Halo: Primordium

Halo: Primordium is the second novel in The Forerunner Saga by Greg Bear and is the sequel to Halo: Cryptum. It was released on January 3, 2012, with an audio edition released simultaneously.

Similar to Halo: Cryptum, the story is told as a first-person narrative, from the perspective of Chakas, one of the two humans who accompanied Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting during the events of Cryptum. The novel is set primarily on Installation 07, the "rogue" Halo ring under control of the rampant Mendicant Bias. After crash-landing on the ring during Mendicant Bias' assault on the capital, Chakas is joined by two local humans, Vinnevra and Gamelpar, in an odyssey to find his companion Riser. As they attempt to survive on the war-torn Halo, they face several obstacles, including the mysterious Captive, the Flood, and Mendicant Bias.

Frank O'Connor has mentioned that the story will have "resonant connections" to Halo 4.

Plot summary
The book begins with an ONI science team interrogating a damaged duplicate of a Forerunner monitor, questioning it about the Didact and the ancient relations between Forerunners and humans. The monitor, revealing that it was once a human named Chakas, then proceeds to tell the story of its origins through a series of flashbacks. Over the course of the story, the monitor breaches the ship's firewall several times, much to the team's dismay. None of the human characters in the present-day segments are identified by name and are only referred to by their titles.

At first, the monitor describes his childhood and youth as Chakas, and how he met his companion Riser. He then outlines the events of Halo: Cryptum from the perspective of Chakas and explains how the Librarian's geas caused "old spirits", or genetically imprinted personalities of humans who fought in the human-Forerunner wars, to surface within him and Riser. Chakas finds that he has been imprinted with the "spirit" of Forthencho, the Lord of Admirals, the commander of human military forces in the final battle of Charum Hakkor and the main adversary of the Didact. After the Didact, Bornstellar and the two humans are captured by the Master Builder at Janjur Qom, Chakas is separated from the others and is put into stasis.

During Mendicant Bias' assault on the capital, the ship carrying Chakas is destroyed and he crash-lands on a Halo installation in an escape pod. He is then retrieved by a young human girl named Vinnevra, who has been sent to the crash site by her grandfather, Gamelpar. It is later revealed that the Halo ring is home to humans of various kinds, who collectively refer to themselves as the "the People", and have been transplanted there from Earth as test subjects in the Master Builder's research on the Flood. After Chakas recovers, Vinnevra takes him to see Gamelpar, who explains that he was originally from Earth and, like Chakas, also holds an old "spirit" within him. It is also revealed that he has once been to what the humans call the Palace of Pain, which is later revealed to be a general term for the Flood research facilities on the installation.

Chakas, Vinnevra, and Gamelpar then proceed to follow Vinnevra's geas, which they assume will lead them to safety. However, it instead takes them near one of the "Palaces of Pain", where the group witness numerous humans following their gei walking into the structure whilst being observed by "the Primordial". The three then decide to move in the opposite direction. After crossing a lake, the three stumble upon a collapsing city, in which Gamelpar and Chakas see a proto-Gravemind locked in a Forerunner cell, with the beings assimilated within pleading for death and freedom.

After more traveling, the three are found by a Lifeworker, several Denisovans, and a large ape the monitor identifies as a Gigantopithecus. Strangely, the Lifeworker and the humans cast off no smell and the bugs are not interested in them. After being fed by the Lifeworker and sent to sleep, Chakas awakens to see Riser, who warns him not to trust the Lifeworker and the other humans. The Lifeworker then reveals that he and the other humans are not actually alive, but archived personalities manifesting as life-like hard light holograms. The Lifeworker, who is actually based within a monitor, is following a command to "archive" the minds of all of the humans from Earth to save the old spirits they carry from the Flood threat present on the installation. The monitor wants to do this to Gamelpar, who is dying, but Gamelpar rejects him and walks into the forest with Chakas, who watches him in his final moments. It is there that Gamelpar tells Chakas Vinnevra's true name and has Chakas promise to watch over her. The monitors then power down, leaving Chakas, Riser, Vinnevra, and the ape, whose name is revealed to be Mara by Riser, who can communicate with her, to continue their journey.

Riser then tells his story to Chakas of how he found them. During the battle over the Forerunner capital, Riser and the Forerunners that were holding him crashed into Installation 07. One of the Forerunners, who was locked up by the others due to him being on the opposing side of the small civil war caused by the Master Builder's use of the Halo on the San 'Shyuum homeworld, told the others that Riser was valuable due to his geas, and thus the others protected him as they moved out. After a while of traveling over a desert infested with Flood biomass, the group was covered in Flood spores, killing the Forerunners but not Riser, who continued traveling until he stumbled upon Chakas.

Forthencho and Riser's spirit then converse, in which it is revealed the Riser's spirit was a woman named Yprin Yprikushma, who was responsible for excavating Precursor ruins and moving the Primordial to Charum Hakkor, which Forthencho has disapproved of. Ypriskushma had also traced humanity's origins to Earth, which Forthencho did not believe due to several other worlds appearing more suitable to humanity's growth.

The group is finally found by a transport which brings them to the lair of Mendicant Bias. Chakas, Riser, and all of the other humans from Earth are gathered and have their imprinted ancestral personalities removed and implanted into monitors. Mendicant Bias promises the "spirits" revenge on the Forerunners, but first they and the humans must save the Halo from colliding into a planet it has been steadily approaching. The humans who do not agree are killed, while Forthencho lies to Mendicant Bias that Chakas agrees and the two are sent to the Silent Cartographer to coordinate the Halo's movements. The plan is for the Halo to position itself in such a way that the planet will pass through the Halo, which will suffer heavy damage but will survive.

As the Halo moves towards the planet, Chakas is connected to a Flood-infected Forerunner - kept obedient by a machine known as the Composer - in order to interface with the Halo. A fleet led by the Didact then appears from the other side of the planet and the ships move in to provide power the Halo's damaged systems, while the Didact purges Mendicant Bias from the installation. The Didact then enters the Cartographer and commands that the Halo be saved by moving it to an Ark installation for repairs. To successfully move through a portal, however, the Halo must shed a large portion of its constituent structure, thus reducing its diameter from 30,000 kilometers to 10,000 kilometers. Though heavily damaged, the Halo survives and moves through the portal.

Shortly afterward, the Didact brings a mortally wounded Chakas - his mind already in the process of being transferred out of his body - with him to confront the Primordial, who has been imprisoned. The ensuing conversation reveals that the Primordial is actually a Gravemind, a Flood central consciousness, and that more Precursors may have survived their war with the Forerunners. The Primordial asserts that "there is no difference" between the Flood and the Precursors, although it does not reveal the precise nature of their relationship. It also reveals that there was no real cure to the Flood, but the Flood can choose whether to infect or not infect, thus explaining how some humans were thought to be "immune" to the Flood by the Forerunners. The Primordial then states that the Precursors meant humanity to inherit the Mantle instead of the Forerunners. Once the Forerunners are eliminated by the Flood, humanity is going to be "tested" by the Flood to judge their worthiness of inheriting the Mantle. At the conversation's conclusion, the Didact kills the Primordial by activating a reverse stasis chamber that forces the Primordial to go through a billion years of aging in several seconds, causing it to disintegrate.

Back at present day, the ONI researchers reluctantly accept that the monitor telling the story is actually a version of 343 Guilty Spark, the monitor of Installation 04. In the final segment of the story, Guilty Spark briefly explains what happened after he had become a monitor; he reveals that the Ecumene Council was reinstated and the debates on new strategies against the Flood renewed under the direction of the Didact, who he last saw walking with the Librarian on the greater Ark. He is also pleased to learn that Riser and Vinnevra survived, and were relocated on the Ark.

The book ends with the Guilty Spark duplicate being ejected into space after powering down, but not before he injects his data stream into the ship's computer, subdues the shipboard AI and takes control of the ship. He then explains the crew that he desires to resume his quest to find the Librarian, as well as the old spirits of Riser and Vinnevra. Knowing that the Librarian is actually alive, he puts the crew to sleep and has the ship proceed to her location.

Forerunners

 * Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting
 * The Didact
 * The Librarian
 * Faber

Humans

 * Chakas
 * Morning Riser
 * Vinnevra
 * Gamelpar
 * Forthencho
 * Yprin Yprikushma
 * Mara
 * Unidentified captain
 * Unidentified ONI commander
 * Unidentified tech chief
 * Unidentified strategy team leader
 * Unidentified science team leader
 * Unidentified science team adjutant
 * Unidentified science team executive officer
 * Unidentified science team second officer
 * Unidentified science team senior tech lieutenant
 * Unidentified political team leader

Artificial Intelligences

 * 05-032 Mendicant Bias
 * 04-343 Guilty Spark

Precursors

 * The Timeless One

Trivia

 * A primordium is an aggregation of cells that is the first stage in the development of an organ or tissue. It is also a derivation of the term Primordial, which is a title given to the last Precursor.
 * The novel's cover illustration, as well as that of Halo: Cryptum, was created as concept art for Halo 4. Both images were illustrated by Nicolas "Sparth" Bouvier.
 * A preview of the novel's first chapters was released on December 28, 2011 on Tor.com and Halo Waypoint, with the first chapter released on Tor.com and the second and third chapters as well as part of the fourth chapter on Halo Waypoint.
 * The audio edition of the novel is narrated by Tim Dadabo, the voice actor of 343 Guilty Spark.