- Traxus 04
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- Honorable Member
I'll say right now that it seems like you're taking the stance that I know little to nothing about these games
and that I am incapable of seeing things that are "spelled out". While this may not be your intention, I assure that, regardless, those premises are incorrect.
Oh spare me. When did I say anything of the sort? Firstly I wasn't even just responding to you alone. Secondly, let's drop the pretentiousness.
So anyway, this isn't the History Channel. There's a difference between analysing history and analysing fiction - in real-life history there is no 'narrative'. -blam!- just happens. In fiction there is storytelling logic/decisions, and it's perfectly valid to analyse and infer things from that alone.
You're proof that the Precursors are fundamentally different is that it would be boring if they were not? How do you consider that a proof exactly? History is filled with more advanced civilizations being destroyed by less advanced ones. Rome, the most advanced civilization at the time, was wiped out by an alliance of nomadic barbarians. They were more advanced in terms of economics, scientific knowledge, and warfare (tactics) among other things and still were destroyed. Spain's armada which would have devastated England was wiped out by a chance storm. An army of farmers (U.S.) fought against and achieved independence from the most advanced empire on Earth (at the time).
The Forerunner named themselves the Forerunner because they believed the Mantle would inevitably be passed on to another species (thus they would have upheld the mantle before the next species). The Precursor is a Forerunner given name, the Precursor didn't name themselves that. I still don't understand what the naming scheme has to do with the Precursor inhabiting suns.
Ok let's get two things out of the way - it's highly unlikely that Bungie originally intended for the Forerunners to refer to themselves as the Forerunners, but the name stuck so it was used in Cryptum; and these examples of falling empires are bad comparisons, because unlike the Precursors they didn't just vanish without a trace, they merely went into decline.
So as I was saying, if the Precursors turn out to be merely an earlier more advanced version of the Forerunners, who are an earlier more advanced version of the Covenant... yeah, that's too boring to be the answer. Why? Because we might as well suppose that someone else was an earlier more advanced version of the precursors, and they too would succeed an earlier more advanced... etc etc. No, that's rubbish storytelling. There has to be something fundamentally different and interesting about the Precursors, for them to be worth telling a story about. Not just another tier of ancientness.
I'm pretty sure the point was to show the first Forerunner attempts at interstellar travel (though I don't have the book with me so I can't determine the context right now).
The book also talked about the Miner caste yet they didn't play much (if any) of a role in the book. Little to nothing was made of it and yet it was still present. This is because this book is an insight into Forerunner culture. A good author will explore the various nuances necessary to make it believable and realistic; oftentimes just in passing. Not every detail mentioned has a major role to play in the story, and we, as observers, really can't decide which ones are going to be important plot devices later on. Additionally, we have no idea when the Forerunner revolted from the Precursor (if that's even the case). Since Bornsteller knows the history of the Forerunner when they were first able to manipulate (and destroy) stars, and does not know of the history of the Forerunner beating the Precursor in a war, it's safe to assume that the Forerunner learned how to manipulate stars after their war (if it even occurred) with the Precursor.
The book talks about the Miner caste because there ought to be a good reason for Born being sent to live with another family in our solar system. There needed to be something for that family to do. So yes, in that case, the book was just filling in some detail as insight for Forerunner culture, but it was a natural place to do so. The story about the wrecked star system and the stellar engineers, however, was rather shoe-horned in (it happens during Born's journey back to his home planet) - the reader wasn't expecting to be given this new information. While it could just be red-herring/padding, it screams significance, the way it was presented. Not only was there no need to provide any 'background info' at that point, but there was absolutely no need to introduce this rather drastic tale of the Forerunner 'cradle of stars' being destroyed. Certainly not just for the sake of saying 'Forerunners didn't get the hang of everything right away.' If you pay attention to things like this, you usually CAN decide/predict which details are just 'nuance' and which have greater significance. Also, Born only 'knows' about this history through second-hand accounts, not direct memory - easily the sort of information that could be part of a cover-up. We have no real info. about the dates of their occurrence.
All we were given was their appearance. What makes you think that, based on their appearance, they would be able to survive inside of a sun? How can you stat that the are "deep space creatures" with miraculous survivability traits based on their appearance (which is that of a sea scorpion) alone? Surely through personal belief and not any fact presented in the story?
Point 4 is really just you stating an incorrect fact (the sun speeds up evolution) and creating metaphor after metaphor from that. That's an extended metaphor from an incorrect assumption, not a proof.
Point 5 has to do with the Marathon Universe which is not the Halo Universe.
Admittedly this is the most tenuous part of my theory (the live inside sun thing), but that bit could be wrong and the rest still right. The Wrkncactner may be from the Marathon universe, but my point (which you apparently do need spelt out to you) was that Bungie have a history of re-using plot ideas from previous games. The strange appearance of the Prisoner and his inpenetrable cell, the story of the Wrkncactner being imprisoned in the sun of Lh'owan by the Jjaro, the plasma jockey dudes going into Forerunner stars, the mysterious destruction of the Forerunner star system and disappearance of the Precursors - I dunno, it all just seems to fit together and leap out at me. We got a description of the Precursor but no indication of his biology/habitat; and it's logical to assume they are very different creatures from the Forerunner/humans. Come up with a story that explains all those details: no Precursors left anywhere in our galaxy, wtf they are doing now, trans-galactic civilization somehow overcome by more primitive Forerunners and haven't returned since, able to speed up evolution somehow ('magic?'), apparently 'gave breath' to the Forerunners' but we have no info about Forerunner origins except they evolved in a 'perfect' star system. A theory that attempts to explain these anomalies is frankly more credible than a theory that ignores them.
I don't really care about finding 'proof.' Like i said this isn't the History Channel. I wanted to write up my explanation of events, which i made by joining the dots (dots which others apparently failed to even notice), and put it on here a) to bask in the glory of being right once the solid proof DOES arrive (where's the fun otherwise?) and b) to give people a better understanding of what was going on so they can hunt for more clues and possibilities.
I was the first person on these forums (and probably the internet, as far as I can gather) to work out that Mendicant Bias was still around, influencing the Covenant religion, and was housed aboard the Covenant's High Charity. Of course when I posted that, I got some stickinthemuds yammering about lack of proof etc. etc., they just had to wait until it was confirmed in Contact: Harvest - no skin off my nose. In that instance the main clue was the name of that ship, 'High Charity,' coupled with the name 'Mendicant Bias' - which in 'factual' or 'historical' terms is no proof at all but in storytelling terms, made it a dead cert.
[Edited on 01.24.2011 1:14 PM PST]