Canon

Plague War

From Halopedia, the Halo wiki

Previous:

Kradal conflicts

Next:

Plague War
H4-Terminal-CharumHakkor-Battle.jpg

Date:

Centuries before 107,472 BCE[1]-c. 107,472 BCE[Note 1]

Location:

Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy

Outcome:

Forerunner victory

  • Humanity's empire dissolved and civilization dismantled; species biologically regressed.[2]
  • San'Shyuum home system quarantined[3]
  • Flood strategic retreat from Milky Way galaxy
Details
Belligerents

Forerunner ecumene

Human-San'Shyuum alliance

Flood

Commanders

Ur-Didact

Gravemind

Strength

Ancient human cruisers

Casualties

Heavy

  • Loss of at least 50 star systems[8]
  • The Didact's children[9]

Heavy

  • Loss of at least 1,000 star systems[10]

Heavy

  • All Flood forms and infected worlds
 

"Ten thousand years ago, humans had fought a war against Forerunners — and lost. The centers of human civilization had been dismantled and the humans themselves devolved and shattered into many forms, some said as punishment — but more likely because they were a naturally violent species."
— Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting[2]

The Plague War,[4] also known as the Human-Forerunner wars[11][12] or the Human-Forerunner War,[13][14] was a major interstellar conflict fought between the human-San'Shyuum alliance, the Flood, and later the Forerunner ecumene for centuries across the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy.[1] Stemming from a Flood outbreak in the humans' dominion, the wars resulted in the dismantling of humanity's interstellar empire[2] and in the quarantine of the San'Shyuum species.[3] Over the course of the conflict, humanity never came closer than 15,000 light-years of the Orion complex, the center of Forerunner power.[15]

The Librarian considered the wars to have been the greatest threat to Forerunner power in their history and believed the conflict weakened the Forerunners enough to allow the Flood to emerge victorious until the firing of the Halos.[16] While humanity's defeat affirmed Forerunner dominance over the entire galaxy, the destruction of a major military power combined with the subsequent political schism within the highest levels of Forerunner society set the stage for the return of the Flood and the disastrous Forerunner-Flood war.

Background[edit]

Humanity[edit]

Around 150,000 BCE, humanity had moved their interstellar civilization outward along the Orion Arm, likely looking to escape from the Forerunners' dominion.[2] This civilization would eventually encompass at least 20,000 worlds in a thousand systems.[17] The planet of Charum Hakkor would be made the capital world of this empire in order to be close to a collection of Precursor artifacts.[18][19] Over time, humanity came to believe that they were the true inheritors to the Mantle.[18] Eventually, humanity would partner with the San'Shyuum species, beginning a process of deeper integration between the two species.[20]

Forerunners[edit]

The Grammarian was one of the greatest tacticians and war scholars of the time before the Plague War.[21] Requiem was also built long before the Plague War.[22]

Prelude to war[edit]

During their colonization of other planets, humans discovered automated cargo ships of unknown origin, which had supposedly arrived from the Large Magellanic Cloud, crashed on planets near the edge of the galaxy. The humans found no crew, with the ships appearing to be automated, but they did find millions of small transparent cylinders filled with an unknown powder. Initial testing was done in the strictest containment. These early tests showed the powder to be harmless and useless, being composed of lifeless short-chain organic molecules. Early experiments demonstrated psychotropic effects on some smaller domesticated animals, one of which being the Pheru. The powder tests on the Pheru proved to be initially harmless, and indeed appeared to encourage desirable traits to appear in their appearance and behavior. Over centuries, this powder was applied. During this time, the powder began merging with and altering the genome of the Pheru in order to generate its own Flood Super Cells. Soon, the infected Pheru began to infect others and even began showing some symptoms of the Flood mutation, such as fleshy tentacle-like rods. Close contact with the Pheru spread the infection to humanity. Some San'Shyuum were also infected as the Pheru were also kept as pets on the San'Shyuum worlds. Eventually the Flood began to spread, and the Feral Stage was initiated.[23]

War[edit]

Infection[edit]

The bridge of an Ancestor starship in Halo 4’s terminals.
A human ship prepares to cleanse an infested planet by orbital bombardment.

"We had no idea that the Forerunners were not your only enemy. Humanity hadn't been expanding. They were running."
— The Librarian[16]

Flood infected humans would begin to forcibly infect other humans. By this point, dozens of systems were already fully infested and could not be recovered. The Flood began to mutate both infected humans and infected animals. These worlds, and some full systems, were quarantined though these measures failed. Many infected had escaped and spread to hundreds of worlds across 15 systems.[23]

Humanity became desperate.[23] Over the course of 50 years, humanity probed Forerunner settlements and positions, most of which were the resettled worlds of other species.[18] Humans would take 50 of these defenseless systems and colonized them for themselves[8] as they were desperate for them.[23] This resulted in a "tide of human migration" to get away from the Flood.[23] Sensing these actions would lead to Forerunner aggression in retaliation, humanity struck a military alliance with the San'Shyuum properly.[18][20]

At the height of the conflict, Forthencho Oborune would be given command over the combined fleets of humanity and the San'Shyuum, becoming known as the "Lord of Admirals". Forthencho would spearhead a new firebreak strategy where fleets were to sterilize Forerunner planets with Flood infestations.[24] This was achieved through orbital bombardment, killing millions of unaware Forerunners in the process; fueling the Ecumene's hatred towards perceived human aggression against other species.[25] The Forerunners had indeed been watching the conflict and just prior to the Ecumene Council's formal declaration of war, the Warrior-Servants had been considering tactics and weaponry for use against humanity.[26]

Humanity also made great advances in military and science technology on par with those of the Forerunners, thanks to the efforts of humanity's Political and Morale Commander Yprin Yprikushma, who encouraged humans to study Forerunner technologies from humanity's earlier conflicts with Forerunners.[10] She would also be the one who, in 107,564 BCE, found the Primordial and ordered it transported to Charum Hakkor.[27]

Human researchers brought the creature to Charum Hakkor and attempted to ask the creature about the Flood. They received answers so traumatizing many of them committed suicide rather than live with the knowledge.[23]

Two fronts[edit]

The Forerunners would declare war circa 107,525 BCE.[28] Following their declaration, the Forerunners felt they needed to act decisively.[23] Early Forerunner victories came easily as humanity was heavily weakened by the Flood.[1] Erda, humanity's homeworld, was one of the earliest worlds lost to the Forerunners, a tremendous blow to humanity's morale.[10] The Didact came up with a "star-hopping" plan, wherein Forerunner fleets would jump to strategically important human worlds and simply skip other less important human star systems, allowing the Forerunners to conserve their resources and fight efficiently.[29]

The second front with the Forerunners would rage for nearly five decades.[30] During this entire time, the Nov Thasta system was cut off from the rest of the alliance with considerable defenses preventing a breakthrough into it.[31] The Confirmer served with the Didact during the war.[32] Endurance-of-Will was the adjutant of Bitterness-of-the-Vanquished during the war.[33] The Mantle's Approach would be designed during the war.[34] Armigers would see combat during the war, being used to board human warships as they were particularly useful for these ship's confined spaces.[6][7]

The Forerunners would also encounter the Flood themselves in the course of the war. Hundreds of battlefleets had been infected, with some biomass from these fleets forming Graveminds. Warrior-Servants would destroy these infected fleets where they could. From what remained of these fleets, the Forerunners first learned of the Flood's logic plague, which had corrupted the onboard monitors.[1]

Defeating the Flood[edit]

Meanwhile, as a last desperate measure against the Flood, humanity's leaders decided to take a third of their population and genetically alter them[23] using information learned from studying and speaking with the Primordial.[4] This third of the population was to be allowed to be consumed by the Flood.[23] Va'larr and an unknown Florian were hand picked by Forthencho to take a number of non-military vessels from the flotilla and sent to an infected world to do such a thing.[4] It appeared that these genes aggressively killed off Flood biomatter and destroyed the Flood until the few that survived were forced to escape.[23]

A human warrior falls in battle.

Forerunner fleets would soon find healthy human populations in the middle of Flood infected sectors. While dying out, the Flood still maintained control over thousands of worlds across the galactic margin though they were retreating. Where ever the Didact encountered the remaining Flood, he ordered their extermination through firepower. During this, the Librarian had studied the various Flood ravaged worlds and would achieve the title of Lifeshaper. She would be tasked with finding a cure for the Flood for the Forerunners, mostly by learning how humanity had supposedly achieved it. With the supposed dying of the Flood, humanity had rebounded in their war efforts and were able to redouble their efforts against the Forerunners, though those early victories had given the Forerunners the needed positioning to continue to fight effectively.[1]

Due to the Flood's sudden retreat, the Forerunner leadership had come to believe that humanity had found a cure for the parasite.[23]

The Ecumene Council[edit]

The Forerunner Builder rate engineered numerous new weapons and vessels for the war effort, increasing their wealth and power by a tremendous degree. The Builder's growing influence affected the Ecumene Council, with the Librarian feeling as though it grew "more and more vindictive and wealth-driven." The Council would come to believe the solution to humanity would be Extinction, though the Lifeworkers and Warrior-Servants disagreed with this. The Council would also debate various solutions to the Flood as they expected their likely return. The solution from the Builders were the Composers, though these would prove to not work as desired. The Warrior-Servants would suggest the Shield worlds. At the same time, much of the Ecumene had hid the existence of the Flood from the rest of Forerunner society. This was to avoid panic in the midst of the war.[1]

Nov Thasta[edit]

Battle of Faun Hakkor[edit]

At some point, the Forerunners would breakthrough to Faun Hakkor; the last defensive outpost prior to Charum Hakkor.[35] The planet had a small reserve fleet and limited installations.[36] After breaking what orbital installations there were, the Forerunners moved to destroy the reserve fleet on the surface.[37] Two of the Didact's children, the oldest and the youngest, died fighting human defenses.[35] Faun Hakkor was secured before the Forerunners moved on to finish Charum Hakkor.[38] Since human forces were relatively minimal, the planet would end fighting with more of it's biosphere intact.[36]

Standoff at Charum Hakkor[edit]

Human ships destroyed above Charum Hakkor.
Main article: Battle of Charum Hakkor

The human military was eventually pushed back to Charum Hakkor and a few other core systems by the Didact's Warrior-Servants. Human forces continually lost star system after system. Eventually, Charum Hakkor was cut off from the rest of the empire by the Didact's naval fleets. The Forerunners took advantage of their mastery over Slipspace greatly and strategically by cutting off reinforcements and supplies as well as isolating the fortified systems of the human empire. On Charum Hakkor, humanity incorporated Precursor technology into their own designs, constructing formidable fortifications capable of standing up to even the strongest fleets. Among them were unbending filaments that linked their orbital platforms' defenses. Despite having the combined Forerunner military at his disposal, it took great effort from the Didact to defeat the human resistance and capture the capital.[10]

Although cut off and unable to receive reinforcements from neither the San'Shyuum nor other human systems, the humans held off continuous attacks for three years. The San 'Shyuum leadership surrendered to the Forerunners at some point during this time, leaving their human allies and the remaining San'Shyuum on Charum Hakkor stranded. The Forerunners offered San 'Shyuum a secret deal to soften their punishment by stripping them of many technologies before reducing and quarantining the population of San 'Shyuum to their home system in exchange for the knowledge and access to the security of Charum Hakkor's defenses. This allowed the Forerunners to breach the impregnable security and land on the planet. The siege might have lasted far longer, even indefinitely, if not for the betrayal of San 'Shyuum.

When the planet finally fell, a significant number of humans and San 'Shyuum committed suicide rather than being taken prisoner.[8] With the planet's fall, whatever remained of the human empire eventually fell to the enemy forces in the coming years as an effortless mop up.[10]

Remaining human forces would retreat to the Wolf-faced planet after Charum Hakkor with 40 prime cruisers and 10 tuned platforms. There, these forces bombarded the surface and other planets nearby when defeat was inevitable.[39]

Aftermath[edit]

Humanity[edit]

"Once the second greatest fighting civilization and species in the galaxy, humans were stomped down, reduced, effectively eliminated as a threat."
— The Librarian discussing the war during the Forerunner-Flood war.[1]
Main article: Erde-Tyrene civilization

The defeat was disastrous for both humanity and the San'Shyuum. The victorious Forerunners decided to dismantle human civilization, causing the species to regress to a pre-technological state.[2] Remnants of the human species were gathered from across the galaxy by the Forerunners and their subject species,[40] including the Sangheili,[4] to be exiled to their homeworld and forced through a process of biological devolution.[1]

Humanity's supposed cure spared humanity from extinction, a fate that had fallen on many species that challenged Forerunner control over the ages. Although herself skeptical of the existence of a cure, the Librarian appealed to the Ecumene Council so that humanity would be spared, as only with humanity's culture and civilization-wide exchange intact the Forerunners could hope to unlock the cure to the Flood. The Council agreed, but only in part: as opposed to maintaining the humans in their organic forms, numerous humans on Charum Hakkor had their minds extracted via Composers and subsequently cycled through a rate of interrogation for thousands of years. Copies of these memories were also implanted by the Librarian in the genetic material of future human generations, designed to awaken when the right circumstances were met as part of her own plans.[41]

However, the Librarian and her Lifeworkers remained highly skeptical of whether a cure really existed. Their projections showed that the Flood should have been able to completely overrun the galaxy in several centuries, and suspected that there was something else at play with regard to the Flood's retreat.[1] It was later discovered that not only had humanity not found a cure for the Flood, but that the Flood's retreat had been a feint, undertaken both for the purpose of preserving humanity from destruction at the Forerunners' hands, and for the purpose of wasting Forerunner time and resources on a dead-end hunt for a Flood cure that had never existed.[42]

Shortly after the war, the Librarian was given control of Earth.[43] Circa 106,452 BCE, she created a research station on Earth.[44] Within a thousand years of the end of the conflict, new human subspecies had formed and the human population had boomed back into the millions. Humanity relearned how to domesticate animals and agriculture. The Librarian would not disclose any of this to the council. Instead, she secretly kept cutting staff until Earth was effectively a forgotten backwater as it was far outside normal Forerunner space.[1]

San'Shyuum[edit]

The Qom Yaekesh system was placed under quarantine, with the Forerunner Fortress-class vessel Deep Reverence orbiting the species' homeworld, Janjur Qom. Access from outside of the system was blocked by a quarantine shield.[3] In 97,452 BCE, when the Librarian attempted to index the San'Shyuum during the early stages of Forerunner-Flood war, the San'Shyuum mistook her intentions and rose in revolt against the Forerunners. Master Builder Faber took this opportunity to test Halo's effects on living beings, by testing the weapon on the San'Shyuum homeworld. The test surpassed all expectations. This genocidal act led to the near extinction of the San'Shyuum,[45] as well as Faber's removal from power and his subsequent trial on charges of treason against the Mantle.[46]

Forerunners[edit]

Following the war, memorials were built to commemorate the Warrior-Servants who died, with one being built above Sothra Hakkor.[47] 859 Static Carillon, keeper of various Composers, was created after the Plague War.[48]

The threat of the Flood would lead to the rise of the corrupt Builders led by Master Builder Faber and eventually the banishment and execution of the Promethean leadership and the marginalization of the Warrior-Servant rate. Once humanity was defeated, the tragedies of the war convinced the Didact and his fellow Prometheans that using the Halo Array, like the destruction of humanity, would violate the Mantle. The Prometheans opposed and successfully forestalled the construction of the Halos for thousands of years, until their defeat by the Builders.

While opposed to the complete destruction of humanity advocated by the Council,[1] the Didact blamed humanity for taking the Mantle of Responsibility upon themselves, believing it was their reckless actions that brought the sickness into the galaxy.[25] In truth, the Forerunners had even less success in battling the Flood than their human rivals. The Mantle, holding that all life was sacred, hamstrung Forerunner attempts to combat the infection, allowing the parasite to exponentially expand until no force could stop it. The Didact later regretted the devolution of humanity, as he had been unaware that the Flood was the reason for humanity's earlier aggression.[49]

At some point after 94,401 BCE, Keeper-of-Stone-Songs was responsible for the high order construction process for the Neoteric Array. She would later design Bastion.[50]

The Flood would not reappear for another 9,000 years. In truth, however, the Flood had not been defeated, and humanity's "cure" had not been effective at combating the parasite. Rather, the Flood willingly retreated, though the reasons why they did so would not become apparent until thousands of years later.[51]

Legacy[edit]

The Didact's Revenge[edit]

The Didact using a Composer on Earth in 2557.
Main articles: Battle of Requiem, New Phoenix Incident

In the year 2557, during the Battle of Requiem, the Didact was reawakened on the Forerunner shield world of Requiem where he intended to finish the destruction of humanity.[52] While on Requiem, a present-day human, SPARTAN-II John-117 encountered a personality imprint of the Librarian who showed John visions of the war and explained the events. The Librarian called the prehistoric human civilization the greatest enemy the Forerunners had ever faced and explained how they had been running from the Flood. The Librarian warned John that the Didact intended to destroy humanity to end his ancient enemy once and for all. To protect John, the Librarian activated an immunity to the Composer she had placed in the geas of humanity when she indexed the species.[16]

The Didact subsequently retrieved the Composer from Ivanoff Station[53] and attempted to compose the human homeworld of Earth. In the subsequent conflict, John managed to destroy both the Composer and the Didact's flagship Mantle's Approach, foiling his revenge plot, but not before seven million people were composed by the Didact.[54]

After being composed himself and sent to the outer boundaries of the Domain following his own digitization, the Didact discovered that the humans composed in New Phoenix had ended up in the human rift alongside the Ancestors. This gave the Ancestors hope that humanity had survived, although they were unable to find out for sure as the composed essences were unable to communicate yet. Forthencho, after learning that the Didact was responsible for this, told the Promethean that it would take centuries for the newcomers to settle and even longer for them to pull themselves together as the ancient humans had done. Having regained his sanity, the Didact felt remorse for what he had done to them.[55] The Didact later welcomed the essences of those composed in New Phoenix into the Domain along with the rest of the Forerunners and humans, giving them a home, a place to heal and rest, to commune and explore.[56][57]

List of appearances[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ The Halo Encyclopedia (2022 edition) gives the date 107,472 BCE for the Battle of Charum Hakkor, but doesn't specify if it is the end date for the battle or the start date. However, Halo: Cryptum says several times that the Human-Forerunner wars ended 10,000 years prior to 97,452 BCE, placing this as the end date.

Sources[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Halo: Silentium, string 3
  2. ^ a b c d e Halo: Cryptum, chapter 1
  3. ^ a b c Halo: Cryptum, chapter 14
  4. ^ a b c d e Halo: Ghosts of the Gyre
  5. ^ a b Halo: Epitaph, chapter 3
  6. ^ a b Halo Waypoint, Canon Fodder - Under Locke & Keynote (Retrieved on Jun 15, 2021) [archive]
  7. ^ a b Halo Waypoint, Soldier (Retrieved on May 14, 2021) [archive]
  8. ^ a b c Halo: Cryptum, chapter 12
  9. ^ Halo: Cryptum, chapter 13
  10. ^ a b c d e Halo: Primordium, chapter 21
  11. ^ Halo: Cryptum, chapter 2
  12. ^ Halo: Primordium, pages 236, 375
  13. ^ The Halo Bulletin, 6.20.12 (Retrieved on Nov 11, 2020) [archive]
  14. ^ Halo: Epitaph, chapter 19
  15. ^ Halo: Primordium, chapter 30
  16. ^ a b c Halo 4, campaign level Reclaimer
  17. ^ Halo: Primordium, chapter 12
  18. ^ a b c d Halo: Cryptum, chapter 11
  19. ^ Halo Encyclopedia (2022 edition) - Human History, page 20-21
  20. ^ a b Halo Encyclopedia (2022 edition) - The Ancestors, page 26-27
  21. ^ Halo: Epitaph, chapter 9
  22. ^ Halo: Silentium, string 34
  23. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Halo: Cryptum, chapter 34
  24. ^ Halo Mythos, page 12
  25. ^ a b Halo 4, Terminals
  26. ^ Halo Waypoint, Canon Fodder - Didact's Delight (Retrieved on May 18, 2023) [local archive] [external archive]
  27. ^ Halo: Primordium, chapter 21: "Forty years before the last of the human-Forerunner wars, it was Yprin Yprikushma who had been summoned to the murky boundaries of the galaxy, upon the discovery of the small planetoid within which some intelligences, long ago—perhaps the earliest Forerunners themselves—had imprisoned the Primordial."
  28. ^ Halo: Primordium, chapter 21: "Beside her stood the Didact, a great, hulking presence, my sworn enemy for fifty-three years of continuous battle."
  29. ^ Halo: Primordium, chapter 19
  30. ^ Halo: Epitaph, chapter 2: "Up until the battle on Faun Hakkor, the war with the human empire had raged for nearly five decades."
  31. ^ Halo: Cryptum, chapter 12: "The Didact’s fleets cut off this system from the replenishing armadas of the San’Shyuum. Humans had laid their strongest fortifications on foundations of Precursor ruins. They used unbending filaments to link their orbital platforms, and fought for fifty years against repeated Forerunner assaults, until finally they were defeated."
  32. ^ Halo: Cryptum, chapter 20: "“Curious as to why anybody even cares about these remnants of our old wars,” the Confirmer said."
  33. ^ Halo: Silentium, string 34
  34. ^ Halo 4: The Essential Visual Guide, page 193
  35. ^ a b Halo: Epitaph, chapter 2: "The eldest and the youngest. Lost here. On Faun Hakkor, the last pivotal defensive outpost before reaching the humans’ stronghold planet of Charum Hakkor."
  36. ^ a b Halo: Cryptum, chapter 12: "“The reserve forces defended it fiercely but their numbers and installations were minimal, so the planet kept most of its original flora and fauna...”"
  37. ^ Halo: Epitaph, chapter 2: "Nearby his eldest, his daughter, the one most like him, a born leader, intensely loyal to her rate, her family—especially the youngest—burned to death inside of her armor, already gone. They’d finally broken the outer planetary defenses of Faun Hakkor and were poised to crush the infernal human resistance, but had paid a heavy price as the enemy’s reserve fleet lay in wait on the surface."
  38. ^ Halo: Epitaph, chapter 3: "He recognized Faun Hakkor. Pictures of Forerunner victory sped past, followed by an enormous fleet in space approaching another planet. With the image, the accompanying knowledge flooded in, a single scene generating an avalanche of memories. The planet was the humans’ last stronghold, Charum Hakkor."
  39. ^ Halo: Primordium, chapter 16
  40. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 156
  41. ^ Halo: Primordium, pages 234-235
  42. ^ Halo: Silentium, string 12
  43. ^ Halo: Cryptum, chapter 1: "The Librarian, for some reason, had espoused the human cause. My ancilla explained that either as a form of penance, or at the Librarian’s request—the records were vague—the Council had given her charge of Erde-Tyrene and she had moved the last humans there."
  44. ^ Halo: Cryptum, chapter 1: "Nine thousand years ago, the Librarian established a research station in this system."
  45. ^ Halo: Cryptum, chapter 26
  46. ^ Halo: Cryptum, chapter 30
  47. ^ Halo 4, multiplayer map Monolith
  48. ^ Halo Encyclopedia (2022 edition) - Monitors, page 370
  49. ^ Halo: Cryptum, chapter 29
  50. ^ Halo Encyclopedia (2022 edition) - Fateful Mission, page 368-369
  51. ^ Halo: Primordium, chapter 41
  52. ^ Halo 4, campaign level Forerunner
  53. ^ Halo 4, campaign level Composer
  54. ^ Halo 4, campaign level Midnight
  55. ^ Halo: Epitaph, chapter 22
  56. ^ Halo: Epitaph, chapter 26
  57. ^ Halo: Epitaph, chapter 27

v • d • e
 
Wars in human history
Retrieved from "https://www.halopedia.org/index.php?title=Plague_War&oldid=1781857"