- DecepticonCobra
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- Fabled Heroic Member
@accordingto343
Your one stop shop for all of 343's fabulous errors and ridiculous notions in the Halo lore.
For the last few days, a different kind of idea popped into my mind. Could the Timeless One be testing humanity? It could be argued that the actions of the TO influenced human history in the Halo Universe, he unleashed the Flood, he forced the Forerunners to leave the universe, and he gave us room to expand and rebuild our former might and thus inherit the Mantle. First, a recap.
Over 100,000 years ago, humanity had an interstellar empire that rivaled the Forerunners. Spreading from world to world, humanity found an ancient ship containing millions of jars of powder. For some reason I can only chalk up to human ignorance, they and the San Shyuum, ie Prophets, put the powder on their pets. Eventually, their pets mutated and attacked and feasted on the corpses of their former masters.
This is where the Flood began. It hopped from world to world, but remarkably, humanity developed a countermeasure against the Flood and kicked it's space AIDS-ridden ass out of the galaxy.
It can at a price though. Though they beat the Flood, they had also been fighting the Forerunners for territory and lost. Their punishment was de-evolution, their culture, their technology, their progress, wiped clean.
However, the Forerunners would soon learn the horrors of the Flood, and humanity never told them how to beat it. We all know what they did next, Halo. It cost the Forerunners greatly, they were significantly reduced in numbers and left the galaxy in shame.
However, humanity recovered and developed FTL-travel once more and once again traveled across the stars. And then they found the Covenant. 30+ years later, humanity is still around but in a sad shape, but we still managed to be the "winners". However, lets look at some things.
1. The Flood get thrown at us. We prevail. We may get de-evolved, but the Forerunners are the ones who get exiled and leave. We succeeded where the failed.
2. We start from square one post-Halo firing and mush build up out technology all over again. We reached the stars
3. The Flood appear during the final, desperate moments of the Human-Covenant War and set the stages for the Covenant schism. We beat the Covenant and stop the Gravemind and his forces, at least for now.
Say what you want, but the Timeless One set the stage for the events that transpire in the story, one way or another he has a hand in this. And we still come out on top each time. Perhaps Chief's destiny is to finally topple the Timeless One, this firmly securing our right to hold the Mantle.
Sorry if it doesn't make the best sense, but let me try to better explain it.
TL;DR: The Timeless One influenced human history and each event we've gone though has been a test to see if we can endure in the face of hardship thus proving our worth to carry the Mantle.