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What's the point?

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 2:19 am
by thereIwasn't
The forerunners build the halos to wipe everything out.
Thats fine.
But then they also build the shiled world(s?) and The Ark.
Each is visited by humans eventually, and what do we learn? I paraphrase:
[spoiler]343 Guilty Spark: Sorry Reclaimer, but the only forerunner around here is you.[/spoiler]

So they build these things, left them apparently unused, and kill themselves anyways.
So I repeat, what's the point of even building them?

Re: What's the point?

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 2:23 pm
by smallfry
From what I remember, by the time they were ready to use them things were moving too quickly and they couldn't get there in time. Best laid plans . . .

Re: What's the point?

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 9:33 pm
by Maimbot 9000
It's hard to say exactly what got used or not used, but the fact that life on Earth and various Covenant homeworlds survived, suggests the Forerunners had enough time to enact their plan. One of the terminals says this about the Librarian sending life/records of life to the Ark:
We have no time to spare, Didact. Every vessel we can fill, we send to the Ark. I dare not cease the mission. Not now, not until I've done all I can. Each one of these souls is finite and precious.
And another terminal says this of the shield worlds:
If we start immediately--commence total biosphere elimination of life sustaining worlds (as indicated in the accompanying charts) and relocate evacuated populations to facilities such as those described in the [Onyx project]--all this could be achieved in [57,1590 (+/-2,184) hours].
Of course, that same terminal is where Mendicant Bias announces he's sided with the Flood, so perhaps there was no time to make actual use of the shield worlds. Still, it sounds like these were intended to be temporary storage for indigenous populations of planets that the Flood were about to reach--hideyholes for when the Flood show up, so the population of that planet wouldn't be food for its growing army. It doesn't seem to me like the Forerunners themselves planned to hide there, or even on the Ark; they instead went on their own "Great Journey." From the Bestarium we know the Forerunners believe the Precursors became beings of pure energy/mind/whatever. Possibly the Forerunners figured out how to achieve this as well. If they still needed bodies, though...
Report [G617a~k/g/post_landfall] seemed most promising: a planet capable of supporting life located within the near border region of the [galactic halo] with no indigenous sentient species.

Re: What's the point?

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 5:01 pm
by uncle_trubble
Halopedia's down at the moment, so I don't have exact transcript of the last Terminal, but it says roughly that every sentient species has been indexed at the Ark, that it has been a worthwhile ad successful endeavor, etc.

Re: What's the point?

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 4:01 pm
by thebruce

Re: What's the point?

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 4:15 pm
by uncle_trubble
thanks
Also, Halopedia's up again at http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Terminals

Re: What's the point?

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 1:22 am
by thereIwasn't
uncle_trubble wrote:Halopedia's down at the moment, so I don't have exact transcript of the last Terminal, but it says roughly that every sentient species has been indexed at the Ark, that it has been a worthwhile ad successful endeavor, etc.
But if they put all the sentient species there, why not put themselves too? Don't you dare say "not enough room," the Ark is massive (big enough to build Halo rings at least).

Re: What's the point?

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 5:08 pm
by thebruce
perhaps they did. Perhaps they felt this was their fitting 'end', their atonement would be to fade away, and let a new galaxy populate in their wake. Most likely, they left the galaxy, and left their systems intact in order to repopulate the galaxy post-firing. Thus the theory that MC and Cortana are floating to a Forerunner civilization at the end. (oops. spoiler? meh. It's everywhere already)

Re: What's the point?

Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 10:43 pm
by uncle_trubble
I think the LP has something to do with Mendicant Bias. I was looking over the Terminals again (see it all at http://carnage.bungie.org/haloforum/hal ... ead=850197), and looking t what MB said on Legendary. I think he may guiding the MC somehow, leading him to the answer. Seriously, at least read the last couple paragraphs at the link bove.

Re: What's the point?

Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 2:28 pm
by thereIwasn't
I'd say its a general consensus that
[spoiler]whatever's on that planet at the end legendary[/spoiler] is forerunner, and sine I see no evidence of a tractor beam or anything similar, I'm a bit lost on how MB is 'leading' us to the answers. Last time I checked, half a spaceship falling into a planet's gravity well wasn't indicitve of it being lead anywhere other than down. Still, if we do get to see what's down there, I'm sure it will be interesting.

And I was just hit by something, although I've yet to play Marathon, I noticed on their website on the plot explination that between the first and second games (I think) you're put in cryo status by an AI and wake up later when you land on the planet in the second game. (Again, I'm not sure if that's correct, please someone who's played Marathon correct me if I'm wrong)

While we know that bungie enjoys drawing paralells to its previous games, could they have gone that far as to redo that in Halo 3's end as well?