Star road

Star roads, also known as unbending filaments, were a form of Precursor technology.

Overview
One of the more common types of artifacts left behind by the Precursors, star roads were seemingly inert, several-kilometers-thick, virtually unbreakable cables on an immense scale that lay across the galaxy for millions of years, connecting planets and even linking entire star systems to one another. Like other Precursor technology, star roads were not made of ordinary matter, instead being composed of exotic neural physics construction. Charum Hakkor and its system was once home to many star roads, which were used by prehistoric humans to link their orbital defenses surrounding the planet. In their dormant state, star roads automatically adjusted to changes in planetary and stellar orbits, even occasionally removing portions of themselves. A particularly complex web of star roads in a system in Path Kethona had not survived the eons completely intact, having crumbled in several sections.

During the last decade of the Forerunner-Flood war, it was revealed that the star roads were not completely inert. The Flood, having amassed enough processing power via advanced Key Mind forms, began to take control of star roads along with other once-inactive neural physics constructs. The Flood was able to wield the star roads as weapons, configuring them to various shapes and moving them across the galaxy using neural physics-based transit. The star roads, in their weaponized form, were incredibly powerful, either physically tearing apart Forerunner fleets or interfering with Forerunner slipspace travel as well as generating suppression fields to disable the Forerunner weapons and shields. The Flood-controlled star roads warped reality around them which not only enabled organic beings to feel when they were nearby, but also mutated space-time and converted slipspace to be unsuitable for Forerunner transit. In many engagements near the end of the Forerunner-Flood war, star roads were used to trap Forerunner forces that were soon overwhelmed by the Flood. One example of this is the Battle of Kan Pakko, in which the Forerunners were completely overwhelmed by the Flood due to the star roads' influence.

One common star road configuration was shaped like two parallel double-arcs, over 50,000 kilometers in diameter, and contained thousands of interwoven star roads. In the center of each double-bow was a point of inky darkness surrounded by a glowing ring. These double-bow configurations were capable of tearing planets apart with their sheer tidal forces and kinetic energy by wrapping around them; one such formation destroyed Uthera Midgeerrd. It was theorized by Maker-of-Moons that the Precursors moved stars the same way, by forcing changes on their orbits with star road formations.

Since star roads were based upon the fundamental principle of neural physics, they were vulnerable to the effects of the Halo Array. The first evidence of this was when the Precursor structures on Charum Hakkor were destroyed by Installation 07's test-firing. When the Array was fired, star roads within the rings' effective range were destroyed. It was theorized that star roads and other Precursor constructs in slipspace transit may have been able to survive the pulse, although this was not known for certain; to inflict as much damage as possible, the Forerunners would time the firing to a point when the maximum number of star roads would occupy normal space.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Cryptum
 * Halo: Silentium