Where do the sentinels come from?!?!

[Sir Topham Hat]

Judging by the comic I've decided that I think that the Forerunners and Humans are in fact different races, but that the Forerunners knew that they were going to be wiped out. Don't ask me how, because I don't know why they didn't go behind the shield or anything, but they preserved humanity so that we could reclaim the technology they left behind.

[Norn]

Can't humans just be humans? They don't have to be descendants of The Forerunner, they don't have to be descendants of The Covenant...they can just be what they are.

Don't you mean we? We are humans, and when talking about Halo, a lot of people ten to refer to humans as they, instead of we. Of course, you could be talking, as in "the humans in the Halo universe." That would make sense.

[3of9]

If you really wanted to get into Bungie lore, the Forerunner are called the Jjarro in the last universe.

[sharpsniper99]

but if they presevred humans and sentinels etc why couldnt they have a few forerunners in the ark???

i dont like the way halo 3 is heading when playing the original halo the forerunners are described as ANCIENT i thaught they fired the halos well before 100,000 years ago and humans evolved as normal many years later, seeing forerunners as being around when humans where kind of makes them less mystic

[Sir Topham Hat]

You must have misinterpreted, when asked Guilty Spark says that he's been around for 101 thousand or so years, that means that the Halos were around for a thousand years before they were fired. It's still ancient history, certainly before modern recorded history.

[endejas]

Could I see the source on that Topham?

Not that I'm doubting you, just that sounds like it could be interesting.

[brizza28]

my theory about the forerunners is kind of influenced by the xel'naga from starcraft lore.. perhaps the forerunners were experimenting with genetics, trying to create the perfect race, and they constructed the flood, with the same intent the xel'naga created the zerg. after they realised their mistakes, they constructed the halos, left their genetic legacy with the ark in the form of the earliest humans, and left to combat the flood, failing, activated the halos and left the fate of the universe in the hands of their prized creation, humanity.

[robotchickengod]

I used to have a theory, about humans being descended from forerunners, but the comic has changed that. I have changed my theory to fit the known evidence, but keeping with the same base idea for one reason. That is that Guilty Spark kept calling the Master Cheif a Reclaimer. We know that this is not just because of his armor, because MC encountered the body of a dead marine in the Library, (in the book The Flood) who GS had taken from the same point he took MC from. GS also said something along the lines of "This reclaimer's armor was even less suitable for this task then yours." Sorry for boring with you with the talk about why I kept the same base idea, so here is my theory.

Humans were a group of forerunners that were either A. Outcast, or B. Left because they didn't like how things were going. I am opting for option A, because they could have been sent to Earth which was probably a rarely visited place. This would have been a few hundred to a few thousand years befor the events of the comic. The suffered a technological collapse, where almost all technology and knowledge was lost, such as after the collapse of the Roman Empire, but a lot more would have been lost. Eventually, when the Flood were created or evolved, and the Halos built, the forerunner saw that the descendants of those outcasts as the possible only way for their race to have survived. They then sent the sentinels to build the Ark on Earth, near the outcasts settlements, to provide a haven from the Flood and the firing of the Halos. Ajutant Reflex fits into this, as he is probably a AI record keeper and guardian of the Ark, created to document the advancemant of the Humans, and possibly to eventually give them knowledge enough to prevent them from making the same mistakes as the forerunners.

The use of "reclaimer" could be one of two things though. The definition of reclaim is "to claim or demand the restoration of."
Being that the only humans on the halo were soldiers, and knowing that GS had sufficient intelligence to notice this fact, it could be that is his word for soldiers, reclaimers, or restorers of peace or restorers of a habitable environment.

Another thought that has crossed my mind, and leads off of the comic, what if the humans were genetic 'downgrades' of the forerunners? We discussed something like this in my philosophy class two years ago, concerning the morality behind creating dumber, stronger, more versatile, resilient, and aggressive forms of humans to be used as a soldier race. What if humans were the soldier race of the Forerunner? It wouldn't be outside their abilities to do, seeing what they are capable of. Just change certain pieces of their DNA and put the beings on a planet to flourish. Take them when they need to and give them all the knowledge, training, and equipment to do their job. For a race that can build entire planets, that seems like a small task to accomplish. In fact, all the races of the 'current' halo universe could have been different genetic experiments by the Forerunners to see how life responded to different environments, to be used in different planes of combat.

Sorry it took so long, I didn't mean to think that much about it.

[Boston_Will]

The use of "reclaimer" could be one of two things though. The definition of reclaim is "to claim or demand the restoration of."
Being that the only humans on the halo were soldiers, and knowing that GS had sufficient intelligence to notice this fact, it could be that is his word for soldiers, reclaimers, or restorers of peace or restorers of a habitable environment.

Another thought that has crossed my mind, and leads off of the comic, what if the humans were genetic 'downgrades' of the forerunners? We discussed something like this in my philosophy class two years ago, concerning the morality behind creating dumber, stronger, more versatile, resilient, and aggressive forms of humans to be used as a soldier race. What if humans were the soldier race of the Forerunner? It wouldn't be outside their abilities to do, seeing what they are capable of. Just change certain pieces of their DNA and put the beings on a planet to flourish. Take them when they need to and give them all the knowledge, training, and equipment to do their job. For a race that can build entire planets, that seems like a small task to accomplish. In fact, all the races of the 'current' halo universe could have been different genetic experiments by the Forerunners to see how life responded to different environments, to be used in different planes of combat.

Sorry it took so long, I didn't mean to think that much about it.

Spoilers for those who havnt read GoO

In GoO when Ash talks to the Onyx Sentinel it reclassifys Ash as an aboriginal subspecies of Reclaimers. This seemed odd as in The Flood Guilty Spark classed any human soldier as a Reclaimer. Maybe some humans have forerunner or reclaimer genes and thus classified as Reclaimers, and those that don't are classed as a sub species.

This reclassification by the Sentinel on Onyx also led me to believe that humans maybe a lower subspecies of forerunner.

[atenz]

this is all VERY confusing. the comic says that the humans do not know where the sentinels came from, yet in the audio recording the voice sounds strangely human, of course it could be as simple as one human tribe was more advanced then the other or something to that liking. we cant be sure. bt heres another question, if halo wipes out all sentient life in the galaxy when it fires, why did the humans on earth survive? maybe the earth is a shield world? who knows. we will be enlightened soon!