Forerunner symbols

This article does not meet the wiki's general standards and/or standards on layouts. You can help by cleaning this article.

This article does not have enough inline citations and/or does not adhere to the proper citation format. You can help Halopedia by adding citations.

The Eld, the glyph symbolizing the Mantle of Responsibility, one of the most common Forerunner glyphs.

The Forerunners used several forms of symbols and glyphs to convey a variety of meanings. These symbols can be found on Forerunner technology and within Forerunner installations, including the Halo Array. The Covenant later adopted these symbols for their writing system as well as religious imagery and as such, they are also commonly seen in Covenant technology and architecture.

Background[edit]

While the specifics of Forerunner languages such as Jagon and Digon remain a mystery, with only a handful of words known, the writing system they used to convey meaning is far better understood.

The Forerunners appear to have used two different writing methods; the first was a system of glyphs or logograms, rather than parts of an alphabet, highly contextual in nature, with the meaning of different glyphs altered by order and context, and further meaning could be derived if the reader used more three-dimensional interpretations; when combined with different glyphs, a symbol might have radically different meanings, making individual glyphs pictograms or ideograms.

The second mode seems to be a more conventional writing system, using two-dimensional characters. There appear to be at least two variations of this conventional script. One type, observed in Forerunner relics on Installation 00, either inscribed onto stone relics^[1]^[2] or in holographic form,^[3]^[4] involves highly complex characters resembling digital patterns or bar codes written vertically. In the other writing system, the characters are considerably simpler, consisting of a series of dots, squares, bars and triangles. The Covenant script is derived from the latter, although they use highly embellished variations of the original characters used by the Forerunners.^[5]

Other symbols found on Forerunner relics and structures are even less obvious in their meanings. They are obviously decorative in nature, but they are often larger and more elaborate in nature than their glyphs, and may depict specific shapes and forms, and may have more in common with petroglyphs than logograms.

The glyph system was also adopted by the Covenant as religious symbols, despite having little idea as to the true meanings of the original symbols; the most notorious example is their mistranslation of the "Reclaimer" glyph as meaning "Reclamation". Forerunner glyphs are found on Covenant Luminaries as indicators of Forerunner relics, as the Reclaimer glyph was seen to represent humans on Harvest. Humans in general have had little success in translating Forerunner texts, with the notable exception of Dr. Catherine Halsey.^[6] Indeed, it took nearly five years to decode glyphs recovered during the Battle of New Mombasa.^[7]

Specific symbols[edit]

Eld[edit]

The glyph representing the Mantle of Responsibility,^[8] the main belief system of the Forerunners, is perhaps the most ancient and ubiquitous Forerunner glyph. Known as the Eld or the Tree-mark due to its resemblance to a heavily stylized tree,^[9] the symbol appears frequently on Forerunner structures and installations due to the Mantle's all-encompassing nature in Forerunner society.

Among many other sites, this symbol appears inside and outside Installation 04's Silent Cartographer,^[10] as well as on Installation 05 in various areas.^[11] It also appears on the Ark's surface, if viewed from space. It also makes an appearance in the Terminals throughout the Ark. The symbol also appears on top of a Monitor's "head" and behind the "eye" on the center orb. The surface of Requiem also bears the symbol,^[12] and the symbol is found in a wall on Requiem, accompanied by the inscription "Guardianship for all living things lies with those whose evolution is most complete. The Mantle of Responsibility shelters all.".^[8] A similar symbol was found on Installation 03 and moved to Ivanoff Station to be studied.^[13]