Geas

"This ring contains significant dangers, and even with your assumed legacy, I must verify the presence and pitch of your geas before allowing full access."

- 343 Guilty Spark in a transmission to the

Geas (pronounced geSH), also called genesong, was a Forerunner term that referred to a genetic command imposed on an organism or species. Under the influence of a geas, an organism could be given a set of subconscious orders that would either be specific to that organism, or passed on to their children, in some cases lasting several generations. Only highly skilled Forerunner Lifeworkers, such as the Librarian, were capable of creating a geas. Forerunner students of the Mantle also hypothesized that the Precursors may have imposed a geas on the Forerunners themselves.

Erde-Tyrene
During her stewardship of Earth and the remains of humanity, the Librarian imposed a geas upon various humans at birth; they later recalled the experience as her physically visiting them, but in reality she used an automated imprinting system of "beacons" to broadcast the geas remotely. Humans who were part of the Librarian's "special population" on Earth were used as living archives, with their geas containing extracted personalities and memories of their ancestors who had fought in the Human-Forerunner wars. These memories required specific triggers in order to awaken within the carrier individual; for example, the ancestral memories of Chakas and Riser surfaced after they traveled to Charum Hakkor, once the heart of the human empire. Though initially both accessed the memories of multiple ancient warriors, one archived personality emerged dominant over the others. Once active, an archived personality — or "essence" — could effectively exist as a fully aware consciousness alongside the carrier's own mind, even temporarily take control of their physical body. The memories of the archived individual often manifested themselves in the carrier's dreams, and encompassed specific knowledge the archived individual may have had on subjects such as physics, engineering and mathematics. Chakas proved able to access the archived memories once the geas had been activated inside of himself in order to learn the ancient language used by the Tudejsa. Once Chakas extracted the knowledge he needed, he could understand fluently what the Tudejsa were saying around him, though it took him a little bit to be able to speak the language fluently as his tongue was not used to forming the ancient words.

The geas she imposed on various humans played a crucial part in the Librarian's elaborate plan to reunite with her husband, the Didact. Riser's ancestors were imprinted with a drive to pass the defenses surrounding the Didact's Cryptum in the Djamonkin Crater and create a safe path through the various traps that surrounded it. Riser himself was instructed by his geas to seek out young hamanush and find them work; this resulted in him meeting and befriending a hamanune known as Chakas. Both also began to have dreams of a young Forerunner visiting them in search of treasure, which soon became a reality as a Manipular called Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting, who had been manipulated by an ancilla secretly assigned to him by the Librarian, came to enlist the humans' guidance in finding Precursor relics. Chakas and Riser led the Manipular to the Djamonkin Crater, where the sight of the Didact's Cryptum triggered preprogrammed songs which served as verbal codes to activate the Cryptum.

In 2557, the former Monitor 343 Guilty Spark, who was once Chakas, sought to bring back his friends Riser and Vinnevra by accessing the Domain and having the Librarian use geas to bring them back in the body of modern humans. During his encounter with a personality imprint of the Librarian beneath Mount Kilimanjaro, Spark was reminded of his own experiences with the essence of Forthencho and how hard it was upon him. The Librarian refused to apologize for her actions as she felt that they were necessary for the greater good. The Librarian told Spark that his friends were at peace and their gene song quiet. She instead helped him to see the friends that Spark had found amongst the Ace of Spades crew. Spark later admitted his plan to Rion Forge to access the Domain and use it to bring back his friends as geas or to join them before he had changed his mind.

Tudejsa
On Installation 07, the transplanted human populations were given a geas through a similar imprinting system. For example, in the event of encountering a strange visitor, humans were programmed to bring such curiosities to Lifeworker outposts for evaluation. New or altered orders could also be triggered remotely via the beacons that transmitted the signal across the installation. Such an event occurred after the Primordial and Mendicant Bias seized full control of operations on the Halo; all humans born on the installation were given instructions to seek out research stations, known to the humans themselves as "Palaces of Pain". Such a need to travel would manifest itself in many ways, including a seemingly innate knowledge of where to go in the event of trouble, pleasing mental images of the destination, such as safety, home, food, water, or shelter, as well as a voice in one's head telling them where to go. Ignoring the influence of a geas took remarkable willpower, to the point that resisting it was nearly impossible even with the conscious knowledge that following it may be harmful, as demonstrated by Vinnevra's struggle to avoid her geas-induced urge to travel to a "Palace of Pain".

Reclaimers
The Librarian also imposed a broader geas on the entire human race, which has affected them a great deal throughout their history following the activation of the Halo Array. The geas includes, among other things, a familiarity with Forerunner technology and control interfaces, as well as subconscious instructions on how to gradually achieve more sophisticated technology, including smart AIs and MJOLNIR armor. In addition, as a result of the Librarian's influence on humans, the basic image of what humans view as an ideal female is based upon the Librarian. Some of the features of the geas are carefully hidden and will only be activated by the right triggers, such as a latent immunity to the effects of the Composer. On Requiem, a personality imprint of the Librarian activated John-117's Composer immunity in order to allow him to defeat the Didact, who planned to enslave all of humanity with the Composer. It was indicated she did more than this, saying she was going to advance his evolution by activating his geas, telling him she had left humanity many gifts, of which the Composer immunity was only one. The Librarian also said that the Master Chief's evolution through this geas was the result of a "thousand lifetimes of planning," but never got to tell him exactly what she was planning for.

During her encounter with another personality imprint of the Librarian beneath Mount Kilimanjaro, Rion Forge felt love and loyalty towards the Forerunner but recognized them for what they were: a genetic disposition built into human DNA giving the Librarian a way to be heard, a way to inspire loyalty and a way to nudge her children to fulfil their potential. The Librarian was able to use this to briefly communicate with Rion and possibly the rest of the crew of the Ace of Spades and warned Rion of the trials ahead, the battles to come, the safe place and the things that needed healing and tending as well as a message to take care of 343 Guilty Spark who the Librarian stated was more fragile and important that Rion could ever know.

Trivia

 * In Halo: Cryptum and Halo: Primordium, it is noted that most terms and phrases are translated to "localized" analogues in order to be intelligible to the reader. The word "geas" comes from a Scottish Welsh corruption of the Old Irish word "geis", which can mean "curse", "spell", or "command", which closely reflects the Halo universe definition of the term, but was most likely not the original term used by the Forerunners.
 * In Halo: Rebirth, the audio epilog to Silentium, Greg Bear pronounces the word as "gé-ash", whereas it is pronounced "gesh" in its native Gaelic. This mispronunciation was carried forward by 343 Guilty Spark in Terminal One of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary.
 * The Halo 2 Anniversary Original Soundtrack features a track named Genesong, which is a remake of Reclaimer and is named after Geas.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Cryptum
 * Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
 * Terminals
 * Halo: Primordium
 * Halo 4
 * Halo: Silentium
 * Halo: Rebirth
 * Halo: Renegades