- Spartan1111117
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- Exalted Member
I think that "Forerunner" is just a word one of the humans (or maybe Cortana) invented to give a name to the unknown creators of the rings. Does anyone in the game besides Cortana ever use the word "Forerunner"? I can't recall Gravemind or Truth ever using that term. In the books, I think Dr. Halsey and a few other humans used it.
My point is that the Forerunners did not refer to themselves as Forerunners, and neither does anyone who knows their true identity, such as Guilty Spark 343. Whatever name the Forerunners referred to themselves as, it wasn't "Forerunner" and it wasn't "human" because of the remark Guilty Spark made about "human history" on the Pillar of Autumn in Halo 1. My guess is that they called themselves something obscure from the Old Testament, which will be revealed in Halo 3.
That's why when Cortana absorbed the Halo data she didn't immediately make the connection human = forerunner, because back in the day the words "human" and "Forerunner" did not exist. Guilty Spark probably assumed that Master Chief was aware of this connection, which is why Guilty Spark was surprised to see Master Chief's comparatively weak armor. Until Guilty Spark read about human history, he did not realize that the Reclaimers had forgotten their heritage and renamed themselves human.
Something else interesting to think about: did the Forerunners speak English at all? Guilty Spark seems to speak it and so does Gravemind. However, Master Chief has a Covenant-English translator, that's why he can understand the Covenant language when the Arbiter and Truth speak it. Perhaps the Forerunner all spoke Covenant, and so do Guilty Spark and Gravemind, but it all gets converted to English so the Chief can understand it. It makes sense that the Covenant adapted both the Forerunners' language and technology.
It would be kind of weird if 100,000 years ago someone programmed Guilty Spark 343 to be fluent in English. However, Guilty Spark definitely knows English after reading about human history on the Pillar of Autumn. He probably taught himself the language while decoding the Pillar of Autumn documents using his advanced pattern recognition algorithms.
I suppose Gravemind could have learned the English language because of the way the Flood steals people's memories. If Flood combat forms can learn to use Warthogs then I bet Gravemind can pick up English. Based on the rhythmic way Gravemind speaks, I'd wager that he is speaking to Master Chief directly in English, no translation necessary. Yet the Arbiter was also able to understand Gravemind. I guess the Arbiter has an English to Covenant translator (he can understand Sarge well enough) but did the Arbiter's translator preserve Gravemind's unique speech patterns? Or was Gravemind speaking in Covenant in such a way that Master Chief's translator was able to maintain the pattern?