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| The Minister's confession turns to the subject of the religion he and his fellow "Prophets" preached to the Covenant. He explains how the [[Arbiter]] [[Thel 'Vadamee]] discovered flaws in the Covenant's belief system during [[Battle of Installation 05|his mission]] to [[Installation 05]], revealing that the [[Covenant religion|Great Journey]] was a lie. The Minister reveals that the San'Shyuum were, in fact, fully aware of this deception: the Great Journey was a fabrication from the start, and while the Covenant's client races may have benefited from the religion's teachings, the San'Shyuum always knew that their followers would never achieve godhood. | | The Minister's confession turns to the subject of the religion he and his fellow "Prophets" preached to the Covenant. He explains how the [[Arbiter]] [[Thel 'Vadamee]] discovered flaws in the Covenant's belief system during [[Battle of Installation 05|his mission]] to [[Installation 05]], revealing that the [[Covenant religion|Great Journey]] was a lie. The Minister reveals that the San'Shyuum were, in fact, fully aware of this deception: the Great Journey was a fabrication from the start, and while the Covenant's client races may have benefited from the religion's teachings, the San'Shyuum always knew that their followers would never achieve godhood. |
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| ==Transcript==
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| '''[[Psalm of the Journey|THE PSALM OF THE JOURNEY]]'''
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| Oh ye walking faithful<br />
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| Ye righteous throng<br />
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| Step by step<br />
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| Tread ye the rock to dust<br />
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| The path is long<br />
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| The Journey wrathful<br />
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| But walk ye must<br />
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| A test for the faithful<br />
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| The yoke is heavy<br />
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| And red with rust<br />
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| I have seen more than thirteen hundred revolutions, and my time now is very short. My skin is dry and tight on these old bones. I am shrinking in upon myself. My eyes, once bright with curiosity, are now filmed with age, rheumy with the dust of a life lived in vain. But they still see well enough to scratch this parchment and far enough to witness the plague that comes this way. This shall serve as my confession, not that anyone will read it. But I write anyway, in the hope that I can somehow atone for my sins. I cannot hope to salve the harm we have done to this age, nor can I hope for any semblance of salvation. I know now that our gods are false, and redemption to us is lost.
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| I have many confessions, I must confess them all. But there is one that accounts for more evil, I think, than th'others.
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| Why do I inscribe infamy and failure on parchment that no one will ever read? I cannot say, but as I look out over the Grand Hall and see the parasite spreading toward this old corner of our world, I know that all is lost.
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| Shall I describe High Charity? Its lofty vaults and soaring aeries? This place we have built and made a world, with gracious squares and sprawling gardens—it is a place of genteel grandeur and resplendent beauty. It has cost the wealth of man and millions of lives.
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| The cost, grim as it was, seems worth it to the eye. A sky lives and breathes and beats with the metal heart of our labor. A wonder now circles the galaxy, distributing gifts and tidings. True or not, they are glad nonetheless.
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| The ship that stands here reminds me of a time when the path was true and clear. Its silver spire reaches higher than we ever did, unsullied by the filth that festers beneath it.
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| The ship is and has always been the key. It once stood on our secret world, just as majestic and mysterious as it is now, an enigma that drove our civilization to greatness—the seed of all our discoveries. Our world—our true world—had been unkind to us, or I suppose, we to it. The ship liberated us from the toxins and ash of our own endeavors, sanctifying our path.
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| From it, we learned of the Forerunner legacy, the ubiquitous scatterings of their wake. So many worlds contain their leavings and their structures, but only ours was blessed with a Ship, a teacher. It taught us all how to unlock the secrets of space and time, to build ships of our own that sail the stars to spread the word. But it also seemed to ever nudge us in a direction, to build weapons of war—energy that could burn or sear flesh, vaporize bone. Technology that oft ekes conflagration from vacuum. As wise as they were, I suspect war was not unknown to them.
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| And only now as I look into the flickering light and watch the parasite spread, do I understand why these wise and ancient people would push those who remained in such a destructive direction.
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| I will not pretend that it was easy to learn from the relics. They did not give up their secrets readily. But when we did begin to understand how they worked, we were able to replicate some of their functions, though never as purely, or as powerfully. It was as if the best we could manage was to dilute their power, never master it. We remain pale shadows of them, reflections in a rippling pond.
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| Some things we could not even imitate. The Hard Light they used to span gulfs or lock chambers. Their materials—indestructible matrixes of crystal, metal, and plastic. The very stuff of which the relics are built. But others we observed and studied, understood their principles, and built our own versions, sometimes drawing power itself from their relics.
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| This is, indeed, how High Charity is fueled. From never-ending reserve of energy that seethes in the heart of the ship. But few called it a ship. We ministers charged with technology and its study always knew it to be. But since we could not move nor maneuver it, we called it a tower and drew the power from it.
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| When I think of our failures now, part of me is glad. What monstrosities we would have commited [''Sic''] to the galaxy with indestructible vessels. Endless reserves of destructive force. It was good for the galaxy that our learning was slow and our mastery poor. But I confess I tried my hardest to improve our odds and our circumstances.
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| '''[[Psalm of Primacy|THE PSALM OF PRIMACY]]'''
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| None shall walk our path<br />
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| None deserve its mystery<br />
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| We own the right to pass<br />
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| That right is carved in history<br />
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| A gift bestowed by aeons<br />
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| A future gifted from the past<br />
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| The signs are there for all to see<br />
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| The Journey waits for us alone<br />
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| It is growing colder as I write. The lights remain on, but they flicker and strobe. And the scene outside this window is already hellish. Some systems are failing. They will surely cascade.
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| We always suspected that there were machine intelligences in those Forerunner relics. Thinking artifices that were, I am sad to say, thought of as abominations by our people. A lie we told ourselves. Our ships jump to Slipspace using mathematics and geometries calculated at withering speed by these machines, and we lobotomize them, remove any ability for more thought to develop. They became metal slaves to us. I have to be pragmatic. Most shuddered at the thought of the artificial intelligences the humans use to dart hither and thither in their tiny corner of the galaxy. But if we had allowed them to think, freed them from their shackles, our own computers might have sped our research.
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| Those same intelligences have outthought us from time to time, scored small but strategic victories. Our lack of flexibility in this regard has always been troubling to me. Had we used thinking machines, we might have foreseen this catastrophe.
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| And the Oracle that rested in the ship. I have not had but a few moments with it. It always seemed insane. I, too, would be insane if I stood guard over the galaxy for 100,000 years only to see its security destroyed. Aye, meddling by us to release the parasite and meddling by humans to destroy the Halo.
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| But insane as he may be, there is something else more puzzling about that Oracle that I could never identify. He is different from the human artifices in a way that troubles me. I had given it much thought and research, but like all of my work, that, too, is now abandoned. Perhaps, if someone finds that record, they can give it more insight than I.
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| The lights here burned constant and unchanging for hundreds of years and their flickering alone fill me with dread. In an unchanging world, the tiniest shift signals tumult and catastrophe. And worse, I know better than any that this is an end we brought upon ourselves, with lies, deceit, and murder on a scale I shudder to recall.
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| Though no one will read this, and it will most likely be lost 'neath the mire and pyre of the parasite, I should identify myself and claim responsibility at least for my part in this. I have no name, having claimed instead a title. I have been known for 214 revolutions as the Minister of Discovery. I have done naught but evil in that time and little good before it, now that I must account for these days.
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| We shout from the highest parapet that we are the path to the light and the stepping-stone to the Great Journey, but the truth has revealed itself to us, and if prophets we are, then it is most assuredly the false kind.
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| Trouble and ruin have stalked us these last dark hours, and we have tasted our share of punishment. It began with the Arbiter.
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| Arbiter was a noble title bestowed upon Sangheili as a badge of greatness to one who was worthy of dispensing justice and peace. One whose authority was unquestioned. Just as we did with the gifts and boons of the Forerunners, we twisted that title and turned it into something shameful. And we did so to advance ends we had not fully factored.
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| The last Arbiter was a Shipmaster and the commander of the Fleet of Particular Justice. We sent him after a human spacecraft, and it was he and his men who first witnessed the Halo, that glorious vision we had sought, or rather thought we had sought, for so long. But he failed, defeated by the actions of a single tenacious human.
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| As is the custom, we sent the Arbiter into an unwinnable war, to a fate he could never hope to escape. When the human destroyed the ring, we blamed this Elite and piled our first load of guilt on his shoulders. Arbiter we made him, and sent him to die for us.
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| But this Arbiter had other plans, and fate had its own agenda. Exposed to the machinery of our faith, he discovered flaws in its design, saw before we did the missing pieces we could only imagine. We were wrong about much. If that were the extent of my sin, I would not be compelled to make this confession. I would simply walk into the conflagration beyond these halls and accept my fate.
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| But we knew we lied.
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| We have preached this falsehood, but it has been our practice for the entire span of my life and the lives I have studied. Some of us believed we were being righteous and that this elaborate tapestry of fiction we wove was a necessary map for the guileless and faithless. I, too, once truly believed we were pushing these innocents toward redemption. That we would show them how to embark on the Great Journey. But I always knew that they would never be allowed to follow in our footsteps. The Journey was ours alone.
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| '''[[Psalm of Teaching|THE PSALM OF TEACHING]]'''
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| Listen ye unlearned dogs<br />
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| Listen ye to light and truth<br />
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| Listen ye to ancient power<br />
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| Listen ye to credent proof<br />
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| Learn the lessons of obedience<br />
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| Walk the path that's set for ye<br />
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| Do what needs to learn th' lesson<br />
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| And kneel in thy devoted adherence<br />
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| My tasks were central to both our faith and our supremacy. It is no secret the Sangheili could have crushed us without the gifts of the Forerunners. Without the weapons, the tools, the chariots these boons enabled, we would be what we are proven to be now, a faithless, cowering collection of lost, weak fools.
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| But we had the gifts. And we understood them. Sangheili had lived among Forerunner relics just as long, perhaps longer, but they chose to respect them as abandoned forgings of gods. We were more curious. What we found on our world became a source of power, and we soaked in their light.
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| With more time, more research, and more luck, we could have learned greater secrets from the pieces we had, and cowed the Sangheili with technology. But we were greedy and impatient—a trait of our race, I suppose. We could not wait. We fought them for their relics, the jewels they guarded on Sanghelios and they bucked and roared with the weapons they had and fought us tooth and claw to a standstill. So we made peace. We promised to share what we knew, in exchange for their cooperation and protection. And thus the Covenant was born.
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| We recruited other races, other civilizations, great and small. But we never shared all that we knew and we did what the powerful are apt to do. We showered the weak with glitter and promises, and twisted them to bear our weight.
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| The Jiralhanae were a major mistake. I see that now. The Sangheili honor guard was always vigilant and almost inert when at peace. One never had to worry about what a Sangheili might do any more than one worried if the stars would come out at night. They were predictable; they were loyal.
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| Jiralhanae, it is clear, are neither. They are garrulous, quick to anger and wont to fight amongst themselves. They are territorial and they are ambitious. And none of this marries well to their essentially limited intellect. We thought they could be trained and their loyalty bought. We had factored that, brought to heel, they would be more obedient than Sangheili and less prone to independent thought. I think it would not have lasted much longer than our current circumstances allowed. They are beasts, in essence and in action. We should never have committed them to our Covenant, let alone promoted them above the Sangheili.
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| If only we favored what the Arbiter saw, the schism I witness now. He was right of course. He saw our lies for what they were and, with the other heretics, spread the truth to the other Sangheili. They are rightfully confused now, scrabbling to find a new direction to take. When they find it, those of us who survive this will pay for our mistakes at the ends of their blades.
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| We gifted them much and made them strong, but we never gave them the gift they truly deserved. Respect. We thought ourselves cleverer than their strength. Yet they endure while High Charity crumbles into the dark.
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| And at such a delicate time! Foolish indeed.
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| '''[[Psalm of Sorrow|THE PSALM OF SORROW]]'''
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| Those who went before are gone<br />
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| Those who left us wisdom<br />
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| They have found a better place<br />
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| And there their light shines on<br />
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| This wretched life is our prison<br />
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| As dark and cold as endless space<br />
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| But their blessed light beckons<br />
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| And so too does departed grace<br />
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| But the greatest confession of all is the human one. We watched them, observed them, and declared them heretical, an affront to the Forerunners. We declared war on a species many, myself included, felt could be a vital part of the Covenant, as strong in some ways as the Sangheili and certainly more suited to our faith than the ignorant Brutes.
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| We were so inclusive. We required submission and obedience. We granted boons to fools and insects, but the human race was not even considered. The Prophet of Truth knew then, as I only know now, that the humans were more than a simple client species—but rather, a potential equal. And more, I think he saw a connection to the Forerunners he did not like.
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| We have already observed the humans walk into places once locked to us. We have seen the Forerunner machinery light up as they enter, as if recognizing an old friend. Or enemy, perhaps. Their edifices and monoliths are unknowable. It is presumptuous to graft feeling onto such events. But the connection is apparent, no matter its source.
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| We have seen inert control surfaces spring to life at their human touch. The Oracle itself calls them "Reclaimers." But what do they reclaim? These machines? These cities? These worlds? Or, as I fear, are they to reclaim the mantle we so terribly squandered? The responsibility the Forerunners left us was a magnificent one, but perhaps beyond our means and character. We are a greedy, squabbling lot. We clamber over each other for rank and privilege, and kill, maim, or betray for power.
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| The Forerunner mantle was one of responsibility, it seems. Perhaps we were intended to nurture rather than conquer. If the Halo array is what it appears to be, then it is a monstrous thing, a necessary evil. Left intact to save us should the parasite return.
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| And there. There is the beating heart of it. The greatest guilt of all. We loosed this parasite on the galaxy.
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| We read the signs, we understood the warnings. What glyphs we deciphered spoke of caution, to let it lie. Like a disease culture kept frozen in stasis lest a cure be found, the Halo itself contained sleeping parasitic forms.
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| And as Prophets and Ministers rush to be near this magnificent find, I stay here, afraid.
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| The glyphs spoke of a danger, a menace. The hierarchs were arrogant enough to think of it as a weapon that could be wielded. They ordered us to rush, to find out as much as we could, as quickly as possible. In our haste, we erred.
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| I cautioned against it. But in fact it was I who picked its locks and solved its riddles. It was I who unlocked that laboratory. It is I, when all is said and done, who is responsible for the sea of death that seeks to wash upon these shores.
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| They were well shielded. Well protected. But we tinkered and meddled and opened the seals. And even there we didn't know enough to let them be. We poked and we prodded and eventually we loosed it, living even in death, on the surface of its prison.
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| It was my project, though I was not there when the seals were cracked and the contingency measures defeated. I sat restfully in my quarters on a starship, warm and safe, while Sangheili and Grunts were consumed by that thinking rage.
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| I know what will become of me, but I know not what will become of my brothers. Some have already fled, others fallen to vengeful Sangheili, some to traitorous Brutes. Most will eventually be subsumed by this swarming menace.
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| We are a clever and industrious race. I have no doubt that in a time of peace we can even recover from this schism in our faith. But too many factors are at play here. A gruesome parasite and the kindling of a civil war. We will be sought out and rightfully blamed for this chaos. Even our friends will seek to hang us.
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| I think our primacy is finished for a time. Those we have tricked have long memories and short tempers. The Jiralhanae, perhaps, will shelter some of us. They still need our technology, for they know the Sangheili will come for them first. The Unggoy will follow whoever is strong and the Kig-Yar will follow profit. Who knows what the silent Mgalekgolo will do. They might even survive the parasite.
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| Many still do not believe the parasite is intelligent. They think it is a virus, insensate and undiscriminating. But one need only look at how cleverly it reached this place. Unbreachable, unreachable High Charity being consumed. But there's pattern, strategy. It thinks all right. Even now it thinks to make this place its own. It does not destroy, it consumes. It takes what it will.
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| Perhaps our gods feared this thing and fled from it. Perhaps they died by its hand. No matter. They cannot save me now and they do not know us, or hear our prayers.
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| I hear them at my door. Scratching, howling, the yattering dead. The parasite. The Flood I unleashed myself. I am not afraid anymore. I have said what needed to be said and spoken the whole truth as I know it, for the first time in my life.
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| When I put down this pen, I will walk to the door and fling it wide. That thing beyond the door cannot have my soul. It will take my body. Let it choke on these dry and evil bones and find no sustenance there. It is finished. I am finished.
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| ==Appearances== | | ==Appearances== |
