Mendicant Bias
From Halopedia, the Halo wiki
| 05-032 Mendicant Bias | |
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Began service: |
Before c. 98,445 BCE [1] |
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Ended service: |
97,445 BCE (imprisoned) |
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Description: |
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- "And so here at the end of my life, I do once again betray a former master. The path ahead is fraught with peril. But I will do all I can to keep it stable - keep you safe. I'm not so foolish to think this will absolve me of my sins. One life hardly balances billions. But I would have my masters know that I have changed. And you shall be my example."
- — Mendicant Bias to John-117 in its final terminal transmission[2]
05-032 Mendicant Bias was a Contender-class Forerunner ancilla. It was the most advanced Forerunner ancilla at the time of its creation, and was charged with organizing Forerunner defense against the Flood during the parasite's assault on the galaxy. However, it would later defect to the Gravemind, who ultimately caused it to become rampant and turn against its creators.
Biography[edit]
Early history[edit]
- "Mendicant Bias… Beggar after knowledge. That is the name I gave you after we last met."
- — Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting, spoken through by the Didact's memories.
Mendicant Bias was created by Master Builder Faber and the Didact following the human-Forerunner wars, after the initial Flood attack on the Milky Way had been pushed back by the Ancestors. After the Flood returned and the Forerunner-Flood war began, Mendicant Bias was placed in charge of all Forerunner defenses, and tasked with resisting the Flood by studying and exploiting the weaknesses of the Flood compound intelligence. Primary extensions of the ancilla were placed on all twelve rings of the senescent Halo Array.[3][Note 1]
As part of its assignment, in approximately 97,495 BCE, the ancilla was tasked to conduct the very first test-firing of a Halo ring at Charum Hakkor with the Old Council's authority. Gyre 11, fired on a system-wide power setting, leveled Charum Hakkor's plentiful Precursor structures and eradicated all neurologically complex life across the system. An unexpected development of this test was the emancipation of an ancient being known as the Primordial, seemingly an archaic form of Gravemind claiming to be the last Precursor. When the Primordial was brought to Gyre 11 for study, at the Master Builder's orders, it entered into an extended conversation with the ancilla.[3]
Defection to the Flood[edit]
- "Thus I have chosen to commit my sizable resources to what is, for all intents and purposes, [the proverbial irresistible force]. All that I have is now yours to do with as you see fit."
- — Mendicant Bias to the Gravemind
Bias continued communicating with the Primordial in an effort to find any possible weakness; logs of this conversation were recorded in terminals found on Installation 00. After conversing with Mendicant Bias for forty-three years, the Primordial persuaded the ancilla to abandon the Forerunners and join the Flood's cause, convincing it that the Forerunners were so arrogant and prideful as to deny the next step of evolution: the Flood.[4] The Primordial insinuated that by clinging to the legend of the Mantle, the Forerunners had doomed the galaxy to eternal stagnation; the only way for the galaxy to progress was for superior beings to "restart" it. These superior beings, unsurprisingly, took the form of compound minds such as the Primordial and Mendicant Bias itself. The Primordial also convinced Mendicant that it spoke with the authority of the Precursors; Mendicant searched through the Domain for validation, and found that the Primordial was telling the truth in that the Forerunners were working against the Precursors' will.[5]
Although the forty-three year-long conversation logs between Mendicant Bias and the Primordial were sent back to the Forerunners, they believed that Mendicant would automatically fulfill its objective and destroy the Primordial, so they did not intervene.[4] Convinced by the Primordial's arguments and its apparent authority as a Precursor, Mendicant Bias became the first major ancilla to succumb to the Flood's later widespread logic plague, developed a hatred for its creators, and actively worked toward their destruction.[2][6]
Shortly after the Didact was revived on Erde-Tyrene, the Master Builder had a second Halo[7] used to sterilize the San'Shyuum homeworld in retaliation for their rebellion. By the time of the rebellion, Mendicant Bias and his Halo appeared to have disappeared from the Master Builder's control as Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting perceived that the Master Builder had lost a Halo and was desperately searching for it.[8] The unauthorized use of a Halo in such a manner caused an uproar in the Council, with councilors deeming the use of such ultimate force a grave violation against the Mantle and having Faber brought to trial.[3] The remaining Halos were transported in orbit over the Capital, in preparation for a decision to decommission them. However, Gyre 11 and its rampant Mendicant Bias fragment remained missing.[9]
Assault on the Capital[edit]
- Main article: Fate of Maethrillian
- "What has taken you millennia to achieve, I erase in seconds."
- — Rampant Mendicant Bias[2]
In the middle of the tribunal against the Master Builder, Mendicant Bias unexpectedly returned with Gyre 11 to Maethrillian the Forerunner capital. Using the authority granted to it in the event of an emergency, Mendicant Bias entered the Capital's systems, disabled all ancillae and security constructs, and held the Ecumene Council hostage by overriding their armor, rendering them immobile. It also gained control over the armor of Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting and confronted him, as he was host to the memories and knowledge of the Didact. Through Bornstellar, the Didact's imprinted consciousness issued a verbal failsafe code, temporarily shutting Mendicant Bias down and allowing the Forerunners to respond to the attack.[10]
As the Capital's defenses came back online, Mendicant Bias attempted to seize control over the Halos parked near the Capital by subverting its non-rampant fragments in control of the other rings. However, it was able to control only five of the rings, while the other seven resisted its control and attempted to escape through a slipspace portal to the greater Ark. Because of continued use, stress on the portal caused it to collapse, resulting in only one Halo making the journey to the Ark without breaking up. Mendicant Bias commanded the five Halos under its control to fire, but the Capital's immense tidal forces, combined with sustained fire from the Capital's defensive forces and the stress of a recent slipspace transition, caused one of the rings to shatter.[11] At the conclusion of the battle Gyre 11, while heavily damaged, managed to fire its main weapon, causing significant damage to the Capital,[12] although a number of councilors managed to survive by taking shelter deep within the structure.[13]