Riser

Riser (personal name Morning Riser and long name Day-Chaser Makes Paths Long-stretch Morning Riser ) was a human living on Earth in approximately 100,000 BCE. He, along with Chakas, was part of a collective of guides based in Marontik. Riser was a Florian, a member of a diminutive species of human known today as Homo floresiensis.

Life on Erde-Tyrene and meeting with Bornstellar
Prior to 100,000 BCE, Riser's family, driven by a geas implemented by the Librarian, had spent many generations attempting to discover the secret that lay within the center of Djamonkin Crater. Upon birth, the Librarian imprinted Riser with a personal geas containing specific instructions, memories and archived personalities of humans who fought in the human-Forerunner wars. This geas later caused him to seek out young chamanush and help them with their lives, finding them useful work in exchange for protection for his clan. When Riser was around two hundred years of age, he became the mentor and friend of a young human called Chakas, finding him various places to work.

At one point, Riser's geas caused him to have dreams of a young Forerunner visiting them. Not long after, a Forerunner Manipular known as Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting arrived in Marontik. Riser joined Chakas and the young Forerunner on an expedition to the Djamonkin Crater, where Bornstellar found the Didact's Cryptum. Here, thanks to their geas, Riser and Chakas sang a pre-programmed sound code that authorized the opening of the Cryptum. This awoke the Didact, whom they later accompanied to Charum Hakkor and Janjur Qom, the San 'Shyuum homeworld, in the hope that it would spark a memory implanted by the Librarian that could help the Didact. On the way, they also began discovering their ancestral memories, imprinted as part of their geas. On Janjur Qom, Riser was imprisoned by the Master Builder along with Chakas and the Didact. Before the activation of the Halo Array, Florians had extensive contact with other human and hominid species, and one, Riser, served as a guide to Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting, a young Forerunner looking for Precursor artifacts. The Librarian had imprinted Riser's ancestors with a geas that made the subsequent generations seek a way to bypass the defenses around the Didact's Cryptum in the Djamonkin Crater.

Journey on Installation 07
While Riser was held in stasis aboard one of the Master Builder's transports, the ship was attacked by the forces of the Ecumene Council, who opposed the Master Builder. The ship Riser was on crash-landed on Halo Installation 07, along with three Forerunners, one of whom was held captive by the others. While the two were uninterested in Riser at first, the imprisoned Forerunner explained Riser's importance due to his geas, saying the human was more valuable than the Forerunners themselves. As a result, the Forerunners took Riser with them.

They had crash-landed in an area infested with Flood biomass; what Riser himself described as a "graveyard-desert". Riser and the Forerunners were soon forced to shed their armor, as Mendicant Bias, the intelligence in control of the ring, took control of their armor and attempted to crush them. Not long after, the two surviving Forerunners were infected by the Flood after being covered in spores carried via rainfall. However, Riser survived uninfected - this was later revealed to be because of the Flood's deliberate choice not to infect humans at this time. It was here that Riser discovered that the archived personality implanted in his genetic material was a woman once known as Yprin Yprikushma.

After traveling through the Flood-infested landscape for days, Riser eventually came to its edge and made his way to a plateau, where he observed the Forerunner Lifeworker called Genemender Folder of Fortune, accompanied by a number of humans and an ape. However, Riser quickly noticed that they cast off no smell, which made him suspicious. He decided not to attempt contact and observed them from a distance, even after the Lifeworker met with Chakas and the two humans who accompanied him, Vinnevra and Gamelpar.

After Genemender had taken Chakas and the others to his station, Riser came to Chakas' hut in the middle of the night and warned him that something was wrong about the Lifeworker and the humans in the area and told Chakas not to trust them. Indeed, it was soon revealed that Genemender and the humans were actually archived personalities present only as holographic simulations. These illusions disappeared as the area experienced a power outage, and Riser joined Chakas, Vinnevra and the ape soon after. Riser could communicate with the ape, explaining that her name was Mara and that Florians had once known her kind on Earth.

Upon reuniting with Chakas, Riser explained the events up until that point and the two soon let their "old spirits", as they called the ancestral personalities they carried, converse with one another. It turned out that Chakas carried the spirit of Forthencho, who was once a political opponent of Yprin Yprikushma. After the two ancient humans had finished their exchange, Riser and the rest of the group continued their journey. Starving and exhausted after traveling for several days, they eventually came across a rail transport and boarded it. The transport took them to a Lifeworker research station, where they entered a boat-like vehicle with an uncertain destination.

The transport took them deep within the bowels of the Halo, all the way into the lair of the rampant AI Mendicant Bias itself. There, Riser and Chakas had their minds scoured by the AI, and eventually their personality imprints were removed. All of the humans who had carried ancestral personalities were then rounded up by Mendicant Bias, who offered them the choice to help it fight its former masters with their "old spirits", who had been placed into monitors. Riser accepted and was taken to one of the Halo's control stations to help coordinate its movements in order to save it from impending collision with a planet - a security measure should the Halo fall under enemy control.

Fate
Although the Halo took heavy damage, Riser survived the passage of the planet. After the ring was reclaimed by the Didact's forces, Riser was transported to one of the Arks and later returned to Earth, having fully recovered from the physical and mental trauma caused by the removal of his imprint. He presumably lived on Earth until the activation of the Halo Array; 343 Guilty Spark, a monitor created from Chakas' mind, would have wanted to visit him, but when he had the chance, it was already too late. According to Guilty Spark, however, Riser's personality may have been extracted at one point and possibly imprinted within future generations of humans, as the monitor later wished to find the Librarian and have her restore his friend's "old spirit" back to life.

Personality and traits
Riser was very cheerful and took a liking to food. When not communicating with his own kind, Riser spoke in an unusual, simplistic manner, although this was the result of other languages lacking many of the intricate aspects of Florian communication which complemented verbal expression. Despite this, he spoke multiple human languages.

Over the course of his long lifespan, Riser had gained a great deal of knowledge and was wiser than his mannerisms may have indicated. He was quick-witted, mostly unimpressed by things larger than life and had a dry sense of humor. He was generally friendly towards Bornstellar and was greatly saddened by the memories provided by his geas.

Trivia
Somehow, Riser appears to have foreseen the virtually indefinite lifespan Chakas gained as a result of his transformation into a monitor; during their journey on Installation 07, Riser told Chakas that he would live as long as Forerunners. When Chakas asked how, Riser refused to answer.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Cryptum
 * Halo: Primordium