- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Posted by: random_factor
It seems nobody read the article I posted, so I'll put the text here.
The Forerunners somehow created Flood. Not sure why, but it was probably as a super-weapon that went horribly wrong.
They couldn't defeat them.
They built the Halo rings as a last resort, in case they couldn't find any other way to defeat the Flood.
They couldn't find any other way to defeat the Flood.
They didn't want to wipe themselves out pointlessly, so they reverse-engineered their own DNA to get microbes that would someday evolve back into Forerunners, or something very much like them.All of the forerunners' knowledge was encoded into the microbes' DNA so that they would someday remember it all, and they would know how to use Forerunner tecnology when they found it. These microbes were small enough to remain unaffected by Halo. The microbes were scattered on a suitable planet. A forerunner artefact was left nearby so that the new Forerunners would find it when they became advanced enough to reclaim the Forerunners' legacy.
The Halo rings were activated, killing all living creatures that could sustain the Flood.
The Flood were contained in facilities like Lockout to prevent them from finding the bodies of the creatures killed by the Halo rings, which would give them enough food to survive.
Robots like 343 Guilty Spark and 2401 Penitent Tangent were left to study the Flood to find a way to kill them without needing to use the Halo rings, in case the new Forerunners ever needed it.
The Flood broke out and survived.
The Reclaimers (aka humans) evolved.
The Reclaimers were unable to find and use the Forerunner artefacts that had been left for them, because a band of species calling themselves the Covenant had got there first. The war between the Reclaimers/humans and the Covenant meant that the Reclaimers/humans were unable to find and use the Forerunner artefacts in the way they were meant to.
This is generally accepted as being as close to the tru7h as we've come so far. I co-authored it, I believe it.
This is pretty much exactly like my own theory except for one detail. The Forerunners didn't order the Reclaimers, aka Humans, to evolve from microbes, but rather from our nearly human ancestors who were not yet fully sentient. They essentially encoded our DNA to allow our first ancestors to have the mental capacity of the Forerunners. So, we probably don't look anything like the Forerunners, we just inherited their minds.
The clues to this are twofold. One, the fact that the Forerunner artifact on earth is beneath Mombosa, Kenya, where are the earliest known fossils of H-omo sapiens sapiens, or modern humans are found. Also, these earliest H-omo sapiens sapiens are believed by some to be 100,000 years old. There's a debate right now over when the line between pre-modern humans, and fully modern humans lies, but its anywhere from 1-200,000 years ago. However, after 100,000 years ago, humans become completely anatomically identical to us, particularly in the cranial area. If you recall, there's a level in "sacred icon" in Halo 2 called the 100,000 years war. I think I remember Cortana mentioning that the Forerunner ruins are about that age as well. There were humans alive that long ago, but what most anthropologist say differs between us and them is that we have a creative ability that they didn't. So, the Forerunners just gave us their minds, not their bodies.
I edited this because bungie forums blanks out the word H-omo, when I'm talking about the species, not the the opposite of straight.
[Edited on 5/15/2006]