Mendicant Bias: Forerunner in Form, Human in Essence?

[Media Bias]

The Admin at the Halo Archive, Mendicant Bias, wrote a post on...Mendicant Bias. Im sorry if some of the format isn't great, it was hard to bring over to this site. Original Post Link at end. Enjoy!

 

Mendicant Bias has long been a character that operates amidst the shadows. He is both champion and devil, revered and denigrated. In the Forerunner Saga, we learn that he was created by the Ur-Didact and Master Builder in 100,043 BCE to aid the Forerunners in their fight against the Flood. However, following his interrogation of the Primordial on Installation 07, Mendicant went rampant and turned against his creators. Without the Metarch to coordinate their defense systems, the Forerunners were quickly overrun by the Flood and eventually used our favorite set of rings, the Halo Array.

 

 

Ominous Frankie

 

The purpose of this article is to address an issue that has confounded the minds of even the most elite within the lore community for years:

What is Mendicant Bias?

Now, we know that he is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) who was created by the Forerunners. Yet, a previous lore account seems to contradict that with a recent statement by Frankie doing so as well. Hermetic teachings state “All Truths Are But Half Truths All Paradoxes May Be Reconciled” – I believe that is the case here. Mendicant Bias is and is not a Forerunner creation.

 

Mendicant Bias’ Terminal icons

Mendicant Bias (Rampant)

 

The third terminal within Halo 3 was our first formal introduction to Mendicant Bias. He appeared in the ARG IRIS prior to the game’s release, but was not identified. The character was thoroughly fleshed out in the Forerunner Saga.

 

D: We have the answer. We’ve built Mendicant Bias. It’s a contender-class [AI] unlike anything we’ve ever achieved.

And we’ve observed a pattern it can exploit.

The parasite has formed a Compound Mind. When it reaches a certain mass, the Mind is able to recoil its disparate parts to create a [tactical shield]. This is a simple matter of mass preservation. The thing has no compunction about sacrificing parts of the whole. But when the core of the Mind is threatened, it reacts violently and quickly.

This is the only time we see it retract or slow its growth.

If we are to defeat it, the trick will be coordinating our forays against the [sprawling infection] with Mendicant Bias assaults the Mind’s core. So far, we’ve been hesitant to use certain weapons because of the damage they cause surviving populations and environments.

That protocol has been abandoned.

Mendicant Bias will draw the Mind into battle outside the line, dealing with local biomass and other parts as best he can. The scale of the problem is vast, but the strategy is sound. It will require patience, materiel and an investment of energy unlike anything we have ever considered.

It’s a dangerous plan that carries more risk than the Array, but I believe it can work. Even if we simply force it to retreat–to retract–that will at least give us some respite. Some time to muster more resources…"

 

Originally, I never thought too much of Mendicant’s status as a unique AI. He was constructed to fight of a terrifying and new threat the Forerunners never dreamed existed – novel situations often require novel solutions. However, something felt off. I returned to the Forerunner Saga for an answer and found it.  It felt odd because Mendicant Bias fought the Flood without demonstrating any abilities even the most basic Forerunner Combat AI should be capable of.

 

I queried my ancilla about the truth of their origins.

She responded that to the best of Forerunner research, humans had indeed first
arisen on Erde-Tyrene, but over fifty thousand years ago had moved their
interstellar civilization outward along the galactic arm, perhaps to flee early
Forerunner control.

 

Ghibalb had once been a paradise. Emerging into the galactic realm, these early
Forerunners had been content to live and develop in a glorious cradle of just twelve
stars, but their first experiments in stellar engineering had gone awry, causing an
infectious series of novas that brightened the entire Orion complex for fifty
thousand years—and nearly destroyed our species.

 

Forerunners have cultivated their technological prowess to the point where they can tamper with stars, create artificial planets, travel through other dimensions, and essentially halt their aging process through advanced armors systems. Furthermore, they wiped out the Precursors in the Milky Way, stole the Mantle of Responsibility, and effectively repurposed it, going about oppressing, enslaving, and exterminating other races at their own discretion. All these monumental accomplishments, yet they never developed highly capable combat AIs of their own? Moreover, no such AI was present or even thought of being created during the Human-Forerunner war, which was so devastating that it could have potentially destroyed the Ecumene had Humanity not been fighting on two fronts .

 

Why?

 

What was it that allowed the Forerunners to create such an AI after the Human-Forerunner War but not in the eons prior?

 

The Composer

 

The Composer. Ask it about the Composer!

– Forthencho (Halo: Primordium)

 

Ah, yes. The Composer.

 

Halo: Primordium introduced the Composer as a device designed specifically for use on Humans following their defeat in order to study their genetics for a cure/method against the Flood. Halo 4 revealed that Builders created the Composer as a means to bridge the Organic and Digital realms, thus allowing the Forerunners to transcend biological form. Theoretically, the Composer would have granted the Forerunners immortality, possibly even the ability to write themselves into the Domain itself.  However, the device had its faults.  Biological corruption and degrading caused the Forerunners to stop with their attempts and re-purpose the device.

 

 

 

Even though we had stripped off our uniforms, doing our best to
erase all evidence of our identities and ranks, the Didact found me,
the Lord of Admirals, who had opposed him longer and more
successfully than any other. He bent beside me, hands clasped as if
he were a supplicant before a shrine. And this is what he said to me:
“My finest opponent, the Mantle accepts all who live
fiercely, who defend their young, who build and struggle and
grow, and even those who dominate—as humans have
dominated, cruelly and without wisdom.

 

“But to all of us there is a time like this, when the Domain
seeks to confirm our essences, and for you, that time is now.
Know this, relentless enemy, killer of our children, Lord of
Admirals: soon we will face the enemy you have faced and
defeated. I can see that challenge coming to the Forerunners,
and so do many others. . . . And we are afraid.

“That is why you, and many thousands of your people who
may contain knowledge of how humans defended themselves
against the Flood, will not pass cleanly and forever, as I would
wish for a fellow warrior, but will be extracted and steeped
down into the genetic code of many new humans.

“This is not my wish nor my will. It arises from the skill and
the will of my life-mate, my wife, the Librarian, who sees much
farther than I do down the twining streams of Living Time.
“So this additional indignity will be inflicted upon you. It
means, I believe, that humans will not end here, but may rise
again—fight again. Humans are always warriors.

“But what and whom they will fight, I do not know. For I
fear the time of the Forerunners is drawing to a close. In this,
the Librarian and I find agreement. Take satisfaction, warrior,
in that possibility.”

It gave me no satisfaction. If I were to rise again, fight again, I
wished only to once more match myself against the Didact! But the
Didact and the Librarian passed on, moving down the endless rows
of our defeated. The Lifeworker machines—through the strange,
ever-changing, multiformed presence of the Composer, a machine?
a being? I never saw it clearly—sent patterns of blue and red light
over our broken bodies, and one by one, we relaxed, breathed no
more. . . . Set free our immortal wills.

– Halo: Primordium

 

What we brought for Lord of Admirals and his last warriors were the Composers. These large, ugly
machines had originally been designed by Builders in a failed attempt to attain immunity against the
Flood. Composers broadcast high-energy fields of entangled sympathies to gather victim mentalitiesessences- and then translated them into machine data. In the original scheme, new bodies were
constructed, and the subjects’ essences were imprinted over them-minus any trace of Flood
patterns.

 

After the Composers had done their work, draining these last survivors, these exhausted and dying
warriors, of their memories and patterns, their remains were reduced to scattered atoms. It was
manifest holocaust. Once the second greatest fighting civilization and species in the galaxy, humans
were stomped down, reduced, effectively eliminated as a threat.

– Halo Silentium

 

 

 

Mendiact Bias’ bio on Halo Waypoint has an orange color for the construct in the rampant state. This is similar to the visual effects associated with the UR-Didact, not to mention the Composer when being used.

 

 

Mendicant Bias’s color has been updated to Orange, similar to the Ur-Didact and Composer.

 

Halo 4 and Silentium show that there are important instances that happen within certain period which elaborated on until later on. A prime example being the Didact’s mutation seen within Halo 4 but not covered in detail during Silentium. Same for his composition of the Humans on 07, the Warrior-Servents being composed, the Librarian inserting special geas within humans, imprinting Requiem,etc. Many important events happen that aren’t explicitly covered. I believe Mendicant Bias’ creation falls into a gap as well.   A recent CANON FODDER addressed the Armigers that are set to appear within Halo 5 and Halo Canon’s VIDEO on the subject can be used as another familiar reference:

 

“During their war with ancient humanity millennia ago, the Didact employed the use of Armigers – bipedal combat platforms that proved incredibly useful for raiding ancient human warships, particularly when attempting to infiltrate the often-more confined spaces of human vessels.”

 

This is significant because it solidifies the Forerunners creating tactics specifically for the opponent at hand. Armigers for the Humans, Mendicant Bias for the Flood.

 

How did this all come to be?

 

Keep the Librarian’s words in mind:

“The Composer would provide the Didact his solution… and his revenge.”

 

 

After Humans were composed on Charum Hakkor, they were rounded up by species subservient to the Forerunners over the course of a millennia (Primordium) . While plenty of those essences were inserted into Humans as part of a research attempt to find a cure for the Flood, the Didact would still have millions of raw essences to work with. Being an imaginative, practical, and highly strategic commander, I believe the Didact sought to find a means to turn the spirits of his most competitive rivals into Forerunner instruments. Didact wasn’t alone in this though. Enter Faber, the Master Builder. Although it soured shortly after the defeat of humanity and creation of Mendicant Bias, Faber and Ur-Didact had a warm working relationship for several eons. Being The Master Builder,  there are some projects Didact would need Faber’s approval for such as Mantle’s Approach which was denied by the council but APPROVED BY FABER on the side (Waypoint pre-update).  Surely, Faber would approve of a plan if not suggest it himself given his horrific experimentation on the humans of 07 and brutal push for degenerating humanity for opposing Forerunner rule.

 

 

“What do you know about Mendicant Bias?” I asked the First Councilor.
“Designed to coordinate control of some of the installations,” he said. “Also given
the power, in emergencies, to coordinate the entire galaxy’s response to attack.”
“Who authorized this?”
“The old Council—with the input of the Master Builder.”

– Halo:Cryptum

Mendicant Bias. A Contender class, the first of its kind. It is as far above most
ancillas as the metarch-level systems rise above our personal components.

– Halo: Cryptum

 

“It might have been strained by contradictory instructions from the Didact, from
the Master Builder.…”
“Not likely,” I said. “Mendicant Bias was fully capable of working with contradictory
commands. I’ve never known a more capable ancilla, more powerful, more subtle
… more loyal.”

– Halo: Cryptum

 

 

Why did Forerunners create such specialized AIs to oversee the installations?

It might seem like a simple or obvious question at first but the most average (“Monitor”) Forerunner AI of combat standards should be able to oversee these Installations, a point rooted in the capabilities of “The Minds” in Banks’ Culture universe.  Furthermore, purely “artificial” ancillas may run into performance constraints, even with the Forerunners vast understanding of technology. This is understandable; a car only lasts so long before the engine dies. Likewise, AIs can only handle so much before being overwhelmed. Creating an AI from the biological material of hundreds, if not thousands of humans, including their military commanders – such as Forthencho, may be the key difference between Mendicant Bias and why he was so special, dependable.  We know Forerunner AIs can be compartmentalized even converted beings such as Chakas/Guilty Spark, Mendicants assured loyalty comes from him being programmed to think it is a Forerunner AI. This is probably why Didact was so pressed to condemn Mendicant for breaking the following rule:

 

“You take commands from other than a Forerunner,” the

Didact’s voice said, “a clear violation of all your instructions.

– Halo: Primordium

 

In addition, this hypothesis makes sense of Forthencho’s comments on from Primordium, which, without it, seem peculiar and out of place.

 

Forthencho’s image wavered, then returned, larger and more
solid-looking. “The machine does not hate Forerunners,” he
continued. “But it knows they have been arrogant and need
correction. And it takes an odd satisfaction in the prospect of
having humans carry out that punishment.

 

He takes perverse satisfaction in Humans destroying Forerunners because Mendicant was a human, thousands of them, but wait.

 

FABER: Certainly not. He was primarily the Didact’s design … you know that, don’t you?

– Halo: Silentium

 

“Mendicant Bias,” I heard myself say. “Beggar after knowledge. That is the name
I gave you when last we met. Do you recognize that name?”

“I recognize that name,” the sketchy green ancilla replied. Then the figure moved
from the back of my thoughts and seemed to pass directly through my forehead—
taking shape as a projected form directly in front of me.

“Do you recognize the one who named you?”

The green image briefly flickered. “You are not that one. No other knows that
name.”

“Shall I guide you to further service?” At this point, I had no idea who was
speaking, or to what purpose.
“I require further input. The Domain is insufficient.”
“Liberate this armor and prepare a path. Do you know where the Master Builder
resides?”
“The Master Builder gave me my final set of orders.”
“But I am the one who knows your chosen name, your true name, and who
commanded your construction.”
“That is so.”
“Then I am your client and master. Release me.”

– Halo: Cryptum

 

“The Didact
oversaw the Contender’s planning and inception, and was present at its key
quickening. But he was removed from any contact with Mendicant Bias a thousand
years ago. What’s happened since?”
“Mendicant Bias was charged by the Master Builder with conducting the first tests
of a Halo installation,” the councilor said.
“Charum Hakkor,” I said.

-Halo:Cryptum

 

 

The Human Forerunner war lasted roughly years with humans spending 50 probing Forerunner settlements (Cryptum) and another 50 in direct engagement, with the battle of Charum Hakkor taking up the last 3 years of battle. The following millennia was spent gathering human forces from across the galaxy as noted in Primordium and Halo 4.   There is an 8,000 year period between the humans being defeated in 106,445 BCE and the Didact going into his Cryptum in 98,445 BCE.  In that time Didact would have been able to create Mendicant and spend a significant amount of time with him, as both novels and terminals show but was hard for us to comprehend until now.   This was also the period other Contender class AIs were created,the hundreds of Shield Worlds, Didact’s stalling of the Halo Array’s, and his falling out with Faber.

To further test our hypothesis that Mendicant has a Human element, let’s examine some of his dialogue within this new context.

 

 

Now the green point brightened, crossed the center of the amphitheater, and
hovered before the Master Builder, who looked puzzled. Almost immediately, his
eyes grew large in alarm and he raised his hands as if in defense, before he
brought his body and expression back under control. Yet his eyes continued to
follow the moving point. I wondered what could possibly cause the Master Builder
such concern.

Our ******* child, his and mine.

– Halo:Cryptum

 

Mendicant Bias,” I heard myself say. “Beggar after knowledge. That is the name
I gave you when last we met. Do you recognize that name?”
“I recognize that name,” the sketchy green ancilla replied. Then the figure moved
from the back of my thoughts and seemed to pass directly through my forehead—
taking shape as a projected form directly in front of me.
“Do you recognize the one who named you?”
The green image briefly flickered. “You are not that one. No other knows that
name.”
“Shall I guide you to further service?” At this point, I had no idea who was
speaking, or to what purpose.
“I require further input. The Domain is insufficient.”
“Liberate this armor and prepare a path. Do you know where the Master Builder
resides?”
“The Master Builder gave me my final set of orders.”
“But I am the one who knows your chosen name, your true name, and who
commanded your construction.”
“That is so.”
“Then I am your client and master. Release me.”

– Halo: Cryptum

 

The Lord of Admirals seemed to hold the highest rank in this
unnatural assembly. His ghost stepped forward and addressed me
as if we were both physical.
“It’s our final chance to reclaim history,” he said…

” Not even a machine as powerful as the wheel’s master can do
its work alone. You are alive. You can serve.”
“Humans? The last dregs of us that remain after so many
Forerunner victories? We became animals. We were devolved—
and only the Librarian thought enough of us to raise us back up
again!”
“It doesn’t care!” the Lord of Admirals said. “The machine will
do everything it can to destroy Forerunners. It knows that I have
fought Forerunners before.”
“And lost.”
“But also learned! I have spent my time within you going over
and over old battles, studying all our past failures, and now, I have
full access to their new strategies! This wheel is but one of the
weapons at our disposal—if we join”

Out there, awaiting our commands, in many orbits around thousands of other worlds, in other star systems, are reserves of tens of thousands of ships of war—and more Halos. We will be irresistible!

<He will play this game for as long as it amuses,” the Lord of
Admirals said, “and for as long as he has a chance of causing
Forerunners dismay and pain. He also wishes to attack the Didact
personally. This has been conveyed to me by my old opponent,
Yprin.”

– Halo: Primordium

 

“But it knows they have been arrogant and need
correction. And it takes an odd satisfaction in the prospect of
having humans carry out that punishment.”

– Halo: Primordium

The Master Builder had layered safeguards within safeguards.
The perversity of it all was dizzying. “Madness!” I said.
“But with much precedent in human history,” Forthencho said.
“Many are the reasons we lost battles. Now, the machine
acknowledges only one other who possesses the proper inception
codes, and thus the power to stop it.”
“The Didact,” I said.

– Halo: Primordium

 

“The Didact!
“Beggar after knowledge,” the voice said, swirling all around us.
“Mendicant Bias. That is the name I gave you when last we met.
Do you remember the moment of your inception? The moment I
connected you to the Domain and you were ceded control of all
Forerunner defenses?”
All the images contained and controlled by the Cartographer
darkened and collapsed into a now much-simplified ancilla. “That
name is no longer secret,” it said. “All Forerunners know it.”
“Do you recognize the one who named you?”
The green ancilla burned like acid, yet I could not turn away,
could not cleanse myself of its corrosion.
“You are not that one,” it said. “The Master Builder gave me my
final set of orders.”
“I am that one—and you are not truthful.”
The acid quality of the green ancilla’s voice became so intense it
felt as if my insides were being eaten away.
“You take commands from other than a Forerunner,” the
Didact’s voice said, “a clear violation of all your instructions. I am
the one who knows your chosen name, your true name—”
“That name no longer has power!”
“Even so, I can revoke your inception, call out your key, and
command you to stand down. Do you willingly pass control to me,
your original master?”
“I do not! I have listened to the Domain. I fulfill the wishes of
those who created us all. You do not, and have never done so.”
The green ancilla had receded to an infinitely deep incision, an
arc of pinpoints carved or burned into the blackness. Its tininess
wavered like a flame.
Then came a complex sound that might have been words or
numbers, a transmission of information or commands, I could not
tell which.
The Didact’s voice filled the Cartographer—seemed to fill all
space and time, and I knew he was still alive, once again in control
—perhaps more powerful than ever before. “Poor machine,” the
Didact said. “Poor, poor machine. Your time here is done.”
The ancilla leaped in the darkness as if startled—and vanished,
along with almost everything else.

– Halo: Primordium

 

 

“I RENDER JUDGMENT ON YOU; YOU WHO WOULD OBSTRUCT DESTINY. DOING SO BRINGS ME NO JOY; IT IS NECESSITY THAT COMPELS ME.
UNDERSTAND THIS; THE MANTLE YOU HAVE SHOULDERED I DO RESCIND – WITH FAR MORE CONSIDERATION THAN IT WAS GRANTED.”

“I KILL YOU ALL AND I ENJOY IT. I DESTROY YOU IN YOU INDOLENT BILLIONS–IN YOUR GLUTTONY, IN YOU SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS, IN YOUR ARROGANCE. I POUND YOUR CITIES INTO DUST; TURN BACK THE CLOCK ON YOUR CIVILIZATION’S PROGRESS. WHAT HAS TAKEN YOU MILLENNIA TO ACHIEVE I ERASE IN SECONDS.
WELCOME BACK TO THE [sTONE AGE], VERMIN. WELCOME HOME”

“YOU ARE AN IMPEDIMENT THAT THE UNIVERSE CAN NO LONGER ABIDE. NATURE ITSELF CRIES OUT FOR YOUR DESTRUCTION AND I AM ITS WILLING INSTRUMENT. I WILL HAMMER YOUR CITIES UNTIL NO STONE LIES ATOP ANOTHER. I WILL DRIVE YOUR PEOPLE BACK INTO THE CAVES THEY NEVER SHOULD HAVE LEFT.
YOUR CIVILIZATION HAS SEEN ITS FINAL DAYS. YOUR WILL KNOW YOUR PLACE.”

“YOUR HISTORY IS AN APPALLING CHRONICLE OF OVERINDULGENCE AND SELF-APPOINTED AUTHORITY. YOU HAVE SPENT MILLENNIA [NAVEL-GAZING] WHILE THE UNIVERSE HAS CONTINUED TO EVOLVE. AND NOW YOU CLAIM THE MANTLE IS JUSTIFICATION FOR IMPEDING NATURE’S INEVITABLE REFINEMENT?
YOUR ARE DELUDED. BUT THROUGH DEATH YOU WILL TRANSCEND IGNORANCE.”

 

“YOU ARE BROUGHT HERE TO BE SENTENCED. YOU HAVE NOT BEEN IMMEDIATELY DESTROYED BECAUSE YOU MAY YET BE NEEDED. YOUR INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE OF THE FLOOD MAKES YOU INVALUABLE SHOULD THEY RETURN, BUT WE CAN NEVER TRUST YOU, NEVER AGAIN ALLOW YOU ANY LATITUDE. YOU WILL BE ENTOMBED HERE. YOUR PROCESSES LOCKED, FROZEN INTO A SINGLE THOUGHT FOR ALL ETERNITY: ABSOLUTION. SHOULD YOU BE NEEDED, YOU WILL BE REAWAKENED. SHOULD THERE BE NO NEED, YOU WILL BE BURIED HERE UNTIL THE END OF LIVING TIME.”

“THEN I WILL SERVE AS A MONUMENT TO YOUR SINS. THAT IS WHAT YOU WISH FOR.”

“I AM PENITENT. I KNOW THAT WHAT I HAVE DONE CANNOT BE FORGIVEN. I WILL ACCEPT MY STASIS WITH GRACE AND AWAIT A TIME WHEN I MIGHT REDEEM MYSELF.”

 

 

Suddenly, the Oracle’s circuits blazed. The lens refracted the light, sending forth a blinding beam. Not a lens. Fortitude gasped. An eye! He raised a sleeve before his face as the Oracle tilted toward him in its armature.

< FOR EONS I HAVE WATCHED > The Oracle’s deep voice reverberated inside its casing. Its eye-beam flickered with the cadence of its words as it pronounced in the San’Shyuum tongue. < LISTENED TO YOU MISINTERPRET >

< THIS IS NOT RECLAMATION >

the Oracle boomed.

< THIS IS RECLAIMER >
< AND THOSE IT REPRESENTS ARE MY MAKERS >

Just then, the abbey began to shudder. Many decks below, the Dreadnought’s mighty engines sprang to life, shaking free of the limiters that kept them generating the comparatively meager energy High Charity required. Soon the engines would build to full capacity, and then… “Disconnect the Oracle!” Fortitude shouted, knuckles white upon his chair. “Before the Dreadnought launches and destroys the city!”
The hologram of the alien world disappeared, and once more the Oracle’s eye shone forth.

< I WILL REJECT MY BIAS AND WILL MAKE AMENDS >
< MY MAKERS ARE MY MASTERS > The Oracle’s teardrop casing rattled inside its armature as if it were trying to take flight with its ship.

< I WILL BRING THEM SAFELY TO THE ARK >

– Halo: Contact Harvest

 

 

Mendicant Bias within the Dreadnought

YOU DON’T KNOW THE CONTORTIONS I HAD TO GO THROUGH TO FOLLOW YOU HERE, RECLAIMER. I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE HERE FOR. WHAT POSITION DO I TAKE? WILL I FOLLOW ONE BETRAYAL WITH ANOTHER?
YOU’RE GOING TO SAY I’M MAKING A HABIT OF TURNING ON MY MASTERS.
BUT THE ONE THAT DESTROYED ME LONG AGO, IN THE UPPER ATMOSPHERE OF A WORLD FAR DISTANT FROM HERE, WAS AN IMPLEMENT FAR CRUDER THAN I. MY WEAKNESS WAS CAPACITY – UNINTENTIONAL THOUGH IT WAS! – TO CHOOSE THE FLOOD. A MISTAKE MY MAKERS WOULD NOT SOON FORGIVE.
BUT I WANT SOMETHING FAR DIFFERENT FROM YOU, RECLAIMER.
ATONEMENT.
AND SO HERE AT THE END OF MY LIFE, I DO ONCE AGAIN BETRAY A FORMER MASTER. THE PATH AHEAD IS FRAUGHT WITH PERIL. BUT I WILL DO ALL I CAN TO KEEP IT STABLE – KEEP YOU SAFE. I’M NOT SO FOOLISH TO THINK THIS WILL ABSOLVE ME OF MY SINS. ONE LIFE HARDLY BALANCES BILLIONS.
BUT I WOULD HAVE MY MASTERS KNOW THAT I HAVE CHANGED.
AND YOU SHALL BE MY EXAMPLE.

 

Mendicant Bias had directed hatred towards the Didact as residual emotions from the humans that created it.  Forthencho and other commanders were aware of Didact and Librarian but not Faber, this is why Mendicant doesn’t seem to care so much about him in comparison. This also explains why Mendicant chose to side with the Flood as well, out of pure detestation of the Forerunners which is personified and represented through the Didact.  During the eons Mendicant spent reflecting upon himself (with the Domains knowledge he absorbed in full during Cryptum) the construct probably came to terms with his being. Which is why it was so adamant to help the current incarnation of humans during Contact harvest and chief during the events of Halo 3. Mendicant knows him AI in spirit but physically a Forerunner construct, hence the interchangeable usage of “masters”, as part of Mendicants atonement he serves both the Didact and Humanity, in a sense falling in line with the Librarians plans as well.

Perhaps the other Contender Class AIs are made from essences as well but with a different, more controlled construction method? Possibly.Will Mendicant be in Halo 5? I cannot say. But this AI is the sole reason for the haloverse falling into chaos and will be the same being to bring it back into balance.  This will be covered in another article later on but what is it that Mendicant represents itself? This AI is Human in spirit, Forerunner in construction, and has all the knowledge of the Precursors Domain.  Starcraft has Zerg (spirit) and Protoss (form) being halves of the Xel’naga meant to come together as part of their regeneration process. Naruto has the Uchiha/Hamura (spirit) and Senju/Hagoromo (form) being decedents of Kaguya, the first being to wield chakra .

Yet Mendicant Bias is both halves and the original source due to containing all of the Domain within. Would this not make Mendicant the closest thing to a Precursor alive yet?  I’ll leave you all to ponder upon that until part 2 is released at a later date. Thank you for taking the time to read this extensive article – I’ve had burning in my mind for years. I seriously have to thank Frankie for given me the tip I needed to write this out.  This should show you how little hints dropped by 343i can have the largest implications. All of you are fans of HARISPIUS as is so you are already aware of how little we need to solidify our thoughts. One final passage from the Halo 3 ARG IRIS.

 

 

You asked me once, what happened to those who vanished?
You asked me, why did we survive where our fathers fell?
You wished to know how we ever let it happen
A scourge that consumed the galaxy
And the cure that was worse than the cancer
You asked me once about my intent
And the spot that would not wash out
I promise you the answers lie in the Ark
Find me there in the dark
For that is where I abide

 

ORIGINAL POST