“And you shall be my example.”

When I read this piece of text I’m struck by the impression that Bias believes in an afterlife, and that his Forerunner creators are there and will pass judgment on him after his impending demise.

It’s an interesting comparison with the Covenant belief in the Great Journey. Not to mention the implication that an artificial intelligence can come to believe in the spiritual.

On a more related note: If the flood (and the gravemind?!) came from a different galaxy (which is kinda hard to believe for me, i mean, superluminal travel and slipspace is one thing, but distances between galaxies are just inconceivably VAST and pretty much empty of useful resources afaik) then wouldn’t there be more where where it came from? A greater Gravemind? One that has already got hold of an entire galaxy? Or did it arrive in the milky way because it was expelled elsewhere?

And by the way, did Mendicant Bias die on the ark? I bet it could have easily stowed away in the UNSC ships.

To invalidate any Bible-Theories: Do not forget that all information source about the forerunners humanity/the covenant has is written in the ancient forerunner language. It is extremely likely they had words that are nonexistent in english and thus can only be translated using metaphors or by paraphrasing it. This happens in the RL too. Also the forerunners probably had their own fairy tales, myths, religious allegories, ect. which influenced their language in forms of idioms, proverbs, metaphors or even entirely new words. This has happened to any RL-language of this very planet, too, and leaves things untranslatable.

Example time:
I’m not sure how common this expression is in the english language, but I looked it up and it’s pretty much the same as in German:
“to be as rich as Croesus”
Croesus was an ancient king (~2600 years ago) who was especially famous for his wealth. Today we losely compare ourselves or others to him to stress how rich or poor they are. Languages that developed elsewhere in the world, were probably not influenced by this guy who lived somewhere in Turkey. Take native american languages for example. Now if they wanted to translate “Bill Gates is as rich as Croesus”, they would either do it carelesly and say something like “He’s totally rich” or they would find a similar simile in their own history or mythology, or they would use a special word that expresses extreme wealth.
So the term “ark” may have been chosen by translators (most likely programs) either because it sounds particularly classy rhetoric-wise or because the forerunners used a term for which the english vocabulary had no equivalent.
Also, there are lots of references to mythology in Halo. For example the Mjölnir Armor the chief wears or the name Cortana. This is a common thing in the Sci-Fi or fantasy genre.

woot my first post in any halo community. ahoy.

It’s a great site you’re running here. keep up the great work. I’m going to read the rest of your articles now and I might drop some comments occasionally

And to bigsean (7), I don’t think GM’s telepathy was about controlling others motor skills but rather fooling them into doing what it wants. It took years to convince MB. So even if the link went 2 ways it wasn’t a way for any AI to help. But thanx for trying to help me. It’s the best answer I’ve heard yet.

Oh and I think the Librarian was the male, seeing as Humanity previously knew him as Noah. Maybe Bungie actually brought a piece of the Bible into their story. Or 25 is right.