The Lore of Halo
by
Ellphi · 15 hours ago
Halo has some amazing lore that's often overlooked
Everybody knows Halo as that 'plebe console game' where you play as 1337 m1ster chef and pwn baddies and f*** their mothers, but few know that the Halo Universe has an extremely in depth narrative with detailed explanations and series of events that in my opinion ranks among the best of Sci-Fis, rivaling that of even Star Trek or the like. So I'm here to share with yall motherf***ers Halo's moving tale of eons filled with love, passion, anger, vengeance, and a whole lot of butt-hurt. *Disclaimer* : This is the album that's breakin' my imgur-post virginity. If I offend someone with bad grammar or something, I don't mean it. Some of the information in this gallery may be wrong, I'm summarizing quite a bit of content drawn from the books and online resources, and me English no bueno.
Let's start from the beginning......The Precursors
A long long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away (actually our own galaxy), EONS before the events of the Halo game trilogy, EONS before even the Forerunners, lived the earliest known race in the Halo Universe : The Precursors. Not much is known about the Precursors, but from what we do know it's easy to assert that the Precursors were the most advanced and OP super-race we know of. They were huge in stature, they lived basically forever, their technology far exceeded that of the Forerunners, and they were so advanced it'd be fair to call them Gods. The Precursors had a deep underlying motivation to create life, and thus they populated the Galaxy with countless species, uplifting planets and raising sentience. They were the Masters of the Universe, and were the mothers and guardians of all life in the galaxy - a responsibility they vaguely refer to as The Mantle. For whatever reason, the Precursors must've gotten bored or something because they began to seek a successor to themselves to hold The Mantle of Responsibility, and thus they created the Forerunners.
The Forerunners - the douchebags of the galaxy
The grand Forerunners. In the halo games we view them through the clouded spectacles of history, and see only their unfathomably majestic and grand creations such as the Halo rings and all the spectacular architecture in which much of the Halo games take place, but unlike their Godlike creators, these guys as a whole were pretty incompetent as we'll find out later on in this gallery. The Forerunners, much like the Precursors, lived absurdly long lives. Their technology and intelligence was very advanced, but they only achieved the standing of a Tier 1 civilization, whereas the Precursors were rated as a Tier 0 civilization. (I don't really know what scale this 'tier' thing is based on, but it's apparent that lower is better, and the defining jump to Tier 0 was mastery over neural-physics, aka 'magic' as far as we plebes are concerned) Forerunner society was split into rates (like a caste, but not) : Builders, Miners, Life-Workers, Warrior-Servants, Engineers, Juridical, and Theoreticals. Strangely enough, these rates were more than just job titles, each rate also had a rank in society, with some rates having far more political power than others. It wasn't uncommon for the ranking of these rates to change through political upheaval or takeover or some other factor. It happens to be that the Builder rate was in charge at the time of the Forerunner-Flood war, the firing of the Halo rings, and the complete obliteration of the Forerunners along with all other sentient life in the galaxy, so good going on that one Builders. These rates also had an internal ranking system consisting of various Forms and Manipulars. Forerunners worked a little like Eevees (Yes, that one Pokemon you stroke with the colored rocks). Forerunners begin their lives as a Manipular (Awkward Teenager) and were referred to as a 0-form Forerunner, then as he matured he would undergo rate-specific mutations and become a first-Form/second-Form/etc Forerunner with more seniority within his respective rate. Forerunners would stay within their rate for their entire lives, just like how a Jolteon wouldn't evolve into a Vaporeon. Forerunners would generally undergo 2-5 mutations over their lifespan.
Forerunner Imprinting and the creation of the Iso Didact
*The Didact and Iso-Didact actually don't come into play until much much MUCH later in the Halo universe, but they play integral roles in the upcoming events in the Halo universe, so while I'm talking about Forerunner biology I might as well throw in these two guys.* Now I wasn't kidding about the Eevee thing, when Forerunners Mutate, they do so with the assistance of a catalyst. Except instead of a funky carcinogenic stone, Forerunners mutate with the assistance of a more senior Forerunner who acts as an imprint. This imprint is generally the Mutatee's parent, but not always. During the mutation process, physical and psychological changes are made to the Manipular, and he gains portions of wisdom, knowledge, and memories of his imprint partner. There's a bunch of different types of mutation, some more dangerous than others, which all accomplish slightly different results. Through some various forms of mutation, it's possible to kind of 'copy-paste' a Forerunner consciousness into a Manipular, the resulting copy would be a manifestation of the Imprint inside of the adolescent. It is through one of these mutation processes that The Didact (the main baddie in Halo 4) who was the leader of the Warrior Servant rate, supreme commander of the entire Forerunner military, planted his seed in a young Manipular named Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting, thus creating a second Didact. To avoid confusion, the original Didact is renamed Ur-Didact and Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting is renamed Iso-Didact.
The Ancient Humans
Aww hell yeah, we humans were around wayyyy back then before the start of the Halo series as well. Turns out the Precursors used their Jedi mind powers and saw that the Forerunner were not fit to uphold the Mantle of Responsibility, so just like any respectable parent, they just birthed another child in some other part of the galaxy to succeed their legacy : the Humans - and the Precursors thus abandoned the Forerunners. The ancient humans soon became the favorite child of the Precursors, and mankind evolved extremely quickly, and at some point arguably even surpassed the Forerunners technologically. Despite all their crazy awesome technology, these ancient humans were pretty much just like us regular douchebag humans and had the lifespan of a fruit fly.
And now the Forerunners get jealous
With a new favorite child on the map, the Forerunners become quite butthurt that they would no longer inherit the Mantle of Responsibility and become Masters of the Universe as they were promised by the Precursors. So the Forerunners took the only logical route, and declared total war on the Precursors. SURPRISINGLY ENOUGH, the Forerunners actually win the war. Turns out, the Precursors suck at war despite being so vastly superior technologically than the Forerunners. The biggest factor deciding the war was that the Precursors were simply utterly shocked that one of their own creations would turn on them - and we're not talking about 'golly I didn't see that one coming' - we're talking about major psychological trauma across the entire species. The Precursors were gentle creatures who spent their days generating life, not waging war - the concept of the Forerunners turning on the Precursors was so unforeseen that it broke the Precursor's minds. After the initial strike of Forerunners against Precursors, the Precursors changed from being loving and caring gentle giants to twisted, cynical, and sadistic beings. They became insane, and begun to only create species that suffered and struggled as an outlet for their twisted psyche, and as a measure to ensure no species would ever rise against the Precursors again. Regardless of the shattered Precursor psychology, the Precursors were still only creators of life - not killers. They could not wrap their heads around violent warfare, thus lacked efficient combative defenses against the Forerunner assault.
The Precursor Genocide
Towards the end of the Forerunner-Precursor war, the situation changed from a battle to an all out extermination hunt of Precursors. The Forerunners really wanted dat Mantle. The remainder of the Precursors fled desperately to escape the fury of the Forerunners. They sought refuge in various forms, many Precursors attempted to survive by grinding themselves into a fine, desiccated powder that was intended to rebirth them some long ass time in the future. Unfortunately, the channels of time coupled with the anger, insanity, and confusion of the Precursor it was derived from twisted and perverted this powder. Instead of rebirthing the Precursors, this 'butt-hurt powder' only brought cancerous plague and death. It would later be revealed that these angry, insane, twisted remains of the precursors were the beginnings of the Flood.
TO BE CONTINUED
This was a pretty long ass read and most certainly a long ass write, and now we're all just tired. The story of Halo will continue on at some other time. If you guys have any questions or corrections, I'd be happy to address them.
