unforum

[jonathanjoyce]

[QUESTION] The Forerunners / The Flood

[Bubbasparxxxv69]

What i know...

The forerunners are kind of a type of covanent. They were much more advanced than the covanent and were in halo's area a long time ago. They created halo as a laboratory to test the new disease "The Flood". It is not know why halo was abandon, probly because the flood were out of control. Although the monitor was left to guard halo. I cant recal weather the covanent were looking for halo or not, although i dont think were.

I'm pretty sure that the covanent were looking for the artifact that was left on Reach (human planet). The covanent must have had some way of knowing that the artifact is there, so thats how the humans ran into the covanent. The artifact they are looking for has unknow properties, but seems to have gravity defying powers. Although it had to be destroyed because it was to dangerous.

Someone correct me if i'm wrong or missed something

[jonathanjoyce]

Elaboration from others would be excellent if possible.

Also specifics on the flood. Anyone know why the flood was created?

[PhatRick]

I think the more info that floods (hehe) this thread about the flood and forerunner would be very helpful to my soul

[ToiletDuk]

The problem with providing facts and not spec is that there are very few facts revealed about the Forerunners in the Halo universe. The Forerunners being Covenant is merely spec, and judging from the conversations on halo.bungie.org, not the most fleshed out of all specs available.

The theory that I think sounds the best is that The Forerunners are the ancestors of the humans in Halo. This theory is lent much creedence by the ramblings of 343 Guilty Spark, who talks about human history being a missing piece of the puzzle and acts as if Master Chief (and therefore humans in Mjolnir power armor) are familar to him. Since he couldn't have come in contact with other humans, the speculation is that humans are so familiar because they are descended from the Forerunners.

If you have a few hours to waste, there's a metric ton of speculation here:
http://halosm.bungie.org/story/forerunner.html

[Sargus]

[jonathanjoyce]

Let us not forget how arrogance always sees to it that we somehow associate ourselves to the greater power.
Makes sense.

[PhatRick]

The sense is made in that they recognized us. Not in arrogance. The arrogance is a random person not wanting to see the truth or other ideas because it differs from their own.
Only kidding

[jonathanjoyce]

You misunderstood.
It was in reference to story composition and how we love to depict our heroes in most tales.

[PhatRick]

I was only playing the bad guy. I understand and sympathize with your statement.
I had a moment of weakness for being an ass. I apolagize

[Noir]

Only the facts, huh?

Forerunner facts:
- They existed an extremely long time ago and over an extremely large amount of space.
- They created massive works of engineering with technology we do not understand, some are hidden facilities below the surface of planets (as alluded to by the previewed Halo 2 multiplayer map, Waterworks and the book First Strike), some in the atmospheres of gas giants (as alluded to in the X03 Behind The Scense video) and also ring worlds (obviously demonstrated in the games and books)
- They are no longer here. What that specifically means is undetermined.
- They are revered in some sense by the Covenant, and the Covenant uses some of their technology in their weapons, spacecraft, etc.
- They kept the Flood for obscure and not fully revealed reasons, and fired a Halo installation before to keep the Flood from spreading.

The Flood:
- They are an adaptive parasitic lifeform. Small, vaguely squid-like Infection forms infest bodies of living organisms that have a certain amount of body mass and neurlogical activity. To be specific, they attach to the central nervous system and take control of the body making a Warrior Form. Over time, the Infection form inside will produce more infection forms turning the warrior form into a carrier form, which bursts open releasing more infection forms.
- They are deceptively intelligent, as they tried to fix a spaceship to escape Halo.
- They couldn't eat Sarge because Sarge is too much of a badass. Okay, actually it's because he had Boren's Syndrome, but Sarge is still friggin badass.
- Their survival as a species was dependent upon being held in Halo, as stated explicitly by 343 Guilty Spark.
- They can apparantly alter ecosystems, or at least atmospheres, as stated explicitly by 343 Guilty Spark.
- Fighting the Flood sucks, as stated explicitly by anyone who has played The Library on Legendary.

[Bubbasparxxxv69]

[Kagehi Kossori]

Actually, to clearify things. Sorry Bubbasparxxxv69, but you are incorrect.

The covenant where at Halo 'prior' to the arrival of the human ship. They arrived there looking for more Forerunner technology to loot, likely as a result of the coordinates they found on another human world, I can't remember what it was called though.. Sigma Octanus maybe? An artifact was found there in an analyzer which was beeming information to Covenant ships. This artifact, recovered by the SPARTANs both Cortana and Dr. Halsey noticed symbols on and thought they where strangely familiar.

It turns out later that they are spacial coordinates and when jumping away from Reach, Cortana determines that they matched Cole Protocal specs (i.e. away from earth or other human systems), so she used them to jump the ship there. The Covenant was already at Halo and had stumbled on the Flood, but managed to reseal the doors to keep them in. They where waiting for some big wigs from the religious cast or something to arrive and visit Halo, when the humans arrived and all hell literally broke loose, in no small part due to one captured elite telling Keyes about an 'arms shipment', which really led him to a swamp where the Convenant had already previously gotten attacked by the Flood. He unwittingly reopened the doors to the place and let them loose. It was all down hill for everyone after that.

[Bubbasparxxxv69]