I’d like to propose a different reading: that Didact and Librarian reunite on earth after the events narrated on the terminals. Their reunion is foreshadowed in several ways, though is never directly narrated.

As you say, it’s an old story: war-torn lovers separated by cataclysmic events. But archetypically — and unlike the story you’ve outlined — the lovers always reunite. It’s a common mythological motif: Odysseus and Penelope, Orpheus and Eurydice, Desmond and Penny (if you watch Lost).

We know from the beginning that reunion is on Didact’s mind: “If you will not come to me, I will find my way to you.”

That sets up the lovers’ reunion quest right there: I will find my way to you. Later he/she reports that MB has betrayed them. But then she says unexpectedly:

“But now I can guess where you are.”

Why is this line here? You respond: “His last words lay claim to where she is, a planet which is highly-regarded, but when they fall from his mouth, rather than immediately speed off to her in these final hours, he remains still and unmoved. His inaction here is never understood, but can really be examined here as an individualized analogy for the entire Forerunner race’s inaction over 300 years.”

Excellent, but it’s overly complex as an explanation. The simpler possibility is that Didact still intends to rescue Librarian.

Remember that Didact and Librarian are separated not only by distance but by ideology as well. Didact hangs onto old ways, the Mantle, etc.. Librarian is more progressive. Burdened by the guilt of firing the Halo’s, Didact realizes the flaws in her beliefs, in her culture. She prepares to leave her Forerunner life behind forever.

This explains the strange letter to the “Father.” This letter is written by Didact, not by a random, unknown character. You say it’s a letter of a soldier leaving for war, but that’s not how it reads. This is a figure abnegating Forerunner ways. It dramatizes how he/she is breaking from her world, his culture, the Mantle, everything (represented by the “Father”). I believe Didact intends to start anew with Librarian on earth.

He/she says she intends to “to [travel the path of demons[?]] to spare the hands of [another Father’s son].” To travel the path of demons is the translator’s tortured way of saying she’s going to take an unorthodox path.

“To spare the hands of another father’s son” is a direct reference to rescuing Librarian!

Didact is worried about him/her, and can’t abandon him on earth. Her letter is filled with declarations of her new commitment to the future, and her abandonment of the past.

Like the hippies in the late 60’s, guilt-ridden Didact must get back to the garden, back to innocence. Her complete abandonment of Forerunner culture explains why humans have no memory of their Forerunner past. Didact and Librarian forsake their history in order to start over, new and innocent.

In other words Librarian and Didact are our Adam and Eve.

Things we don’t know:

We don’t know how the assimilation between indigenous Sapian and Forerunner plays out. But we can be certain that the Forerunner back-story has been leading up to the Genesis story all along.

Interestingly Adam and Eve’s offspring (Cain) also encounters unexplained humans in Genesis, and presumably mates with them. Also, early biblical figures also seem to have extended life spans.

I also suspect that the human race (probably centuries/millenniums) AFTER the events of Halo 3 are the Precursors to the Forerunners, the Forerunners being themselves humans. This would explain the “mysteries about our origins” talked about in the Terminal entries, as well as the “special relationship” between humans and Forerunners. Time would be a cycle. Whether this is through time travel or some more natural -yet unknown- process is yet to be discovered.

The Halo universe is largely successful for it’s ability to capture the minds of completely different persons. From “Trigger-Happy” to “Die-Hard Romantic”, the Halo universe has finally captured the essence of every aspect of humanity. Even if that humanity is hidden behind the unknown face of a fictitious alien species who desperately strived for the Utopia that deep-down all mankind secretly lusts for.

Bravo. Bravo.

he had a desies that made him immune

HA I WIN !!!!!