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This topic has moved here: Subject: The forerunners were......(cryptum spoilers)
  • Subject: The forerunners were......(cryptum spoilers)
Subject: The forerunners were......(cryptum spoilers)

...Dicks

Ive just read through cryptum and it turns out the forerunner were not a universally enlightened and peaceful people. They were not transcendent beings with perfect judgement and morals. They were not all benevolent. They were not whiter than white.

They had just as much internal strife and political conflict and corruption as any other sentient species the galaxy had seen. Perhaps even more. They could be astoundingly brutal bordering on sadistic to any 'lower' species who dared defy them.

A large chunk of them were full of hypocrisy, they had a strange some might say backward social caste system reminiscent of feudal britain, where the most devout followers of the sacred mantle are at the very bottom, and in the end failed to stop the flood because of their indecisiveness and dithering, political sloth and internal conflicts. Apart from the technological prowess they were as far from godlike being as you could get.

Its been interesting to see the forerunners finally characterized properly, but it has been quite strange reading about who they truly were seeing as weve had 10 years of building them up to mythological status as trancendental beings of pure love and the friends and protectors of all life. Now we see........they were like us in so many ways. Capable of such beauty and such horrors.

Actually i think thats the point.

  • 03.18.2011 9:12 AM PDT

I thought it was interesting seeing just how wrong the Covenant turned out to be in their view of the Forerunners.

I think the title for true benevolent race goes to the Precursors now.

  • 03.18.2011 9:14 AM PDT

We don't know anything about how "benevolent" the precursors were yet.

  • 03.18.2011 9:17 AM PDT

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I agree 100%.

I think it's more interesting this way, and gives the reader characters they can somewhat relate to.

  • 03.18.2011 9:18 AM PDT

Well from what i could visualise, if the captive truly is a Precurser (almost certain since its directly stated) then they are horrible insectoid scorpion like beings with 4 arms and compound eyes and their own goddamn 2 meter long stinger tail ffs.

Plus if the theory is true of the precursers creating the flood out of pure spite to the forerunner, that does not count very high on my benevel-o-meter.

Actually i just thought of something. Gravemind once said to the chief in halo 2 (reclaimer, inheritor of the mantle and child of the forerunner) "Who am i? I am a monument to all your sins."

IE the forerunner sins against the precurser. Interesting!

  • 03.18.2011 9:24 AM PDT


Posted by: Wazooty
We don't know anything about how "benevolent" the precursors were yet.


Except that they were absolute and true in their protection of the Mantle. So much so they protected not only life but the universe.

All we have to go by is the Forerunner's word, and though it may not be trust worthy, all we know is that the Precursors were true guardians.

(Note: the Precursors must've locked the Captive up for a reason. He should not be considered a true representation of the Precursors.)

[Edited on 03.18.2011 9:36 AM PDT]

  • 03.18.2011 9:35 AM PDT

By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.

I never believed that the Forerunners were this "perfect" race that people have gladly accepted over the past decade, I've always believed them to have had a darker side (being why they were the only race with advanced technology at the time, they exploited a loophole in the Mantle to do this).

  • 03.18.2011 9:41 AM PDT

Don't worry, you're still your mom's favorite Bnet member.

That's why I don't like Cryptum. I always viewed the Forerunner as these superior philosophical thinkers, masters of the universe in their own right. Peaceful thinkers who knew they were the most powerful beings to ever exist and so they sought it as their duty, the obligation, to protect all life.

  • 03.18.2011 9:51 AM PDT

By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.

Posted by: MegaMuffin16
That's why I don't like Cryptum. I always viewed the Forerunner as these superior philosophical thinkers, masters of the universe in their own right. Peaceful thinkers who knew they were the most powerful beings to ever exist and so they sought it as their duty, the obligation, to protect all life.


You dislike Cryptum because it proved you wrong?

  • 03.18.2011 9:57 AM PDT

Don't worry, you're still your mom's favorite Bnet member.

Posted by: ajw34307
Posted by: MegaMuffin16
That's why I don't like Cryptum. I always viewed the Forerunner as these superior philosophical thinkers, masters of the universe in their own right. Peaceful thinkers who knew they were the most powerful beings to ever exist and so they sought it as their duty, the obligation, to protect all life.


You dislike Cryptum because it proved you wrong?
I guess that's one way to put it. I just don't like how the Forerunners are portrayed.

  • 03.18.2011 10:05 AM PDT

By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.

Posted by: MegaMuffin16
Posted by: ajw34307
Posted by: MegaMuffin16
That's why I don't like Cryptum. I always viewed the Forerunner as these superior philosophical thinkers, masters of the universe in their own right. Peaceful thinkers who knew they were the most powerful beings to ever exist and so they sought it as their duty, the obligation, to protect all life.


You dislike Cryptum because it proved you wrong?
I guess that's one way to put it. I just don't like how the Forerunners are portrayed.


I don't see how that spoils the whole book. I think it's the finest Halo story since Ghosts of Onyx, I don't see how people could have seen the Forerunners to have been godlike and galactic pacifists. It was only towards the end of their 300 year long struggle that they became humble, but before that they were just like any other species.

  • 03.18.2011 10:09 AM PDT
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Posted by: DecepticonCobra

We are all going to get banned aren't we?


Posted by: Primo84
I agree 100%.

I think it's more interesting this way, and gives the reader characters they can somewhat relate to.


And it makes going back and playing the halo games more interesting also. Prophets worship forerunners (which they disliked), Humans using forerunner tech (which they avoided), humans fighting prophets (which were allies) and so on.

  • 03.18.2011 10:15 AM PDT

Posted by: ROBERTO jh

Posted by: Wazooty
We don't know anything about how "benevolent" the precursors were yet.


Except that they were absolute and true in their protection of the Mantle. So much so they protected not only life but the universe.

All we have to go by is the Forerunner's word, and though it may not be trust worthy, all we know is that the Precursors were true guardians.

(Note: the Precursors must've locked the Captive up for a reason. He should not be considered a true representation of the Precursors.)


Just like we thought the forerunners were true guardians, right?

  • 03.18.2011 10:23 AM PDT
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"Time was your ally human. But now it has abandoned you. The Forerunners....have returned. And this tomb... is now yours". - The Didact

Well Faber and his gang are -blam!-s,but i wouldn't call the Didact and the rest Dicks.

The Humans were douchbags as well

  • 03.18.2011 11:56 AM PDT

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

Posted by: hotshot revan II
The Humans were douchbags as well

Yes, obviously the entire race was deserving of such a fate, because obviously they all thought the same. We totally understand the full scenario that is not at all based on scarce or dubious facts and certainly not from the biased Forerunner perception.

Christ! Genocide must be the best thing since sliced bread!

HURR DURR MISANTHROPY HERP DERP

  • 03.18.2011 12:33 PM PDT

Posted by: ElementalRunner

Posted by: Commander Stroll
Still using a pump-action shotgun over 500 years in the future I see.

omg not realistic stop game production plz

You're right when you say they were like us.

Imagine that humanity completely died today. No humans. All gone.

Aliens visit Earth and find our structures. The Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, etc. They'd think that for the most part we were this peaceful, wondrous species.

But the reality is that humanity is very varied in how "good" we are.

  • 03.18.2011 12:37 PM PDT

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Posted by: CoolCJ24
You're right when you say they were like us.

Imagine that humanity completely died today. No humans. All gone.

Aliens visit Earth and find our structures. The Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, etc. They'd think that for the most part we were this peaceful, wondrous species.

But the reality is that humanity is very varied in how "good" we are.
That's a great point.

  • 03.18.2011 12:56 PM PDT

I also agree 100%

  • 03.18.2011 1:19 PM PDT

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Ye im also wondering why they chose to save humanity from the flood as well. (after they were devolved). Pretty contradictive race IMO

  • 03.18.2011 2:38 PM PDT


Posted by: WEE MAN MJJC
Ye im also wondering why they chose to save humanity from the flood as well. (after they were devolved). Pretty contradictive race IMO


They probably didnt as a whole. The librarian did. She chose to try and save ALL species she could get her hands on, regardless of their past. And eventually this devotion cost her her own life. She also regarded the devolution of humans after the war as a crime against the mantle.

When the rings and the ark were first built it seems they wernt even landscaped and terraformed. That only happened when the librarian put her foot down with faber about it regarding his original plan of 'light the rings and let god sort em all out' as a travesty.

She only got her way because it was politically expedient for faber to let her have it.

  • 03.18.2011 3:40 PM PDT


Posted by: WEE MAN MJJC
Ye im also wondering why they chose to save humanity from the flood as well. (after they were devolved). Pretty contradictive race IMO
There is still a few hundred years left of the Forerunner-Flood war left. Also remember the two humans Born became familiar with? Since Born is now the Didact maybe he will push for their safety. We still have two more books left you know.

  • 03.18.2011 6:39 PM PDT