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May 14, 2010

Good thing I've been rummaging through my inbox; otherwise I'd have missed this epic feat of fan-speculated material.

Antoni Koziol (kwskategod@yahoo.com) writes:

On the Forerunner-Human interconnection

Hello, I have been reading through the story pages on the website and they're very interesting. Especially the ones regarding the Forerunner. I (MLG Cheehwawa) have something that I think you guys at HBO would find interesting. Maybe even worthy of posting up on the forerunner story page. Here it is --

I keep hearing people say that the Forerunner "de-evolved" into humanity some time around the Halos' initial firing. This is quite impossible. I believe that humans evolved into Forerunner, hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Let's start at the beginning.
200,000 BCE (approx.)
Modern humans evolve in what is now known as Africa. They remain in their cradle for some 100,000 years.

98,995 BCE
The Forerunner encounter the Flood on the outer rim of the Milky Way Galaxy. This sparks a 300 year long Forerunner-Flood war and construction on the Halo array begins.

98,665 BCE (approx..)
The Halos and Ark are completed. Humanity is discovered by the Librarian. The Earth's Ark portal is built by Sentinel-like machines. The Librarian strands herself on Earth so that Didact will end the war. The Halos are activated, wiping out all sentient life in the Galaxy. Humanity returns to Earth through the Ark portal and leaves their cradle, Africa, and sets off to populate the rest of the Earth.

Now do you see why it is impossible for the Forerunner to have evolved into humanity? Humanity was around for 100,000 years before the Forerunner found them. Now where does my crazy theory play into all of this? Start with the Precursors:

From the Halo 3 Bestiarum:
Tier 0: Transsentient
As the [Forerunners] had no examples of civilizations with technological accomplishment greater than themselves - with the exception of the Precursors - this is a theoretical ceiling. They can travel intergalactic and accelerate evolution of intelligent life. These may be creatures of legend.

The Precursors had the ability to advance the evolution of sentient life -- why would Bungie specify this power they had if it wasn't integral to the story in some way? This is the only small passage of the Precursors that we have ever heard, so it surely garners some importance.

The fact that humanity was around for 100,000 years prior to the Forerunner being at their pinnacle of technological evolution proves that humanity did not come from the Forerunner... but could the Forerunner have come from humanity?

It is entirely possible (and plausible) that the Precursors visited Earth some time between 200,000 BCE and 96,000 BCE and took up some early humans to their own worlds, and those humans were exposed to the Precursors' evolutionary acceleration technology, becoming an advanced sub-species of h. sapiens.

What would they look like? Most likely not very different than, us but most certainly different; possibly a set of exterior differences similar to the differences between h. sapiens and h. neanderthalis.

From the 6th Halo 3 Terminal:
L: My work is done. The portal is inactive, and I've begun the burial measures. Soon there'll be nothing but sand and rock and normal ferrite signatures.

You should see the mountain that watches over it. A beautiful thing--a snowcapped sentinel. That's where I will spend what time is left to me.

Did I tell you? I built a garden. The earth is so rich. A seed falls and a tree sprouts or a flower blooms. There's so much...potential. We knew this was a special place because of them, but unless you've been here, you can't know.

It's [Eden].

I have to stop transmitting. The thing is listening. Its [thinking dead] are babbling--laughing through every channel they can find.

Be proud. The Mind claims victory, yet it still doesn't suspect. You've outwitted it, my love. And now you can destroy it.

But you cannot save me.
-- The Librarian

Why did the Librarian deem humanity so special?
The Librarian indexed many species besides humanity; all of the species in the Halo trilogy would logically have been indexed and saved in the Ark by the Forerunners. Elites, Prophets, Brutes, etc. -- why was humanity different?

I believe it's because humanity shared many distinct characteristics with the Forerunner. They looked similar, thought similar, and thus were deemed the Reclaimers. All because of the Precursors.

From the level "Two Betrayals" in Halo:
"We have followed outbreak containment procedure to the letter. You were with me each step of the way, as we managed this crisis."
-- 343 Guilty Spark

343 Guilty Spark is most likely rampant, however, I don't think this means we can write him off fully. If Spark is simply confusing the Master Chief with the last being who activated the ring ca. 100,000 BCE, this would mean the two bear physical resemblance.

I am pretty sure that the last person to activate the rings would have been Didact, the Forerunner general. Didact was the lover of the Librarian, the female Forerunner who found Earth and deemed humanity more special than the other sapient species in the galaxy.

From the 4th Halo 3 Terminal:
I'm trapped. On a beautiful, empty world. Its inhabitants have been safely indexed, every single one of them. They're special--well worth the effort it took to build one final gateway even at this late hour. This may be our last communication. I'm begging you. Fire the Array. Light the weapon, and let it be done.
-- The Librarian

She was speaking to Didact. Can we assume that Didact did what the Librarian had been asking him to do for so long [activate the rings]? She stranded herself on Earth by destroying her own fleet so that Didact would no longer resist firing the rings. If he did activate them, this would mean he did it on Alpha Halo... with the help of Spark. Spark thought that the Chief was Didact.

From the level "Halo" in Halo 3:
(His eye turns Blue) You are the child of my makers. Inheritor of all they left behind. You are Forerunner! But this ring... (Eye turns Red again) ...is mine.
-- 343 Guilty Spark

Many people will write this line off as being figurative, but not I. I believe that what Spark meant was that modern humanity (and thus the Chief) literally is the child of the Forerunner. But a child cannot have one parent, they need two. The Forerunner are the mother, and pre-activation humans ("archaic h. sapiens") are the father.

Earth is Eden.
Early Humans are Adam.
The Forerunner are Eve, taken from the rib of Adam.
Modern humans (Reclaimers) are the offspring of Adam and Eve.
Precursors are God.

[ we could go one step further and say that the Flood are Lilith, but that's another theory all together ]

Being a sub-species of h. sapiens, the Forerunner would possibly be able to mate with humanity while producing a mixed offspring. This could be the possibly spark which ignited humanity's exit from Africa; we had been in Africa from 200,000 BCE until 100,000 BCE... and then we all of the sudden decide to (and are for the first time successful in) expanding outward into the rest of the world.

Coincidence? I think not..

From the 4th Halo 3 Terminal:
What has taken you millennia to achieve I erase in seconds.
Welcome back to the [Stone Age], vermin. Welcome home.
-- Medicant Bias

I think that this quote holds significant importance (especially since Truth loves calling us humans "vermin"). We know that humanity evolved on Earth, so we did not come from outer space. If the Forerunner did indeed come from early humans, they could have been reverted to stone-age technologies by the Halos' activation. They would be stranded wherever they ended up.

From the 8th Cortana letter:
In a relatively brief period of time, the achievements of SolCore had resulted in an economically stable, technologically mature, rapidly expanding empire of eight human worlds. Advancements in technology arrived at a faster pace than the most optimistic scientists could have ever envisioned. Unexpected contact with indigenous human populations on four "lost colony" worlds led to a frenzy of research as archaeologists, theologians, astronomers, and evolutionary biologists competed to offer an explanation for the startling discovery.

There there were "indigenous humans" found on new planets. Science states that humanity could not evolve identically (or even near-identically) in more than one location, so this would imply that the "humans" were here before the UNSC discovered the worlds. I would say the "indigenous humans" are actually the sub species of h. sapiens -- surviving Forerunner (or simply Reclaimers) who exited the Ark after the Halos' activation and were stranded on remote worlds with no more technology than they (we?) had in the Stone age. But the Forerunner went extinct after the Halos fired.... or did they?

From Halo: Contact Harvest:
"The Forerunners," the Minister whispered. "Some were left behind."
-- Prophet of Regret
Having established that humanity evolved 100,000 years before the Forerunner found them (with roots reaching back 2,000,000 years on Earth) its safe to assume that since the Minister recognized humans as "living Gods," and "left-behind Forerunner," then my theory may well be.

Regarding the Prophets

The Prophets: The original Reclaimers? I think that they were.

We know that humans had a special role in the Forerunners' plan -- we are the Reclaimers. We are meant to reclaim the galaxy after we rise up, and live up to the Forerunners' accomplishments. We are the only species with the ability to activate the Halo rings...

But the Halo rings were built before humanity was even found, so wouldn't there have been a different species with a similar entitlement before us?

Why did humans not know anything about the Forerunner until we found the Halos? Surely they would have left us some sort of clues as to our past relations with the super-race known as the Forerunner... or maybe not. Maybe they didn't have the time.

ca. 100,000 BCE the Halo rings were set off. Before that, all species (sentient and sapient) were indexed (sent on a ship) to the Ark by the Forerunner. This would logically include humans, Prophets, Elites, Brutes, etc. otherwise they wouldn't be around during the Halo trilogy.

Humans were one of the last species to be discovered (by the Librarian) and indexed, as proved in Halo 3's Terminals. This would certainly put some strain on what the Forerunner could construct on Earth, right? I mean they barely had time to build and bury "one last portal" (the one in Africa).

This is where the Prophets come in.

Why did the Prophets have the earliest access to Forerunner technology in the Halo series? They found Forerunner relics on their homeworld (before it was destroyed by a supernova) and then they travelled to the Elite homeworld and forged the Covenant after a long, cut-throat war.

I think that the Prophets were the original Reclaimers, but had their title revoked after the humans were found just prior to the Halos;' activation. Why would the Prophets have been replaced? Maybe the Forerunner saw something special in us.

Humans are known as the Reclaimers, but before being able to reclaim, they would need to be taught. Since the Forerunner did not have the time to make teaching installations on Earth, they may have bestowed this right on the already-indexed Prophets.

This is further evidenced by the Prophets' mistranslation of a Forerunner word meaning "Reclaimer" -- however, they read it as "Reclamation." (Halo: Contact Harvest) Is it possible that the "Reclaimer" glyph was originally representant of the Prophet species and not human?

Seeing that the Forerunner indexed all organisms on worlds which they indexed, leaving them temporarily devoid of all life, they must have had some sort of advanced and highly sensitive DNA analyzer to categorize and index each of these alien species.

This technology would most likely be pivotal to the technology which only humans can activate (namely the Halos' control rooms). If the Humans were made Reclaimers, replacing the Prophets, a simple "DNA allowance" would be switched within the technology (however it works) making humans the only ones who could activate the Halos, instead of the Prophets.

[ Sort of like an ex-girlfriend taking away your key to her apartment and giving it to a new guy. ]

Forerunner Crystal, Truth's purpose, Brute overthrow

I have always been critical of bungie keeping Brutes as the main enemy in ODST, and completely disregarding the Elites. It would take days or even weeks time for the Brutes to have arrived, and to push the Elites out of Mombasa. But what if they were not shackled by the limits of time?

0645 hours (approx.), August 30, 2552 -- the Pillar of Autumn leaves Reach for Halo.

0100 hours (approx.), September 19, 2552 - the Pillar of Autumn arrives at Halo.

The time to travel from Reach to Halo was about 20 days.

In Halo: First Strike, we get out first hint at the Brutes replacing the Elites at the Prophets' side, when Tartarus brings Truth three shards of the time-dilating crystal, pieces of a fist-sized crystal housed under Reach which bent the time for the Master Chief (and thus the surrounding region on Halo)...

From Halo: First Strike (pg 339):
"Come closer, Tartarus, and report."
A ripple of shock passed through the Imperial Elite Protectors. They had never seen such a creature allowed so close to the Holy Ones.

"Protectors," the Prophet commanded. "Leave us."
Together the three hundred honor guards straightened, bowed, and filed out of the great chamber. Thy said nothing, but the Prophet saw the confusion on their features. Good -- such igno-rance and puzzlement had its uses.

...making the return trip to the human world last about 20 hours.

1827 hours, September 22, 2552 -- influenced by the crystal, the Ascendant Justice jumps away from Halo and toward Reach.

0520 hours (approx.), September 23, 2552 -- influenced by the crystal, the Ascendant Justice reaches Reach...

This can not be explained away simply because the Covenant were faster than us -- they weren't that much faster. It took a full 2 weeks (October 20 until November 2) to reach Delta Halo from Earth in Halo 2. The crystal altered space-time once. Why couldn't it happen again?

From Halo: First Strike (pg 340):
"It may yet be enough for our purposes... and one more relic from the Great Ones, as precious as they are, will soon make no difference to us." The Prophet tucked the container deep in the folds of his underrobe. "Make sure those pilots who survived are
well rewarded. Then execute them all. Quickly. Quietly."

This was the Prophet of Truth speaking with Tartarus, who had just presented him with the three shards of the time-dilating crystal.

What were the purposes that Truth was speaking about?

I think that the crystal may have been a large part of Truth's plan to replace the Elites with Brutes, especially since a Brute, Tartarus, was the only one allowed so close. The time-dilating effect would allow him to transfer the Brutes to replace the Elites literally everywhere within the Galaxy in a matter of hours to days; he may have employed a shard of the crystal to get his Brutes to Earth at almost the instant that Regret left.

This is the only possibility that I see, as otherwise it would have taken hours to days, maybe even weeks, to replace the Elites on Earth with Brutes, and the flashback missions in ODST would have included Elites rather than Brutes. It surely won't be a major plot-point in the game, but it could very well be Bungie's reasoning behind Truth's acquisition of the shards.

Woah... this thing's deserving of its own article.

permalink | Rampant Speculation

-UNSC Trooper




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