Canon

Distant past

From Halopedia, the Halo wiki

The distant past is a period before the 1st millenium.

Billions of years ago

Hundred billion years ago

  • In 97,445 BCE; Forthencho, acting as a messenger for the Gravemind, stated that the Domain had around hundred billion years of "life-patterns and living wisdom".[1]

Before life

Millions of years ago

Over half a billion years ago

Around 15 million years BCE

Around 10.1 million years ago

  • The Forerunner Warriors were considered the highest rate.[5]
  • Star roads were placed around Charum Hakkor.[6]
  • The Precursors choose early humans to be the next species to carry the Mantle.[7] Desiring to seize the Mantle for themselves, the early Forerunners rebel against the Precursors and wipe them out almost entirely.[8]
  • After the Forerunners hunt down all of the Precursors in the Milky Way galaxy. The remains of the Precursors retreat into the Large Magellanic Cloud; the Forerunners' Warrior fleets pursue them via probability mirror-reconciled slipspace portals and proceed to finish their work.[8]
  • A number of Forerunners who conscientiously object to the complete destruction of the Precursors in the Large Magellanic Cloud are exiled[8] on a barren planet within the Tarantula Nebula; these Forerunners later remain as the only surviving population of the expedition.[9]
  • In the face of extinction, most of the Precursors reduce themselves to inert powder, intending to regenerate their forms later.[7] However, one intact specimen remained in deep stasis and is buried within a remote asteroid a million years afterward.[8]
  • In the Large Magellanic Cloud; two Precursors escaped the genocide, where some Forerunners hide them; but they die and become flowers containing their genetic code.[10]
  • Following the battle in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the remaining Forerunners on the ships sacrificed themselves than return with what they did;[8] leaving the abandoned Forerunner ships in the Large Magellanic Cloud to slowly decay.[9]

Around 9.1 million years ago

Around 1.1 million years ago

  • The Forerunner Theoretical known as Boundless begins to study a particular star within the Path Kethona galaxy. When she continues her work in defiance of Warrior orders to the contrary, she is eventually prosecuted, her studies are suppressed, and she is forced to enter a Cryptum.[2]
    • A thousand years later, Boundless' Cryptum is opened and it is discovered that she has died inside due to a malfunction in the Cryptum, supposedly resulting from sabotage. Her former students discreetly dispose of her body. After Boundless' death, the entire Theoretical rate is absorbed into the Builders.[2]

Around 1 million years ago

  • In the Large Magellanic Cloud; two Precursor seeds bloom.[10]

Hundreds of thousands of years ago

Around 600,000 years ago

  • A Forerunner civil war takes place, where Jat-Krula was used as a strategy, where it was bypassed by a Legion of Warrior commanders.[11]

Around 150,000 years ago

  • The Forerunners are claimed by some records to have risen as the preeminent species in the Milky Way Galaxy by advancing technological discoveries gathered from the remnants left by prior ancient races. Believing themselves responsible for the lives of all those less advanced then they, the Forerunners initiate the Mantle.[12][Note 1]
  • According to Forerunner research, the Ancestors, were believed to have "moved their interstellar civilization outward along the galactic arm" around this time, possibly to escape Forerunner control.[13]

122,000 years ago

112,000 years ago

111,000 years ago

110,000 years ago

108,000 years ago

107,000 years ago

106,000 years ago

101,000 years ago

100,000 years ago

98,000 years ago

97,000 years ago

57,000 years ago

40,000 years ago

29,000 years ago

3rd millennium BCE

22nd century BCE

2200s BCE

21st century BCE

2100s BCE

2nd millennium BCE

11th century BCE

1040s BCE

1010s BCE

1st millennium BCE

10th century BCE

950s BCE

930s BCE

920s BCE

910s BCE

9th century BCE

870s BCE

860s BCE

850s BCE

8th century BCE

790s BCE

780s BCE

7th century BCE

640s BCE

5th century BCE

480s BCE

Notes

  1. ^ This entry, originating from both the 2009 and 2011 editions of the Halo Encyclopedia, is of dubious accuracy in light of information from The Forerunner Saga, in which the Forerunners are stated to have been spacefaring for millions of years (albeit having experienced a number of technological dark ages and large-scale record loss events over the course of this period) and that they held the Mantle since for around 10 million years, having forcibly seized it from the Precursors. However, the Encyclopedia notes that "all Forerunner era dates are approximate, based on available translation and scattered historical data", which provides a canonical explanation for the possible inaccuracies of this entry.

Sources

  1. ^ Halo: Silentium, String 37
  2. ^ a b c Halo: Silentium, String 4
  3. ^ Halo: Silentium, String 24
  4. ^ Halo Waypoint - Universe, Species, Forerunner (Retrieved on Nov 12, 2020) [local archive] [external archive]
  5. ^ Halo: Silentium, String 1
  6. ^ Halo: Silentium, String 3
  7. ^ a b c Halo: Silentium, String 13
  8. ^ a b c d e Halo: Silentium, String 15
  9. ^ a b Halo: Silentium, String 10
  10. ^ a b c Halo: Point of Light, chapter 44
  11. ^ Halo: Silentium, String 7
  12. ^ Halo Encyclopedia (2009 edition) - Chapter One: Timeline, The Foreunners and the Halo Array, page 26
  13. ^ Halo: Cryptum, chapter 1