Contact Harvest resurrects a long dead theory***SPOILER ALER

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Alec T
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Contact Harvest resurrects a long dead theory***SPOILER ALER

Unread post by Alec T »

I know that Contact Harvest came out 2 days ago, but I am posting this as how it ties up the loose ends, and how it resurrects a theory that we thought the Africa comic strip killed. And that theory was of humans being Forerunners. And it proves it too.

[spoiler]The Oracle's eye dimmed. For a moment it looked as though it might resume its long silence. But then it blazed anew, projecting a hologram of the reclamation glyph recorded by Rapid Conversion's Luminary.
< THIS IS NOT RECLAMATION > the Oracle boomed. < THIS IS RECLAIMER >[/spoiler]
-Halo: Contact Harvest, page 274

With this you might say, "This proves nothing new, we already know humans are Reclaimers."
But, the Oracle says more.

[spoiler]Slowly the glyph turned upside down, and its central shapes--the concentric circles, one low inside the other, connected by a thin line--took on a different aspect. The shapes' previous arrangement had resembled the pendulum of a clock. Inverted, the glyph now looked like a creature with two curved arms locked above its head. The glyph shrunk in size as the hologram zoomed out to show the entire alien world, covered with thousands of these newly oriented Luminations.
< AND THOSE IT REPRESENTS ARE MY MAKERS>[/spoiler]
-Halo: Contact Harvest, page 275

The Luminary is a Forerunner device, a replica of wich is on every ship tasked with finding relics. The Luminations are from the scans of Harvest, done by a Brute-controlled ship.
This shows that despite the args.bungie.org community's previous theories, humans are Forerunner. I am not saying everybody but me was wrong, I belived that humans couldn't be Forerunner, maybe some genetic creation possibly, but not actually Forerunner.

From this imformation, I have formulated a new theory. I think, because of Bungie's large amount of biblical references, that all but 2 Forerunners stayed within the Halos' blast radius. And I think you can get the point from there. The timeline also fits together, as proven on these forums. The Halos were activated approximately 100,000 years befor the events of the Halo Trilogy, and the I belive, the first actually modern Homo Sapiens appeared around that time.
Maimbot 9000
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Re: Contact Harvest resurrects a long dead theory***SPOILER ALER

Unread post by Maimbot 9000 »

My head hurts.

So:
  • A really long time ago, the Precursors achieve transcendence. Perhaps they have fought the Flood and beat them back, for a time. At some point, they leave behind a primitive version of themselves, seeded onto a new world. This race will fight for the galaxy when the Flood return. They are the Forerunners.
  • A long time ago, the Forerunners achieve an incredible level of technology. They have fought the Flood and are about to beat them back, with a very crude and desperate measure. Who will be there to fight the Flood the next time? The Forerunners are surprised to discover that another world has been seeded with a race of reclaimers--Earth. Us. Who did this? Are the Precursors still watching over our galaxy? Or whoever came before them?
Does that sound right? Precursor, Forerunner, Human--we're all biologically identical. And someone or something keeps plopping us down onto a planet every time the galaxy's giant hourglass flips over. An endless cycle of achieving a balance between life and death, or life and Flood.
KLind
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Re: Contact Harvest resurrects a long dead theory***SPOILER ALER

Unread post by KLind »

Awesome! :D
thereIwasn't
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Re: Contact Harvest resurrects a long dead theory***SPOILER ALER

Unread post by thereIwasn't »

Um?
I just finished reading CH about an hour ago and at no tie were precursers mentioned. Also, I really have trouble seeing how if the Forerunners supposedly owned the entire galaxy (supposedly) packed with inteligent life. Someone mentioned earlier (although it slips my mind who, don't give me any credit for this one) that the Forerunners might have been a group of several inteligent species. If the humans were one of them, then this would all make some sense.

BTW, something that irks me. First the books seemed to say humans = forerunner, then IRIS said no, then Halo 3 says yes. Which is it already?

Also BTW, doesn't this sort of thing belong in Speculation at this point?
MulletedOne
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Re: Contact Harvest resurrects a long dead theory***SPOILER ALER

Unread post by MulletedOne »

If you listened to what I had posted before then you would know how Iris never says we aren't forerunner. N'chala could be Homo Erectus, which was around in Africa at that particular time in history.

In fact, several different subspecies which were nearly anatomically similar existed in the world for thousands of years before Homo Sapiens Sapiens officially appeared

"Whichever model (if either) is correct, the oldest fossil evidence for anatomically modern humans is about 130,000 years old in Africa, and there is evidence for modern humans in the Near East sometime before 90,000 years ago."

http://anthropology.si.edu/humanorigins/ha/sap.htm

As I said, we made tons of progress in the Halo story and I feel most of us were blinded by it, just like the ARG message from that one key page said.
thebruce
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Re: Contact Harvest resurrects a long dead theory***SPOILER ALER

Unread post by thebruce »

At this point, the only direct comment that people seem to be taking to indicate humans are forerunner, is GS saying: "You are the child of my makers. Inheritor of all they left behind. You are Forerunner!"
I still do not buy that he is literally saying we are the genetic decendants of the Forerunner race. That line quite believably is poetic in my mind - that we were so special and unique to them, that we are <i>essentially</i> Forerunner. ie, why would he say we are the 'children' of his makers, then say we 'are' his makers?
I could understand if you interpret it similarly - I say the "You are Forerunner" is symbolic, where you may think therefore that "child of my makers" would be symbolic... either way, I'm still at thi point convinced that we are a unique race, <i>not</i> Forerunner, but the next most important species they considered to carry on their legacy - effectively, we are Forerunner.

You could take it a step further, and in the same way the the Covenant contain multiple species, if the Forerunners were a conglomeration of species, then we may have been admitted into their fold <i>as</i> Forerunner due to how special (even though underdeveloped) we were considered, before the rings were lit.

Genetic descendents? No
Their choice species to continue as 'reclaimers', thus essentially Forerunner? Yeah
Considered part of the Forerunner conglomeration of species (if it exists)? I can dig that too.
Alec T
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Re: Contact Harvest resurrects a long dead theory***SPOILER ALER

Unread post by Alec T »

What Bruce said just reminded me of something Gravemind said on Cortana.

< Child of my enemy, why have you come? >

And the next line, if I remembered correctly, goes

< I offer no forgiveness for Father's sins >

Correct my if I am wrong on the second statement.

The Forerunners, being the creators of many artifacts intended to stop the Flood, would make the them the Flood's undisputed enemies.
Maimbot 9000
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Re: Contact Harvest resurrects a long dead theory***SPOILER ALER

Unread post by Maimbot 9000 »

Yeah, the "biologically identical" part of what I posted up there makes no sense to me, now--didn't really when I posted it, but I couldn't figure out why else the Forerunners would instantly recognize that we were something special. I'm still stuck on that, but it could be there was just something screwy with our evolution that made them think we'd been tampered with. I don't know, something along those lines.

I think 343's quote is needlessly confusing; it really seemed like the story got simplified in this game, and it's easy to take what he says at face value. There isn't an awful lot of subtlety on display anywhere else in the game. The way I like to think of it, though, is that "Forerunner" is an inaccurate, human word, and there is something getting lost in the translation (after all, 343's native language is not English). To us, "Forerunner" is a name; it describes the race that built the Halos. To 343, it is a title; it describes those who bear the Mantle.

Perhaps it's interchangeable with the term "Reclaimer" for 343. Or perhaps it's a sort of increase in rank once we achieve understanding: We were Reclaimers before we got to the Rings and took over the fight against the Flood. Once humanity (Master Chief et al) gets ready to fire the Halos, to really face the Flood, we graduate to "Forerunner/Mantle-Bearer."
thebruce
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Re: Contact Harvest resurrects a long dead theory***SPOILER ALER

Unread post by thebruce »

well, I'd assume that in translating to english, 343 would know the definition of Forerunner:
1. One that precedes, as in time; a predecessor.
2. An ancestor; a forebear.
3. One that comes before and indicates the approach of another; a harbinger.
4. A warning sign or symptom.
of which I still hold to #1 as the primary definition, rather than #2 (genetic).

If Forerunner were a pronoun to 343, then Forerunner wouldn't be an english word :P Perhaps 343s native word for the Forerunners is different, but "Forerunner" in english as above is his best translation for us to understand him.
MulletedOne
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Re: Contact Harvest resurrects a long dead theory***SPOILER ALER

Unread post by MulletedOne »

Now you're grasping at straws :/

The subtitles say "Forerunner" with a capital F thus he means his creators.
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