The Anatomy of Halo: Difference between revisions

Created by the [[Forerunners]] over [[97,445 BCE|100,000 years ago]], Halo was designed to be a wide-effect, neural-disruption weapon capable of destroying any [[Sentience|sentient life]] which might perpetuate the [[Flood|Flood Parasites’]] existence. But this wasn’t Halo’s sole function. The enormous Ring-world was also a structure ten thousand kilometers in diameter engineered to support life on its interior surface. This part of Halo’s architecture is believed to be of roughly the same constitution of a typical [[Wikipedia:Gravitation|One-G]] planet, with large geographic formations and enormous bodies of water. All of this contained within a climate-controlled bed of atmosphere roughly 318 kilometers from one edge to the other. While intel suggests that the seven Halo Installations representing the array each have their own distinctive environment conditions, the two best-documented installations, [[Alpha Halo|04]] and [[Delta Halo|05]], offered a large assortment of [[Forerunner fauna and flora|flora and fauna]] across their surface. Towering mountain ranges, enormous canyons, and vast swaths of desert terrain occupied their interiors, comprised of a rich intermingling of ecosystems. To the untrained eye the facade of these ring-worlds looks no different than that of many life sustaining planets. Unsurprisingly, given their origin, the surface of a Halo ring-world is littered with Forerunner structures and technology: [[Beam emitter|enormous beacons]], [[Barrier tower|soaring spires]], and [[Library|immense complexes]]. Still, for the most part, these individual structures’ overarching purpose and mechanism remain a mystery. And underneath Halo’s outer strata exists a honeycomb labyrinth of interior structures, interconnected by [[Energy bridge|bridges]] made of [[hard light]], complex tunnel systems, and a vast [[teleportation grid]]. The surface of Halo is no small marvel: its majestic architecture, its natural composition, and its sheer size offers only a hint at the Forerunners’ [[Technological Achievement Tiers|technological mastery.]]

Prior to the firing of the Halo Array, dormant specimens of the Flood were captured and contained for research as per [[Containment Protocol|Forerunner protocol]]. The Forerunners recognized that because the origins of the Flood was mysterious and elusive, it was entirely possible that the parasite might one day resurface in the Milky Way Galaxy. So rather than simply fire the Halo Array, they took the risk of securing specimens and keeping them dormant in containment facilities buried deep within the Halo rings themselves, their hope that one day a cure could be discovered and the Flood’s threat nullified. These containment facilities may vary per ring, but all incorporate numerous safety mechanisms and security systems to ensure that they are not easily unlocked. Accessible through a bunker-like aperture and by way of a deep elevator shaft, the Flood containment facilities were further hidden behind many locked [[door]]s and many advanced security protocols. There, the Forerunners could observe individual specimens of the Flood, captured during the course of the war and held in suspended animation, as well as studying them [[Cold Storage|within environment generated by the parasite]]. Some [[Flood research facility|research sites]] were even held high above the ring’s surface, [[Lockout|locked out]] in a remote and inhospitable environment, like the clefts of a frigid mountain side. With foresight that even ''these'' advanced precaution could be compromised, the Forerunners established and distributed a litany of alternative restraint systems designed to limit the Flood’s movement across the ring. A series of [[Sentinel Wall|large defensive walls]] and immense chasms would divide the surface of Halo, the latter typically only traversable through the activation of a hard-light bridge, and, by Forerunner design, the [[Weather spire|local weather systems]] would aggressively batter the contaminated portions of the installation with frigid and inclement weather in an effort to slow the parasite’s collective growth. In the end, despite all of these efforts, the Flood would still escape. Containment on both Installation 04 and Installation 05 would fail, and the Flood would once again threaten the galaxy, halted only by the [[Jacob Keyes|sacrifice]] [[Miranda Keyes|of]] [[Avery Junior Johnson|a]] [[Thel 'Vadam|brave]] [[John-117|few]].