Halo’s Original Human-Forerunner War | Halo Lore 

Hope you all enjoy the video! Let me know if there are other stories you’d like me to tell in the Halo universe and in other games!

Basically the human-forerunner war. Humans: "I should have called." Forerunners: "I overreacted."

Halo lore goes a lot deeper than I thought, it's such a beautiful and complex story

I always loved the stories about ancient lost human civilizations, from Atlantis and ancient Mesopotamia to Homeworld and AC Series.

I love the idea of flash back missions so we can play as ancient humans at various stages during this conflict

For such an advanced and long lived race the forerunners sure are shortsighted

Being playing Halo 4 and wanted to understand the history of the Forerunners. This video is absolutely perfect. Thank you!

This era has always been one of my favorite parts of the Halo universe, with the origins of the Flood and the true nature of the Forerunners, Prophets, and Humanity being so much bigger than the games led us to believe. I firmly believe that the war was inevitable the moment that the Flood got out of control in Ancient Human territory and ran the risk of spilling over to Forerunner territory. The true tragedy of the 1000+ years of conflict between AH and their San Shyuum allies and the Forerunner Ecumene was that even if both sides were fully aware about how the Flood worked and their threat, an alliance of mutual cooperation would be all but impossible. Let me explain what I mean by that: In the Forerunner Trilogy, we learn that millions of years in the past, the Precursors had tested the Forerunners for the Mantle of Responsibility, and that the Forerunners were found wanting. The Precursors then decided to test Humanity next, and had high hopes for their success. Once the Forerunners learned about this, they were livid, organizing a pre-emptive campaign of total extermination upon their creators. While the Primordial stated that the Forerunners did this without provocation and that the Precursors seemingly didn't even fight back, there was some precedent to rumors of the Precursors wiping the slate clean of any species they created and who had failed their tests in the past, which the Forerunners would have most likely used to justify their actions. This genocidal campaign happened just over 10 million years before the Forerunner-Flood War. How does this relate to the Forerunners and Ancient Humans? Well, the Forerunners as a civilization never fell or collapsed across those 10 million years, despite their fair share of internal conflicts over the eras. This means that the Forerunners have harbored a deep-seated ancestral prejudice against Humanity (in whatever form they exist in) for TEN MILLION YEARS. Even if the Forerunners forgot their history and the circumstances as to WHY they hated Humanity, that hatred would never stop. Given how hard it is for somewhat different groups of Humans with just a few millennia of contact to get over their bigotry, you can imagine how difficult any cooperation would be for completely different species with bad blood that has been ingrained into them for that long (made even worse by how the Forerunners imprint the memories of their forebearers onto their young during their mutation processes and their ancestral records in the Domain). It is most likely that no matter hoe much the AH would have tried to warn the Forerunners of the Flood, the Forerunners would either not believe it or make any number of excuses as to how everything was secretly Humanity's fault and that the Flood was a false flag operation to justify their encroachment into Ecumene space, a bioweapon targeting the Forerunners that the AH lost control of or was working as intended, that the AH's arrogance in believing they could master the Flood led to their mess, or any other such excuses. The point is that with the way the Forerunners viewed Humanity, cooperation would have been futile. This is also likely why in the H4 terminal videos, Forthencho dismisses one of his bridge officers who proposes to warn the Forerunners of a Flood infection on the world they were over. Any negotiation would just be time wasted that the Flood could spread unmolested.

Just a thought. If the forerunners were aware of humanity and considered them the second most advanced empire and that humanity knew about the forerunners and each were growing empires next to each others, how did they not have diplomatic communication??

We REALLY need 343/Microsoft to license Halo to a few other companies and get a series of games set during the human/forerunner and forerunner/flood wars. We already have some books I believe, might as well make the plunge to games

It's amazing at how deep the Haloverse is. There's a lot of books and lore that many don't know about. Again, it's amazing at how deep it is

I believe the reason why Humans didn’t warned the Forerunners was because they did before but they didn’t listen, explaining the reason of Humanity’s forced expansion against them.

Humanity shouldve been broadcasting a message widely ahead of their fleet. The Forerunners couldve helped destroy the mutual threat in the flood at least, if not become friends.

find it interesting the forerunners are so quick to judge other races as violent but only because there at the top and its more there not wanting competition they do not serve the mantle they make the mantle serve them by using it to justify forerunners dominance to them its ok to destroy other races because the mantle but oh its barbaric if anyone else has a war

Millions of years ago: humans and forerunners almost reach tier zero of technological advances. Then the flood resets it. Now: humans have high technology and the remaining forerunners as well. The flood will reset it once again

I wonder if the warrior breed of San Shyuum would be willing to reinstate their alliance with Humanity now that the Prophet breed has been all but eliminated and the Covenant disbanded? (I'm referring to the San Shyuum being two different castes due to having a civil war on their homeworld regarding the discovery of Forerunner artifacts thus splitting the race into two factions.)

I find the idea quite fascinating, that the whole Flood is nothing more than an instrument from the Primordial and the other Precursors to push humanity further through their development, like a stress test and when they pass this test, they earn the mantle. The forerunners on the other hand just violently claimed the mantle for themselves, like ursurpers and through the Flood they got punished for it later on and in the end during the Master Chief timeline, humanity finally succeeded and earned the mantle. I hope we get to see more of the Ancient Humans

The difficulty i have with this part of the lore is the logical steps and tools to make the right decision are right in front of everyone's faces, yet everybody is acting so arrogant and psychotic that nobody does it. Humans would definitely have news that the forerunners could watch to understand the Flood threat. Human-San Shyumm could easily, being the second most technologically advanced alliance, give thorough scientific data and open discussion with the Forerunners. And I find it hard to believe that the Forerunners would so easily dismiss the word of the humans. If they were skeptical of humans they could send a Forerunner ship to investigate a world the humans claimed to be infected. I find it hard to believe the humans truly felt a need to annihilate entire worlds and the forerunners on them to stop the Flood. By comparison, the elites in Halo3 only destroyed a part of Africa and that was more than sufficient to stop the Flood infection. It's like Breaking Bad plot where Walter is constantly rejecting the easy methods of paying for his cancer treatment. The plot only makes sense if people act insane, something hard to believe the most intelligent species in the galaxy would do.

To be fair, I always prefered original version with forerunners being humans. It gave much more intresting vibe, and made covenant religion and hatred twards humans even funnier. But nontheless... we have to give credit to Ancient Humans in new lore. They were powerful Empire. I would say, that they would be even more powerful than Foreruners really. I mean, their empire was basically desolated by flood, their population shattered, their numbers and resources low. And they still waged war against flood and forerunners, hold their own, and gave Foreruner army hell to go thru. Diodac called lord of admirals his greatest enemy. Even without precursor technology they were formmidable opponents, but fast paste in wich they incorporated precursor tech and learned how create and use it, shown how adaptable they were. And it all with actuall fraction of their power, while foreruners had their entire empire intact. Truly, if there was no flood, I would say tha Humans had huge chance to defeat Foreruners.

I feel like this would be a cool spin off game series. Like how Half Life and Portal are in the same universe. Or like how Prometheus is a prequal to Alien, but its so far back that you can barely tell. Theres a lot of potential with a universe as big as Halo.

Now I really want to see part 2 of this. The war of revenge, the Forerunners time of judgment and the Precursors ascension. The Forerunner Flood War.

I’m loving your videos, great content and your narration is very easy on the ear, makes it perfect for before bed listening and has been my go to for the past week!

Just what I need! I love you're videos! Such care with the making of them!

Man, in all of Halo history, humanity CANNOT catch a break 😅

That was amazing. This was the exact gap in the early lore that I was curious about. Thank you for this video.

Great Video! It's just fascinating all of the depth of Lore in the Halo Universe!! Thanks for this!!

Always love seeing another upload from you! Makes my days at work alot easier while listening.

This was so good. You’re criminally underrated.

It's easy to make a pretty good lore video with all those amazing visuals but your vids are always incredibly detailed, well written, and well read. Amazing work putting this one together, I really enjoyed it. Well played.

Humanity glassed planets before the Covenant did 😂💀

Hypeeeeeeeeee, clicked on this one so quick. Especially after finishing Halo Infinite, it's time for some more lore 😎 I'm hoping that you'll do one on the Human-Flood War and the Forerunner-Flood War in the near future! Cheers as always, friend

Making amazing lore content once again.

Any chance the mainline story will explore ancient human tech and civilization? Maybe there's a human shield world out there somewhere.

As fantastical as this part of halo lore is I really do kind of enjoy hearing it. It does echo a lot parallels in human history and how we are as a people when we don’t know really what’s going on with others.

Sitting here trapped in my house with covid not in a good mood then boom you drop a Halo lore video! Best medicine.

Outstanding video! Glad to be a subscriber

Nice video bro, thank you.

Oh shit I get to watch a new video right when it comes out hell yeah keep up the good work love the series you should definitely do some bioshock

To be fair it’s pretty crazy to just start blasting entire colonies instead of trying to make first contact and making a deal.

Excellent assembly of information. :)

Such a well done video

Good video Man!

The funny thing is that the Forerunner military was reduced in size before the war against humanity. The Forerunners looked down on war and prefer to focus on artistic construction of worlds. If I remember correctly, a large majority of the Forerunners hated the idea of waging war against mankind.

I think you missed the brutal details of what really happened with the powder. Once it was tested on the pets it actually enhanced their features. Gave them shiny-er coats. But then they started growing extra appendages that they would devour and they would start devouring each other then eventually people would also devour them thus completing the pathway from pets to people

Good video man

Great narrator great video!

Great vid!!

I like the structure of these halo lore videos what would be the next on halo lore the forerunner flood war?

The theoretical flow is as follows. Primals are negative level species, their universe evolved multiple species, they came out swinging. After the end of their universe, they evolved in the timeless void, until they detected the second universe; this was the precursor universe. The Primals approached and entered that universe, and found Precursors (among others). The Primals, believing themselves to be stewards of life, enforce the first instance of "The Mantle." Yet peace, and how to achieve it, is highly subjective; in the Primals case, subjugation was the path. So they subjugated the precursors, and interfered in their natural evolution, in an attempt to uplift them. Their morality was cruel, and so the Precursors rebelled. This caused the entropy of their universe to be hastened, as the Primals used time to make war, and the precursors used space. Shattering their universe, and forcing them to evolve into inert forms. Then the Halo universe banged into existence, and the precursors immediately made it small though slip, hiding it from most Primals, and then entering it and resting. When they awoke a few billion years later, they made their way to their milky way galaxy, and began preparing for the eventual war with Primals. But there were other Primals who had seen their deception and would not be fooled. Yet these Primals were wise enough to hold back and use the Precursors against each other. Thus the first flood war happened, and the concluded Precursors (those whose thoughts had merged with slip space) won. So the Primals withdrew and chose to observe and wait. The Precursors, having evolved trillions of years under a "Mantle of Responsibility," formulated their own mantle. They then uplifted multiple races to serve them in achieving this mantle. But unlike the Primals, Precursors believe in letting the universe learn and teach. So they did not interfere, and allowed their progeny to be one with chaos. Humanity seemed more capable of navigating this chaos much better than the rest. Precursors, though highly intelligent, were incapable of seeing the larger picture fast enough. So it was decided the mantle would be passed to humanity, as they showed the capacity to combat the Primals and probably win, when their universe came to it's end. The Forerunners would hear none of it. Initiating a rebellion against the Precursor decision, and attacking humanity with the first guardians and Prometheans. The Precursors attempted to mitigate this without interfering, but saw no other way than to withdraw and let the chaos play out. After all, if humanity was so capable, then they should survive this. However, among their number, were precursors who still had the capacity to get angry. These were the same breed that had not been concluded...and had been deluded by the Primals. Some fought the forerunners directly, and got themselves archived, others became the flood powder, using humanity as tools of vengeance. Among the concluded, was the one known as Primordial; he was among a group sent to retrieve those who had been deluded by wrath. They did not survive or succeed in their mission, their conflict lead to the events proceeding the Magellanic Clouds Transport ship. So the flood would come and reset humanity and remove the forerunners. But Primordial made an appalling move, revealing to humanity their true purpose, and the horrors that awaited them in their future. A war with beings beyond powerful, at the side of their makers. Humanity learned that it's purpose was to be soldiers in a war of universes long dead. So they chose to end it. Yet chaos is the profession of the human, the fertile soil on which they grow and thrive. So they survived that revelation, and march ever forward into the Primal dusk. Their next challenge, being the unconcluded...and endless war...a cycle of living and unliving. Endless.

You seriously deserve a million subscribers, WiseFish👏

I really wish that Halo presents lost ancient human relics, including weapons, for 343 Industries' next video game.

The WAP is deeper than I thought.

humans fought flood AND forerunner and it took the forerunner an insane amount of time to beat the humans, you can imagine how strong they were if it were only humans vs forerunner or humans vs flood ( i'm sure the humans could adapt and figure out something to do against the flood)

Huge bummer there were no ODSTs in Halo Infinite. ;-;

They should make a series on this

A Human Forerunner alliance may be the only way to deal with the AI rebellion.

Even this, only encompasses one arm of the galaxy. Insane.

Wait, intentionally held back to keep Humanity from Extinction? Do the precursors still on some level want Humanity to ascend to the Mantle? Very much so could just be misspeaking, but if that was somehow the intent (as I had thought it was purely for the second reason mentioned of diverting forerunner attention), then perhaps they still have some degree of their initial sentience, not just wanting to war but wanting more Could also give an alternate reason as to why they allowed the Master Chief to live uninfected rather than a sleeper cell to be activated once the Halo was destroyed - they could somehow see his path to ascendancy as their had initially wished?

when you look back at this time in the past of halo it makes you wonder what would of happened had the war with the forerunners never happened if they had been able to make an alliance against the flood how would the events of the timeline during the games have played out and would humans have known they were the ones ment to take over from the race that came before

I hope we get a game from this era

At what point were the Halo installations built and unless i missed it i didnt hear anything on the role of the Rings in halting the floods expansion.

The retconning of forerunners as human beings (or at least proto humans as we know it) was the biggest deflation in all of halo lore. I will always be salty about this

I thought Ancient humans and Forerunners were equal but the reason Humanity lost was because they were fight the flood as well and were stuck in between the two forces?

Everyone here should listen to the first album by a band called Shadow of intent. Pull up the lyrics if you have to. Very worth.

What's the source of the animated shots of the ancient humans? Would love to see it for myself.

Whenever I hear someone say "Thousands of years ago..." I think of the Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from ATHF.

Wait a minute. Were the ancient ahimans just stu

Yes

COOL VID.😺

How did Bungie create so much world building with such competency. Halo is very interesting to learn about and is fun to play.

Still hate 343 for retconning the entire story

Be interesting if any ancient human ships escaped an went into stasis. Only to be reunited with their recent lore counterparts....

I always wondered, what did the Primordial know or say to ancient humanity to make them kill themselves??

I read somewhere that the ancient humans were space faring for a million years before the war with the forerunners. I've looked for it since then and can't find it. Anyone have an idea of whether that is true?

Makes you wonder. Was there previously a highly technologically advanced human race all those thousands of years ago. Definitely begs the question!

forerunners calling humans bigoted and self centered is just rich, at least the humans formed alliances with other species

You noticed that every major conflict in halo happened because of lack of communication or dumb ideas

Lol ancient humans looks like the emperah of man. They are 9ft to 12ft too lol.

Like the video content but info around 11:47 is just flat out wrong. The precursor technology was not created nor gathered by humans. Most technology that was used the the last battle was already on charum hakkor( i.e. orbital arches, star roads, etc.) by the time ancient humans found it. What they did is build bases and cities on the orbital arches and liked defense stations with star roads.

So basically this war is due to poor communication. Gotcha.

If the Precusors said Humanity was next up for the Mantle then why use them as a Guinea pig to consume the forerunners? Also just imagine if the forerunners x ancient humans came together to fight the flood. The Primordial would have no choice to but to respect that & hand the mantle to them both

From how the Forerunners behave, they probably would indeed have done incredibly stupid stuff with the Flood out of sheer arrogance that would have doomed the galaxy.

343 explanation for what the flood is and where it came from is so fucking dumb bungie should have never left the franchise

It looks like they just had a communication problem

We need update

In my opinion I think humans were probably just as if not more advanced because of the fact that if you watch a video on how the forerunners lived they have no creativity whatsoever meanwhile humans were full of ideas and creative ( however to cut it down short forrunners in humans with the most advanced species in the universe right behind the precursors in the flood)

Can anyone tell me how I find these movies of the ancient humans that this guy is using?

Perhaps the reason why the covenant was waging war against humans was because maybe the sanshyum had ancient records that blamed humanity for the flood so the prophets wanted to wipe out humanity to stop them from doing it again or just for payback

forerunners did a space version of the blitzkrieg xdd

Meanwhile, in the Bungie games, "You are the child of my Makers. Inheritor of all they left behind. You are Forerunner! But this ring... is mine!"

Great video. I've never liked this story arc though. As if the Humans wouldn't go up to the Forerunners and be like "Hey. Sorry for the commotion, we are fleeing from the alien parasitic lifeform, that we are no match for., and which is destroying our entire civilization" and as if the Forerunners wouldn't find this totally reasonable or at least figure out what was going on themselves.

4:32 fukkin space covid

Honestly, post 343 story telling is much better than the Bungie's original takes on ancient forerunner tech. The idea that humanity was a devolved off-shoot of the forerunners wasn't super interesting and told a really weird story for why humanity was reseeded after the Forerunner-Flood wars. The 343 take makes much more sense and gives a lot more interesting story telling facets than what was originally there.

Human Forerrunner war is like saying Ant Human war

They look like my people. Space-Polynessians. At least to me.

I have a question, how in the world did the forerunners manager to annihilate the precursors. The precursors were waaaaay more advanced and like you said tier zero. How in the world could they lose so bad to their own creation??

343’s prehistory lore is fucking bonkers.

I think the J20 was way outmatched.....

So.. the flood wanted to preserve humanity?

There's a lot of miss understanding from a highly technologically advanced species.