Large Magellanic Cloud

Path Kethona, known to modern humans as the Large Magellanic Cloud, is a Magellanic Cloud 160,000 light years from the Milky Way.

Overview
Path Kethona was thought of by some Forerunners as the origin of the Flood; specifically, the cargo ships of unknown origin that had long ago crashed in the margins of the Milky Way galaxy and carried the powder that would later manifest itself as the Flood parasite. According to Forerunner legend, millions of years before the Flood's emergence, ancient Forerunners had conducted a great expedition to Path Kethona. To examine the origins of the Flood and to verify the existence of the ancient journey, the Forerunners organized a new expedition led by the Librarian around 950 years before the activation of the Halo Array. Aboard the ship Audacity, the Librarian and her crew of seven traveled to Path Kethona. Initial scans found the galaxy seemingly devoid of technological civilizations or any life. In one system, however, the crew of Audacity discovered an impressive network of Precursor artifacts and ancient Forerunner slipspace anchors, as well as an enormous fleet of Forerunner warships, likewise millions of years old.

Further scans revealed a single planet orbiting an orange star with a possibility of supporting life. Traveling to the planet, the Librarian and her crew discovered that it was populated by Forerunners, albeit living primitively and having several physiological differences due to ten million years of divergent evolution. In addition, the explorers discovered that the entire planet's ecosystem was based on Forerunner genetics - including plant analogues, animals and even moss-like growths which had adapted to record the locals' long history. It was through this repository of knowledge that the Librarian learned the origin of the locals, as well as the truth of the legendary Forerunner expedition to Path Kethona: ancient Forerunners had indeed traveled to Path Kethona, but with the mission to wipe out the remaining Precursors after driving them off the Milky Way galaxy. The primitive Forerunners were the descendants of those who had been exiled on the planet for refusing to carry out their commanders' orders to partake in the campaign of genocide.

All life and Precursor architecture in Path Kethona was wiped out when Master Builder Faber fired Omega Halo's directed pulse toward the satellite galaxy during the last days of the Forerunner-Flood war circa 100,000 BCE.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Silentium