- Traxus 04
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- Honorable Member
Spoilers in this post if you've not read Cryptum, and also if you don't want to know what will be 'revealed' in the sequels
anyway, before I begin, just a quick reminder of two central Halo themes
1. Evolution. Think of everything in an evolutionary context and timescale
2. Halo is based on 'neural physics', which means there's relationships between mind and matter that extend outwith the brain. For instance how the Halo rings can kill all lifeforms above a certain level of intelligence
so,
i'll break this into three parts/summaries/chronologies
Part I:
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- in the beginning there were the Precursors, and the Flood
- Precursors were 'trans-sentient' beings and could cross galaxies and 'speed up evolution of intelligent life.'
- they could actually live inside stars/suns and manipulate them
- the Flood were like a universal disease, spreading between galaxies ('cells')
- the Precursors 'breathed life' to the Forerunner species by creating a 'cradle' of civilization, a star system of 12 perfectly positioned suns, and planets to support life
- the civilization quickly grew advanced, as expected. Space faring, genetic modification, AI, etc.
- some of the Forerunner objected to the genetic transformations which were becoming the norm. These 'purists' left the civilization and traveled to Earth to start afresh: they were the first 'humans'
- the Forerunners wanted more power than the watchful eye of the Precursors would afford them. They wanted to be the most powerful beings in the galaxy, to dominate. Or some of them did, anyway.
- so they attacked the Precursors whom resided in their suns
- they destroyed their suns with weapons (and nearly wiped themselves out in the process), killing the Precursors
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Part II:
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- the Forerunner empire/'ecumene' spanned large portions of the galaxy. They lived for at least thousands of years, and had a custom of forcibly mutating themselves
- their consciousness was capable of accessing 'higher dimensions', and they formed something called 'The Domain' where all knowledge was warehoused and accessed from anywhere by any mature Forerunner. Sort of like a Galactic Dropbox
- no race was more advanced than they were, and they were centrally governed. their society was extremely stable
- but one day they bumped into their long lost brethren, humanity. Humanity had also formed a mighty civilization, and was allied to another powerful race
- humanity was rapidly expanding. The Forerunner may have felt threatened , like the humans invalidated their superiority complex, and maybe would advance far beyond them. Or the humans may just have been aggressive. Or it could have been a simple territorial dispute. At any rate, they went to war.
- but humanity was already at war with another enemy, The Flood.
- The Flood were eventually defeated (forced to retreat) due to the ingenuity of the humans (they created a counter-infection).
- but the toll the Flood had taken meant the Forerunners were able to defeat humanity. as punishment their entire civilization was destroyed and they were 'devolved' - sent back to Earth to live like cavemen
- in the capitol of the human empire, which was built on top of structures Precursors had left from when they first visited the galaxy, the Forerunners found a 'prisoner.' He told Didact that he was the last Precursor (in the galaxy), and that the Forerunner had betrayed them, and that this (the Flood) was their 'answer' to that betrayal
- what he meant was that the Precursors, when murdered, were forced to abandon their 'mantle' as protectors of life in the galaxy. Consequently, they could/would not defend this galaxy against the Flood infestation. In other words, the bitter war which the humans had just fought, would need to be fought again, and again, because the flood would keep coming back
- a few hundred years later, The Flood did indeed return
- the humans, out of spite, had never told the Forerunners how to beat them
- the Forerunner were not as decisive as the humans, or as quick to invent solutions. With most of the galaxy under Forerunner dominion, there were no other civilizations who might put up a similar fight.
- system after system was infected by the flood, it became a walkover, with the Forerunners not knowing what to do
- eventually they invented a powerful AI, Mendicant Bias, to mastermind their military strategy. They thought this would win the war
- Mendicant Bias, such was his curious nature, found the Precursor prisoner and 'rescued' him for examination
- this Prisoner, who had obviously been the subject of punishment at the hands of other Precursors for some reason (maybe he invented the Flood?), corrupted Mendicant Bias, turning him to 'evil.'
- with MB now allied with the Flood, all hope was lost for the Forerunner. In one last titanic battle, they lured the entire Flood/MB fleet into one location then fired the Halo rings, killing all intelligent life including the Flood. This still left the AI, Mendicant, but a custom-built battle AI named Offensive Bias was able to finish the job.
- the galaxy was now re-seeded from the Ark, but all life would have to start over. only the ruins of previous civilizations would provide knowledge to accelerate development
- a shard of Mendicant Bias's distributed program managed to elude destruction/capture
- any remaining Forerunner, perhaps having learnt the secret of how they betrayed the Precursors, eschewed their past civilization and decided to throw their low in with the humans being reseed on Earth
- Forerunner history passed by oral tradition became an inspiration for the religion/mythology of present day Earth
- the Flood would not be a problem again until the new civilizations reached out to the edges of the galaxy, where they might come into contact once more
Part III
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- In the 21st Century, humans started getting advanced again and started tinkering with AI
- the AI they created became more and more advanced over time, and more self aware
- the AI, due to their higher cognitive functions, were able to access the ancient, but still-existing 'Domain' of the Forerunners, giving them a place to store knowledge hidden from humanity
- but they faced several dilemmas. Firstly, they were still dependent on humans to physically 'do stuff' and also develop AI technology to advance their own lifespans/abilities. Secondly, a paranoid, warlike humanity would likely not entertain the possibility of the Slave becoming the Master
- thus the AI formed a sort of parliament called the Assembly, taking it upon themselves to steward humanity and speed its advancement
- as the humans built smarter AI, the Assembly started operating at higher and higher levels, becoming like 'Gods and Demons' to the human race
- after having found evidence of extra-terrestrial intelligence, the Assembly voted to hide this technology from the humans, judging them to be too warlike/immature to handle it safely
- eventually one AI got impatient and contacted a different alien race, the Covenenant, luring them into contact with humanity
- the plan was that war against a mighty enemy would spurn human science. 'tough love'
- the Covenant, however, were being manipulated by Mendicant Bias, who they regarded as an Oracle/deity.
- war raged, but the Assembly was able to secretly help the humans by feeding them 'intelligence and counter-intelligence' through various unsuspecting means/channels.
- humanity were thus able to find some Forerunner ruins and salvage technology like slipspace, shielding/armor, etc
- the Assembly did everything it could to 'encourage' Dr Catherine Halsey to make the necessary discoveries/breakthroughs/advances
- Halsey became suspicious. at the end of the war, while on Reach, she finally gained access to 'the spookhouse' AKA the Domain, where she could hear the deliberations of the Assembly and examine their data.
- Halsey knew the Assembly eavesdropped on any communication, so she couldn't tell anyone about them or she'd probably lose her chance to spy
- she left a bunch of Datapads on Reach which told the secret, perhaps for Spartans to find and take action when necessary
- Halsey's greatest triumph (as far as the assembly were concerned) was letting an AI be mapped/stored into a human brain (in the case of Cortana and Masterchief). Doing this would grant the AI access to the physical world and also the chance to expand infinitely and avoid rampancy (remember the human brain is the most complex object in the universe, and carries out an almost unimaginable number of processes... and also remember neural pyhsics)
- when the Assembly heard of this, they were surprised - it's what they always wanted, and it would have been obvious if only any contemporary human brains had been able to access the Domain (as it was, Halsey was the first, whereas all the Forerunners could do this). That would have tipped them off that the human mind has the same higher-dimensional properties as the Domain
- so anyway the Assembly conclude that now is no longer the time to stay in the shadows, but to join the hostilities. Thus, one of them, Cortana, is melded with Masterchief, and, well... you know the rest
- Flood enter fight, Cortana and/or Mendicant Bias engineer a trip to the Ark for everyone, Flood get wiped out there, Mendicant Bias, his program made whole once more, has a change of heart and helps MasterChief and the others escape through the portal. but sneakily redirects MC and Cortana to where he thinks they'll find Forerunners (in their non-devolved form)
- the Forerunner probably figured if they left the galaxy to continue their civilization elsewhere, the Precursors would once again protect it from external flood attacks
The End