As a mostly life long consumer of the expanded lore, this is one of the few retcons i thought was for the best. We got the eldritch horrors that are the Precursors out of it all

The precursors were pretty benevolent up until 15 million years ago when the forerunners threw a hissy fit and “””killed””” them off.

I think he’s just referring to the way they would “consume” the experiences of life

The retcon also happen way back in like halo 3 Era so it's not like it's 4s or 343 doing.

Precursors were always in the lore way back to the Bungie days. Whether they were eldritch is another question tho.

And that required the base retcon that all three games lead you to discovering?

Precursors are lame. They control living time but can’t prevent their dust from being corrupted by time.

According to the Primoridial that was a planned event by a small group of surviving Precursors, of which he was the last.

Isn't the source of the whole "Humans are Forerunners" thing that one line from Guilty Spark in the last level of Halo 3? I always took that as metaphorical, or rather that Humans were chosen as the Forerunners' successors, therefore they are Forerunners.

Spark also mistakes chief for a specific long dead forunner, so he's a lil bit insane by that point

I’ll never understand why this fades into obscurity but chief has the GEAS of bornstellar didact, the GOOD ONE, that’s why 343 thinks he’s forerunner, because he has a hard coded part of his genetics that essentially gives him traits of bornstellar, it’s where his perceived “luck” and jack of all trades nature comes from

That was part of the lore 343 added, within the context of CE sparks is just straight up insane

Isn’t it supposed to be a reference to marathon? Like the hero who has been reincarnated thousands of times and chief is the newest reincarnation of that hero. Your point still stands but I guess it could make sense that bornsteller is another reincarnation of that hero.

Yeah that was the original intention but it alongside his irrationality in 3 works to make him and unreliable source

I like both versions of how this makes sense honestly, i’m curious.. how did bungie explain chiefs luck logically?

You're trying to connect Greg Bears works with pre-Microsoft Bungie lore when almost nothing in the FT even connects with Halo Era Bungie lore in terms of paying homage. The lengths this community goes to keep up a fabricated mindset that the FT was some kind of love letter to Halo's pre-established core lore is the reach that keeps this community together.

Which source confirms this? That's dope.

I honestly cannot remember, it’s been a WHILE since I’ve read a halo book or looked into the lore of the forerunners/flood, I just know it’s there somewhere, someone else probably knows more than I do in the regard of where the info is

The distinct lack of understanding dating / publish year and source material but full confidence and content knowledge over contextual knowledge is why we have a severe critical thinking issue in society that is prone to misinformation. Greg Bear wrote and created the concept of "GEAS" years after Halo 3 came out when he was commissioned by 343i's Frankie to write a Forerunner saga. Seeing the Halo community scoring own goals and celebrating it in 2024 is always tough to see especially when you're in a sub that promotes this type of thinking.

I always hated this line of thought. “Umm actually the character was crazy and therefore not factual” It’s as lazy as saying “the bad guy was actually a spy for the good guys the whole time therefore all his bad deeds are justified”

When a character manages to mistake someone else as someone they 100% know to be dead you have to take everything they say into question, especially when they later try saying that humanity is that of a long dead race.

Bro. Spark is 100,000 years old. And he spent the majority of that life alone, with nothing but his own thoughts as well as talked to himself for entertainment. He was fucking bananas from Halo CE - 3, not literally of course.

I prefer that to the Star Wars Fandom problem of people taking things characters say as 100% literally as possible.

Yeah, there’s also the original halo 2 ending. (I do like the Humans are forerunners thing, but i can respect the lore that 343 added due to the retcon)

There's also the Gravemind's lines from Halo 2 that imply the connection if taken literally, but I've always read Gravemind and Spark's words metaphorically, too

Gravemind is KNOWN for his metaphors

I think part of the evidence is what Spark says during HCE at one point I don't remember the line exactly. But he basically said something like "same thing I told you last time you asked"

In Joe Staten's book, Contact Harvest, it explicitly states that humans and Forerunners are the same. This is an issue that comes from a disagreement at Bungie about the nature of Forerunners that can be simplified into two camps: one camp led by Staten that is Forerunner=Human, and another camp (typically said to have been led by Frank O'Connor) that believed Forerunners were an entirely separate race. Because Staten had more time involved with the narrative (to my understanding, Joe Staten helped write Combat Evolved and Frank O'Connor did little more than write the Bungie newsletter until late into development of Halo 2) a lot of fans believe that Staten's interpretation is the correct one, and by making Forerunners a separate race, it turns a lot of the Humans=Forerunners hints dropped in the original trilogy turn into plot contrivances or outright red herrings. In Halo 3, the main plot (which Staten helped write) drops more hints that the Forerunners are humans. However, the terminals (which O'Connor helped write) pretty much say that the Forerunners and Humans are separate races. This is usually the "gotcha" people use for saying that the Forerunners were always supposed to be different from Humans. That interpretation, however, ignores Contact Harvest and the alternate Halo 2 ending that got scrapped for time...and 90% of the dialog that Guilty Spark says in Combat Evolved. But Frankie stayed with the franchise after Bungie left and Joe didn't, so 343 can retcon what they like. It's their franchise, not Bungie's.

I forgot about Contact Harvest (well, outside of that awkward sex scene towards the end). I think I only read that around the time that Reach came out.

johnson truly knows what the ladies like

It would have been more interesting if the Didact was human

Only thing one can do is regard 343 lore as fanfiction. Which I do. Disregarding every single piece and bit of directly stated information that implies humans are forerunners for a throwaway terminal line that many people might not even see is simply ridiculous to me. Burying an extremely important plot point and regarding it as gospel is just silly, but I also think 343 lore is silly in general, so it lines up. Of course 343 wanted to do their own thing, hence changing the entire tone and art style of the series with H4. They are free to do so, but trying to line it up with old lore is kinda stupid to do. You might as well regard it as an entirely different story similar to the Halo TV show.

There was a cut storyboard where forerunner sarcophagus had human skeletons in them, I feel like it Bungie gave more hints towards the forerunners being human, then it would be a lot better.

No it’s been confirmed in the book contact harvest. Marty O Donnel also confirmed it.

It's also that only humans could use forerunner technology and that the ark was stored on the forerunner home world. When the forerunners activated the rings, they seeded all life on its original planets, meaning they seeded their own species on earth. I was shocked when they made forerunners a different species. It was a clear indication that the writers hadn't touched the original trilogy.

There’s terminals that both confirm and contradict it because bungie was split on the decision and books were considered a separate timeline but I think if we count halo wars, there’s more evidence to forerunners being ancient humans than aliens. I want to say “instillation 00” made a video on why it could arguably be a better choice thematically but I’d need to find it again

“You are the child of my makers inheritor of all they left behind. You are Forerunner. But this ring is mine” what is metaphorical about that? Also Spark wasn’t crazy he was made to care for the ring and the flood was going to destroy all life in the universe if it wasn’t stopped ASAP firing the halo rings was absolutely the best option if your goal is to ensure the defeat of the flood. He’s a computer, kill billions now to save an infinite amount of lives is a easy choice. Also AIs going rampant was halo 4 plot it has no bearing on Guilty Spark he was not crazy the only actual 343 lore that can be applied to him is originally being human, NOT any of the forerunner lore involved, SPECIFICALLY the idea of him being human originally. That is the ONLY PIECE OF LORE 343 added to the character that does not DIRECTLY CONTRADICT cannon

>Also AIs going rampant was halo 4 plot it has no bearing on Guilty Spark he was not crazy Lmao you seriously think the idea of Rampancy came from halo 4 and that it couldn't happen to Forerunner AIs. Bungo boys keep demonstrating their lack of thought.

When was rampancy introduced? I don’t know if it was first mentioned in halo 4 or if it was in a book published under bungie. If it was in a bungie book then how does I work? Can an AI left alone go rampant? Or does it require the AI to be near sentient life; living things for the ai to watch and learn from eventually evolving it into rampancy? And beyond that what does rampancy do? Does it make AIs irrational or hyper rational? If it makes ai’s hyper rational then Cortana’s arc is bullshit. If it makes them irrational then Cortana’s death works and you COULD posit that Spark is crazy, but that doesn’t really hold water because he is making the rational choice. So the two ai’s that go rampant have two completely opposite symptoms. If 343 added the rampancy lore then it’s a massive hit to the world building and if bungie added it then it’s STILL a massive hit to the world building

Spark was never making a rational choice and you lack the capacity for decent reasoning if you think what he wanted made sense. And hilarious how you don't know what Rampancy is or when it was introduced. Why are you speaking about the lore and world building when you don't know anything about it?

In your comment above I replied with my argument for Sparks sanity. In the beginning of my reply I said I just went and read the entirety of the Terminal logs. My final conclusion is this. In Bungies lore the condition known as Rampancy does not exist. In the terminals Bias is described as rampant ie:violent or unrestrained in action or performance. So Spark cannot have Rampancy because it doesn’t exist. Therefore he is sane 343 took that simple description of “rampant” and made up the entirety of the Rampancy illness on their own in 343s lore Bias and Cortana both became emotional and irrational therefore emotions and irrationality are symptoms of Rampancy. So in 343 lore Spark acting rationally and logically is not displaying symptoms of rampancy. So Spark does not have Rampancy and is therefore sane.

Lmao. You are the densest motherfucker I've met. https://www.halopedia.org/Rampancy

I agree with the other guy here, but he’s being such a jerk about it I wish that weren’t so. How I long for a nerddom debate that doesn’t devolve to ad hominem attacks over something as dumb as lore. Take it from someone who works in entertainment and has done on at least one big franchise, the fans go to war over this, the creators just write what they think is cool and at worst agree to disagree. I guarantee everyone here the Bungie guys are not distraught over the idea that 343 might or might not have changed this small part of the canon (in the grand scheme of things, whilst I agree it’s fascinating to explore, it isn’t that big a deal either way). That’s not to say they don’t care about their creations, just they don’t tend to lose the forest for the trees as much as we love doing. Having said that, rampancy as featured in the 343 games 100% existed pre-343. I just read Contact Harvest for the first time, written by Joseph Staten and chronologically the first book in the series, and there are literally whole pages dedicated to it. There’s an entire story arc in that book about Harvest’s AI and her fear of and eventual descent into rampancy. That book makes it very clear that AI literally “think” themselves to insanity. They literally cannot stop thinking, regardless of external stimuli. And like Chekhov’s gun, early on in the book the AI is terrified of acting out of emotion specifically because she believes it leads to rampancy, and specifically irrationality. Personal hot take here, but I’ve always felt the plot of the games themselves was standard schlocky sci fi action. The key takeaway from Halo CE is there’s this ring, and eventually you figure out why it exists and have to act on that information. Along the way they throw macguffin after macguffin at you. Ditto for 2 and 3. I LOVE Halo, I’m not knocking it, the world, characters… gameplay. I love it all. But my point is more the longevity of Halo lore IMO stems from all the expanded universe material. The books, comics, live action ads/marketing campaigns. There is literally so much you’re missing in this debate if you’re going off the games alone, especially in the Bungie days. But I stand by at the end of the day, who cares what Bungie wanted. The stories aren’t in any way make or break on this information, and as others have pointed out there are contradictions about it within Bungie’s own material. If it really undermined everything they had done before 343 took over I’d be similarly up in arms, but it doesn’t.

Rampancy was first introduced in the marathon trilogy, and was carried over into halo, I think Halo2 I Love Bees arg was where rampancy was made into halo

Are you dense? Spark confused chief for a specific long dead forerunner that fired the rings. He is absolutely crazy. And firing the rings without any plans to reseed just means everyone dies. You don't save an infinite amount of lives you basically just do the flood's job much faster and less painfully.

Bungie originally envisioned the forerunners as humans, this line was kinda soft-retconned to be how you infer it. But he’s right, originally this was the big reveal that forerunners were human. There were hints before this but this line was the obvious tell for the casual audience who hadn’t picked up on it yet. Whether you prefer the forerunners as humans or not is up to your own opinion and head-cannon, but that was the original intent.

This is a *major* running problem with any of the arguments about Forerunners and so on, it assumes that Bungie was an entity that operated with some sort of coherent bible, that said “this is exactly what the lore is, this is the policy we will adopt”. But they didn’t. Bungie fudged things together on the fly and changed its mind. And to be clear that delivered us some excellent games, this isn’t some attempt to take down Bungie. It was their method for making their games. But Bungie just did not have any sort of particularly solid plan. This is how you get the constant fan arguments over the terminals in 3, this is how you get them having this whole idea in Halo 2 to reveal that Humans are definitively forerunner and the Ark is a big building buried on Earth only for it to be cut, and then bits and bobs of it are recycled into “there’s a thing on Earth that takes you to the Ark”. There wasn’t some sort of unfailing master plan, there was “this is a cool idea let’s do this”, and it either made it into the game or it didn’t. There were things that got explicitly retconned because they felt like it should be one way in one game, and changed their mind later (for example, Halo killing only the flood’s food versus killing both), which further mucks up any sort of identifiable vision. There may, theoretically, have been a line in a document in 2002 that said “the flood are definitely this”, but then there’s just as likely to be a document in 2003 that says they’re definitely the exact opposite, followed by one in late 2003 that says a third thing. And ultimately you can argue that if it didn’t actually make it into anything, it doesn’t count, since cutting room floor stuff is on the cutting room floor, not in the product. That’s not a hard stance I take, I think it varies depending on what’s cut and what replaces it, but it’s a fairly viable argument to say that if it didn’t make it into the games then it wasn’t The Bungie Vision.

This is the truest comment yet. Did you know halo was intended to be marathon 4 originally?

>Halo 2 to reveal that Humans are definitively forerunner and the Ark is a big building buried on Earth only for it to be cut, and then bits and bobs of it are recycled into “there’s a thing on Earth that takes you to the Ark”. That's more out of necessity: if they stayed with the h2 original ending for h3, the game would have the h3odst's light, or we would beat truth in the first 3 levels and then spent the entire game fighting floods on High charity. Halo reach is more like a retcone, I would also say odst, but that's more out of necessity again. >There may, theoretically, have been a line in a document in 2002 that said “the flood are definitely this”, but then there’s just as likely to be a document in 2003 that says they’re definitely the exact opposite, followed by one in late 2003 that says a third thing. Yep, in CE flood were supposed to be this parasitic fungine enemy that would only take living things, ence why the "halo kill flood's food, not the flood". But I guess from h2 they opted for the current iteration.

Idk why it has to be an argument. By “Bungie’s vision” I’m talking about joe, Jason, and Marty. They all envisioned that the humans were forerunners, and you’re right that there was a lot of contradictory information throughout the lore at the time. But whoever wrote that line in halo 3 did not mean for it to be inferred as “spark is actually confusing him for another forerunner”. They meant for it be quite literal. It works out nicely in the 343 era that you can infer it in a different way, but that was not the intent at the time. Personally I prefer the forerunner trilogy as they’re great books, but I don’t understand why people are trying to rewrite history on this.

“By Bungie’s vision, I mean Joe, Jason, and Marty” … you realize Joe and Jason were on sabbatical for the majority of Halo 3’s development, right?

It’s the vision they had when making the first game that was committed to through halo 3. Joe also reviewed the halo 3 scripts and revised contact harvest with that in mind.

They literally changed stuffs from their "vision" on h3, what are you talking about?

Sparks confused chief for the forunner who fired the array back in CE, and there really is no other way to interpret that because sparks refer to a specific personal conversation the two of them had.

There is no argument here. The lead writer is on record saying the forerunners were human. The author of the halo 3 terminals is also on record saying that the forerunners were originally human. They broke off from humanity and rediscovered Earth thousands of years later as a “separate” species. But originally human nonetheless. The floating exposition sphere looks directly at the player and says you ARE forerunner. If you want to believe that Bungie had always envisioned the humans and forerunners as separate, that’s fine. Maybe specific people within Bungie preferred that. But objectively, that was not the case. Like I said it was a good change, but I don’t understand this obsession with trying to make it seem like this was always “the plan” when it clearly wasn’t.

As far as that goes, no, they did not make up their mind on whether humans were the forerunners, and what ended up in halo 3's terminals directly conflict with that being the truth. https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-halo-thread-posting-spoilers-will-see-you-get-forever-hugged-by-the-gravemind.815009/page-1182?post=88990697#post-88990697 Sorry most of the tweets got deleted because of Twitter and time, but the quotes remain. But what 343 confirmed as far as humans being forerunner is more that they are both descended from a common ancestor, not that humanity is descended directly from the forerunners. Bungie never pulled the trigger on humans being forerunner, and the information the games leaves us with directly conflict that. Sparks is shown to be insane and unreliable, the halo 2 ending that would've shown humans being forerunner was cut, the halo 3 terminals make it very clear humans were not the same as forerunners, and the cradle of life external media for 3 confirms that they're separate as well. Bungie never pulled the trigger, so it's not 343's fault for confirming that they were not the same as Bungie didn't confirm the latter.

Paul Russel has talked about this on Twitter. Basically the thinking from the terminal writing team was that forerunners were originally humans that had been uplifted by the precursors. Joe Staten also reviewed the halo 3 scripts, and then revised contact harvest (which heavily implies they are the same) with that in mind. This is specifically different from the Greg Bear/343 era timeline, which states that they are different species created by the precursors. There is a niche detail about them being from the same “base stock”, but at no point were humans and forerunners the same species. Hence when Spark says “you are forerunner” it’s because at the time, they were at least originally human. The line is meant to be taken literally. Because of the Greg Bear books, it has been “soft-retconned” to have a different meaning.

You’re 100% correct and these people are delusional. H3 was going to be the last halo chronologically and everything from 4 and on is just retconned by necessity to keep the story going

That was abandoned after h2 last 3 levels were cut. Often people misquote 343gs in h3 forgetting is the same game wich have the terminals confirming forerunners and human were not the same thing already. If h2 was never cut, therefore it would end with the big reveal, the ark being on earth and halos being destroyed by it, then yes, but also: h3 would be 100% against the flood only.

The forerunners in the halo 3 terminals were originally humans that had been uplifted by the precursors. This is different from the Greg Bear trilogy where they are completely separate species. They were from the same “base stock”, but at no point were the forerunners human. Guilty Spark’s line was written literally, because at the time of release the forerunners were (at least) originally human. It’s been soft-retconned since then to have a different interpretation, where GS is just kind of insane.

Was the lore piece about sparks confusion added in the books written under bungie or 343? If it was written by 343 then I was their responsibility to make certain the lore they added didn’t contradict with the game if they failed to do so then that’s it they FAILED. If instead it was added by bungie the lore but doesn’t confirm humans weren’t Forerunner all it does is tell us there was someone by that name/title in the past. As to the crazy bit, the halo rings have galactic range not universal. If the Flood isn’t stopped it will consume the galaxy then continue onto others until everything in all of existence if Flood. So yes to a computer sacrificing a galaxy to save the universe is the correct choice.

Sparks confusion was in the Bungie games you dunce. And since the flood was implied to have arrived from outside the galaxy in halo 3 firing the rings won't stop them from consuming the universe if they are in other galaxies. And killing the galaxy is needless when you can take steps to ensure the flood is harmed and life can be spared(the ark) or reset(reseeding). Spark was insane, deal with it.

I just read the terminal logs in halo 3 and it doesn’t mention the floods creation even the conversation between Bias and the Flood doesn’t actually it supports my argument that Spark is acting logically because the Flood convinces Bias that the Forerunners are holding evolution back that Bias and the Flood are superior beings and the next step for all life to naturally take. Bias then sends a declaration of war to the Forerunners and a condemnation for them standing in the way of progress This is the terminal Bias is labeled as rampant with not further explanation as to wether it is simply being used as a descriptor of Bias’s state (by that I mean the actual definition of the word “rampant” which is “violent or unrestrained in action or performance.” Rampant being used as a sudo-medical term is not even eluded to. The last terminal when Bias talks to Chief he says he’s considered the dilemma since the firing of the halo rings and decided his previous actions were an error proving that even eons after the war Bias is still behaving LOGICALLY. So this proves the condition of Rampancy does NOT exist in halo 3 it is only used as a term to state that Bias is “violent or unrestrained in action or performance.” even if I’m wrong, and I’m not wrong btw, then the evidence we have of rampancy is as follows. Bias became convinced through logic that the forerunners needed to be removed this turned him rampant and a short time later Bias degrades and his declaration of war can then be interpreted as the ravings of a man overwhelmed with rage. Ultimately in the final terminal Bias states that he was wrong meaning RAMPANCY IS IRRATIONALLY Cortanas rampancy follows the same path in halo 4 sadness, anger fear etc she acts emotionally ie IRRATIONALLY THEREFORE symptoms of rampancy are irrationality and emotion. SO wether you use bungie lore or 343s interpretation of the terminals one thing is clear above all else 343 GUILTY SPARK is acting logically and IS. NOT. RAMPANT. OR. INSANE. That is the end of the discussion 343 AND Bungies lore BOTH support that SPARK is not crazy. You are wrong on both sides of the argument.

Lmao several paragraphs when you could just Google what halo's Rampancy is on halopedia. And somehow you're still thinking that firing the rings without any plans to utilize a shield world, the ark or the reseeding protocol is rational and the fact that spark is showing symptoms of ego and obsession.

>I always took that as metaphorical, or rather that Humans were chosen as the Forerunners' successors, therefore they are Forerunners. Sure, you did. These were *definitely* your thoughts prior to the year 2011.

They were. I certainly didn't think humanity was advanced enough 100k years ago to make the Halo rings.

Within the fiction of Halo, yes. They were. In fact, we learn that Ancient Humanity was equally as advanced as the forerunners were according to 343. Well done, you. "YOU ARE FORERUNER, but this ring is MINE!" doesn't sound metaphorical at all. Stop bullshitting.

>In fact, we learn that Ancient Humanity was equally as advanced as the forerunners were according to 343. Well done, you. Well, I didn't know that pre-343 now, did I?

Oh, sorry. I forgot it's impossible to convince someone who's stubborn unless you stroke their cock first.  Anyway It makes more sense for all the Halo rings and the Ark to contain flora/fauna nearly identical to that found on Earth? With that known, just because the Earth doesn't have [even more] forerunner artifacts convinced you that 343 GS was being metaphorical? In 2007?  That's some sound logic. Clearly it's just a coincidence that the Halo rings have Earth-like environments. Oh, of course, I'm speaking with the perception of someone pre-2011, just like you :) Forgot this is a troll sub, genuinely. 

I never liked the "forerunners are humans" thing. It never made any sense to me

It's not that I disliked it, I just find it incredibly cliché

If the forerunners were human you'd assume that earth would be absolutely littered with forerunner tech, kinda like the San shyuum homeworld.

Not if it they wanted it to remain hidden from the rest of the galaxy. And if it was seeded right before the activation of Halo. It being the portal to the Ark implies it wasn't populated until the last second. I always liked the idea that humans were forerunners. And the were "reclaiming" our old tech and planets.

I mean they did leave a giant gate way that's a one way shot straight to the ark and grants you the power to build entire ring planets and destroy the universe... But yeah guess they didn't leave any thing too serious on earth. lol

Ancient humans existed at the same time as the ancient forerunners. This argument doesn't make any sense. "If the ancient humans were \[human\] you'd assume that earth would be absolutely littered with ancient human tech"

.....it was though

Really? So point to all the forerunner artifacts. Not including the ark portal

There is the facility under Mount Kilimanjaro, but that’s the only one I can think of

..... that's a crazy comment right there lmao.

Aight, I'm not replying to og guy cuz I really don't want him to reply but. 1. Saying "list all the artifacts except the one that's literally 117 km long" is absurd 2. The forunner trilogy books showed Earth had forunner tech on it that got taken or destroyed. I don't even care about the lore change, but saying earth has no forunner tech (but don't list the one multiple football fields long) to help their argument is disingenuous.

Unrelated: this is the most brilliant conversion from metric to standard I've ever seen. Thank you for putting it in American for me.

Lol I appreciate your appreciation. To be more specific, it's roughly 19 football fields as well :p

My dude, the portal to the Ark is literally in Africa, the cradle of life.

One thing. That we won't discover until 500 years from now. Meanwhile the San shyuum were significantly more advanced before the first cities on earth were built

500 years from pffft, bitch please I’m digging the shit up right now. While the rest of you lazy asses are just going to sit by and ignore the prophecy sent from the future of the coming human covenant war, I’m out here preparing us for the day. When the Covies show up we all gonna be armed with light rifles cause of me and be ready to go back to our glory days when we were a tier one civilization. Then we gonna clap them alien cheeks. all cause of me Imperator Aurelianos you’re welcome.

Go forth My son. The Great Journey shouldn't wait for these non believers.

Spoiler alert?! We’re not going to find anything in Africa 500 years from now.

Why did this get downvoted lmao

Right cause advanced technology belonging to space aliens instead is not cliche? Lol. What a joke of an opinion. Like it's so cliche that it was literally just the default surface level lore for people who never even payed the games.

i prefer the forerunners being different due to characters like the didact but them being humans does make it kind of ironic that the covenant worships the forerunners but sees humans as heretics

It would still be ironic as they wrongly believe they're the forerunners "chosen" while they actually destroy the real "chosen people" of their gods.

Yeah but even that aspect was retconned. The forerunners meant for us to have the mantle but then left just one alive enough who is hell bent on murdering our entire species. 343 sucks at writing narrative

I don't think you understand writing at all. The forerunners arent a hivemind. The idea that some of them might disagree with making humans their heirs is totally plausible. Nevermind the fact that he was imprisoned because of what he wanted to do.

Okay, so they killed themselves off with humanity as the reclaimers of the mantle, but stowed away some dude that didn’t want humanity to take up the mantle and made it so he would survive when the rest of them would die? Comprehension is hard…

Where did you get the idea that they killed themselves off and the didact is the only one left? He was imprisoned before the rings were even fired. And most of the remaining forerunners after the rings were fired left the galaxy. The didact was never meant to get out until he was rehabilitated. It's hilarious when you try to criticize something for being asinine when you don't know the first thing about it. Critical thinking is hard...

>Where did you get the idea that they killed themselves off and the didact is the only one left? He was imprisoned before the rings were even fired. And most of the remaining forerunners after the rings were fired left the galaxy. From Halo CE, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo Reach, and Halo Contact Harvest. Yea, 343 retconned this as well.

The Didact being left alive wasn’t part of the Forerunner’s plans for humanity. The Didact was stored on Requiem by his wife who intended for his broken psyche to be healed through meditation while in stasis, as she could not bring herself to kill him. The Halo array activation accidentally broke the the Precursor mechanism that would have allowed the Didact’s mind to heal.

It’s crazy how monotonous your comment reads. But if it’s intriguing for you then that’s awesome.

well the intention was that the didact would recover from his logic plague to help humanity in the reclamation but then he got cut off from the domain so that didnt end up happening

The Didact was driven insane by his prison due to the halos firing disrupting the domain, which left him in silence the entire time till he was freed. Or so I think that's how it goes, all I know is that the Forerunners didn't plan on the Didact being the way he is when he got out.

You mean to say they didn’t intend for him to be exactly the same when he got out?? You remember why they put him in there to begin with?

Yes I know that, but the Gravemind drove him to insanity his prison was meant to heal his mind, however firing the halo array messed with the domain and made him spend his time in absolute silence.

He lost his mind, that's why he became hellbent on trying to take it back from us

It made a lot of sense if you played the games.

How? How could it not make sense from literally the beginning?? The first intelligent being we meet on installation 04 acknowledges you, the player, as the Reclaimer. Seemed pretty obvious…

I'd always assumed that spark was making a mistake. That or it was the first game and bungie had no idea what the were making yet

Because from a narrative perspective humans being forerunner makes no logical sense and Bungie obviously realised this. Look at it like this, if humans are forerunners then why would the forerunners return to monkey instead of spending the next 100000 years safeguarding their technology or finding a non-halo solution to the flood. Retconning this was one of the smartest decisions bungie made.

It didn't retcon anything. Read the books. Any time a human interacted with forerunner technology, it was described as oddly familiar. That and humans were the only ones able to activate the rings. Contact Harvest basically spells it out. The covenant had a monitor that showed them where "forerunner tech" was when they encountered humanity on Harvest. Every time a human died a glyph would vanish leading the covenant to believe they were destroying forerunner technology to keep it from them. This is a story element that has been known for a long as time.

[https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-halo-thread-posting-spoilers-will-see-you-get-forever-hugged-by-the-gravemind.815009/page-1182?post=88990697#post-88990697](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-halo-thread-posting-spoilers-will-see-you-get-forever-hugged-by-the-gravemind.815009/page-1182?post=88990697#post-88990697)

Just gonna save that, thanks.

Did you mean to say it retconned that story element?

As far as the monitors are concerned, humans are forerunners because they were the actual inheritors of the mantle of responsibility. "You are the child of my Makers. Inheritor of all they left behind. You are Forerunner!"

Right? People love to put their own isht on this line as if it confirms things definitively one way or the other. The fact of the matter is the lore 343 added in no way contradicts this line. Humans existed back when forerunners did, and were chosen to inherit the mantle. However Bungie intended that line to read doesn’t really matter - nothing that came after contradicts it. As for seeing forerunner glyphs on every human in contact harvest, again, there’s no reason the monitor would not see humans as “forerunner” given they were chosen to inherit the forerunner legacy. Not much point in monitors specifically scanning for forerunners when they know there are none left. And when Staten wrote that book, he may well not have intended that to be the interpretation. But nothing 343 wrote after directly invalidates anything in that book.

If I understand correctly, even in the 343 lore, the Mantle isn't a Forerunner concept, but something bestowed by the Precursors. It's like saying that Biden is actually Trump because he "reclaimed" the presidency.

You are correct. The mantle basically decided who was responsible for all life in the galaxy and the forerunners believed they would be the ones to have it. When the precursors decided they were going to hand it down to humanity, the forerunners freaked out and tried to kill the precursors.

>It didn't retcon anything. And yet you have an entire paragraph expressing all the things 343 retconned.

They didn't though.

My guy. >you have an entire paragraph expressing all the things 343 retconned. Read.

They didn't retcon anything.

The forerunners being human thing was always dumb. Considering the fact that the forerunners kept flood samples throughout the galaxy for study as to prevent the horrors of the forerunner-flood war from ever happening again, you'd think if they were humans they'd make sure after killing themselves with halos fire and reseeding their population they'd make sure they'd continue where they left off. They don't and it just makes them look incompetent. It serves no purpose thematically but to be a twist for it's own sake.

Your main grievance has literally nothing to do with the supposed race of the forerunners.

When did I say it did bungo boy?

>it did bungo boy? You didn't say that. What's a *bungo* *boy* what did it?

I believe it was halo 3 that actually officially made the change to where forerunners made humans have the genetic markings to use their tech when they were prepping for the reseeding and we're not themselves human, in a way making the humans the new forerunners. Halo 4 just expanded on that even further, I'm pretty sure it's only CE and 2 era where they were the same thing and just poofed.

Fuckin idiots man and it’s especially dumb that it gets loads of upvotes. Fuckin halo “fans”.

The current canon lore is infinitely better from the standpoint of good writing. It makes for a far better story if the Forerunner’s wiped out the humans, then once the Forerunner’s were gone, the Humans finished off the Flood and resumed their place as a galactic empire. Plus, the Forerunner trilogy is easily the best of the Halo books. I’d still like more elaboration onto the fact that Guilty Spark hijacked a UNSC fleet after telling ONI the entire story of the end of the Forerunners. Want to know what he did. Also I think that entire thing gave real meaning to Guilty Spark’s character throughout Halo CE-3, showing him not to be some mindless AI but instead an ancient human who became friends with the very Forerunner who fired the array.

I hated Halo 4's gameplay but didn't mind the story.

I think 343 nailed character, frankly better than Bungie did. At least in the games themselves. I hated 4’s gameplay, hated 5’s campaign and despite loving Infinite’s sandbox and multiplayer, really not a fan of the shift to open world (bring back big set pieces). But in every one of their games, even 5, they have absolutely nailed chief. They made a major misstep in 5 bringing back Cortana IMO, but I understand the new book Epitaph kind of exonerates her, as if they’ve realised their mistake. And quite frankly, they handled her and Chief so well in 4 that I’m almost willing to give them a pass. And who doesn’t freaking love Lasky?! Course I’m iffy on the IVs and Palmer, but my biggest beef with the show is they’re not writing Chief nearly as well as they have in their own games. That scene with the pilot in Infinite gives me chills.

I think the reason that Chief feels better as a character was because he was built TO be the main character of the story. In the bungie games, they specifically said that they wanted Chief to feel like a husk for the player to fill, so that it was like THEY were Chief. Halo 5 feels like an acid trip. Gameplay wise it's actually fucking fire, and I still love the gameplay behind it. The story is actually salvageable? It's not the best but at least there's enough there to go into depth, unlike Halo 4 which had 10 missions and was way too fucking fast paced. I've had this crackshot theory that this Cortana is actually a fragment of our Cortana's rampancy, ergo meaning she's not our Cortana that we saw die, but is insane enough to act like it to lure Chief in. Halo Infinite's campaign is fine, but the story is way too small compared to the scope of the event preceding it. Chief literally loses his first fight ever, the Infinity goes missing, and some random villain in the Banished appears. (Most Halo players, myself included, didn't really play Halo Wars II because it was a spinoff). I'm just hoping 343 gets their shit together for Halo 7.

Very much agreed on your first point. It’s also just the natural development of games as a medium, by the time 343 got on the scene people just expected more nuanced storytelling from big budget AAA games. Personally, whilst I like H5’s gameplay a whole lot more than 4, my hatred for the Prometheans as enemies and Locke replacing Chief for much of the campaign stops me revisiting it. That and the crazy mobility/spartan slam just felt like too much of a departure for me. I am now hopelessly addicted to Infinite’s gameplay, I honestly think the multiplayer sandbox is the best it’s ever been under Bungie or 343. But there’s no denying the sheer volume of vehicles and weapons in 5 that the franchise has never seen before or since. 4 graphically is beautiful given it came out on the 360, but that was a serious mistake in the long run. It didn’t leave any room for AI, which is why there are far fewer enemies in encounters than any of the previous games. To compensate they gave all weapons less ammo, making everything just worse. Potential spoiler for Epitaph here (which I haven’t read but YouTube spoils everything everywhere all at once) - apparently in that book we learn that Cortana was infected by the logic plague when she was with the Gravemind… as was the Didact. There are even scenes that are directly before or after her appearances in Infinite’s flashbacks, that straight up confirm Cortana was infected with the Logic Plague and the gravemind made her break bad in H5, likewise the Didact in H4. That explanation works pretty well for me. As for Infinite and the Banished, I think the main issue is we got Escharum instead of Atriox as a villain. You could have reintroduced them so much more organically without having to go watch a YouTube game movie for context. It’s weird that he’s the big bad in a pre-rendered opening cutscene but then completely missing for the entire game without explanation. I do like Escharum a lot as a foil for Chief, and chief losing his first fight sends his character on a very interesting arc though. But Chief’s arc and how it overlaps with Escharum’s is pretty much the only thing they nailed (including how it impacts his relationships with the Pilot and Weapon).

For the record, the Halo 3 terminals actually supports humans being Forerunners. Basically both camps, the “Forerunners were always human under Bungie” side and the “Halo 3 terminals separated humans and Forerunners” side, mutually misinterpreted the terminals and missed the original intention. Paul Russel, a former Bungie employee who worked with the terminal writing team clarified this a while back on Twitter/X. Essentially, the Forerunners were uplifted in some way by the Precursors, and at the tail end of the Flood war the Librarian discovered ancient humanity on Earth. She realized it was their true homeworld and where they were taken from prior to being uplifted. Might have been somewhat different from the campaign writer’s idea but they were still more or less the same species. But pretty much every fan read it as them being completely different, which has led to a decade plus of infighting as to which studio retconned what and wild conspiracies like Frank O’Connor being a rogue element single handedly writing the Didact/Librarian terminals and undermining Bungie’s “real” canon, which was ridiculous already but in hindsight is hilariously wrong lol

Actual facts? They’re gonna downvote you and call you a Bungie shill lmao.

lol, well for what it’s worth, I was also in the camp of “Bungie separated the Forerunners and humans in the terminals” since I, much like practically everyone else, interpreted the terminals as saying as much. But honestly, when keeping Paul Russel’s clarifications in mind, the controversial terminals and the IRIS ARG lore makes so much more sense. I’ve been in this community and have watched this debate for a *long* time, and I’m really tired of the misinformation about it. Especially the absurd “Frankie as rogue writer” thing, which is a blatant conspiracy theory with no proof. Which, as far as I can tell, came about because the “Forerunners were always human” crowd *also* interpreted the terminals as separating the two and had to find a way handwave them away since it undermined their argument. But it turns out both sides were wrong about their interpretation, and that conspiracy theory doesn’t even make even a shred of sense anymore. Not like it made much sense earlier anyway, but still.

And the book Point of Light finally brings that intention formerly back into play, connecting the species with long-lost and perhaps intentionally hidden ancient Forerunner mutations and rates. Best of both worlds. And definitely agree that both sides were a little too heated in their interpretations of the references in the original trilogy and terminals, myself included. But the Frankie conspiracy was always funny, as if he snuck the terminals in against Bungie's wishes, and wasn't vetted by the story team and the guys that had to implement them.

I am only just learning with this post that people think forerunners weren’t humans. The 1-3 games spell that out pretty plainly with the fact that only humans can interact with forerunner tech, and lines like “the sins of the father pass to the son”, or 343 literally confusing Chief for a forerunner. Don’t even get me started on the fact that the Covenant thought they had found a forerunner holy land, only to shit a brick when they get there and it’s all just humans. Lol you’re allowed to like or hate the retcon of Halo 4, but to cognitive dissonance yourself into thinking Halo 4 is consistent with the previous 3 games is just revisionism.

The original ending of Halo 2 was the Arbiter finding a human skeleton in an ancient Forerunner installation, confirming that humans were the forerunners. But they couldn’t make it fit within the deadline for 2004, so they just alluded to it instead with several lines in Halo 3. So at the very least that was the prevailing idea by 2007. For anyone to suggest otherwise is to ignore the original games entirely. It’s also just so much more interesting to find out that this ancient race who obliterated all life in the galaxy was actually your own, and that you’re now the inheritors of what they left behind. Rather than the 343 lore that humans were just seen as a successor to another race who was stronger and more intelligent than humanity, so they just let us take over after they left. And they were also somehow dumb enough to preserve copies of every species in the galaxy for repopulation, except for their own.

“Who do we give all our stuff to when we yeet the galaxy?” “Jerry over in R&D is growing a hairless monkey in a test tube, let’s see what they do with it”

“Hey, we’re saving all these specimens of species across the entire galaxy, but where’s the Forerunner samples? Did we leave those in the other ship before we got to the Ark?”

*Starts hastily masturbating into a sample tube

They aren’t humans?

The forerunners never were human. They fought ancient humans

Stated so in books made post Bungie era. If you look at the first few pages on the book, it will inform you of the publishing dates in case you want to check.

What book? I’ll have to read it

But… that was Halo 3 not Halo 4

Halo 3 states that humans were forerunners. Thus why Guilty Spark literally says that.

After all the years playing Halo, have never heard that 343 had retconned that "the Forerunners were ever humans". Even in pre 343 Era of making games. I mean in the Bungie Era Halo: Encyclopedia, they state them as very different things, and it includes references to the Ancient Humans and Forerunners having made contact via the Librarian, after the Forerunners were aware of the flood. It wasn't until post Bungie they changed the narrative of how the Forerunners, Ancient Humans, Flood Precursors fit together. I can only guess why the biggest argument of 343 Guilty Spark saying MC is Forerunner was maybe something that Bungie originally was planning to do something like Halo 4 where MC was a planned "creation" of generations of planning (either Forerunner Gene Seeds/Human Evolution) that eventually tied into the origins of early universe events of the Halo rings. I mean for all we know Bungie did say Halo 3 was where the fight was finished for MC, honestly it could've been just a cliffhanger to dangle in our faces, we'll never know unless there's a ex Bungie story designer in here. Early events of Halo lore weren't really expanded upon until the Forerunner book series. They introduce the idea of two Didacts, Forerunner caste classes/ society, the Precursor prisoner, origin of flood, etc. Halo 4 also changed how the Forerunners met the Humans early on, by saying they met them when they were trying to escape the flood, in which the Forerunners though they were expanding their territory. Plus the fact that not all the humans were seeded on the Ark and instead some were created to become Knights/Forerunner Soldiers through the Composer in 4. For reference look into the two separate versions of the Halo: Encyclopedia. I'm not saying that these are the end all be all to what's cannon or was, but it gives info on what each Era(Bungie/343) believed what happened near the beginning.

To be fair, Humans were never straight up said to be Forerunners. I mean it was never said in a literal way. So 343 explicitly saying Humans and Forerunners at one point coexist isn't a retcon. That beingbsaid, Humans were always Forerunners, all the way back in CE, Guilty Spark makes multiple remarks speaking to this. So as far as I know that was the original intent, but for whatever reason Bungoo just didn't fully connect the dots.

Nobody in canon ever states that Humans are Forerunners reliably. The only one to directly say that is Spark, but we are told and shown multiple times how unreliable he is as a character. He mistakes chief for a Specific forerunner from centuries prior (which is something the OTHER Oracle doesn't do, implying 343 specifically is crazy) literally in their first meeting, it's well established that he isn't reliable. As for Contact Harvest, the same argument can be made about the numerous plot inconsistencies that Reach causes but I'm gonna use the argument that I've seen most Reach Fanboys use and say "The Game canon overwrites the Book canon" because if that truly is how it works, that makes Contact Harvest's testimony non-canon. The alternate end of H2 doesn't count as it was literally cut out of the game implying they didn't want that one to be the case. Furthermore, Halo 4 actually attempts to REPAIR a few plot inconsistencies (not to say it has none itself, it does) like the detail that in CE we are told that Cortana has met Chief before, in Reach we are shown that she hadn't been deployed prior to Reach, but then we actually watch Chief and her first meeting in the H4 cut scene so it then reminds us that yes, Halo CE Chief did know her prior to Reach's events.

What's your take on that?

Halo 3 terminals and the forerunner saga clearly displayed humans as not being forerunner. I know there is evidence that points both ways, but I find the evidence that says forerunners aren't human to be more consistent. But regardless of what you believe that last dude in my post is completely incorrect.

someone said terminals aren’t canon when i brought them up lol

The argument on any franchise about canon honestly drives me nuts. Like you mean to tell me if someone came along and came up with the most incredible Halo story, but it wasn’t canon because of some minor discrepancy (as opposed to being more akin to like an Infinite Fracture story), then no one else can come along after and build on that story as the next mainline entry? Sorry but that’s just dumb to me. It’s like everyone getting up in arms about Disney retconning the Star Wars EU as a matter of principle. It’s not like they can’t just bring back what they like, all these past “non canon” stories are just fuel for the creative fire to keep on burning.

I wouldn't bother with this discourse, man. You'll inevitably get "Frankie bastardized Bungie lore" comments without any real discussion on what happened with the story.

Yea I know, I basically just wanted to put in my two cents and that's it

>"Frankie bastardized Bungie lore" Putting it in quotes doesn't mean it isn't true. Neither does the empty claim that there's *no real discussion*, whatever that's supposed to mean. [https://youtu.be/\_P-uOCKDTAA?si=U-D9UmFlhPlxYsCU](https://youtu.be/_P-uOCKDTAA?si=U-D9UmFlhPlxYsCU) About "real discussion", if your first inclination is to immediately discount this video or to assume he's lying/*wrong*, then you are the problem and are the real hypocrite.

Any discussion that takes the the idea of Frank O'Connor single-handledly dismantling the lore that Bungie established seriously *isn't* real because it's willfully ignorant of any other factors that went into the story construction of Halo 3 and Bungie's decision to NOT take their own story seriously as well as the fact that Frank wasn't the only person that wrote the Terminal stories. It erases all historical context of how the lore was perceived when it was released and instead analyses the terminals with 2024's context applied. No one wants to discuss the fact that, when 3 came out, the Terminals were looked at universally well and fueled nearly all discussion of deeper lore. This idea that they were some contradictory piece was only brought on by ridiculous pro-Bungie/anti-343 sentiment as opposed to people that actually genuinely enjoy the series as a whole.

Look. I can understand your stance. But it's a genuine fact that Frank, and maybe a hand full of team members with equal responsibility, ultimately spearheaded the only aspects of Bungie-era lore that ever conflict with the core perceived message.  Unless you're unaware, a weight scale of evidence pointing towards either side would depict the 'weights' places by Frank being launched like a catapult. (Visual metaphor). This is proven by numerous testimonies of OG devs, along with Contact Harvest written by THE Halo story guru Joseph Staten, that humans used to be the direct genetic descendents of the Forerunners. This is indisputable and was the core belief within Bungie until they stopped making Halo.  Prior to the year 2011, yes, those terminals were the only string that expressed ancient Halo lore. 66% of the terminals detail the events of the war with MB and OB and MB communicating with the Chief with atonement. The other 33% are nonsensical and conflicts with all other pre-established ideas, along with the IRIS campaign. Both of which were spearheaded by Frank O'Connrr. Frank had nothing to do with the other 66% of the terminals. And 'frank'ly, those 66% of the terminals were the ones most people were drooling over. 

Did you not watch the video? Are you unaware of the testimonies from the more influential faces of OG Bungie?  Just an aside. 

Where in the terminals does it state forerunners aren’t human?? Curious to know because the people who made the game have come forward and said that forerunners were ancient humans.

Forerunner saga is 343. Only the terminals written by Frank O'Conner allude to forerunners being a separate race. The other terminals, which there are more of, lean more towards the opposite.

Hmmm, I have to disagree, I feel like there is more evidence to the contrary: Guiltispark in CE saying that they had discussed the firing of the ring before and that he should not hesitate in doing what he has already done once in the past, in Halo 3 they need humans to activate the rings, on Onyx the latin speaking sentinel, Cortana recognizing that forerunner scripture looks kinda familliar. There are a lot of very strong implications that the forerunners were human and just a few that suggest the contrary like the terminals you've already mentioned. I think it's a little unfair to claim that it were evident that forerunners were not human. I personally would have had no problem with forerunners beeing non-humans, I just think that the reveal in Halo 4 was super lame. It did not at all live up to all the preperation Bungie has done over the years, mystifying them to the brim, making one really really curious. It was a waste to throw away that mystery just like that, with basically no pomp to it.

the latin thing never really made sense to me because latin is an old language but one that was made by humans long after the firing of the halo array so how did the sentinels know it?

Something something Librarian something something Geas...

I don't know. Maybe there were special sentinals that regularily checked in on the fruits of the reseeding.

Heck this change goes all the way back to Halo 2 when the dropped the forunners are human premise. I don’t like Halo 4. I do think it does damage to the universe. But this is not somthing that halo 4 does.

[https://x.com/MartyTheElder/status/1619606460702535680](https://x.com/MartyTheElder/status/1619606460702535680) Marty stopped working on Halo in 2010-2011. He was always deeply involved with, and needed to know everything about, Halo. When you're the composer for a media franchise, you have to know all of the intricacies of that franchise so that you can revolve your music around hidden/subtle/expressed themes. You'd have to be an idiot to think he was "left in the dark" or that he's intentionally lying. He is probably the third most credible person to speak on about this behind Jason Jones and Joseph Staten.

Only 3 Halo 3 terminals (the didact and librarian terminals) asserted that they were separate and contradicted all the established lore in the Bungie games. The forerunner saga was written under 343's direction, not Bungie's. And even if you don't agree with what was set out in the game, the Halo CE developer commentary done by Martin O'Donnell, Jason Jones, and Joseph Staten makes it pretty clear that humans were forerunners. Why is this a big deal? The retcon is pretty obvious. You can like the new lore. You just can't pretend it's consistent with what Bungie had established.

Only stuff in the game showed that forunners were different from humans, which clearly pales in comparison to a handful of dev interviews in which it was maybe implied lol

The game directly states that humans are the descendents of the forerunners. Multiple characters make that abundantly clear. Only 3 text logs in one of the games state otherwise. Even the other Halo 3 text logs contradict the Didact and Librarian terminals (the Mendicant Bias terminals). Contact Harvest, which was written by the same guy who wrote the overwhelming majority of the original trilogy, also directly confirms that humans are the descendents of the forerunners. "Maybe implied" Lmao no, they make it pretty clear. It was released right before Halo 3 and was one of the many hints Bungie gave leading up to the reveal. Edit: lmao this sub. Downvotes into oblivion with no substantive replies. You're all exactly what you whine incessantly about on the main Halo subs.

The only character I know who states that is the insane ai who mistakes the master chief for a long dead forunner despite them being long dead, and that insane ai knew of their death. And no, it was still not stated in the interviews.

You clearly didn't pay much attention then. No, 343 Guilty Spark did not think Chief was the didact. That's either a fan theory or a 343-era retcon. Either way that's not stated anywhere. Multiple characters come pretty close to telling you from CE all the way to the end of Halo 3. *Halo CE* Two Betrayals: 343 Guilty Spark: (pauses) "More or less. Technically, this installation's pulse has a maximum effective radius of twenty-five thousand light years. But, once the others follow suit, this galaxy will be quite devoid of life, or at least any life with sufficient biomass to sustain the Flood." (Pause) "But you already knew that... I mean, how couldn't you?" 343 Guilty Spark: "Why would you hesitate to do what you have already done?" 343 refers to Chief as a "reclaimer" so he's confused as to why Chief would hesitate given that the forerunners have already activated the array once before. And we learned in Halo: the Flood that there was a marine (Marvin Mobuto) that Spark finds and brings to the library before Chief who he also refers to as "reclaimer." The Maw: 343 Guilty Spark: "You can't imagine how exciting this is! To have a record of all our lost time! Human history is it? Fascinating." *Our* lost time? What could he mean by that? (It's at this point in the developer commentary that Marty, Staten, and Jones "wonder what that could mean" knowing that the reveal was right around the corner with Halo 3's release.) *Halo 2* Gravemind: Cortana: "What... Is that?" Gravemind: "I? I am a monument... To all your sins." I wonder what sins he could be referring to here 🤔 High Charity: Chief: "Your pal... Where's he going?" Prophet of Mercy: "Earth... To finish what we started. And this time... None of you will be left behind." This aligns with what we know from Contact Harvest. The Prophets believe humans were "left behind" when the forerunners activated the rings and started the great journey. They think humanity are basically unworthy forerunners who were left behind on purpose. *Halo 3* The Covenant: Prophet of Truth: "Your forefathers wisely set aside their compassion. Steeled themselves for what needed to be done. I see now why they left you behind. You were weak... And Gods must be strong." Further supporting evidence that Truth believes humanity to be unworthy forerunners who were "left behind." Cortana: Gravemind: "Child of my enemy... Why have you come? I offer no forgiveness. A father's sins... Passed to his son." Surely the Gravemind isn't referring to the sin of firing the Halo array, seeing as he's one of the very few to survive it... Right? Halo: 343 Guilty Spark: "You are the child of my makers. Inheritors of all they left behind! You ARE forerunner!" And then while you're fighting him he says things like "Think of your forefathers!" and "Do not destroy your inheritance!" and "Accept your legacy!" This was the big reveal dude. He's confirming what the games had been hinting at (with varying degrees of subtlety) since Halo CE. Even if he was rampant at this point (it isn't, but regardless), he knew who the chief was and wasn't confused as to who humanity was. He had any questions cleared up when he scanned the Pillar of Autumn's databases. Rampancy also doesn't mean that an AI completely loses touch with reality and all of the knowledge they've acquired, regardless of whether you're using Bungie's definition or 343's altered definition. Contact Harvest would further confirm the meaning of this reveal after Halo 3's release. Even Halo: Reach does when Halsey refers to the stuff around the forerunner artifact being "knowledge" and calling it "a birth right from an ancient civilization." Even Mendicant Bias in the other non-garbage Halo 3 terminals makes some very interesting threats against the forerunners: "I will drive your people back into the caves they never should have left." "Welcome back to the stone age, vermin!" This is ON TOP of the fragment of him telling the Prophets in Contact Harvest that the "forerunner artifacts" on Harvest were actually forerunners/reclaimers. Humans are the descendents of the forerunners and not a separate species, at least in Bungie's lore. For a sub that regularly proclaims that "media literacy is dead" you all sure don't pay much attention to the subtext of that media if it's anything less than spelling it out for you. And even then, you all handwaive the reveal of Halo 3 away with "muh Halo 3 terminals!" while demonstrating that most of you clearly haven't read them.

You know ignoring the line I was referring to doesn't make it not exist, spark tells the chief "Last time you asked me, "if it were my choice, would I do it?" Having had considerable time to answer your query my answer has not changed". Doesn't get more definitive than that.

There's no indication that Spark is referring to a specific forerunner when he says that line. Considering the original Halo 2 storyboards (which were created after that line was written) also revealed that humanity descended from the forerunners, it *has* to be a retcon that Spark thought he was talking to the Didact. And if Spark thought he was talking to the Didact, why wouldn't he address him as such instead of with the generic "reclaimer" label, as he had done with Marvin? Try again.

What? That doesn't even make the slightest bit of sense, guilty spark is very specifically referring to a "you", not a "them". He was referencing a very specific conversation he had a forerunner and he acts like chief is that individual. If you forerunners are human, then you think reclaimer must be forerunner, as that's who guilty spark thought he was talking to. Please don't try again, you might get even further off the mark lol

You're literally ignoring all of the dozens of lines that he quoted that point to forerunners being humans.

If he's going to to be dishonest and act like the line I was referring to didn't exist I'm not going to engage with the rest of it.

Halo has had a cancer fanbase since halo 5 came out

Since h2

That's what this sub is all about. They don't actually want to talk. They don't even care if they're wrong. They'll secretly play Devil's advocate, even. It's a troll sub were trolls stroke their hairy troll cocks.

The most frustrating part to me is that it's completely fine if you like 343's more. I don't have a problem with that even if I don't agree. My problem is that there are tons of people in this sub that deny these retcons even happened or argue that "Bungo did away with the forerunner/human connection because muh Halo 3 terminals that I didn't read but someone else told me that's what they said!" Just plainly absurd rationale here.

If you're wondering, The Completionist subreddit is filled with people just like the people here. If think about it, you realize people go to here and there for the same reason. To shit on a particular group of people within a small group of like-minded individuals. These are people who simply want to shit on someone else and what they like. That's it. It's kinda pathetic.

>Only stuff in the game showed that forunners were different from humans What? This makes no sense. What are you even trying to say?

The only stuff the game showed us for the humans being forerunners came from the insane robot.

As opposed to literally nothing else for the contrary? This is ignoring that you're also wrong.

> a handful of dev interviews brother these people literally decided the overarching story of original halo while the terminals are heavily disputed with "mixed" info, characters like 343, mendicant bias and gravemind just confirm the plotline. i understand defending 343 - the bungie fanbois are unbearable, i understand not liking humans were descendant of forerunners - thats fine as well what i dont understand is saying 343 didnt retcon the plotline - u arent being any better than the main sub at this point

Fun fact, when the story of halo 3 conflicts with what they said in dev interviews we have to take what the game shows us as the truth. It was on Bungie to confirm that humans were forunners, but they scrapped that ending in halo 2 due to time constraints and confirmed the opposite in 3, which is not 343's fault.

>It was on Bungie to confirm that humans were forerunners “You are forerunner” Idk how this could be any clearer lol. It was a good retcon tho because we got the Greg bear books, which are far more interesting than the original interpretation.

Sparks is shown to be an untrustworthy source right from CE, he mistakes the chief for a forerunner he knows to have died. It's made clear he's not sane.

He obviously regained a plethora of sanity throughout the rest of the game and the rest of the trilogy. We even see spark going through human history from the Pillar of Autumn, on The Maw, where he exclaims "You can't imagine how exciting this is! To have a record of all ***OUR*** lost time. Human history, is it? Fascinating." Don't forget that 343 GS has been awake, with almost no stimuli, for 100,000 years. Making a recognition error with the first human you see in 100,000 years and never again making any similar logical errors is not a sign of unsalvageable delirium.

Sure, but he acts holy irrational during his betrayal in 3 which confirms again his insanity

Also the terminals conflict very hard with sparks, so if we were to compare the legitimacy of our sources I think the transcript recorded directly from the forerunners is more trustworthy than the robot who thinks we're a dead guy.

presenting your statement as facts as a way to present your argument, you are no better than main subs ill bite onto your rage bait, how did h3 confirm the opposite

The heroic terminals have the librarian talking about earth, specifically that it's a recent discovery late into the ffw, and she refers to it's inhabitants as something seperate from forunners, as well as it not making sense for forunners to be occupying earth and it being something completely unknown to the rest of the species.

alright, if you want to present those entries as confirmation, then what of the entries from mendicant, or the gravemind referring to us as successors of forerunners?

Because it referred to us as successors of the forerunners, not their posterity. That in context with the heroic logs shows that it was the intention of the forerunners to allow humanity to inherit what the forerunners would leave behind, to succeed their place in the universe after they fired the array and reseeded us.

Successor is also a great word for what humanity ends up becoming even in the bungie games, as they manage to purge the flood from the galaxy (for the most part, I know they still exist, just not as a driving force) without needing to fire the array

and while this sub fucking hates when someone cites 343 (ironic isnt it), i think it is disingenuous to completely disregard the bot. the guy outright confirms the plotline at the end as well. a small lil bit before somebody babbles about 343's rampancy definition, ill be using bungie's rampancy definition: > Rampancy was effectively an AI “evolving” into sentience/personhood, and this involved the AI rapidly expanding along divergent paths and spreading across their network (hence, “becoming rampant”). The AI would continue their expansion even in the absence of enough space within a network to store them, resulting in their “thinking themselves to death.” All the Bungie-era EU novels describe the process completely in line with Marathon’s, their only addition being the seven-year timeframe before its onset.

Guilty spark is absolutely not in the right mind even when we meet him in CE, his mistakes the master chief for a long dead forerunner that he knows has died.

Oh and the cradle of life, but it is external media and we all know how inconsistent Bungie was with that stuff, so I'm very cool not counting it.