- SkaarjSlayer
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- Noble Member
With Halo 4 approximately 6 months away from release, undoubtedly there's intense speculation from all of us fans about just who the heck the antagonist of this new trilogy could possibly be. Of course, there's popular theories, but many of those theories I have seen have been argued without an appreciation for the various sources of information (specifically, the Forerunner Trilogy of books) and it's getting on my nerves.
SPOILER WARNING
The rest of this post contains spoilers for the following media:
Halo 2
Halo 3
terminals in Halo: Anniversary Edition
Halo: Cryptum
Halo: Primordium
The top 5 theories of Halo 4's antagonist theories are these: The Flood, The Covenant (or rogue species that were a part of it), the Precursors, the Forerunner, and finally a new species we've never heard of before.
Let's start with,
The Flood:
Now, we saw the end of The Flood, or so we thought, at the end of Halo 3 when The Arbiter and the Master Chief detonated the under-construction Installation 04B at The Ark. The Gravemind, present at The Ark on board the infected High Charity, was killed and all Flood (and sentient life) in a 25,000 light-year radius of The Ark was eradicated. To seal the deal, the unfinished Installation 04B was destroyed because it was not constructed enough to withstand the stress of firing. We're also told in the Halo 3 ending that the blast "did a number on The Ark".
All this being said, the entirety of The Flood was NOT destroyed, and here's why. First off, The Flood, as we know, was present on both Installation 04 and Installation 05, so it is safe to assume that the Forerunners kept samples of The Flood on all Halo installations and there are still 6 other undiscovered rings remaining. Secondly, considering the fact that, in Halo 3, an infected Covenant CCS-class battlecruiser landed on Earth before High Charity appeared leads us to assume that The Flood was successful in infecting other Slipspace-capable vessels and is probably still out there. But we don't know for sure, only that the only Flood-infected vessel present at The Ark during the firing sequence was High Charity, which lead to the demise of the Gravemind. One thing to keep in mind is that death of a Gravemind does not end The Flood, only puts them from a "Coordinated-stage" to a "Feral-stage" (reference: Halo Bestiarum). Another thing is that The Flood, at original contact with the Ancient Human Empire, and then the Forerunner, came from outside of our galaxy. 343 Guilty Spark himself says in one of the Halo: Anniversary terminals that it's possible there's still more Flood out beyond the edge of the galaxy.
So with these arguments, yes, it is possible that The Flood could be in Halo 4 were it not for one problem: Frank O'Connor himself said The Flood is not going to be an enemy in Halo 4. Period. Not to say they don't tie into the story or have some involvement in the plot-line, but as an enemy you fight in the game? Nope.
The Covenant
Now this theory is one of the dumbest I've ever heard. First off, The Covenant is broken up. I have yet to read Halo: Glasslands, but from what I've heard from other people and seen of its general plot synopsis, I don't think I'll be reading about a still-stable Covenant trying to obliterate humanity. The Covenant was divided since near the end of Halo 2, and essentially finished with the death of The Prophet of Truth. Of course, there are still "Covenant Loyalists" (mostly the Jiralhanae) that continue to believe in the Great Journey, and don't like humanity very much, but as an effective government and military organization they don't appear to any longer be an "ancient evil" that can have much effect on the universe. Those who have seen the Halo 4 box art notice the Covenant ship also being pulled into the planet along with UNSC Forward Unto Dawn. It has been stated that this Covenant vessel is essentially a "rogue" vessel not part of the Covenant military which makes sense considering Halo 4 takes place roughly 4 years after the end of Halo 3 (reference: May 2012 issue of Game Informer magazine). So we'll get to see Covenant, but they're not going to be the main antagonist and focus of the plot.
The Precursors
The Precursors. The original inhabitants of the galaxy that supposedly seeded the universe with life and created the very Mantle the Forerunners upheld and eventually passed on to humanity. Some say these will be the antagonist, and to be very honest even I can't debunk this theory for sure. But here's some insight.
The reason why The Forerunners received the Mantle from The Precursors is because the Forerunners eradicated the Precursors in a long and bloody war. Though there is not enough information to say for certain, the general Forerunner belief at the time of the Forerunner-Flood War is that there were no Precursors left in existence. The Captive (also known as The Timeless One, and the Primordial) that we read about in Halo: Cryptum and Halo: Primordium was long believed to be a Precursor but in fact was a Flood Gravemind pretending to be one. This Flood Gravemind, before being discovered for what it truly was, tried to convince ancient humanity as well as the Forerunner that the Precursors were the ones who created The Flood to punish Forerunners and the rest of the galaxy for rising up and eradicating the Precursors. Of course, since The Captive was actually a Flood Gravemind, it could have been lying so no one knows if this is true or not, or whether even The Flood and The Precursors are even two different species. Further information will be revealed to us in the final book of the Forerunner trilogy, Halo: Silentium, but that won't be released until about 2 months after the release of Halo 4 (reference: Halo: Cryptum and Halo: Primordium).
The Forerunners
This is another theory I have difficulty believing. Some of those who have read Halo: Cryptum and Halo: Primordium believe Forerunners to be the enemies because of the fact that, before the Forerunner-Flood war, there was a war between Humans and Forerunner.
Although true, the fact remains that the Forerunners left all of their technology behind, as well as the Mantle, for humanity to inherit. Not to mention the fact that the Librarian and her husband The Didact were pretty much the leaders of the Forerunner by the time of the firing of the Halo Array, and although The Didact did fight the humans during the Forerunner-Human war, understood his wife's love for humanity and their importance.
While it is true that Monitors such as 343 Guilty Spark have been known to betray humans, one has to understand that they aren't Forerunner. They are artificial intelligences, that can go rampant and insane just as a human AI can (it just takes longer... a LOT longer). Not to mention that all they were given were protocols and instructions on how to handle certain situations by the Forerunner in a manner that appears to have been very last-minute. The Forerunner knew the Halo installations were important for defending the galaxy from The Flood and so built the Monitors to take care of them AND protect them. Despite the fact that humanity in the games are the Reclaimers, and Monitors such as Spark recognizes them as such, the fact that they DID try to and succeed in destroying two Halo installations makes it understandable that Spark couldn't override his duty to protect Installation 04 and Installation 04B and is the reason for his first betrayal in Halo: CE and the second in Halo 3. From what it seems, the protocol to protect a Halo Array overrules the protocol to safeguard and obey Reclaimers (references: Halo: Cryptum and Halo: Primordium).
Other Race
The theory I think is most likely is that it is a completely new race that will be the antagonists for the new Halo trilogy, but that all of the other species I mentioned (human, Covenant, Forerunner, Precursor, and Flood) will all tie in and somehow relate to this "ancient evil".
Of course, I could be wrong. But the fact that we can safely assume that no KNOWN species can possibly be the antagonists leaves us only one other explanation. Also there's the Halo: Anniversary terminals that tell of the unknown alien ship that crash-landed on Installation 04 more or less halfway in-between the end of the Forerunner-Flood War and the start of Halo: CE. It seems very unlikely that 343 Industries added this sub-plot about a crashed alien ship just convey to us the severity of Guilty Spark's isolation, but that's also still a possibility we can't throw away. We can't jump to conclusions.
Conclusion
I offer no insights into what the enemy could be, only insights into what it most certainly isn't. I, myself, cannot wait for Halo 4 and the release of Halo: Silentium. The story is going to be nothing short of amazing, and I'm almost kind of glad that we don't know who the antagonists are, yet get all of these hints of this connected plotline from so many different sources of information. It will make Halo 4 more enjoyable, at least for me. That's not to say I'm not speculating myself! I just don't think it's any species we know of at the moment.
Hope this cleared some stuff up for all you Halo fans. Read the books, I beg you!