Ancestors

Long before the arrival of the Flood to the Milky Way galaxy, humanity, who at the time was still composed of many different species, had achieved a considerable level of technological sophistication, achieving interstellar travel and colonizing planets along the Orion Arm, then a minor sector of the Forerunner's domains. After forty thousand years of expansion, the collective human genus waged war with the biologically-similar Forerunner species. They were crushed by the Forerunner war machine. As punishment, humanity was reduced to a pre-technological state and exiled to their homeworld, Erde-Tyrene, overseen by The Librarian.

Forced to start again, the collective human genera would try in vain to rebuild their former glory, establishing wooden cities and steam-powered waterborne vessels, though even these efforts would not be enough to halt their technological and cultural collapse to the Tier 7 tribes encountered by the Forerunners during the construction of the Ark portal in east Africa.

As of the present day, all artifacts and records of this former civilization have been lost to time. However, ruins on the planet Heian appear to show hallmarks of human design, suggesting that the planet was inhabited by ancient, space-faring humans.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Cryptum