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Deep breaths, everyone. Here comes another big one...
Wado SG (wyamauchi@msn.com) writes:
First, I believe that the term used by the Covenant for the ancient race that built Halo translates to the Forerunners (as confirmed by Cortana when she first enters Halo's core). If the ancient race were the gods of the Covenant, they would not be called forerunners but instead would be called "deities" and also if the ancient race were the enemies of the Covenant, they also would not be called forerunners but instead would be called "devils" or something like that. My point being that the Forerunners must have come before the Covenant and been friendly to the Covenant.
I speculate that the Forerunners were the religious forerunners to the Covenant and the current Covenant religious beliefs and political structure was developed as a result of Forerunner teachings. This would explain why the Covenant call the ancient race the Forerunners because they are their forerunners.
Incidently, the Covenant call Spartans "devils" so perhaps they or all of humanity represents the enemies of the Forerunners. However, humans couldn't just be the enemies of the Forerunners because there are so many indications that the humans might be the decendants of the Forerunners (for example the fact that 343 GS only selects humans to be potential reclaimers). Could this mean that humans were also of the same race as the Forerunners but they were the ones that went bad (corrupted Forerunners).
Perhaps here is where the Flood come in. The Flood outbreak purged the galaxy of the corrupt ancient ones and the Covenant races survived because they made a Covenant with the Forerunners (the good ancient ones in the eyes of the Covenant) and with God (and God being the creator to whom the Forerunners were messengers for). Unbeknownst to the Covenant, some humans (corrupt ancient ones) managed to survive as humans (or at least their DNA survived).
What would be the purpose of DNA surviving but not the knowledge of the ancient ones? Who is to say the knowledge was lost, all that needs to be done is the human race needs to discover fire and such and then tens of thousands of years later they can discover how to travel interstellar distances. At that point humans could find signs or the ancient race and assimulate that knowledge. Whoopie, the ancient ones are reborn.
Well the Covenant would want to stop the genetic decendants of the corrupt ancient ones from ever assimulating their ancient knowledge; that very well could be the motive for the Covenant attempt to wipe out humanity. At the same time, if their true Forerunners ever came back (assuming they are gone, since Halo seems abandomed of all Forerunners), the Covenant would likely greet them on friendly terms.
So how can the Covenant tell the good from the bad ancient ones. Perhaps humanity is the genetic decendants of the good ancient ones (the Forerunners) but because we have not reassimulated the knowledge of the ancient ones we don't know we are. And the Covenant look at humans (and human nature is not all that great, we certainly are not saints I'd add) then how could the Covenant not think that humans are the bad ancient ones.
Well, not to be out done by some of the mega Halo Story Page posters, I'm going to continue on with a bit about why the Forerunners might have been so popular to the Covenant. I'll start with the statement that the Covenant has had a long history with the Flood.
Now let's imagine the Flood several hundred thousand years ago, some ancient race may have stumbled upon the Flood. So pictures of the Alien movie come to mind where this ancient race is infected by a parasitic being and four movies later, this ancient race is never even mentioned even though in the second movie the humans set up a colony on the same darn planet that the ancient race crashed on. Oh nevermind. Forget all of that and think that the Flood that the ancient race stumbled upon were not parasites but an advanced race that had conquered much of this galaxy.
These Flood were intelligent and had enslaved many other races, such as the Grunts, Jackals, and other races found in Halo. The enslaved races treated the Flood as masters and deities -- worshipping them and providing offerings or else the Flood wrath be unleased upon them. The Flood were masters of organic and genetic technology and actively altered their slave races to be better at their functions. Grunt ancestors may have been altered to be better workers, Jackal ancestors were like police that could hunt down escaping Grunts, and Hunter ancestors were the task masters used to control all the slaves. Elite ancestors may have been best suited as warriors.
Some pockets of resistance were still holding out against the Flood, such as the Prophet ancestors. The Prophet ancestors could not win this war on their own but like a godsend, the Forerunners came. The Forerunners allied with the Prophet ancestors and so the war against the Flood began. It was a vicious war with Elites fighting Elites (some of the Elites joined the side of the Forerunners). All that joined the Forerunners formed a Covenant.
Forerunners built many weapons to defeat the Flood and Flood responded by creating more vicious versions of themselves. It finally came down to a point where both sides could annihilate each other with various weapons (Halo's final weapon for example, and the most vicious infection forms of the Flood on the other hand). No one was going to win this war. The Covenant (Forerunners and allies), realized this when the Flood unleashed the most vicious form of themselves, a form that could not die from starvation because it could hibernate in a form of stasis deep underground. No planet ever infected by them was ever going to be safe again. What is worse is that this new infectious form of the Flood was designed specifically to be most effective verse humans and Elites (the primary fighting force of the Covenant at the time).
Even Halo's final weapon would not stop the Flood if this new infection form got a foot hold in this galaxy. Halo's weapon would have to be fired before the outbreak went too far. There were those Forerunners that said Halo's weapon must be fired and those that said no, make peace with the Flood.
Of course this is just speculation above, but image if it was mostly true. Some wanted to make peace or maybe even join up with the Flood to avoid total annihilation, others had no choice in their minds but to kill all life in this galaxy to stop the Flood before it was too late. What if because of this internal struggle that not all Halos fired? Certain portions of this galaxy would have been wiped of life, others not.
Since not all the Halos fired, the war continued in areas still infected. The Flood made a horrible miscalculation though. In making such a vicious parasitic form, they consumed too much too quickly and soon they ran out of food. Those of the Covenant that survived just happened to be on planets the Flood never reached before their food ran out. Thinking they were safe, but not knowing why they were still alive, they were careful to stay put and not explore because any planet other then the ones already controlled by the surviving Covenant could be infected by the Flood.
So the long, slow, and careful search for other survivors began.
What ever happened to the original Forerunners, the ancient ones? They honestly believed that all the galaxy was going to get wiped out, so they fled the galaxy with their allies.
And why might the Covenant not know the location of the Alpha Halo and everything that happened? My guess is because the Covenant that survived were just politicians, civilians, workers, and military grunts... just everyday Covenant joes that were expendable. They had no clue about the Halos back in the day that all this happened. The ones that knew fled the galaxy.
And so to tie up at least one lose end. The human worlds may have been populated by the expendable ancient ones who were left behind. It's a strange thought, but they may have picked some planets to go to in an area that was far away from the Flood outbreak in hopes it was safe and then purposely destroyed their technology so that if they somehow got infected by the Flood, they would not risk giving those Flood the ability to travel to other stars and thus infect the other survivors on other planets.
Oh and before I forget, the Flood are back because some idiot space faring being got infected and started yet another outbreak somewhere. Now the Covenant must find the Alpha Halo for some way to stop the Flood.
Without commenting too much on this, let's see what readers of the HSP think. Can the Flood be such an advanced species as to have bio-engineered themselves to be the creatures we met? Or worse? Send in your thoughts!
-mnemesis
