Forthencho/Quotes

This is a list of quotes by Forthencho, Lord of Admirals of prehistoric human forces.

Halo: Primordium

• "You are young. I am old. I am dead." - Forthencho's consciousness, first awakening within Chakas.

• "I fought the Didact and surrendered Charum Hakkor, but not its secrets. We survived the Shaping Sickness. Forerunners hoped to learn the secret of how we survived the Shaping Sickness, but we would not give it to them, even under torture!" - to Chakas.

• "Daowa-maadthu... Fate is off-center, the wheel of life is cracked, the wagon will hit a rock, jolt hard, and fall apart for all of us—eventually."

• "What is this—hell? But the body is young!" - Forthencho, slowly gaining awareness of his predicament.

• "Once, we were one great race, united in power and concerted in our goals..." - Forthencho reminiscing humanity's age of flourish.

• "They are not gods. They are like us, in the great scheme of things, sometimes strong, too often foolish and weak, caught up in politics... and now at war. But why?" - on the Forerunners.

• "All dreams are young, my host, my friend. All dreams belong to youth, whether they be nightmares or idylls."

• "Strange fears echo through both old man [sic] and warriors. Those near death know it too well."

• "Imagine. Imagine the worst. It is all we can expect from Forerunners, all we can ever expect."

• "You still believe in the Librarian, deep inside. You are still afraid to be alone, without family or friends... And yet that is your natural condition, no? A thief. A con artist. What if being alone is the only way you can survive?" - to Chakas.

• "It is too much even now! The Lord of Admirals is not testifying before the true Reclaimer. I am Chakas. I am all that remains of Chakas, and still I am haunted! I give up being Chakas. I withdraw! Please stop your recording, Reclaimer. I am unstable. Exquisitely painful. I am breaking apart. We are all dead, and even our bones are dust!" - Chakas' and Forthencho's personalities struggle for control within 343 Guilty Spark, interrogated by an ONI science team.

• "What am I, really? A long time ago, I was a living, breathing human being. Then, I went mad. I served my enemies. They became my only friends. Since then, I've traveled back and forth across this galaxy, and out to the spaces between galaxies—a greater reach than any human before me. You have asked me to tell you about that time. Since you are the true Reclaimer, I must obey. Are you recording? Good. Because my memory is broken and covered with thorns. I doubt I'll be able to finish the story. Once, I was Forthencho, Lord of Admirals." - Forthencho prefacing his response stream within Guilty Spark after subsuming the monitor's primary personality, echoing a similar introduction by Chakas earlier on.

• "The Lifeworker machines—through the strange, ever-changing, multiformed presence of the Composer, a machine? a being? I never saw it clearly—sent patterns of blue and red light over our broken bodies, and one by one, we relaxed, breathed no more.... Set free our immortal wills. I lost all time—all sense." - describing his composition.

• "The inevitable arrived. I died. The Composer and the Lifeworkers did their work... And now I was here, in this boy's body. Am here! Still here!"

• "Now that the Forerunners have succumbed, either in battle or from the Shaping Sickness, they have left behind just a few confused servants — and many, many humans, awaiting a new time, a new mandate. And that mandate is: avenge the fallen. Rise from defeat, rise from the dead! The promise is simple. Freedom. Support. Weapons unimagined in all our previous wars. Humans will fight Forerunners again—and defeat them!" - Forthencho addresses his fellow humans after being extracted from Chakas.

• "This is the way a dead man feels." - Forthencho' essence to a dying Chakas undergoing mind transfer into a monitor.

• "Fear is physical, organic. Fear without flesh is an illusion." - to Chakas.

• "This is the answer. No immunity and no cure. There is only struggle, or succumb. Either way, the Primordial will have its due. We have met our creators, they have given us the answers we sought—and that is our curse." - Forthencho's essence to the IsoDidact and Chakas upon hearing the truth about humanity's supposed immunity to the Flood.

• Chakas: "Go to sleep."
• Forthencho: "Death has been sleep enough."

—Shortly after his spirit's reawakening in Chakas.

• Forthencho: "You have affection for a Forerunner."
• Chakas: "Not really. We traveled together."
• Forthencho: "It is no crime. I once felt affection for a Warrior-Servant as I hunted his ships and destroyed his fighters. No lover ever felt my attentions so fiercely."

—Commenting on his relationship with the Didact.

• Chakas: "You aren't real. I wonder if you were ever real."
• Forthencho: "I'm as real as I have ever been."
• Chakas: "Since you died? ... Why do they need us?"
• Forthencho: "Not even a machine as powerful as the wheel's master can do its work alone. You are alive. You can serve."
• Chakas: "Humans? The last dregs of us that remain after so many Forerunner victories? We became animals. We were devolved—and only the Librarian thought enough of us to raise us back up again!"
• Forthencho: It doesn't care! The machine will do everything it can to destroy Forerunners. It knows that I have fought Forerunners before."
• Chakas: "And lost."
• Forthencho: "But also learned! I have spent my time within you going over and over old battles, studying all our past failures, and now, I have full access to their new strategies! This wheel is but one of the weapons at our disposal—if we join. Out there, awaiting our commands, in many orbits around thousands of other worlds, in other star systems, are reserves of tens of thousands of ships of war—and more Halos. We will be irresistible!"

—Forthencho attempting to convince Chakas to join him and Mendicant Bias

• Chakas: "What will happen if we survive?"
• Forthencho: "We will spread out to the fleets and launch an attack against the heart of Forerunner civilization, in the Orion complex. Never in all our battles did we come within fifteen thousand light-years of that prize!"
• Chakas: "You lied to the machine. You told it I was willing."
• Forthencho: "The least I can do, young human. I need you. And if you ever wish to go home again—you need me."

—Forthencho describing his plans of war to Chakas.

• Forthencho: "This ancilla has more power than any previous command monitor. The Didact gave it complete control over Forerunner defenses. When the Master Builder assumed the Didact's rank, he came to believe that he might be punished for his audacity as well as his crimes. If the Master Builder was to be arrested and imprisoned, then this ancilla would take revenge on his behalf. Perhaps it is doing so now."
• Chakas: "Madness!"
• Forthencho: "But with much precedent in human history."

—On Mendicant Bias.

• Chakas: "I can't do this. Let them all die. Let me die. Let this end right here!"
• Forthencho: "If it does end here, then humanity ends here. All that you know, all those whom you know and all that they have ever known—finished! Get up and stand for your species. This is our last chance."

—After Chakas is taken to the Cartographer and forced to interface with Composer-processed Flood victims.

Halo 4

Terminals

• Bridge Officer #1: "Lord of Admirals. We are in position over the Forerunner planet."
• Forthencho: "Show me."
• Bridge Officer #2: "Population numbering over two billion. Forerunner ships on alert and inbound."
• Forthencho: "Is it possible? Have we gotten ahead of it?"
• Bridge Officer #1: "Flood infestation detected, my Lord."
• Forthencho: "Damnit!"
• Bridge Officer #2: "My Lord? The infestation is in a remote locale. Perhaps if we warn the Forerunners...?"
• Forthencho: "If we warn them, we give the Flood time to spread. You know we have no choice. Cleanse the planet."

—Forthencho and his bridge officers during the earlier stages of humanity's conflict with the Flood.

Halo: Silentium

• "We have been allowed to come here to die. The Gravemind... The Gravemind is on its way to the secret Ark, preparing to devour whatever hope you've laid up there. But it has sent us to you with a final message, Great Mother." — an imprinted Forthencho to the Librarian on Earth

• "This we were told by the Gravemind, the greatest of them, who has consumed ten thousand planets and brought entire galaxies to an end. This we were told..."

• "The Precursors lived in many shapes, flesh and spirit, primitive and advanced, spacefaring and locked to their worlds... Evolved over and over again, died away, were reborn, explored, and seeded many galaxies... This I was told. I understand little."

• "We are your children, Librarian. But we are also their children. And what they learned across many billions of years they stored in this galaxy. We do not know where. The Gravemind tells us something impossible to understand—that most of what has been gathered comes from before there were stars. We do not believe in such a time, but the Mind insists... The life-patterns and living wisdom of a hundred billion years. They tell me the immense field projected by this reserve is known to Forerunners, was once accessed by them. Is that so, Librarian?"

• The Gravemind no more understands the whole truth than we do. It is past all our understanding, from the greatest to the smallest. This reserve was wrapped in Precursor architecture, protected for many billions of years. Out there. Perhaps if there were enough time, we could find it. But when the Halos are fired, not only will sentient life across the galaxy vanish, but all that knowledge will vanish as well. The greatest treasure of all will be destroyed."

• "I will send a message," I tell Forthencho. His lips crack as he attempts to laugh. "You don't understand me, Librarian. The effects of Halo radiation are already felt." I stare around the circle of wretched humans. I refuse to accept this. Lord of Admirals holds up both of his hands, holding on to me, then lets go and falls to his knees. He tries to smile. Blood streams from the cracked corners of his lips. Not a kind smile. Like the grin of a wolf. "The Halos will be fired," he says. "They are being fired. They have been fired!" With an agonized grimace, he collapses face-forward into the dirt and grass. His blood returns to the soil. The others try to sing, but give out only a low, deathly howl-what might be an old battle song, or perhaps conveying a final message from the Gravemind. Its laughter haunting me across thousands of light-years.

—The Librarian's testimonial regarding her encounter with the imprinted Forthencho on Earth.