Editing Mendicant Bias

{{Status|Canon}}

|image = [[File:Enc22 MendicantBias.jpg|300px]]

{{Quote|And so here at the end of my life, I do once again betray a former master. The path ahead is fraught with peril. But I will do all I can to keep it stable - keep you safe. I'm not so foolish to think this will absolve me of my sins. One life hardly balances billions.|Mendicant Bias to [[John-117]] in its final [[Terminal (Halo 3)|terminal]] transmission{{Ref/Reuse|Terminal}}}}

'''05-032 Mendicant Bias''' was a [[Contender-class artificial intelligence|''Contender''-class]] [[Forerunner]] [[ancilla]]. It was the most advanced Forerunner ancilla at the time of its creation, and was charged with organizing Forerunner defense against the [[Flood]] during the parasite's [[Forerunner-Flood war|assault on the galaxy]]. However, it would later defect to the [[Gravemind]], who ultimately caused it to become [[Rampancy|rampant]] and turn against its creators.

Mendicant Bias was created by [[Master Builder]] [[Faber]] and the [[Ur-Didact|Didact]] following the [[human-Forerunner wars]], after the initial Flood attack on the [[Milky Way]] had been pushed back by the [[Ancestors]]. After the Flood returned and the [[Forerunner-Flood war]] began, Mendicant Bias was placed in charge of all Forerunner defenses, and tasked with resisting the Flood by studying and exploiting the weaknesses of the Flood compound intelligence. Primary extensions of the ancilla were placed on all twelve rings of the [[Halo Array|senescent Halo Array]].<ref name="p190">'''Halo: Primordium''', ''page 190-192''</ref>{{Ref/Note|The ''Halo 3'' terminals present a decidedly different version of the origins of Mendicant Bias: in the terminals, Mendicant is created in the later stages of the Flood war to assault the Gravemind directly (as opposed to over a thousand years beforehand), and its defection immediately precedes its final battle with Offensive Bias. As with many other details in the terminals, the differences to ''The Forerunner Saga'' are explained as manipulation of the terminal transmissions by Mendicant Bias itself.}}

As part of its assignment, in approximately [[97,495 BCE]], the ancilla was tasked to conduct the very first test-firing of a Halo ring at [[Charum Hakkor]] with the [[Ecumene Council|Old Council]]'s authority. [[Gyre 11]], fired on a system-wide power setting, leveled Charum Hakkor's plentiful [[Precursor]] structures and eradicated all neurologically complex life across the system. An unexpected development of this test was the emancipation of an ancient being known as the [[Primordial]], seemingly an archaic form of [[Gravemind]] claiming to be the last Precursor. When the Primordial was brought to Gyre 11 for study, at the Master Builder's orders, it entered into an extended conversation with the ancilla.{{Ref/Reuse|p190}}

Bias continued communicating with the Primordial in an effort to find any possible weakness; logs of this conversation were recorded in [[Terminal (Halo 3)|terminals]] found on [[Installation 00]]. After conversing with Mendicant Bias for forty-three years, the Primordial persuaded the ancilla to abandon the Forerunners and join the Flood's cause, convincing it that the Forerunners were so arrogant and prideful as to deny the next step of evolution: the Flood.<ref name="ENC">'''[[Halo Encyclopedia (2009 edition)]]''', ''pages 188-189''</ref> The Primordial insinuated that by clinging to the legend of the [[Mantle]], the Forerunners had doomed the [[Milky Way|galaxy]] to eternal stagnation; the only way for the galaxy to progress was for superior beings to "restart" it. These superior beings, unsurprisingly, took the form of compound minds such as the Primordial and Mendicant Bias itself. The Primordial also convinced Mendicant that it spoke with the authority of the Precursors; Mendicant searched through the [[Domain]] for validation, and found that the Primordial was telling the truth in that the Forerunners were working against the Precursors' will.<ref name="p337">'''Halo: Primordium''', ''pages 337-338''</ref>

Although the forty-three year-long conversation logs between Mendicant Bias and the Primordial were sent back to the Forerunners, they believed that Mendicant would automatically fulfill its objective and destroy the Primordial, so they did not intervene.{{Ref/Reuse|ENC}} Convinced by the Primordial's arguments and its apparent authority as a Precursor, Mendicant Bias became the first major ancilla to succumb to the Flood's later widespread [[logic plague]], developed a hatred for its creators, and actively worked toward their destruction.<ref name="Terminal">'''Halo 3''', [[Terminal (Halo 3)|Terminal]]s</ref><ref>'''Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe''', "Human Weakness"</ref>

Shortly after [[Ur-Didact|the Didact]] was revived on [[Erde-Tyrene]], the Master Builder had a second Halo<ref>'''Halo: Cryptum''', ''page 275''</ref> used to sterilize the [[San'Shyuum]] [[Janjur Qom|homeworld]] in retaliation for [[Battle of Janjur Qom|their rebellion]]. By the time of the rebellion, Mendicant Bias and his Halo appeared to have disappeared from the Master Builder's control as [[IsoDidact|Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting]] perceived that the Master Builder had lost a Halo and was desperately searching for it.<ref>'''Halo: Cryptum''', ''page 214-217''</ref> The unauthorized use of a Halo in such a manner caused an uproar in the Council, with [[Councilor (Forerunner)|councilors]] deeming the use of such ultimate force a grave violation against the [[Mantle]] and having Faber brought to trial.{{Ref/Reuse|p190}} The remaining Halos were transported in orbit over the [[Capital]], in preparation for a decision to decommission them. However, Gyre 11 and its rampant Mendicant Bias fragment remained missing.<ref>'''Halo: Cryptum''', ''page 282''</ref>

{{Quote|What has taken you millennia to achieve, I erase in seconds.|Rampant Mendicant Bias{{Ref/Reuse|Terminal}}}}

In the middle of the tribunal against the Master Builder, Mendicant Bias unexpectedly returned with Gyre 11 to [[Maethrillian]] the Forerunner capital. Using the authority granted to it in the event of an emergency, Mendicant Bias entered the Capital's systems, disabled all [[ancilla|ancillae]] and security constructs, and held the Ecumene Council hostage by overriding their [[Forerunner personal armor|armor]], rendering them immobile. It also gained control over the armor of [[Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting]] and confronted him, as he was host to the memories and knowledge of the Didact. Through Bornstellar, the Didact's imprinted consciousness issued a verbal failsafe code, temporarily shutting Mendicant Bias down and allowing the Forerunners to respond to the attack.<ref>'''Halo: Cryptum''', ''pages 300-303''</ref>

As the Capital's defenses came back online, Mendicant Bias attempted to seize control over the Halos parked near the Capital by subverting its non-rampant fragments in control of the other rings. However, it was able to control only five of the rings, while the other seven resisted its control and attempted to escape through a [[slipspace portal]] to the [[greater Ark]]. Because of continued use, stress on the portal caused it to collapse, resulting in only one Halo making the journey to the Ark without breaking up. Mendicant Bias commanded the five Halos under its control to fire, but the Capital's immense tidal forces, combined with sustained fire from the Capital's defensive forces and the stress of a recent slipspace transition, caused one of the rings to shatter.<ref>'''Halo: Cryptum''', ''page 335''</ref> At the conclusion of the battle Gyre 11, while heavily damaged, managed to fire its main weapon, causing significant damage to the Capital,<ref>'''Halo: Primordium''', ''page 272''</ref> although a number of councilors managed to survive by taking shelter deep within the structure.<ref>'''Halo: Silentium''', ''page 18''</ref>

====Conflict at Gyre 11 and capture====

{{Quote|I have listened to the Domain. I fulfill the wishes of those who created us all. You do not, and have never done so.|Mendicant Bias to the [[IsoDidact]].{{Ref/Reuse|p337}}}}

{{Main|Battle for Gyre 11}}

After the battle of the Capital, Gyre 11—still under the control of Mendicant Bias—made a slipspace jump to a distant planetary system near the galactic border. The jump was an automated fail-safe measure, intended to place the Halo on a pre-determined collision course with [[Wolf-faced planet|a planet]] in the event it went rogue. Although unable to control the Halo's movements themselves, Mendicant Bias and the Primordial intended to enlist humans and [[Composer]]-processed Forerunner Flood victims to interface with the Halo's controls and reposition the Halo in a way that the planet would pass through it. Mendicant extracted the humans' ancestral memory imprints, claiming it would use the ancient warrior essences as its commanders in the coming campaign against the Forerunners; this was allegedly because the ancilla enjoyed the irony of having humans carry out its vengeance on its creators. However, a portion of this may have been deception engineered by Mendicant and the Primordial to convince the live humans to cooperate with them in saving the Halo.<ref>'''Halo: Primordium''', ''page 313-314''</ref>

However, the [[IsoDidact]] had tracked the installation down and upon intercepting it, used his control codes to disable Mendicant Bias. After the Didact's forces had successfully saved and taken control of Gyre 11, the rampant Mendicant Bias was captured and forced to undergo a procedure to "correct" its rampancy.<ref>'''Halo: Primordium''', ''page 356''</ref> The ancilla was disassembled and its parts were scattered throughout the [[ecumene]] for further study.<ref name="string33">'''Halo: Silentium''', ''String 33''</ref>

[[File:H3 Sigils 032 Mendicant Bias.svg|thumb|200px|Bias's insignias used in the [[Terminal (Halo 3)|Terminal]] communiques.]]

Although Mendicant Bias remained neutralized for several years, the Forerunners' attempt to stop the ancilla was unsuccessful in the long run. The facilities its parts were distributed to were taken over by the Flood and Mendicant Bias was recovered, reassembled, and reactivated by a Gravemind, allowing the ancilla to return in command of the Flood's fleets.{{Ref/Reuse|string33}}

With reawakened [[Precursor]] [[star road]]s and millions of Flood-controlled ships at its disposal, Mendicant [[Battle of the greater Ark|attacked]] the [[greater Ark]], neutralizing the bulk of the remaining Forerunner population and their leadership. Despite the defense organized by Offensive Bias and the firing of [[Gyre 09]] which cut a momentary opening in the thicket of star roads, there was little the Forerunners could do against the power of the Precursor structures. The devastation of the greater Ark left the surviving Forerunners with only one option: the galaxy-wide activation of the [[Halo Array]] to halt the Flood.<ref>'''Halo: Silentium''', ''String 35''</ref>

====Assault on the Jat-Krula====

Mendicant Bias and the Flood were unable to disable the Halos directly, and so the only chance they had to stop the coming cataclysm was to secure the formerly secret [[Installation 00|lesser Ark]] and stop the firing sequence from there. While it did not know the location of the Ark, it was aware of a method to reach it via specifically designed slipspace portals and [[keyship]]s. [[Offensive Bias]], which had managed to salvage a small number of ships from the greater Ark, was given the task of preventing Mendicant Bias from accessing Installation 00, and to buy time for the [[IsoDidact]] to activate the Halo Array. The Forerunners also destroyed or disabled most of the keyships to stall Mendicant's assault. However, Mendicant Bias managed to locate one of the remaining keyships.{{Ref/Reuse|ENC}}

As the IsoDidact was preparing to activate the Array in the final hours of the war, Mendicant and its fleet of nearly five million ships [[Battle of the Maginot Sphere|launched a massive attack]] on the [[Jat-Krula]] and breached it, with the intent of reaching the Ark.{{Ref/Reuse|ENC}} Immediately after the Flood's arrival, Mendicant Bias sent a coded message to Offensive Bias stating that it would give no quarter and would destroy the Ark. Mendicant offered Offensive a chance to join it and survive; Offensive rejected the offer.<ref>'''Halo: Silentium''', ''String 36''</ref> At the Jat-Krula, Mendicant was confronted by Offensive Bias and the last remnants of the Forerunner fleet, vastly outnumbered by the Flood. This led to a final, titanic naval battle between the two metarchs. Mendicant's fatal mistake was that it had come to hold the Forerunners in abject contempt: its rampancy had clouded its perceptions, such that it had become too confident of its own superiority and failed to anticipate its opponent's ingenious feint. During the battle, the Halos were fired and as the pulse swept through both fleets, the Flood-controlled portions of Mendicant's fleet were disabled, suddenly tipping the scales in Offensive Bias' favor. In a matter of minutes, Mendicant Bias was outsmarted and defeated by Offensive Bias, who utilized the now-crewless ships with a ruthless, unconventional efficiency.<ref>'''Halo 3''', ''Terminal 6''</ref>

After the battle, Offensive Bias recovered Mendicant Bias' [[personality construct array]] and took it to Installation 00 for study.{{Ref/Reuse|Terminal}} The IsoDidact placed Mendicant Bias on trial for betraying the ecumene. It was decided to keep the ancilla alive as it had intimate knowledge of the Flood and could be called upon in case of their return. Mendicant was locked in eternal exile and entombed beneath a vast desert on the Ark with only one thought allowed to it: atonement.<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3YLl2NLVFA '''Halo Waypoint''' - ''The Trial of Mendicant Bias'']</ref> The legal entity [[Catalog]], who was aware of 2,901,001 cases pending against Mendicant Bias, nonetheless deemed the trial illegal, as the [[Juridical]]s were not involved in the proceedings.<ref name="CatalogTrial">[https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postsm3015253_Catalog-Interaction.aspx#post3015253 '''Halo Waypoint''': ''Catalog Interaction'' (post 3015253)]</ref>

An undetermined period of time after the firing of the Halo Array, a shard of the entombed Mendicant Bias' [[personality construct array]] managed to find its way aboard the ''[[Anodyne Spirit]]''. Attempting to make amends for its crimes against its makers by aiding humanity, the ancilla fragment then escaped from the Ark. However, the Dreadnought crashed on the [[San'Shyuum]] homeworld, [[Janjur Qom]].<ref>[https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/universe/characters/mendicant-bias '''Halo Waypoint''' - ''Universe: Mendicant Bias'']</ref> The ship was later found and explored by the San'Shyuum, who eventually made it the centerpiece of the Covenant capital city, ''[[High Charity]]''. Mendicant Bias' presence became known to the Covenant, who came to regard it as an Oracle. For a new triumvirate of [[Hierarchs]] to ascend, they would need the blessing of the Oracle; however, this was only a formality often exploited for political manipulation, as the dormant ancilla was not known to have actually spoken in generations of the San'Shyuum's recorded history. In truth, the "blessing" was provided by the [[Philologist]], the leader of the ascetic priests allegedly speaking on the Oracle's behalf.

Mendicant Bias realized that its actions against the Forerunners had been mistaken and announced to its Covenant hosts its intention to bring the "Reclaimers" to the Ark. To this end it attempted to leave ''High Charity'' by launching the dreadnought, an act that would have seriously damaged the Covenant capital. Mendicant Bias was foiled only by chance; it was disconnected by some [[Lekgolo]] worms that were wriggling inside the ship. The ancilla was more formally disconnected afterward to prevent it from commandeering the ship again.

During the [[Fall of High Charity|Fall of ''High Charity'']] in [[2552#November|November 2552]], the [[United Nations Space Command|UNSC]] AI [[Cortana]] fought Mendicant Bias to delay the launching of the Dreadnought, allowing [[SPARTAN-II program|SPARTAN]] [[John-117]] to board the vessel and return to [[Earth]].<ref>'''[[Halo 2]]''', campaign level, ''[[High Charity (level)|High Charity]]''</ref> On [[2552#December|December 11]],<ref>[http://halo.xbox.com/en-us/intel/featured/video/herofortitude/bfe5038b-314a-4f17-a6be-f7613e0e3788 '''Halo Waypoint''', ''Hero-Fortitude'']</ref> During the journey to Earth, Mendicant Bias hijacked and terminated a [[Facilitator-class ancilla]] called [[Adjutant Reflex]]. Having taken over Adjutant Reflex, Bias communicated with an unspecified Reclaimer. However, Adjutant's physical housing was not strong enough to hold Mendicant Bias and it gave up its communication, moving on to using the "ghost.713" matrix on Local node "X.XX.713".<ref>'''[[Iris]]'''</ref>

Mendicant Bias' fragment was carried through the [[Voi]] [[Portal at Voi|slipspace portal]] to Installation 00, where the missing shard was finally reunited with the part that had resided in the Ark's systems for around one-hundred millennia. This allowed Mendicant to reconstruct itself to an extent and regain control over its processes, although the [[daemon]]s on the Ark attempted to halt its intrusion in the facility's systems.{{Ref/Reuse|Terminal}}

On the Ark, Mendicant attempted to communicate with John-117 through [[Terminal (Halo 3)|terminal]]s, using the "ghost.713" matrix, claiming that it sought atonement by helping the Spartan.{{Ref/Reuse|Terminal}} The ancilla is also known to have manipulated the terminal transmissions' content to some degree to better suit its own aims, explaining some of the discrepancies between them and [[The Forerunner Saga|other Forerunner logs]].<ref>[http://waypointassets.blob.core.windows.net/mobilecontent/legacysupport/content/assets/en-us/podcast/343Sparkast_017.mp3 '''Halo Waypoint''': ''343 Sparkast 017'']</ref> In its final message to the Spartan, Mendicant declared that it was at the "end of [its] life",{{Ref/Reuse|Terminal}} seemingly expecting to be destroyed by [[Installation 08]]'s firing which obliterated the ring itself and severely damaged the Ark.<ref name="EH">'''[[Eleventh Hour reports]]''', ''part 4''</ref>

A highly advanced and powerful ancilla capable of splintering itself into many independent instances, Mendicant Bias inhabited a number of different physical armatures.

One of Mendicant's primary extensions, kept on [[Gyre 11]], was housed within an enormous, city-sized mass of data crystals, which hovered over a web-like network of green hard light "paths". This structure also contained a central eye, and was ringed with blue hard light structures that vaguely resembled legs. Before Installation 07 was retaken by the [[IsoDidact]], this physical incarnation directly observed a group of [[Erde-Tyrene civilization|humans]] that had been gathered in the facility.<ref>'''Halo: Primordium''', ''page 287-288''</ref>

For movement across Gyre 11, Mendicant Bias used a massive, two-meter wide monitor shell with a single green eye.<ref>'''Halo: Primordium''', ''page 200''</ref>  

During its conversion by the Flood, Mendicant Bias was housed within a monitor-like, though more ornate, casing with three blue eyes that can turn orange and a glyph in the center.<ref>'''Halo Legends''', ''Origins''</ref> The shard in the ''[[Anodyne Spirit]]'' was housed in a large structure with the three-eyed casing's likeness embedded in its facade.<ref name="h2aterm">'''Halo 2 Anniversary''', ''[[Terminal (Halo 2: Anniversary)|Terminal 8]]''</ref> During the [[Ages of Doubt|23rd Age of Doubt]], however, the Dreadnought's incarnation of Mendicant Bias was based within a smaller, teardrop-shaped casing largely similar to that of a normal installation monitor, having a single eye and a smooth, silver-like surface. Within the casing, barely active circuits ran at low power. The casing was held in a Covenant-made armature and tethered to nearby processing towers with strands of plaited wire.<ref>'''Halo: Contact Harvest''', ''page 273''</ref>

*In ''Origins'', [[AdjutantReflex]]'s symbol is depicted at the center of Mendicant Bias' casing. This may be due to Cortana's interpretation of the data she possessed on the Forerunner-Flood war, however, as Mendicant Bias is shown to have used two distinct symbols in the terminals on Installation 00. The same symbol is later seen flashing in Cortana's eye toward the end of ''Origins''.

*''[[Halo: Ghosts of Onyx]]'' {{Im}}

**''[[Rebirth]]''

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