The Final Battle

What could be said to be the largest space battle in the history of our galaxy, Mendicant Bias and the Mind bored through the barrier and entered the sphere. When the Flood arrived, they were not alone. Another AI construct known as Offensive Bias, who was specifically tasked with stopping Mendicant’s assault, held a Forerunner fleet substantially smaller in between the Line and the Ark.

Aware that the firing of the Halo Array was at hand and that the Forerunner fleet was sorely outnumbered 436:1, Offensive Bias allowed Mendicant to charge its lines, keeping a large pocket of Forerunner fighters it directly controlled out of harms way and at the rear of the fleet.

Mendicant appeared to be winning and its overconfidence further fueled its rampancy, aggressively infecting most of Offensive’s forward vessels by crashing Flood-infested vessels into the Forerunner ships and then boarding them.

Lulling Mendicant into a false sense of victory, Offensive waited for the Array to sound. When it finally did, the Halo effect immediately killed all sentient biologicals, including the Mind and its various parasitic forms controlling much of Mendicant’s fleet. Thousands of ships floated adrift with no pilots or crews – now, only the two AI constructs remained.

Desperately fending for its existence, Mendicant’s fleet was now considerably smaller than Offensive’s. Throwing around the ships like chess pieces, the two AI constructs battled aggressively until Mendicant realized that it would soon be captured. It attempted to flee, but during the process, part of the construct’s core was captured. The portion which Offensive rent free was sent to the Ark for further examination. The remnants of Mendicant, however, disappeared.

When the Array fired, what exactly happened to the Forerunners is unknown.

We know that they were successful in the Conservation Measure to some degree, as humanity, along with many other sentient species, were transported from the Ark back to their homeworlds through the gateways. These species flourished and became capable civilizations long after the Array’s destruction was wrought. What became of the Forerunners themselves though is shrouded mystery, although some text indicates that the uninfected partook in the Great Journey.

Although we’ll talk further about the Great Journey in another article, one thing is very clear: the Forerunners were not actively present during the events of the Halo trilogy.

The Reclaimers

It is not certain exactly how long the secrets of the Forerunners were kept.

What is certain is that at some point the San ‘Shyuum (Prophets) and the Sangheili (Elites) of the Covenant formed precarious bond based on the belief that the Forerunners were gods deserving of worship and that they had traveled to heaven on the Great Journey. They were certain that the artifacts and relics left behind by these gods would eventually lead them to the Halo installations, which, when activated, would initiate the Journey itself. To them, this was spiritual transcendence – a pathway to the divine.

What is presumed by some to be the basis for the Covenant religion itself, a Forerunner dreadnought or Keyship was uncovered by the San ‘Shyuum. Well before their early war with the Sangheili, the Prophets held the vessel as a place of worship on their home planet, but during its continued examination they found something even more fascinating: an Oracle. This precious item to them was, in fact, simply one of Forerunner’s many AI constructs. The San ‘Shyuum considered the Oracle to be the voice of the Forerunners, although it rarely spoke.

Unknown to the Covenant was that this particular Oracle was none other than what was left of Mendicant Bias, the executioner of their Forerunner deities. After spending ages carefully studying both the ship and the construct, they learned how to activate its energy cores which generated enough power to operate their entire city-ship, High Charity. How Mendicant arrived within the Keyship is never explained, although it is possible that the construct acquired and used one during its battle with Offensive Bias.

Approximately 100,000 years after the Forerunners disappeared, the Covenant discovered humanity on a colonial world called Harvest. During their initial recon and using Forerunner artifact-seeking technology, they found it to be a reliquary of Forerunner treasures – only to later discover that the ‘treasures’ were actually the world’s inhabitants, humans. To some of the radical within the San ‘Shyuum number, this directly compromised the Prophets’ authority and, by proxy, the Covenant’s entire establishment.

Why exactly the Forerunners were particularly fond of humanity has always been unclear. Various text indicates that both humans and Forerunners were two completely different species, but something mysteriously important allowed them to form a bond which made humanity the Forerunner’s legacy. It has been suggested that although the two races evolved separately and along different timelines, humanity was considered the direct heirs of the Forerunners because they shared a very similar genetic code – through some chance or fate, they had evolved almost identically.

This would, in fact, make their bond with the Forerunners extraordinarily special – but no concrete answers have been supplied as of yet.

When they finally discovered humankind at the very end of the Conservation Measure, the Forerunners named them ‘Reclaimers,’ giving them (and them alone) the ability to access the Index keys within any Halo installation and to fire the weapon per their own discretion. Because of this heritage, the monitors of the individual installations and the even AI constructs like Mendicant Bias itself, believed humanity to be directly descended from the Forerunners.

The three Prophets, who would later become the new Covenant hierarchy – Truth, Regret and Mercy – played roles in manipulating information they had acquired. Under the shroud of night, the three visited Mendicant within the Keyship and learned that humanity was considered the rightful heir, not the Covenant. To prevent the end of their religion, the future leaders covered up this revelation and instead incited a brutal and complete genocide against humanity.

At one point, the war spilled out on two of the seven Halo installations and the Covenant unwittingly released the Flood parasite from their containment facilities. A human by the title of the Master Chief destroyed the first ring, Installation 04, but he was too late for second, Installation 05. A new Gravemind, which had been living in the depths of this particular ring, carried with it the memories of its past self and set its sight on High Charity, the Covenant homeworld which had now approached the ring. When High Charity inevitably fell to the parasite, Truth, the last remaining hierarch, severed the tethers on the Keyship and allowed Mendicant to jettison itself with the dreadnought back toward Earth where a gateway to the Ark would be.

Mendicant Bias waited over a hundred millennia for this moment, having been haunted by the atrocity it had committed against its makers since that fateful day it chose to follow the Gravemind. It was ashamed of its sins and now it wanted to make amends. The construct had been patiently watching for these untold centuries, hoping that one day salvation would arrive.

Well one day it finally did.

Atonement

Accompanied by the entirety of the Covenant fleet and intent on beginning the Great Journey themselves (by remotely firing the Halo Array from the Ark), the Prophet of Truth allowed the Forerunner Keyship to guide his military forces back to Earth.

From Earth they used the ancient Forerunner gateway buried in Africa to generate a portal and reach the Ark. When the Covenant arrived, the Keyship touched down and Truth, with cohorts in tow, accessed the Ark’s control center. The Covenant hierarch was intent on activating the Halo installations from this remote control center – an event he believed would usher in their Great Journey. Before he had an opportunity to do so, humanity, joined by what was left of the disenfranchised Sangheili, assaulted the Ark and prevented Truth from activating the Halo Array.

In this final battle, the Covenant met their end.

At the same time, Mendicant set itself free from the Keyship and began looking for the parts which Offensive stole so long ago. Once its restitution was achieved it regained its ability to control the entire facility by some measure. The construct had been very aware that despite the fact that the original Gravemind was destroyed by the Halo Array ages ago, the Flood which had remained dormant and quarantined on the individual Halo installations would have carried the memories of that entity.

With that knowledge, the Mind would know the location of the Ark and when given an opportunity, it would siege it, intent on permanently destroying the Halo Array’s effect. Using High Charity as it were a ship, the Gravemind did just that. The Covenant homeworld crashed into the Ark and the Flood once again broke free, now taking hold of the cradle world.

The Master Chief, who Mendicant recognized as the Reclaimer from the very beginning, was then shown the hidden purpose of the Ark facility – a foundry which created the original Halo installations. Since the destruction of Installation 04, the Ark had been building the new ring to replace its predecessor. Mendicant led the Reclaimer to the unfinished installation and promised, through the terminals, to assist him in activating that weapon. In its unstable state, the Halo ring would destroy both the Ark and itself when firing, eliminating the Gravemind and the threat of the Flood, as well as Mendicant itself.

During the self-destruction of this replacement ring, Mendicant’s sacrifice seems to have rectified the parasite’s existence permanently. It is not known what exactly Mendicant did to assist the Master Chief in his efforts to activate the new Halo installation, but whatever measure it provided, it was successful and thereby laid claim to some form of atonement.

Epilogue

In the wake of the Ark’s destruction, the Reclaimer managed to escape and stowed away on a severely damaged and stranded frigate, floating aimlessly through space. Before the story closes, his vessel appears to be headed toward a giant artificial world with surface etchings that resemble those of the Forerunners.

Some have theorized that this structure is related to the Onyx Project’s ‘shield worlds’ and will play a large role in future titles. Whatever Bungie has in store for the Halo saga, they’ve not been reluctant to provide a considerable bread crumb trail. We’ll talk about those in due time, as well as several other attributes of the Forerunners so stay tuned. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!

/ vociferous