Forerunner-Flood war
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Pyrrhic Forerunner victory
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- "A hundred thousand years ago, a great civilization existed in this universe. Like all great civilizations, they faced a sudden and dire turn of events. A threat to their primacy from outside. Something they never expected, never prepared for... a deeply alien threat they called simply the Flood."
- — Cortana[3]
The Forerunner-Flood war, known as the Flood war,[1][4] was a pivotal galactic conflict that occurred between the Forerunners and the Flood parasite. It began on G 617 g around 97,745 BCE and lasted approximately three centuries. The Forerunners concluded the war in 97,445 BCE with the creation and activation of the Halo Array, seven superweapons that purged the galaxy of all sentient life in order to stop the Flood. The conflict ended the Forerunners' eons-long rule in the galaxy; most of their ecumene having fallen to the Flood, the few remaining members of the species went into exile after completing the repopulation of the galaxy's sentient species from specimens preserved at the Ark.
Background[edit]
The Forerunners were an ancient race who thrived as the dominant civilization in the Milky Way galaxy, organizing their ecumene over millions of terrestrial planets. They derived their authority from the Mantle, their pledge to watch over and preserve all life in the galaxy. The Forerunners' society was based on caste-like strata known as rates, with a dedicated military class which included both naval elements and ground forces. Their technological capacity was without equal, in areas such as the understanding of slipspace, energy manipulation, artificial intelligence and astroengineering. They measured technological advancement in a succession of Tiers.[5]
While powerful, the Forerunners were not the only major civilization in the galaxy. Other races with interstellar empires included prehistoric humanity, who had allied with the early San'Shyuum. Around 107,445 BCE, the Flood emerged as a threat within the humans' territory, supposedly having entered the galaxy from one of the Magellanic Clouds. The infection caught the humans and San'Shyuum by surprise, infecting their populations and taking their worlds at a steady rate. At a certain point during the conflict, however, the Flood stopped infecting humans altogether and began to recede from the galaxy. Although widely believed to be the result of a cure created by humanity,[6] this retreat was in fact due to the Flood's own long-term strategy to bring ruin to the Forerunners.[7]
Unknown to the Forerunners at this time, the Flood was actually a manifestation of the Precursors, a race of incredibly powerful beings who seeded the galaxy with life. Ten million years earlier, the Forerunners had rebelled against the Precursors and driven them to extinction; those who survived transmuted themselves to a molecular powder, meant to regenerate the Precursors at a later time. When biological beings came into contact with this powder—corrupted over millions of years—it manifested itself as a parasitic lifeform; the earliest stage of the Flood. Far from accepting defeat and extinction, the Precursors decided to wield their new form as an instrument to exact their revenge on the Forerunners for their crimes, and to bring unity to all life.[8]
The Forerunners first encountered the Flood during this conflict, witnessing its frightening power firsthand. Even at its withering state, the Flood proved to be a potent threat, infesting hundreds of Forerunner fleets before the Warriors adopted a policy of total extermination, destroying all traces of the Flood wherever they were found.[9] Combined with the humans and San'Shyuum practicing a similar strategy for several centuries, no trace of the Flood seemingly remained in the galaxy afterward.[10]
While quelled for a time, the threat of the Flood would shape Forerunner politics for millennia to come. Two major factions emerged in the Forerunner political scene with differing views on how to best prepare against the parasite's return. A series of devastating superweapons, known as Halos, was created by the Builders while the Prometheans, led by the Didact, devised a more strategic defense solution consisting of numerous military installations known as Shield Worlds. However, the Prometheans eventually lost to the Builders and were forced into exile, securing Master Builder Faber's position in the Ecumene Council's favor for over a thousand years. This infighting eroded the Forerunners from within, making them more vulnerable against the Flood's second wave.[10]
Aware of the inevitability of the return of the Flood threat, the Lifeworkers led by the Librarian began indexing and protecting species across the galaxy. The Halos and their extragalactic construction facilities—Arks—were constructed with this Conservation Measure in mind, designed to house artificial ecosystems and countless sentient species, a means to partially undo the damage on galactic life in the event the Halos were used.[10] Due to its colossal scale, this indexing and preservation project would last all the way until the end of the conflict with the Flood, and even then failed to save even remotely all of the galaxy's sentient life.[11]
After over nine thousand years, the Flood returned, contesting the Forerunners for control of the entire galaxy. While the Flood sought to assimilate all sentient life, the Forerunners attempted to defend against the Flood threat using several measures to both directly combat them as well as carry out research in regards to the parasite's capabilities.[3]
War[edit]
Beginning[edit]
- "It devoured everything it touched. At first, their technology, their courage seemed like it might prevail. But they waited too long to see the threat, to join the fight. The Flood had spread too