Precursor Civil War Theory

[drunknmasta323]

One of the themes common in Halo is internal strife which exacerbates a situation with an external threat. Essentially, most of the civilizations in the Halo Universe have died off or overcame fighting a war on two fronts.

 

Human-Forerunner War - Humans were fighting the flood, then colonized away from the flood which got them in hot water with the uppity forerunners. their fight with the flood was not widely known and more of an internal human civilization thing. during this war they also teamed up with the prophets who signed a side treaty with the forerunners. these two "internal" battles and betrayals led to them being overwhelmed by their external foe, the forerunners.

 

Forerunner Flood War - Forerunners split politically over halo arrays and some of the decisions being made, such as destroying sentient species' worlds (one of the prophets worlds was destroyed by MB using halo array). this internal strife aided their demise by the flood/halo array firing.

 

Human-Covenant War - Humans found the covenant presence due to putting down a human rebellion in the outer colonies. The civil war that was beginning also enabled the covenant to penetrate said colonies without much UNSC interference. internal conflict once again enabled an external foe to gain an upperhand. Also, on the covenant side, the elites v brutes as an internal strife while the covenant under the stewardship of the prophets was still on their great journey. with humans as the external conflict.

 

So this leads to Precursors. they were ran out of the known halo universe by forerunners, who were their creation. It's difficult to imagine that happening without some internal distraction giving the forerunners the opportunity to either catch them offguard or attack while they were down. This internal strife could be directly related to the creation of the flood by the precursors, although its unclear whether the precursors were flood or just created the flood. I believe precursors created the flood and in creating them, were able to evolve graveminds without the flood needing to consume a great deal of sentient life. The reason being that if the flood had ravaged the precursors, like the end of the human-forerunner war, the forerunners would have found out about the flood and then fought them. instead, at the end of the precursor-forerunner war, precursors left and forerunners knew nothing of the flood for quite some time. so the flood was still in the "lab" or on a shield world where they couldn't escape. So if the flood running rampant isn't the internal distraction then it would have to be some political or physical conflict within the precursor society.

 

possibly a dispute over which creation is worthy of the mantle? look at it from the standpoint of each political internal conflict we have seen in the haloverse so far. one group believes the forerunners, who are adept at incorporating precursor technology into their own and advancing at a rapid pace should carry the mantle. the larger or more influential group believes in the humans, who are more compassionate and physically less intimidating should carry the mantle. The human lovers win out, but the forerunner group decides to tell said forerunners that their creators do not deem them worthy of the mantle, thus creating an external foe for their precursor counterparts. then survivors of that group leave the universe feeling the mantle is in good hands with their favorite creation, the forerunners. meanwhile, the human group has set into motion the "test" which will exalt humans to the carriers of the mantle. they hide a gravemind in the area where human civilization will expand that is farthest away from forerunner territory so that humans will be tested by the flood. this gravemind is given access to precursor records or at some point, assimilates its handlers into its conscious. then it waits for humans to find it and begins to unleash the flood, knowing that its purpose is to test humanity. just an idea.

[Fail Master]

good theory. i'd like to see if this plays out in the upcomming halo games.

[SternuS]

It's generally and theoretically correct, but there are things that need to be explained.

The internal strife between the Forerunners wasn't created by wether or not destroy sentient life, but to use Halo ONLY as a last-stand weapon, when the point of no return would have been passed. Builders and Miners voted to use it against the Humans, and the Biologists with the support of the Servant-Warriors (guided by the UR Didact) voted to use it only once, and for ALL (literally). This internal strife eventually seen the victorious Biologists transform Halo into a Shield world, preserving the life catalogized inside of it.

 

UNSC tried to fight the Covenants and protect the Outern Colonies, with the sacrifice of many brave men. The Battle for Harvest, where the entire fleet of Vice-Admiral Preston. J. Cole was wiped out by a small Covenant fleet.

They lost because of Covenant technological superiority, but they had never abandoned their colonies.

 

The last part is a good theory, but it is nothing more than that: theory.

As i and Victory Element agreed after long discussions, Greg Bear and Bungie/343i offered us yet too little knowledge to fully understand what happened between the Precursors and Forerunners.

[SykoWolf]

See technically precursors still exist in that universe. So your right, it is possible.

I would like to see how the game plays out and how the story will evolve.

[drunknmasta323]

It's generally and theoretically correct, but there are things that need to be explained.

The internal strife between the Forerunners wasn't created by wether or not destroy sentient life, but to use Halo ONLY as a last-stand weapon, when the point of no return would have been passed. Builders and Miners voted to use it against the Humans, and the Biologists with the support of the Servant-Warriors (guided by the UR Didact) voted to use it only once, and for ALL (literally). This internal strife eventually seen the victorious Biologists transform Halo into a Shield world, preserving the life catalogized inside of it.

 

UNSC tried to fight the Covenants and protect the Outern Colonies, with the sacrifice of many brave men. The Battle for Harvest, where the entire fleet of Vice-Admiral Preston. J. Cole was wiped out by a small Covenant fleet.

They lost because of Covenant technological superiority, but they had never abandoned their colonies.

 

The last part is a good theory, but it is nothing more than that: theory.

As i and Victory Element agreed after long discussions, Greg Bear and Bungie/343i offered us yet too little knowledge to fully understand what happened between the Precursors and Forerunners.

 

correct me if i'm wrong, but didn't Master Builder use it on one of the Prophets' worlds? I thought i read somewhere that some of the prophets were trying to go back on their underhanded treaty that left the humans without their allies and ensured the forerunner victory in the human-forerunner war. then MB 'tested' a halo array on one of their worlds and obliterated it.

 

i think its more semantics when talking about UNSC "protecting" outer colonies. the outer colonies and Harvest in particular were a first line of defense. attempting to stop the covenant encroachment on human controlled space was a natural military move. it wasn't about saving the rebels as much as saving a world (Harvest) with resources needed and stopping the covenant from digging further into human space. and once again, i vaguely remember reading that by the time of the attack on Harvest, UNSC knew the covenant was looking for earth. not positive though. so to me, that wasn't about saving the outer colonies as much as using the outer colonies as the front lines to protect the inner colonies. Also, make no mistake. Spartan IIs were basically assassin squads who would destroy high value rebel targets and kill any rebels in their way. the covenant sidetracked the Spartans' original mission. if they hadn't shown up, Spartan's would have been looked upon by the outer colonies as terminators.

 

and I agree about it being a theory. I wrote it simply because if it proves to be right, I don't wanna be one that comes on the forums saying that I thought that was what happened with no proof of my thoughts. also thought it would be good conversation.

[SternuS]

correct me if i'm wrong, but didn't Master Builder use it on one of the Prophets' worlds? I thought i read somewhere that some of the prophets were trying to go back on their underhanded treaty that left the humans without their allies and ensured the forerunner victory in the human-forerunner war. then MB 'tested' a halo array on one of their worlds and obliterated it.

 

i think its more semantics when talking about UNSC "protecting" outer colonies. the outer colonies and Harvest in particular were a first line of defense. attempting to stop the covenant encroachment on human controlled space was a natural military move. it wasn't about saving the rebels as much as saving a world (Harvest) with resources needed and stopping the covenant from digging further into human space. and once again, i vaguely remember reading that by the time of the attack on Harvest, UNSC knew the covenant was looking for earth. not positive though. so to me, that wasn't about saving the outer colonies as much as using the outer colonies as the front lines to protect the inner colonies. Also, make no mistake. Spartan IIs were basically assassin squads who would destroy high value rebel targets and kill any rebels in their way. the covenant sidetracked the Spartans' original mission. if they hadn't shown up, Spartan's would have been looked upon by the outer colonies as terminators.

 

and I agree about it being a theory. I wrote it simply because if it proves to be right, I don't wanna be one that comes on the forums saying that I thought that was what happened with no proof of my thoughts. also thought it would be good conversation.

Yes, you remember right, the Prophets' world has been obliterated. And this is one of the main reasons the Forerunner imprisoned the Master Builder, for using an Halo without consense of the whole Council.

 

Obvioulsy there were many reasons that made the UNSC trying to protect the Outer colonies, and using them as a defense line against the Covenant is clearly one of the main reasons. But i believe they tried somehow to defend their colonists, maybe for using them as a military resource. Or maybe they didn't want to be remembered as "those who didn't care about their citizens and soldiers, worrying only about their lifes", and stuff like that.

 

Maybe i was a little bit rude, i apologize, but i was only trying to make it clear that we don't have enough knowledge to understand what bruoght the Forerunners to rebel against their creators. It is always a good conversation

[SykoWolf]

Sn my own opinion, it was jealousy that caused the Forerunners to attack their creators. Simply because Humans were meant to take up the mantle.

Thats my opinion though.

[SternuS]

Sn my own opinion, it was jealousy that caused the Forerunners to attack their creators. Simply because Humans were meant to take up the mantle.

Thats my opinion though.

 

Actually, at the beginning they were both capable of taking the Mantle. But then, for a reason we don't know, 'cause it isn't written in any book, the Forerunners rebelled, showing themselfs inappropriate to keep it. (maybe they were tested and failed) So, the apparently only race to be capable of keeping it were the Ancient Humans.

[Victory Element]

The last part is a good theory, but it is nothing more than that: theory.

As i and Victory Element agreed after long discussions, Greg Bear and Bungie/343i offered us yet too little knowledge to fully understand what happened between the Precursors and Forerunners.

 

i guess we find ourselves in more deep discussion SternuS

 

@Drunknmasta323

 

if you read throught this thread, me and SternuS have discussed a lot of information about precursors, forerunners, and the flood

 

http://www.343industries.org/forum/topic/11910-are-precursors-humans/