Editing Forerunner (section)

==History==
{{Article quote|One hundred thousand years ago, the [[Milky Way|galaxy]] was populated by a great variety of beings. But one species—eons beyond all the others in both technology and knowledge—achieved dominance. They ruled in peace but met opposition with quick and brutal effectiveness. They were the Forerunners—the keepers of the [[Mantle]], the next stage of life in the Universe's [[Living Time]]. And then they vanished.}}

===Origins===
{{Main|Forerunner-Precursor war}}
The Forerunners were created by the [[Precursor]]s, a powerful race responsible for seeding the Milky Way Galaxy with life and creating many other species, [[15,000,000 BCE|fifteen million years ago]].{{Ref/Reuse|waypoint forerunner}} The Forerunners were seeded on the planet [[Ghibalb]] in the [[Orion complex]] from a base stock that also produced [[humanity]].{{Ref/Book|Id=Enc22P310|Enc22|Page=310}} The world served as the hub of the Forerunners' fledgling interstellar civilization, comprised of twelve systems within the nebular complex, until it was rendered uninhabitable by an [[astroengineering]] disaster. The Forerunners had attempted to manipulate several stars in their region of space, but accidentally caused a series of [[supernova]]e that resulted in their planet being burned to a cinder by radiation. This event nearly caused the Forerunners' extinction.{{Ref/Novel|Id=Cry27|Cry|Chapter=27}}

For ages, the Forerunners and humans evolved alongside each other with the Forerunners eventually overtaking their peers in wisdom and technological development. The Forerunners would master many arts and sciences at the feet of the Precursors, serving as their assistants and adjutants while the strange workings of their creators' minds and artifacts eluded even the Forerunners' keen intellects. As their interstellar civilization developed, the Forerunners came to believe they would be judged worthy to be the inheritors of the Precursors' [[Mantle]] of guardianship of all life. However, according to some records, over [[10,000,000 BCE|ten million years ago]], the Forerunners achieved interstellar travel on their own and found remnants of their creators' existence long after the latter had left the galaxy to observe it from [[Path Kethona]]. During this time, the Forerunners discovered and claimed the Mantle as their own. The Precursors did not approve of this and made the decision to strip the Forerunners of the Mantle, wipe out the Forerunners,{{Ref/Book|HM|Page=7}} and pass down the Mantle to humans instead. Other records state that the Precursors originally chose humans to bear the Mantle without the Forerunners ever holding it beforehand.{{Ref/Reuse|Enc22P310}} Provoked either by this revelation alone,{{Ref/Novel|Id=sil209|Sil|Page=209}} or the Precursors' alleged decision to eradicate the Forerunners as a "problematic" species,{{Ref/Novel|Pri|Page=194|Quote=Long ago, when it became apparent that the Precursors were about to erase Forerunners, there was a war, and Forerunners erased ''them''.}} the Forerunners responded by [[Forerunner-Precursor war|overthrowing their creators]], exterminating most of them in retaliation.{{Ref/Reuse|sil209}}

The Forerunners, led by the then-dominant [[rate]] of [[Warrior-Servant|Warriors]], began their thorough campaign of extermination in the Milky Way galaxy and later chased the last Precursors down to the [[Magellanic Clouds|satellite galaxy]] of Path Kethona. There, they would finish their work, eradicating all but a few Precursors who managed to elude them. However, some Forerunners began to question the ethics of the genocide and refused to take part; many were summarily executed, while others were exiled on a barren planet in Path Kethona without any advanced technology. [[Sedaaro Forerunner|This population]] would survive for millions of years, preserving the knowledge of their origins in a biological reservoir of ancestral memory. However, they would remain as the last survivors of the fleet that traveled to Path Kethona, as those who had carried out the genocide until the end never returned to the Milky Way.{{Ref/Novel|Sil|string 10}}{{Ref/Novel|Sil|string 11}}{{Ref/Novel|Sil|string 15}}

Records of this war were gradually lost to time over millions of years, and Forerunner civilization as of the Forerunner-Flood war believed that the Precursors had simply disappeared after fulfilling their ultimate goal: creating the Forerunners to be their successors as holders of the Mantle.{{Ref/Novel|Cry|Page=203}} For several millions of years after the annihilation of the Precursors, the truth was purposefully suppressed by those in power; there were [[Boundless|some]] who attempted to uncover the true relationship between the Forerunners and the Precursors, but they were discreetly silenced, mainly by Warriors and [[Builder]]s.{{Ref/Novel|Sil|Page=67-68}}

===Early history===
Over the course of their history, the Forerunners established empires, fought wars, built worlds, and fought each other in a number of civil wars,{{Ref/Book|Id=Enc22P312|Enc22|Page=312}} one of which took place over half a million years before their war against the Flood.{{Ref/Reuse|jatkrula}} Their own various civilizations grew, splintered, merged and evolved until all eventually converged into the ecumene.{{Ref/Reuse|Enc22P312}} To safeguard the Orion complex—the center of the ecumene's governance—during these conflicts, the Forerunners constructed the [[Maginot Line]], an immense array of [[Line installation|defensive installations]] spread out in a sphere which completely surrounded the Orion complex. This defense was meant to repel any possible enemy incursion, but it eventually proved vulnerable against an unconventional attack.{{Ref/Novel|Id=jatkrula|Sil|Page=104-105}} During the civil wars, the [[Builder]] rate first rose to supremacy and initiated a cultural purge of the other rates, such as Warriors and [[Miner]]s, which involved the suppression of their ancient rituals.{{Ref/Novel|Sil|Page=119}}

The Forerunner civilization had cemented its place as the preeminent civilization in the galaxy by roughly [[150,000 BCE]],{{Ref/Book|Enc09|Page=26}} around the same time [[human]]ity first began moving its [[Ancestors|latest interstellar civilization]] away from their homeworld, supposedly to escape early Forerunner control.{{Ref/Reuse|Cry1}} The [[Capital]], the center of the Forerunner ecumene and the seat of the [[Ecumene Council]], was constructed around [[122,990 BCE]].{{Ref/Novel|Cry|Page=296}}

Over time, several rates were assimilated over time by the Builders which included the [[Interpreter]]s, Historians, [[Weaver]]s, and the Speakers.{{Ref/Reuse|Epi11}} The Forerunners fought a series of battles known as the [[Kradal conflicts]] in the galactic center{{Ref/Novel|Sil|Page=246}} which were caused by the [[Didact's father]], a descendant of the Interpreters, rallying millions of Forerunners began to believe that reparation was in order, calling for the restoration of the lost rates and bringing back the immense knowledge and rituals that had been confiscated and hidden away by the Builders. The Builders saw [[Reparation movement|this movement]] as a threat, but couldn't silence him thanks to the Didact's mother and together, they united half of the occupied worlds to their cause, leading to the Kradal conflicts when the Didact was just a Manipular.{{Citation needed}}

However, the Didact's parents lost the conflict and were executed with a special variant of the [[Z-130 Suppressor|Suppressor]] which left nothing behind of them, not even an essence for the [[Domain]].{{Citation needed}} According to the [[Haruspis]], to make reparations, satisfy the [[Ecumene Council]] and waylay any chance of revival, the Didact's parents and four others "volunteered" to pay the ultimate price as a cautionary tale - a lesson to those who might have had similar notions to shed light on the Builders' misdeeds.{{Citation needed}} In reality, the Builders cornered them and held the lives of many, many others over their heads, including that of their son, to get them to agree.{{Citation needed}}

As part of the punishment, the Didact, who was just a few domestic years beyond a decade at the time, had his memories of his early life erased and he was renamed Shadow-of-Sundered-Star, his true name and history left forgotten. The Didact would only know about this because the tale had been revealed to him in his later life by those seeking to cause the Didact pain and humiliation. However, the Didact had never wanted to believe that it was true. He was subsequently raised by [[Silence-in-the-End]] who honed the Didact's skills while [[Bitterness-of-the-Vanquished]] oversaw his training, both of whom were present and prevented the young Didact from interfering in his parents' execution.{{Ref/Reuse|Epi11}}

===War with ancient humanity===
[[File:H4-Terminal-CharumHakkor-Battle.jpg|thumb|275px|Forerunner and human forces clash on [[Charum Hakkor]].]]
{{Main|Plague War}}
Around [[107,445 BCE]], the Forerunners went to [[Human-Forerunner wars|war]] with humanity's [[Ancestors|interstellar empire]], in response to a perceived invasion of worlds where the Forerunners had relocated other species.{{Ref/Reuse|Cry1}} This invasion was thought to be caused by both human resentment at Forerunner expansionism during the previous fifty years and by the rapid growth of human populations.{{Ref/Novel|Cry|Page=112}}{{Ref/Novel|Cry|Page=130}} After the war, a small number of Forerunners discovered the true cause of the invasion: a desperate human migration away from an extragalactic parasite known as the [[Flood]]. Desperate for new, uninfected worlds to replace the ones lost to the Flood, humanity invaded the worlds of other civilizations, bringing them into direct conflict with the Forerunners, who saw themselves as protectors of the Mantle.{{Ref/Novel|Id=Cry34|Cry|Chapter=34}}

The Forerunners perceived humanity's actions to be a threat to the principles of the Mantle, and therefore waged a decisive war against humans, subjugating every human-controlled world and wiping them clean of all traces of human civilization. As punishment, humanity was stripped of its empire and technology and was exiled to its homeworld, [[Earth|Erde-Tyrene]]. There, humanity was devolved, splintered among its collective species and forced to begin anew.{{Ref/Reuse|Cry1}}{{Ref/Novel|Cry|Page=127}}{{Ref/Novel|Cry|Page=188}} The Flood, meanwhile, had been pushed beyond the edge of the galaxy, ostensibly by humanity's military efforts, and was not seen again for nearly nine millennia.{{Ref/Reuse|Cry34}} 

Following the events of the war with humanity, a select group of [[Councilor (Forerunner)|Councilors]] and other elite Forerunners turned their attention to the possibility that the Flood would return. The Didact advocated a policy of watchfulness and military readiness, and proposed the construction of a series of [[shield world]]s to provide quick military support should the Flood reappear. However, this plan was overruled by the council in favor of one put forward by a faction of Forerunner Builders led by [[Master Builder]] [[Faber-of-Will-and-Might]], who proposed the construction of an array of galaxy-sterilizing [[Halo Array|superweapons]] as the ultimate defense against such a threat. These proposed weapons would be designed to starve the Flood to death by killing all sentient life in the galaxy with enough biomass to sustain them.{{Ref/Level|Id=twobetrayals|CE|CE:Two Betrayals|Two Betrayals}}

The Council's acceptance of this plan caused the [[Librarian]], a prominent Forerunner [[Lifeworker]] and the wife of the Didact, to speak out in condemnation of the Builders' proposal of mass genocide, and as a result, she and other Lifeworkers were permitted to work on the project as well, integrating their own measures for preserving the galaxy's life into the plan. The plan, the [[Conservation Measure]], resulted in the Lifeworkers gaining biological preserves on the Builders' installations, including two [[Ark]]s and a network of massive ring-shaped superweapons known collectively as the Halo Array. Meanwhile, the Didact and the other [[Promethean]]s who had supported his cause were removed from the council and executed or exiled. The entire [[Warrior-Servant]] rate was marginalized over the next thousand years, with their fleets and armies disbanded or merged into [[Builder Security]], leaving the Forerunners ill-prepared when the Flood re-emerged.{{Ref/Novel|Cry|Page=237-238}}

===Forerunner-Flood war===
{{Main|Forerunner-Flood war}}

[[File:Forerunner Meeting.jpg|275px|thumb|left|A group of Forerunners in combat skin discussing the Flood threat.]]
Roughly nine thousand years after their war with the humans, a Forerunner survey team on the planet [[G 617 g]] came into contact with the Flood. After this first contact, the Forerunners immediately recognized the great danger that the Flood posed to the entire galaxy and attempted to contain them. Even though they knew the power of the Flood, the principles of the Mantle forbade them from destroying it. As such, the attempt to contain the Flood was a failure, as they tried methods more suited to disease control instead of all-out warfare, trying to contain and quarantine the Flood rather than attack and destroy it outright. They did not start war until it was far too late.{{Ref/Game|Id=h3terminals|H3|H3:Terminals|Terminals}}

[[File:ForerunnerObserver.jpg|thumb|275px|A Forerunner observes one of the Halo rings' construction.]]
When the Forerunners were unable to contain the Flood outbreak, the galaxy entered a state of war. The Forerunners desperately studied the Flood, looking for any exploitable weakness. As the Forerunners soon realized that conventional naval tactics were ineffective against the parasite's onslaught, they developed new weapons and tactics to combat the Flood. The [[Sentinel]]s were deployed as a means of maintaining the Flood through surgical, localized tactics. Eventually, the [[Forerunner fleet]] began to enact premature stellar collapse within compromised planetary systems, causing [[supernova]]e to engulf entire worlds.{{Ref/Book|Enc09|Page=169}} However, these tactics proved only to slow, but never stop the expansion of the Flood. Even at this late hour, the Forerunners were reluctant to use the Halo Array, believing that they should continue to embrace the Mantle and to protect life rather than to destroy it. This led to great stretches of anguished debate and even civil war.{{Ref/Book|Enc09|Page=172}}
{{clear}}

===Firing of the Halo Array===
{{Main|Great Purification}}
[[File:TerminalArkArray.jpg|thumb|275px|The Halo Array over the Ark, awaiting its distribution across the galaxy.]]
{{Quote|After exhausting every other strategic option, my creators activated the rings. They and all additional sentient life within three radii of the galactic center, died, as planned.|[[343 Guilty Spark]] on the fate of the Forerunners.}}
After nearly three centuries of war, what had been a relative stalemate quickly began to turn in the Flood's favor. The [[Gravemind]] managed to convince [[Mendicant Bias]], the AI in charge of Forerunner defense, to unite with the Flood and turn its military assets against its creators. With the Flood growing at an exponential rate, entire [[thema]]s of the ecumene were overrun; the Flood-infested regions, known as [[Burn]]s, soon covered two-thirds of Forerunner space.{{Ref/Novel|Sil|Page=190}} The Forerunners eventually resorted to the [[Maginot Line]], leaving all systems beyond the [[Orion complex]] to fend for themselves.{{Ref/Reuse|jatkrula}} Meanwhile, the Flood and the Graveminds developed into more capable and [[Key Mind|powerful forms]], enabling them to tap into Precursor [[neural physics]] and control Precursor artifacts scattered across the galaxy. The Forerunners possessed no effective defense against these constructs and the Flood won most naval engagements as a result.{{Ref/Novel|Id=sil214|Sil|Page=214-215}}

After the [[Maethrillian|Capital]] system was [[Fate of Maethrillian|overwhelmed]], the surviving leaders and population of the ecumene were relocated on the extragalactic installation known as the [[greater Ark]], the original [[Ark]] used to manufacture the first Halo rings.{{Ref/Reuse|sil214}} Aware that the Ark would not stay safe from the Flood for long, the Forerunner leadership realized that the only way to stop the parasite was to deprive it of all hosts by firing the [[Halo Array]].{{Ref/Reuse|twobetrayals}} Soon after this decision, the Flood attacked the greater Ark and destroyed it. With most of the Forerunner leadership and population dead, the few surviving Forerunners, led by the [[IsoDidact]], journeyed to [[Installation 00]], the lesser Ark, its location still hidden from the Flood. The IsoDidact had the Halos distributed across the galaxy and activated the rings, killing all sentient life of sufficient biomass in the [[Milky Way]], including any surviving Forerunners within the range of the Halo effect.{{Ref/Reuse|The Great Journey}} However, the Forerunner [[Lifeworker]]s had managed to save some of the galaxy's species by transporting them to the Ark during the [[Conservation Measure]].{{Ref/Reuse|h3terminals}}{{Ref/Reuse|Origins}} All neural structures within the Halos' range were destroyed; these included all [[Precursor]] artifacts, including the [[Domain]], which the Forerunners had come to regard as the foundation of their culture.{{Ref/Novel|Id=sil322|Sil|Page=322-323}}

===Exile===
[[File:Keyships.png|thumb|275px|Keyships departing to reseed life in the galaxy.]]
{{Quote|no=two|q1=We will do what we can with what we are given. But what of you? Where will the Forerunners live?|Riser|q2=I do not know, not yet. All I know for certain is that we cannot return to these places. We have already meddled too much in the affairs of others.|IsoDidact|[[Riser]] and the [[IsoDidact]] as they bid farewell on a repopulated Earth.{{Ref/Reuse|rebirth}}}}

A number of Forerunners survived the firing of the Halo Array. Some managed to take refuge on Installation 00, safely out of the Array's range, while the Halo effect swept over the galaxy; most notably, this included the Lifeworkers assigned to installation and the IsoDidact. Based on limited information prior to the firing of the Halos, most of the other rates were believed to have perished on the greater Ark,{{Ref/Novel|Sil|Page=314}} though a number of Warrior-Servants,{{Ref/Novel|Id=rebirth|Sil|Detail=''[[Rebirth]]''}} Builders, and [[Engineer (rate)|Engineers]] were shown to be present later on,{{Ref/Anthology|Id=promises|Fra|Story=Promises to Keep}} indicating that more Forerunners survived to take shelter on the lesser Ark than previously predicted.

Around [[97,368 BCE]], the Forerunners discovered that the [[Xalanyn]], a previously unknown species, had inexplicably survived the firing of the Halo rings. Realizing that their plan to pass the Mantle to humanity was in danger and that the Xalanyn were a threat to the rest of the still-recovering species on the Milky Way,{{Ref/Book|Id=enc22p486|Enc22|Page=486}} the Forerunners decided that the Xalanyn were to be imprisoned on Installation 07.{{Ref/Book|Id=enc22p25|Enc22|Page=25}}

After the remaining Forerunners had made sure that the Halos had done their work and the Flood had been eliminated, the species that were preserved on the Ark were [[Reintroduction|returned to their home planets]], a process lasting for over a century.{{Ref/Reuse|promises}} This was done by the remaining Forerunners under the leadership of the new [[Lifeshaper]], [[Chant-to-Green]], who received the title from the Librarian before the latter stranded herself on Earth at the endgame of the Flood war.{{Ref/Reuse|rebirth}}

Following the reseeding process, a group of surviving Forerunners led by the IsoDidact, now known by his original name of Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting, [[Mission to Maethrillian|traveled to]] [[Maethrillian]], the ecumene's former capital, in an effort to repair the [[Domain]]. While still mourning the loss of his wife, Bornstellar viewed a message wherein the [[Librarian]] revealed what she had learned from the [[Gravemind]] about the Domain's true nature and requested that he repair it. Within the capital, they were confronted by a [[Precursor]] construct known as [[Abaddon]], who had been housed in the megastructure for millennia and now intended to bring the Forerunners to trial for their crimes. However, the Forerunners were successful in restoring the Domain with the sacrifice of [[Growth-Through-Trial-of-Change]], undoing some of the damage the Halos had caused.{{Ref/Reuse|promises}}

The remaining Forerunners subsequently exiled themselves, as, according to Bornstellar, they were done meddling in the affairs of others.{{Ref/Reuse|rebirth}} This exile has also been referred to as a "Great Journey" by Bornstellar, who wished to bear the record of the Forerunner civilization's failures and their ultimate sacrifice for future generations.{{Ref/Reuse|h3terminals}} The Forerunners left the Milky Way, journeying to another galaxy where they spread their numbers thin, with the plan of allowing their species to die out in time. At least Bornstellar and Chant-to-Green gave up advanced technology in favor of a simple, primitive lifestyle.{{Ref/Anthology|Fra|Story=[[Untitled story (Halo: Fractures)|Untitled story]]}}

Apart from the Forerunners sheltered on the Ark, the [[Ur-Didact]] also survived, having been imprisoned in a [[Cryptum]] in the [[shield world]] [[Requiem]]. While the [[Librarian]] was killed by the Halo pulse on Earth,{{Ref/Reuse|h3terminals}}{{Ref/Novel|Sil|Page=323-325}} she left behind [[Librarian#Legacy|personality impressions]] of herself in various installations to guide humanity on the path she had intended for them. One such imprint existed in [[Kilimanjaro Forerunner complex|a Forerunner facility]] beneath [[Mount Kilimanjaro]], while [[Librarian's Rest|another]] was based on Requiem.{{Ref/Reuse|H4R}} Several of these imprints would later consolidate at the [[Absolute Record]].{{Ref/Novel|Id=Renegades|Ren}}

===Legacy===
[[File:4 mural.jpg|150px|thumb|The [[Covenant]] was founded upon the worship of the Forerunners.]]
{{Quote|A god who creates tools is still a god. It is not for us to impose qualifications upon the divine or presume to guess its intentions.|[[Avu Med 'Telcam]]}}
After their disappearance, the Forerunners left behind a great deal of artifacts, many of the more significant ones overseen by their dedicated [[monitor]]s which would react to outside visitors in accordance with their programmed instructions. The mystery surrounding the Forerunners and their technology would later become a source of worship, legend, advanced technology, or combination thereof for the various future civilizations which eventually stumbled upon some of the many Forerunner artifacts across the galaxy.{{Ref/Novel|Id=ch|CH}}

The first known species to make use of reverse-engineered Forerunner technology were the [[Sangheili]] and [[San'Shyuum]], having evolved on worlds rich in Forerunner artifacts. Regarding these artifacts and their creators with religious reverence, [[San'Shyuum Schism|many]] [[Sangheili-San'Shyuum war|wars]] broke out over whether the relics should be left in peace or used to advance their own technology.{{Ref/Novel|Id=CH9|CH|Chapter=9}} Those who believed the latter came together to form the hegemony known as the [[Covenant]], who together created a [[Covenant religion|complex religion]] based around venerating the Forerunners as gods. Due to misinterpreting the ancients' records, the Covenant believed that the Forerunners disappeared from the galaxy after the [[Halo Array]] elevated their species to a state of trans-sentient godhood. As such, they appropriated many Forerunner technologies and artifacts, with the use of [[Luminary|Luminaries]] that allowed them to track Forerunner-made objects all across the galaxy. The most holy of these artifacts, the "Sacred Rings" or [[Halo Array|Halo installations]], were constantly searched for 1700 years, since the Covenant believed themselves to be the chosen inheritors of the Forerunners' legacy,{{Ref/Anthology|Evo|Story=Wages of Sin}} and by locating and activating the Halo Array, they believed that they too could follow the Forerunners into godhood.{{Ref/Level|H2|H2:Sacred Icon|Sacred Icon}} This was referred to as the "[[Covenant religion#The Great Journey|Great Journey]]" by the Covenant races.{{Ref/Reuse|ch}}{{Ref/Game|Id=halo 2|H2}} This mimicry of the Forerunners' remnants caused the Covenant to rise to a [[Technological Achievement Tiers|high technological tier]] very quickly, but additionally stunted their innovation of said technology and kept them from uncovering its true potentials.{{Ref/Novel|FoR|Page=275}}{{Ref/Novel|FS|Page=87}}

[[File:Relic main.png|thumb|left|225px|Humans examine a Forerunner [[Relic (location)|relic]] on [[Harvest]].]]
As for humanity, they had been chosen by the Forerunners to carry the title of "[[Reclaimer]]" and eventually take over the Mantle. The Librarian had imparted humanity with a species-wide ''[[geas]]'';{{Ref/Novel|Pri|Page=375}} these genetic instructions include an innate familiarity with Forerunner technology.{{Ref/Novel|TF|Chapter=3}}{{Ref/Novel|TF|Chapter=6}}{{Ref/Novel|FS|Page=142}} However, humans themselves were unaware of this and came into contact with Forerunner artifacts relativ