Librarian

Librarian
Biographical information
Homeworld:	Maethrillian
Born:	112,329 BCE
Died:	97,445 BCE
Cause of death:	Killed by the Halo Array
Spouse(s):	Ur-Didact
Personal details
Species:	Forerunner
Gender:	Female
Height:	289.6 centimeters (9 ft 6.0 in)
Weight:	200.2 kilograms (441.4 lb)
Hair color:	White
Eye color:	Violet
Political and military information
Affiliation:	Ecumene
Rank:	Lifeshaper (R: Lifeworker)
Notable info:	Oversaw the Conservation Measure

"Each one of these souls is finite and precious.

And I'm close.

Close to saving them all.''"

— The Librarian

First-Light-Weaves-Living-Song, better known as the Librarian, was a highly influential Forerunner Lifeshaper and the head of the Lifeworker rate for ten thousand years. She was married to the Didact, the Promethean supreme commander of the Forerunner military. During the Forerunner-Flood war, she led the Conservation Measure, which sought to index all species in the galaxy and transport them to the Ark and other conservation facilities before the Flood could reach them or the Halo rings were fired. Frequently clashing with her husband over the morality of the Array, the Librarian died at the end of the war when the rings were activated, willingly stranding herself on Earth within range of the Halo effect. She viewed the human species as having special significance and is responsible for grooming humanity to be the Forerunners' successors. 100,000 years after the firing of the Halo Array, the Librarian resurfaced through personality imprints to help continue guiding humanity towards the Mantle. The Librarian herself was preserved in the Domain where she would eventually be reunited with her husband.

Biography

Early life

Born First-Light-Weaves-Living-Song, she received the name "Librarian" from her teachers because she enjoyed traveling through great stores of knowledge. When she was born, many Forerunners were confused about why her features made her different from the Forerunners. During her childhood her mother, a Lifeworker who was an expert in the study and nurturing life in ice worlds, died while she was on duty, with her upbringing being taken over by her father. As a child, her first glimpse of the Living Time was a chaotic nightmare for her, not knowing how to cope with it. She had sleep problems because of those nightmares and cried a lot, with the chemical intervention given by the monitors in her house the only way to console her dreams.Even as a Manipular, the Librarian had a thirst for knowledge and fascination for life. One of her tutors, and who would become her Mentor, was a 4,000-years old Lifeworker named Harmony-in-Gifted-Symmetry, with whom the Librarian would record and analyze her nightmares; Harmony would also teach her in navigate though her nightmares, and help her in understand the Living Time and watch its strings and threads. After adopting her first form, she gained access to the Domain, being greeted not by her ancestors, but shapeless forms.

After her first-form mutation, she hoped her features would become more Forerunner-like, but with no success. After her sulking period, the Librarian began to study and trace her abnormalities to its source, with the help of her ancilla, which the Librarian suspected her mentor Harmony had a hand in their meeting. Searching through the Domain, the Librarian heard voices who urge her to look to the beginning, and finally found a clue when one of the voices whispered her to look to the lost rate. She travelled to the Master Library of Keth Sidon, searching for answers for several days until she crossed with the Theoretical studies, and their conclusions of the Precursors being the creators of both Forerunners and humanity, and that humanity share a genetic structure homogeneous to the Forerunners. The Librarian found the idea preposterous but, even with resistance against the idea, she began her study.

She first met the Didact on Charum Hakkor before the Plague War. Initially, the Didact's fellow Promethean, Endurance-of-Will, contended the Librarian as the Didact's wife-to-be. While the Librarian later offered him the choice of returning to Endurance, the Didact chose to marry the Librarian instead. The Librarian and the Didact settled in a large family domicile on Nomdagro. They had several children, all of whom followed in their father's footsteps and became Warrior-Servants.

Over the course of her career, the Librarian came across countless different and often highly varied forms of life. On a number of ice-covered rocky moons orbiting gas giants, she had discovered small lifeforms which had arisen in the perpetual darkness of the oceans deep beneath the ice sheets covering their surfaces. For three times, she had "liberated" such beings by opening gaps in the ice, allowing the inhabitants of the subsurface oceans below to climb out and witness the extent of space beyond the enclosure of their home environments. In all of those instances, the creatures were terrified by the sheer vastness of space and scuttled back under the ice, even wiping their memories of what they had seen.

War with humanity

Main article: Plague War

The Didact and the Librarian in the Prometheans' command center on Requiem.

When humanity first began to attack Forerunner worlds and vessels, the Librarian stood before the Ecumene Council and advocated immediate retaliation and total extermination of the enemy. This policy was opposed by the Didact, who proposed to follow the teachings of the Mantle and send humanity back to its homeworld; this proposal was supported by the Master Builder, Faber, and the rest of the Council. The Librarian did not agree with this outcome, but conceded to the Council's decision. As war against humanity commenced, the Librarian found herself fearful for her husband; while humanity had always been aggressive in the past, she observed that they had never seemed as desperately violent as they did at the present.