Forerunner symbols

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Template:Ratings In the Halo Universe, there are many Forerunner symbols, pictograms made by the Forerunners. These symbols can be found above doors, on Elite armor, virtually anywhere on the Installations, and in the Covenant.

According to Bungie, namely Joseph Staten, the blue and red signs mean a 'safe zone' as in whether or not the Flood are there.^{[verification needed]}

Use

The exact nature of Forerunner writing remains a mystery. While symbols obviously have meaning attached, the exact sentence structure, if any, remains unknown. It is more likely that these glyphs are a system of logograms, rather than a alphabet or syllabary. There also seems to be more dimensions to Forerunner writing than traditional methods, with the individual glyphs holding multiple meanings, likely making them entirely contextual - when combined with different glyphs, a symbol might have radically different meanings, making individual glyphs pictograms or ideograms.

Other symbols found on Forerunner relics and structures are even less obvious in their meanings. They are obviously decorative in nature, but they are often larger and more elaborate in nature than their glyphs, and may depict specific shapes and forms, and may have more in common with petroglyphs than logograms.

Symbol Analysis

Taking a closer look at the symbols and where they were found and what has been said by Bungie we can deduce the following:

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The glowing cyan symbols are found on the control panel in the Halo control room.
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The non-glowing cyan symbol is found on the back of higher-ranking Elites.
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The yellow symbol is found on the Covenant plasma grenade.
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It can be deduced that the purple symbol means Elevator or Lift, most likely, as it is seen above doors leading to elevators.
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Above the doors where large Flood storage rooms are, two of the red symbols always appear, which backs up what Staten said about red and green symbols.
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A number of symbols that have been discovered in Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2.
The avatar of AdjutantReflex on Bungie.net.

All the others are found in various Forerunner structures, mostly on the level, 343 Guilty Spark, Silent Cartographer, and The Library.

Cropped Symbols Analysis

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Examples of rotated symbols

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Example of cropped symbols

Several of the symbols are variations of each other. There are a total of 16 unique symbols; the other 8 are rotations or croppings of the 16 main symbols. Of note is the fact that the cropped versions may not have been intended to be cropped. They appear on a wall or something, similar to the non-cropped version, but they are placed (as decals) in such a way that part of their texture extends past the edge of the poly that they are on, thus clipping it off. But, in sake of being thorough, they have been included as separate symbols.

One could speculate that the orientation of the symbols changes their meaning in some way, like verbs in English (run - running - ran - runner - etc.).

Numbers

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Numbers from one to five, as well as the base symbol.

Only the Forerunner symbols for numbers one through five are known. It is probable that they also have a symbol for 0, but they may use a base 6 system and not have any more numbers.

Installation Symbol

In Halo 3, a number of details about the seven installations arise. In the Citadel room, where Truth is preparing to fire the Installations, each Installation is shown in detail: its status, structure and a symbol to recognize each Installation. Some notes say that there are two versions of each symbol, one where you enter the ring room and the view from the pedestal.