Lifeworker Archive
From Halopedia, the Halo wiki
The Lifeworker Archive,[1] also known as the Lifeworker Central Archive,[2] was an immense underwater facility on Installation 07 housing species preserved as a part of the Conservation Measure and maintained by at least one Huragok.[3][4]
Overview[edit]
The Archive possessed shielding of some kind that kept the lidar of both a Pelican dropship and GEN3 MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor from being able to scan it from the outside.[5] Even inside of the entrance passageway, the distortion remained. An energy barrier surrounded the entire structure.
The Archive was located under beneath an underground lake feeding a number of lagoons in a watershed area of Installation 07. On the lake bed, immense pillars rose, their silvery alloy surfaces etched with the same geometric patterns as the corridor. Each pillar was illuminated from within, casting blue light that filtered softly through the water. Attached to, and winding through the forest of underwater pillars was the ancient and impossibly advanced Lifeworker Archive which was a colossal complex of soaring spires reminiscent of a cathedral.[6]
The watershed on the surface was full of a mosaic of glowing lagoons with clear waters illuminated by blue and green bioluminescent flora. Tall, gnarled trees jutted from the water, their long roots reaching deep into the lagoon beds, lifting their trunks aloft as though they stood on stilts. Cascades of luminescent moss draped the tree limbs and glowing fungi clung to the bark, casting an otherworldly glow on the water's surface. The entrance[5] to what was most likely an ancillary passageway[6] was a rectangular tunnel jutting out from the ground at a twenty-five degree angle.[5] The walls of the corridor were slivery, smooth and devoid of any noticeable door, border, or geometric lines with no vines or moss daring to cling to their austere surface. One side of the doorway had a biometric security panel that required the touch of a Forerunner or a Reclaimer for access to the Archive. Once activated, the solid alloy dissolved into a doorway made of translucent blue light, which then faded into nothing. After those using the doorway passed through it, the door reformed.
Inside, the corridor descended at an easy twenty-five degree slope and was at first unremarkable, producing a soft blue glow from grooves within the stylized geometric lines in the floor and walls that had been missing from the exterior of the shaft. Eventually, the walls, flooring and celling transition from solid alloy into clear transparent panels, revealing the underground lake that fed the lagoons above which the corridor went through. The lake had numerous aquatic life, including schools of small bioluminescent fish that darted past in streams of pink and yellow, massive fronds of glowing green vegetation that swayed in unseen currents, what looked to be carnivorous plants danced gently while their plump leaves parted to catch prey and strange, gelatinous creatures drifted by, trailing tentacles that sparkled like fiber-optic cables. Another large creature had wing tips trailing ribbons of light. Roots from the swamp-forest on the surface stretched down into the depths like gnarled fingers with bulbous ends that soaked in unseen nutrients from the water.[6] When the entrance to the corridor was blown up by Fernando Esparza,[7] all of the creatures' bioluminescence went dark in a defense mechanism, their shadowy streaks darting away.[3]
The corridor led into a hanger perfect for small to midsize Forerunner ships. It had a celling so high that it couldn't be seen without the aid of enhancements, three walls enclosing the area, while the length of the fourth side was framed by pillars and open to the lake view. Atop a low platform sat an access plinth and the wall behind it was alive with light and movement as numerous lines of code and Forerunner hieroglyphs were funneled through long vertical panels. The amount of data passing through the walls was enormous and incredibly varied with everything from ancient script to municipal data packets running through it, off to the appropriate places in the Archive and beyond. This was very similar to the interior of the Conservatory where Monitor 117649 Despondent Pyre dwelled.[6]
The Archive had smart architecture, raising a bench from the floor of the hanger bay for Lucas Browning to sit upon when Browning began to lower himself to sit on the floor. When Browning stood, the bench immediately receded in his absence.[8] It also possessed light bridges[3] and, like Lifeworker Central, the Archive had geas technology.[1][2]
As a part of the Forerunners' Conservation Measure,[4] the Archive had halls full of cylixes and an enormous hall filled with thousands of columns rising into the void above. The columns were mostly transparent and sectioned into large blocks containing a bluish bioluminescent liquid. Floating inside were massive single specimens of flora and fauna. Other sections and columns mimicked a wide variety of biomes containing multiple specimens, all seeming to represent different ecosystems and life from across the galaxy, catalogued and preserved by the Forerunners with meticulous care. Data continually flowed through the columns, the first three meters of which included access panels surrounded by the glowing outlines of hundreds of small, inset rectangles wrapping around each column's base, suggesting some sort of cataloguing or storage system specific to each column, while everything above was sectioned horizontally into specimen blocks. Each column base contained an index of its contents, and the specimens were preserved not only in lifeform, but in complete DNA sequence as well. Joyeuse called the scale of the preservation extraordinary with plants, creatures and ecosystems.
The specimens included plants of every shape and size which floated with their roots dangling as if suspended in invisible soil. Some were familiar to a human such as tall stately trees with broad leaves or delicate flowers that bloomed in vibrant hues. Others were alien with twisted, exotic forms, their fronds writhing like living creatures. Ferns unfurled like scrolls and bioluminescent fungi clung to inner surfaces. Creatures that were preserved ranged from microscopic organisms to mammals that dwarfed even the largest of Earth's fauna. One creature had iridescent wings and a body like liquid metal while another had scales that glistened like flakes of shiny black stone and eyes of burning embers, its crystalline fangs bared in a silent frozen snarl. Another column preserved a Gigantopithecus, an extinct species of ape from Earth.[3] Joyeuse suggested that the Archive housed anything that the Forerunners deemed too deadly or too powerful to reintroduce to the galaxy.[4]
History[edit]
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List of appearances[edit]
- Halo: Edge of Dawn (First appearance)
