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March 10, 2004

Forerunner Scripts

Stuart Glass (Stuart.Glass@macquarie.com) writes:

On the use of "forerunner" symbols on covenant equipment and armour and on certain halo structures; could there be several classes of script?

I have been wondering why the same forerunner symbols don't appear all over halo's control panels, subsystem panels, lift and door buttons. If they were the forerunner's written form of language they'd be everywhere, rather than a few key symbols in specific locations. Could these symbols be a form of lesser pictographic language used by the forerunners in the same way the ancient Egyptians used Heiroglyphics for the masses on their monuments and Demotic script for writing business, legal, scientific, literary and religious documents?

This could explain why the Covenant only have and use the pictographic symbols of the forerunner, and why they mistranslated halo's forerunner symbols that were used to warn against the flood.

(As a counterpoint, who is to say that the symbols were not put there by the Covenant after their arrival on halo to mark certain structures in a way that the troops would know their purpose?)

Mentioned and entirely possible... Whether the Covenant marked areas themselves, or merely misinterpreted those left behind by the Forerunner, this idea of multiple scripts or dialects is fascinating indeed.

permalink | The Forerunner

-Finn




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