- Terminus
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- Exalted Member
This is profile number 4
actually been a member of Bungie.net since March-April 2004
... I have a tendency to lose my passwords...
Since you all asked so nicely.
Here is my summary (Obviously it's a summary so don't read if you don't want the entire novel spoiled)
The main character is a Forerunner named Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting, he is a manipulator in the Builder caste which is kind of like the Forerunner version of adolescence. (The Forerunner society is a stratified caste system with the Builders at the top, and the Lifeworkers at the bottom; one of the characters later talked about the irony of this considering the nature of the Mantle). Bornstellar is the rebellious sort and his family not willing to deal with him sends him to live with some Miners (The Miner caste) to see if that knocks some sense into him on a planet called Edom a red world that is the 4th planet in the system.... do you see where this is going? When he was taken in by his temporary family they gave him a new Ancilla which is kind of like the Forerunner version of a personal secretary that lives in your suit and everyone has one, oh and Forerunner live virtually all the time in their suits. But any way his new ancilla tells him about this planet right next door called Erde-Tyrene and she tells him that there might be Precursor artifacts there (Bornstellar is the classical romantic wishing to go on adventures and discover treasures especially those of the Precursors) So he sneaks aboard a transport and goes to Erde-Tyrene (Which turns out to be Earth).
History Lesson :
10,000 years before the start of the novel Human kind was an extremely advanced civilization on the level of the Forerunners, but they fought against the Forerunner's and lost. All of our technology was stripped away and we were devolved (There is no such thing as devolution but that's essentially what happened here) and sent the remaining survivors to live on their former home planet Erde-Tyrene (Earth) under the watchful eye of the Librarian
Bornstellar makes his way over to a human city called Marontik and meets two humans named Chakas and Riser. (Riser is a Florian a subspecies of humanity so he is like a dwarf) (Note: When humanity was 'devolved' we were split up into several different subspecies) who agree to take him to a island where it is said there might be Precursor remnants in evidence. So they cross a lake in a steamboat and Bornstellar is forced to take off his armor because apparently the creatures in the lake hate EM waves of any kind. So they get to the island and then they walk across the island then they get to the center of the island where they find an open field full of 'sand' this is where Riser and Chakas wanted to take BornStellar. It turns out that this is no ordinary empty sand field no its actually something very important protected by a Baffler old Forerunner technology designed to protect things by hiding things within geometric distortions of space (Bornstellar talks about it like we would talk about a radio with vacuum tubes). But apparently Risers family over generations had figured out a way through the Baffler like a maze (exactly like a maze a maze that if you mess up fills your lungs with sand).
When they finally reach the center of the Dazzler they find Rows of Ancient war machines and a giant cylinder called a Cryptum. (Note: Cryptums are Warrior Crypts where powerful members of the Warrior Caste called Prometheans go to meditate and achieve peace for an eternity notice the fact that these crypts are for the living) The humans sing a song and activate the crypt which opens to reveal that it contains one of the most powerful Prometheans ever Didact (The very Forerunner that lead the Forerunner war effort against humanity) Didact is very unhappy about the humiliating way he was woken up as he had hoped for some a bit grander. (Note: The Librarian is Didact's wife and it was her that organized all this to wake Didact up) However soon they are off in a huge space ship created on the spot by utilizing the materials in the mountain in the center of the island. They have to run a huge fleet that has gathered above the island they were on. Somehow they have became aware of Didact's awakening.
They go off to a planet called Charum Hakkor which once was the hub of the Human - San 'Shyuum alliance (Note: Yes Ancient humanity was once allied with the prophets who at that time were said to be beautiful and sensuous smooth talkers) It was once a planet covered by Precursor technology the Humans having built over it and on to it. It had also been the site of a fifty year siege by the Forerunners and was the last Human planet to fall (The San 'Shyuum having surrendered much earlier). There they find the planet a desolate waste land with everything pretty much destroyed even the precursor stuff. (This is a shock to Bornstellar because he keeps saying that the Precursors make their stuff for an eternity) Didact reveals something about what he thinks has happened he believes the council has field tested a weapon he utterly opposed and was the reason for his self imposed exile. But this is not the reason that they are there and the four of them head down to the planet to see what Didact wants to see which turns out to be an ancient 'cage' in the middle of a precursor 'coliseum' that once held something that humanity thought might be a precursor but then decided was evil and then put another safety device around it to make themselves feel better. The 'cage' is empty and the captive is missing and looks like he has been missing for decades since the superweapon was fired and the planet made barren.
They pop over to another one of the planets in the system (Faun Hakkor) that humanity had inhabited and find its ecosystem utterly destroyed nothing more complex that mold lichens and algae remaining.
Note:
Yes what was test fired was a Halo the plans had been in works for the system of twelve rings for at least a thousand years. Yes you heard right Twelve
History Lesson:
At the time of the Human-Forerunner war, Humanity was also fighting on another front with the flood. Centuries before the war large automated primitive looking ships coming from the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud (a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way) appeared in human controlled space bearing a cargo made up of glass bottle full of a powder like substance. Humans examined the power substance very closely and under extremely tight security and protection and found it to only made up of complex organic molecules. Eventually somehow someone used it on a Pheru an ancient human pet and found it made them better somehow. And the pets that it was used on were bred with other pets and sometime later some of the Pheru were born with an extra tuft of hair that caused them to look even cuter and so they continued to be bred with other Pheru however soon Pheru were born with weird deformities and some even started to eat each other, they sprouted tentacles and became violent. It was found that the same thing that was affecting the Pheru was affecting Humans too they became violent and tried to eat their fellow humans. They deformed and grew parts for killing. This was the beginning of the flood as we know it. The humans and their San 'Shyuum allies (who were also affected as they also kept Pheru as pets) fought back against the 'Flood' as they called it. Billions of refugees poured across human space and into Forerunner space to find a new place to live (This being a big part of the cause of the Human-Forerunner war). However humanity found a cure to the flood and infected people willingly infected themselves with the counter flood organism and infected the flood in term with their malicious code. It was this which allowed Humanity to push the flood out of the Orion arm and into deep Galactic space.
Their next destination is the San 'Shyuum quarantine system (Basically a non contiguous dyson sphere designed as a prison for the San 'Shyuum ) They enter the sphere with permission from one of Didacts old friends. But before that Didact wants Bornstellar to be on more equal terms with him but he can't as a Manipulator he needs to undergo at least his first mutation. But normally that would require his father and a highly equipped space designed for that purpose. However Didact does offer another way which involves something called a Brevet Mutation which is kind of like a quick and dirty battle field mutation and BornStellar agrees. (A Mutation requires a Sponsor to be on hand to give the necessary imprint required for the Mutation to work normally this would be someone like your father or close relative at least for your first mutation) Once the mutation is mostly done this allows Didact to give BornStellar everything he knows, which he wasn't able to earlier.
What they find when they come upon the San 'Shyuum worlds however is a disaster Forerunner fleets are mopping up what is left of the San 'Shyuum and their worlds burn. Apparently there was an uprising when the Librarian came to take San 'Shyuum to be catalogued on the ark and told them of what had happened to their former ally's humanity. Soon the fleet falls on the ship and tears it apart and captures Didact, BornStellar, Chaka, and Riser. The Master Builder has captured them and questions them to learn why the Librarian had come to the system and what secret Didact had hoped to learn from the San 'Shyuum.
[Edited on 01.05.2011 8:42 PM PST]