaedia about how the Mantle was conceived by the Forerunner?

[Edited on 01.03.2011 10:38 AM PST]

  • 01.03.2011 10:37 AM PDT

I view it as a symbolic sort of thing. Passed down from one group to another.

  • 01.03.2011 10:45 AM PDT
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“To say more would spoil be it’s overall its a game that needs to be played.” - Aristotle

Posted by: anton1792
tl;dr: Why is there an apparent inconsistency between the Terminals and the Encyclopaedia about how the Mantle was conceived by the Forerunner?

343i doesn't give a damn about canon?

It doesn't make sense for the Forerunner to have invented it on their own with the terminals in mind, but they can't have inherited it with the Encyclopedia. YAY.

  • 01.03.2011 1:01 PM PDT

"Find where the liar hides, so that I may place my boot between his gums!" - Rtas 'Vadum

Posted by: GrnDragn
I view it as a symbolic sort of thing. Passed down from one group to another.

But who started it though? There is one idea of the Forerunners creating it, and then there is another possibly suggesting a perpetual hereditary thing.

Posted by: Lord Snakie
Posted by: anton1792
tl;dr: Why is there an apparent inconsistency between the Terminals and the Encyclopaedia about how the Mantle was conceived by the Forerunner?

343i doesn't give a damn about canon?

It doesn't make sense for the Forerunner to have invented it on their own with the terminals in mind, but they can't have inherited it with the Encyclopedia. YAY.

Perhaps. They appear to be mutually exclusive.

Cryptum might solve this. Apparently the Mantle is not just simple as Guardianship of the Galaxy, it is everything from a way of life to War Ethics. Parts may have been inherited, but other parts augmented by the Forerunner. Need to wait and see though.

  • 01.03.2011 1:33 PM PDT


Posted by: anton1792
Posted by: GrnDragn
I view it as a symbolic sort of thing. Passed down from one group to another.

But who started it though? There is one idea of the Forerunners creating it, and then there is another possibly suggesting a perpetual hereditary thing.

Posted by: Lord Snakie
Posted by: anton1792
tl;dr: Why is there an apparent inconsistency between the Terminals and the Encyclopaedia about how the Mantle was conceived by the Forerunner?

343i doesn't give a damn about canon?

It doesn't make sense for the Forerunner to have invented it on their own with the terminals in mind, but they can't have inherited it with the Encyclopedia. YAY.

Perhaps. They appear to be mutually exclusive.

Cryptum might solve this. Apparently the Mantle is not just simple as Guardianship of the Galaxy, it is everything from a way of life to War Ethics. Parts may have been inherited, but other parts augmented by the Forerunner. Need to wait and see though.


It could be said the Encyclopedia meant to say they literally initiated the Mantle. In other words, took it up as the primary and sole law of their society.

At the time of the Encyclopedia's release, only those who had the special edition of Halo 3 knew of the Precursors. The Encyclopedia was a culmination of known facts and history within one volume (with a few added new stuff such as UNSC ship classes to keep things interesting), but nothing really NEW.

If it had said thr Mantle was created by this ancient, nearly god-like race of super-beings, and passed it down to the Forerunners, that might have had a negative impact on the story as a whole.

Its better to ease the audience's mind into an idea as radical as one regarding an even older, more powerful race then those who we have always been lead to believe are the ultimate power, rather then just having it thrown at us.

[Edited on 01.03.2011 2:06 PM PST]

  • 01.03.2011 2:05 PM PDT

"Find where the liar hides, so that I may place my boot between his gums!" - Rtas 'Vadum

Posted by: ROBERTO jh
It could be said the Encyclopedia meant to say they literally initiated the Mantle. In other words, took it up as the primary and sole law of their society.

At the time of the Encyclopedia's release, only those who had the special edition of Halo 3 knew of the Precursors. The Encyclopedia was a culmination of known facts and history within one volume (with a few added new stuff such as UNSC ship classes to keep things interesting), but nothing really NEW.

If it had said thr Mantle was created by this ancient, nearly god-like race of super-beings, and passed it down to the Forerunners, that might have had a negative impact on the story as a whole.

Its better to ease the audience's mind into an idea as radical as one regarding an even older, more powerful race then those who we have always been lead to believe are the ultimate power, rather then just having it thrown at us.

I see what you are saying. Whilst that would probably work with the first Encyclopaedia paragraph, I am not sure it holds up so well with the second. It was quite explicit in that it says they created it, as an ethical code of conduct. If they had said the Forerunners adopted an ethical code of Conduct, then that could be flexible enough to fit both arguments.

Just reading there, and taking into consideration what a user said in a thread I linked above, it is possible that Guardianship of the Galaxy =/= The Mantle, at least not entirely.

Bridging the social strata between an interstellar Marshall Plan and a religious, but benevolent, stewardship, the Forerunners took responsibility for the protection and cultivation of the species and planetary systems within their domain.
It kind of says that they created the Mantle, but to bridge the gap between two ideals. Religious, benevolent stewardship could be the inheritance from the Precursor. However, races could be left to steward the Galaxy as they see fit (Either through intimidation, diplomacy, etc). The Marshall Plan could have been the Forerunners devised method of doing so. The Mantle unifies the two (Or is the product of them being Unified).

  • 01.03.2011 2:39 PM PDT

"Concise and devoid of elegance...what I have come to expect from human communication"-Endless Summer


Posted by: Lord Snakie
Posted by: anton1792
tl;dr: Why is there an apparent inconsistency between the Terminals and the Encyclopaedia about how the Mantle was conceived by the Forerunner?

343i doesn't give a damn about canon?

It doesn't make sense for the Forerunner to have invented it on their own with the terminals in mind, but they can't have inherited it with the Encyclopedia. YAY.


343i was called into existance TO MAKE SURE NO ONE -blam!-S WITH BUNGIES -blam!- so why would they -blam!- with bungies -blam!-?!
and I think the Encyclopedia is outdated

[Edited on 01.09.2011 12:47 AM PST]

  • 01.09.2011 12:47 AM PDT