This beautiful render was done by Dan Gerstner, a Halo fan with some impressive talent at his disposal. Click the image to access his website.

FALSE TRANSCENDENCE

What the San ‘Shyuum knew about “the Great Journey” at this critical point in time and what they would learn later were too profoundly different things. And ironically, neither of which even verged close to the true reality of the Journey. Eventually the Covenant stumbled upon humanity, the rightful heirs to the Forerunners, and a few desperate San ‘Shyuum politicians took advantage of this unprecedented situation. They covered up the truth about the “Reclaimer” race and instead, labeled them desecrators and ordered their immediate eradication. The chief component of this genocide was a San ‘Shyuum known as the Minister of Fortitude, but he quickly rose to power as the Prophet of Truth.

One question which has oft been asked is why, after learning the truth of the Reclaimers, did this particular Prophet continue to pursue the Covenant cause, even unto death? Truth had just seen his religion, his species’ entire way of life, washed away in a single moment. The revelation of the humans would have destroyed the Covenant, so it was hidden. Why then, do we see him a quarter of a century later, still undoubtedly convinced of the belief that the Covenant could still attain this transcendence.

All we really know is that somewhere along the way, between their first encounter with humanity on a planet called Harvest and their short, brutal razing of the fortress world of Reach, Truth came to the conclusion that mankind’s inbred claim to the status of Reclaimer was not warranted and that the Covenant’s devout loyalty would be the ultimate factor when Halo’s fire surged through the galaxy. He believed that although they might be the true Reclaimers by name, ultimately, the Forerunners would not offer them divinity because they were ignorant of the Great Journey and they were far too weak to participate in the process of bringing it to fruition — which is why, he argued, they had been left behind in the first place.

So for Truth, the Great Journey was not a lie. It was very real. Humanity would be a tool or stepping stone in their passageway to divination, but nothing more. Unfortunately for Truth and his Covenant, this unworlding — as he had imagined it — wasn’t the real Great Journey, nor was Halo a god machine capable of imparting eternality on the righteous and finality on the wicked.

Halo, as we now know it, was a networked system of installations spread throughout the galaxy and capable of destroying all life forms which were susceptible to an ancient parasite called the Flood. We know now what Truth and the Covenant did not know or simply would not accept as fact: that the Flood was the reason for Halo and for the Forerunner’s departure, not transcendence as they had preached for ages.

Many frequenters of Halo fiction and even some staff from Bungie have cited that the Great Journey was a lie. While this is partly correct, in that the Covenant were delusional and ignorant to the true understanding of the term, the aliens were absolutely right about the existence of a Great Journey. Within the context of the series’ fiction, it was a very real event and one which the Forerunners did, in all actuality, participate in.

JOURNAL OF A GOD

So then, we are left with one question: What is the Great Journey?

For this, we turn to the words of the one individual who we know has participated in this process and recorded it — Didact, the Forerunner:

Mendicant Bias is trying to prevent us from firing the Array. He speeds back to the Ark, but he won’t succeed. Offensive Bias will stop him, and I will burn this stinking menace in your name. And then? I will begin our Great Journey without you, carrying this bitter record. Those who came after will know what we bought with this [false transcendence]–what you bought, and the price you paid.

These are his last words, the words of Didact the Forerunner. He was the caretaker who was damned with the role of killing the galaxy’s population of sentient beings to stop the Flood’s voracious torrent at the end of their time. The above text is a message to a lover who would soon be his victim not long after she received it. Here he clearly indicates that the surviving Forerunners, those who had escaped to the extra-galactic cradle preserve known as the Ark, would initiate their Great Journey at the sounding of the array.

It is clear here that this isn’t a transition into the divine or even the passing away into death, but that the Forerunners would live on and carry the story of the events — “this bitter record,” as he refers to it. They considered the entire act a “false transcendence,” possibly referencing that the Great Journey was originally meant to be spiritual and connected to their own faith which they reveal throughout the terminal text found on the Ark.

Moments after the array is fired, Didact records fragments of what we have come to know as the Great Journey:

It’s done. By my hands. The pyrrhic solution is ignited. All I have left is the quiet of space to lull me to sleep. I will dream of you.

From this somber text we see that much like the slipspace voyages we are already accustomed to in the Halo universe, the surviving Forerunners partake in some measure of hibernation — or at least Didact did at this point. If he was participating in the Great Journey through this act, we could surmise that this may have been the case with all remaining Forerunners.

While the Covenant believed the Great Journey to be the pathway to and fulfillment of the firing of the Sacred Rings, the Forerunners use of the term to seemingly depict a physical journey from their current point in history to another location or time. Where or when, no one knows, but we can say with some certainty that it appears to have been a morose and crestfallen affair, as the Forerunners, much like the Covenant after them, saw the fall of their own religion just before their entire way of life collapsed.

Some believe that the roots of the Great Journey existed long before both the Covenant and the Forerunners, buried within the religion known as “the Mantle.” All we know of this belief system is that it charged the Forerunners as protectors and guardians of all life, eventually breeding them as naïve, unarmed and cumbersomely taciturn when the enemy parasite began to lay waste to whole systems on the galaxy’s outer rim.

It is hinted that the religion came from an earlier race — the Precursors.

The Mantle has not failed! I’ve already razed scores of worlds -sterilized systems, routed and [disintegrated] the parasite! We’re learning its tricks and strategies. We can halt this thing! And we can follow in Their footsteps! There are no unstoppable forces in this universe. There are no immovable objects. Everything gives if you push hard enough.

Some have speculated that the “footsteps” Didact speaks of here are those of the Precursor race and their adjudication of the principles which occupy the Forerunners’ Mantle. Could the Great Journey have been one of these principles? It’s likely that Didact isn’t praising the Precursors’ retreat in this sequence (which the Great Journey somewhat resembles), but perhaps it had always been a part of the Forerunners’ plan, with or without the activation of the Halo array. This might be why they now refer to it as a false transcendence instead of a true one.

Didact fought to the bitter end before setting fire to the galaxy, but his fundamentalist belief in the Mantle and his inclusion in the Great Journey can’t be wholly coincidental. Here, it seems that this plan, this Journey, was intended for those on the Ark always, but by the end it had become a march of shame out of our realm and into another — likely through the use of large ships or small individual ones, which Didact seems to imply when noting his abject solitude.

Many have considered something incredibly interesting about this event: After the first and second array firings, though separated by a hundred thousand years, both responsible parties stole away from their act and fled into sleep without many words. The first was the aforementioned Didact and the second, of course, was the Master Chief — who was launched to an unknown location when his ship attempted to move through the Ark’s gateway portal as it was being destroyed.

Is this the process that Didact spoke of? Could this be the Great Journey — the fateful path and final resting place of the Forerunners?

Only time will tell if the latter account of the Forerunners is ever revealed in a future installment of Halo’s fiction. With the mystery that already surrounds the Forerunners, it is a good possibility that this will always remain a trapped and hidden unknown, floating somewhere in space, nestled atop the undulating chest of Didact as he dreams of his lost love and those countless which he has murdered.

/vociferous

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