- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
My theory of everything
The forerunner were an interstellar empire that like all interstellar empires occasionally experiences either domestic or foreign wars, so they created the flood as a bio weapon. Of course, like many of our attempts to use biology for our own means, the flood were too dangerous and got away from it's creators but was then contained (343GS mentioned that samples were kept after the LAST catastrophic outbreak, implying that there were more than one). For whatever reason, perhaps a sense of ethics, they kept the flood alive rather than exterminating them. But they built the Halo rings to prevent them spreading through the galaxy and then infecting other galaxies. They probably figured it was better to kill off the Milky Way in the event of an outbreak than to let the whole universe get infected. They then either died or left, though I think they probably felt it was safer to leave this galaxy, what with the Halo rings and the flood. They left behind all sorts of artifacts on various planets, including Reach and Sigma Octanus. Later, species such as humans and the Prophets established their own civilizations (it's possible that the Forerunner were in the habit of engineering new life forms such as us and the covenant. After all, they created the Flood, and we already have the ability to make new microbes. If so, the Forerunner may have left their creations on planets to fend for themselves. Halo is almost as old as humanity itself.) Though the humans were unaware of the presence of the Forerunner, the Prophets learned of them through the abandoned artifacts and came to believe they were their creators (which indeed they would be if the sentient races were engineered), and formed a fundamentalist religion in which any who did not acknowledge the greatness of the Forerunner were an abomination and must be destroyed (the Covenant make frequent references to one of our greatest sins being our ignorance during ship-to-ship communications in battle). I have not seen any information regarding the other races of the Covenant and their beliefs before the Prophets showed up, though it is possible that they knew of the Forerunner, or were simply conquered and assimilated into their army. Why they have chosen to destroy us outright instead is anyone's guess. Maybe something about us makes us unsuitable for cannon fodder along with the grunts and jackals. Who knows. Anyway, that's the gist of it. If you have anything that might be relevant to this or contradictory to it, let me know.