Humans aren't forerunner?

Wild, speculative theories born from the communications with AdjutantReflex.

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thereIwasn't
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Re: Humans aren't forerunner?

Unread post by thereIwasn't »

You can't imagine how exciting this is! To have a record of all of our lost time! Human history, is it? Fascinating.
As stated at Halo.bungie.org.
It may be more of a gramatical question, but what is it that 343 finds fascinating? The infromation he's reading or what we call it. If the former, then considering the history he already knows, I'd also find it fascinating (if I maniged to ever read all of it.) If the latter, then perhaps it is the title.
do we have any grammar enthusiasts in the crowd? If we knew specifically which he was refering to, this would be much easier.
P.S. Nowhere in the quote does 343 say anything about him mentionanything about calling it human history. I usually go by the HBO version of the script, but if anyone has heard differently...
Maimbot 9000
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Re: Humans aren't forerunner?

Unread post by Maimbot 9000 »

thereIwasn't wrote:P.S. Nowhere in the quote does 343 say anything about him mentionanything about calling it human history.
Er, "Human history, is it?" certainly suggests he's not familiar with that naming convention. And since we can safely assume he knows what "history" is, the word he's getting stuck on is "human."

What I always found interesting in that quote is "A record of all our lost time! Human history, is it?" Is he simply saying it's great to have a record of what's been going on in the universe since the Halos fired (apparently he doesn't have an internet account)? Or is he saying that history from the human perspective specifically is a continuation of Forerunner history?
thereIwasn't
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Re: Humans aren't forerunner?

Unread post by thereIwasn't »

[quote="Maimbot 9000
Er, "Human history, is it?" certainly suggests he's not familiar with that naming convention. And since we can safely assume he knows what "history" is, the word he's getting stuck on is "human."

What I always found interesting in that quote is "A record of all our lost time! Human history, is it?" Is he simply saying it's great to have a record of what's been going on in the universe since the Halos fired (apparently he doesn't have an internet account)? Or is he saying that history from the human perspective specifically is a continuation of Forerunner history?[/quote]

It could be like when someone tells you about a good book that you read. Like Person A Says "I read this really cool book called Ghosts of Onyx about X, Y, Z,..." Then if the other person hasn't read it, they may respond by saying, "Ghosts of Onyx huh? Sounds cool."
I believe we are looking at 343 giving this second responce after being faced with the information.

Alternately, the piece highlighted could mean that 343 considers himself part of the forerunner group and finds it amusing to see how one of their projects has turned out.
yakaman
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Re: Humans aren't forerunner?

Unread post by yakaman »

I'm with thereIwasn't on this. I must admit though, my very first impressions after playing Halo:CE was that humanity was Forerunner. It just falls apart after a while. I believe Bungie made all of those comments the way that did specifically for the ambiguity.

In my opinion, 343GS is talking to us exactly like he would talk to a client species with which he was one associated, and supposed to have been working with for the last 100,000 years, but is just meeting again.

"Look, I knew your kind millenia ago and then called themselves Panchu (or whatever). You were supposed to show up for Reclaimation like, 80,000 years ago. Humanity? You think your name is humanity? Interesting. Where the hell have you been? What the hell have you been doing? Ah, here's a record of all our lost time...."

Now I understand this is very subjective. But this is where I've ended up after thinking about it over and over. And the primary purpose of IRIS seems to be to clear all this up. In an argument (humanity as Forerunner VS. humanity as client species) that has been balanced almost perfectly over the last few years, IRIS has tipped the scales inexorably towards humanity as client species.
kudo43
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Re: Humans aren't forerunner?

Unread post by kudo43 »

Has it ever been considered that perhaps the Forerunners (btw did they call themselves the forerunners?) was similar to the covenant in that it was a multi species alliance? What if species we don't know of now were very advanced and slowly began to colonize new worlds. What if they stumbled upon a few primitive species such as humans, elites, prophets... (maybe even the flood in an early form???). What if they figured that all galactic life should have a say in existence, should have a chance to live. What if they invited all our species (or chosen memebers) INTO their advanced society, to learn. Maybe they were very peace loving creatures...? They sounded like they had tried MANY ways to combat the flood before the rings and were VERY hesitant to use the rings...

OT: Plus any species as advanced as them would first try to diplomatically reason with a warlike species. Violence would only come after diplomacy failed, but what if by then it was too late. All it would take would be one overrun world for the flood to spread like wildfire. Think about it, if you infest pilots with navigation charts and send infection forms everywhere, it would be almost impossible to stop. What if they realized that the eventual outcome of this war with the flood was the destruction of all species, built the rings, shielded the weak and then activated the rings. /OT

food for thought? Or do I need some?
thereIwasn't
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Re: Humans aren't forerunner?

Unread post by thereIwasn't »

kudo43 wrote:Has it ever been considered that perhaps the Forerunners (btw did they call themselves the forerunners?) was similar to the covenant in that it was a multi species alliance? What if species we don't know of now were very advanced and slowly began to colonize new worlds. What if they stumbled upon a few primitive species such as humans, elites, prophets... (maybe even the flood in an early form???). What if they figured that all galactic life should have a say in existence, should have a chance to live. What if they invited all our species (or chosen memebers) INTO their advanced society, to learn. Maybe they were very peace loving creatures...? They sounded like they had tried MANY ways to combat the flood before the rings and were VERY hesitant to use the rings...

OT: Plus any species as advanced as them would first try to diplomatically reason with a warlike species. Violence would only come after diplomacy failed, but what if by then it was too late. All it would take would be one overrun world for the flood to spread like wildfire. Think about it, if you infest pilots with navigation charts and send infection forms everywhere, it would be almost impossible to stop. What if they realized that the eventual outcome of this war with the flood was the destruction of all species, built the rings, shielded the weak and then activated the rings. /OT

food for thought? Or do I need some?
Lots of interesting what ifs and mabyes, but if they found everyone important, then why were we more so. Why put the Ark HERE, as opposed to the elite homeworld. Why then are WE the reclaimers?
If it was a collection, then it must have been like the Covenant, a stack of unequals.
kudo43
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Re: Humans aren't forerunner?

Unread post by kudo43 »

Who's to say they didnt put something different on the elite's homeworld? Prophets/elites had to learn of em somehow right? But then... I dunno, why give us the important one right? Good point...

The arbiter was called something also by GS, anyone remember what that was? (or was that the whole contender thing?)
Baratos
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Re: Humans aren't forerunner?

Unread post by Baratos »

kudo43 wrote: The arbiter was called something also by GS, anyone remember what that was? (or was that the whole contender thing?)
"Oracle? Great Journey? Why do you meddlers insist on using such inaccurate verbiage?"
Lurono
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Re: Humans aren't forerunner?

Unread post by Lurono »

Baratos wrote:
supremely wrote:you know i was just playing the end of Halo CE and i thought it was kinda interesting in The Maw when 343 says: ;This is so fascinating! A record of of all our lost time! Human history you call it, interesting.' This is right before he tries to fry MC and cortana to bacon bits and put them on a salad. anyway its kinda weird that he says human history you call it. like... we named it something funny. like we should have named it something else... note: im not saying he meant to call it forerunner history but im just thinking .. . i dunno it sounded funny to me. esp after reading this thread.
I interpreted it as surprise that humanity didnt adopt the Forerunner term for their species. For example, in GOO we learned that Engineers were called Huragok by the Forerunners. I imagine that Guilty Spark would have been shocked if he were reading Engineer history, and noted they never mentioned what the Forerunners called them. I think Guilty Spark, after reading the history notes, realized that humanity was totally ignorant of the Forerunners.

I feel that this also explains why GS was so nice to the Heretics in Halo 2--he realized that everybody was ignorant of the truth about the Forerunners, and that he needed to educate everyone from scratch. I imagine he took the Heretics aside and walked them through exactly who they were, what Halo really did, and how it would be a really bad idea to touch the Flood samples. Sadly, they appeared to ignore that last bit of advice.

One last bit of proof for my idea: Guilty Spark mentioned that "[the Heretic Leaders] edification was most enjoyable." Edification means enlightenment. So GS did indeed try to explain himself this time around.
Finally! Someone else says the thing I've been thinking (just never remembered to type it, lol)! Did you ever notice that 343GS is much more... Tolerant in H2? He goes from being a "bad guy" in H1, to being a pseudo-assistant of Humanity/the Covenant against the Flood. He also seems blissfully unaware to an extent of what EXACTLY is going on... He may have his quirks, but he is still following his most basic programming --- Stop the Flood by using the Halos.
uncle_trubble
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Re: Humans aren't forerunner?

Unread post by uncle_trubble »

I think its likely that the forerunners either created or, more likely, aided humanity and gave them the capability to fire the halos after either fleeing or allowing themselves to be killed. They probably programmed the AIs to regeister humans as "reclaimers" or infused their own DNA into humans to achieve the same end. And I think 343GS says something about using another human as a reclaimer (who died) just before locating MC. Obviously that would've been a marine, so it can't just apply to SPARTANs.
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