Humans shouldn't be Reclaimers - Lore and Theory 

Precursor Mantle sounds like a Spiritual philosophy The Forerunners Mantle is basically a Political Philosophy

Chief was correct to describe the Mantle as an "Imperial Peace"

FINALLY I've thought about this recently. The idea that the Forerunners are "unreliable narrators"

Maybe I'm just misremembering, but I feel like the books heavily implied the Forerunners had to force their "peace" on the galaxy because they weren't truly worthy to hold the mantle.

I feel the Mantle in all its forms is ultimately a dangerous concept, will always remain so, and the main goal of the Halo universe is ultimately to abolish it. Especially since literally all of the problems in the universe, especially the current Created crisis, are caused by people trying to take the Mantle in some way.

Just imagine humanity becoming space Romans with tier 1 technology

Hey man I have a theory real quick and I wondered if you could talk to Hiddenxperia about it too but I think I know why 343 Guilty Spark thinks the librarian is alive. In the last couple chapters of Silentium she passes on her title. So maybe the successor is alive on a shield world somewhere. And it's funny you posted this today because me and my dad were just discussing how the Mantle lead to the downfall of the Galaxy.

A thought just occurred to me. With the Chief's personality, his effect on the people around him, his near immortality, halsey's comment about him being the next step in our evolution, and his understanding of the mantle, what if he is the one to lead humanity into the future and in assuming the mantle. Thoughts?

I think the major problem with the forerunners interpretation of the Mantle is that it’s exclusive, ie *only* the most advanced species should hold the responsibility. Whereas a “with great power comes great responsibility” + “everybody do their part” may have been better for the galaxy overall.

The more I learn about the mantle and the different contexts it's discussed in, it sounds more and more like an egotistical cosmic dictatorship... I think its very possible that in the last Halo games, humanity, or at least chief, halsey and others, will conclude that no species should ever have the mantle.

You are correct. It IS dangerous. To ones without the complete wisdom of the Precursors.

I have always assumed that Forerunners misinterpreted the Precursors when it came to the Mantle much like the Sanshyum misinterpreted the Forerunners. I believe personally that the Mantle was never about one ruling all others and that the Forerunners interpretation of that is the reason why they found unworthy in the first place.

when The librarian imprinted the gias on humanity did she indirectly make a mistake by causing humans to evolve differently by following a development similar to forerunners. not just Replicating A.i, combat skins and augmentation but repeating the same mistakes.

Last time I was this early the Didact was still in the Cryptum.

Ah “survivorship bias” - somehow it reminds me of that Heroes Never Die miniseries from years back... “Winston Churchill said some centuries ago that history is written by the victors. Perhaps he was correct for his time, though one would be hard-pressed to find any true victors in the conflict against the Covenant. ... Perhaps now it is more correct to say that history is written by the survivors, whether victorious or not.” Good times... ☺️

IMHO it's not that Humanity 'Shouldn't' be Reclaimers, I think it's just Modern Humanity have yet to fully re-/develope to their former capabilities and mentality; Ancient Humanity, whom the Precursors felt should be Reclaimers, for all reasons mentioned in video.

Unfortunately most of humanity would look at the mantle like it was a pro wrestling belt.

Alright, let’s take a look. Precursors: dominated the galaxy, created many species, too slow to act in own defense, became abominations. Forerunners: dominated galaxy, kept other species down. San Shyuum: attempted to dominate galaxy, sucked at translations in incredibly lethal ways. Sangheili: duped by a bunch of weak fools Jiralhanae: duped by those same weak fools Kig yar: they’re pirates, they’d be horrible at wielding the mantle. Unggoy: really? Grunts in charge of things? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Lekgolo: too alien from the others to wield the Forerunner legacy. Yanme’e: they are bugs, somewhat hive minded, too alien from most species to see other points of view. Human: tends to be the only species in the galaxy that looks before leaping. One subversion to this is ironically present in Halo CE, when the Master Chief attempted to activate Installation 04 without asking for specifics from 343 Guilty Spark.

Remember when we were like 80% sure forerunners were humans and the background lore was just "flood bad and no one can beat them so we fired the doomsday beam and let society rebuild itself" It was so simple those days.

Forerunners were trying to be the helicopter mom of the universe but lost to space herpes

3:48 History is written by the victor.

The Lord of Admirals was composed or digitised right? If that is correct then imagine meeting that form of himself, perhaps he will be a supreme naval commander to combat evil Cortana in a sense such a Mendicant and Offensive that would be a interesting encounter, and having more ancient human characters would be amazing and perhaps they help reclaim the mantle or try to reclaim it for themselves.

The Flood's Infection and Assimilation Protocol as enacted by the Gravemind is the ultimate manifestation of the Mantle

12:30 so a more-efficient version of what the Mechanicus do in Warhammer 40K, then. 14:38 This becomes more true when one considers several things. One: in the books, Forerunner technology has not stagnated, but it advances slowly and sparsely, due to a general very low presence of desire or threat that would inspire innovation. The Builders even had a belief that ancient Forerunners had technology far in advance of what the Ecumene had in Bornstellar’s age. The Forerunner focus too much on their past glories and sit in vanity atop their apex of power with nothing that would truly challenge them. Their extremely-long lives meant that the people in power were extremely old and thus their society would be very conservative and slow to embrace change. In contrast, Ancient Humanity in conjunction with their San Shyuum allies, achieved heights of technology rivaling the Ecumene in just 50,000 years from first rediscovering space flight. They almost as much as the Forerunner did in over 10 MILLION years (and in some cases, losing knowledge and technology (see builder example above)) in 50,000 years. And that was BEFORE the Human-Forerunner war. During the war, when Humanity was getting horrifically-dominated by the Flood, Ancient Human scientists and AI researched hard enough that they almost closed the military gap in tech between them and the Forerunners, in the decades before the war. Humanity even figured out a bit of the concepts of how Precursor artifacts work, using it to make weapons which, in the words of the Didact, his warrior-servants had no defense against, which allowed Humans to greatly-lessen the effect that being exponentially-outclassed in numbers and manufacturing capability by the Forerunners would entail. Necessity is the mother of invention, an the Forerunners never had a need to advance at any profound rate because they never remembered a time where they were truly desperate. Any species they met would be crushed and subjugated with relatively-simple technology, the Guardians being ancient by their standards. Humanity, on the other hand, well, let’s see how Humanity had it. Most-importantly, they developed on worlds close to Forerunner space, so they were always in the shadow of a power they knew could crush them like a gnat. The Ancient Humanity seen in the Terminals and books have only been around as a meaningful civilization for about 50,000 years before the Human-Forerunner war. The first Human civilization they knew existed was spacefaring a million years prior, but since that point Humanity had underwent an unknown number of technological Dark ages, in which amongst the knowledge that was lost was what their original homeworld was. Meanwhile the Forerunners have been around since they were created by the Precursors, having their share of wars and conflicts but never being threatened as the top galactic power by anything else. So Ancient Humanity had to grow up as a civilization perpetually in reminder of the giant empire exponentially older, larger, and more powerful then they were. Thus Humanity learned to live the Universe knowing that there was always a bigger fish and that they could never be cocky. They learned what the Forerunners forgot long ago. In one of the terminals, the Librarian says to the Ur-Didact that the Humans acted to prune away planets so that the infection would not spread. The Didact says that by taking the mantle of responsibility upon themselves, they brought theFlood from the borders of the Forerunners. What actually happened, was that Ancient Humanity was chasing after the Flood to STOP it from gaining access to Forerunner technology and resources. In other words, the Humans were following the “Responsibility” part of the Mantle by actually having the sense to clean after their own mess, something which took the Forerunners a galactic genocide to force into doing the same.

I think humans and Sangheili can wield the mantle together, as intelligence and technological aptitude they are more or less equal.

An metaphysical/philosophical innovation by the Precursors which the beneficiaries being Ancient Humanity would inherit and have galactic stewardship over all sentient races in the galaxy. Morden Humanity are the inheritors of the Mantle and the Precursor’s Test will is the prerequisite.

The mantle of responsibility is just the "dominion over the beasts" of the bible but on an absolutely galactic scale as applied by the forerunners. The precursors took a long term approach via natural confluence. The forerunners took a proactive approach to their curation.

The damn Mantle has brought so much death to humanity that if they ever got the choice of destroying there isnt force in the universe that can stop them from setting on fire and watching with happy tears.

The way I see it is, that modern humanity will be sort of a mix of the precursors, ancient humanity and the forerunners, having ancient humanities beliefs, using forerunner tech to augment their own and follow the precursors teachings that are left behind

The Forerunners despite their advance technology were by the time of the Human-Forerunner war well beyond their golden age. They were stagnant, technologically and culturally. The rates had been consolidated until there were only three left. The Builders had acquired most of the wealth and power. A totalitarian society in short. If this was all the result of the "Mantle of Responsibility" then its time abandon it.

Let's give the Flood back the Mantle... come on it'll be fun... :D

Isn't humanity already following the same path that the Forerunners did with all the measures that they took to ensure the sangheili could not start another war with humanity?

I’d say reject the mantle, all of it, Forerunner, Precursor and Ancient. Carve a path uniquely human and specifically uniquely New Human. Beholden to no ghosts of the past ages.

"The Mantle. You still hold to that [belief] after all that has happened? After this thing has consumed a million worlds? Can't you see? Belief in the Mantle sealed our doom! Weakened our [protectorates], bred dependence and sloth. Our [so-called Guardianship] has stripped those we would keep safe of any capacity for self-defense! Were we such noble [Guardians] when we drew our line and abandoned billions to the parasite?"

It seems to me, that the whole concept of the Mantle, if not outright bunk, needs to be looked at from neither a Forerunner or a Precursor perspective. But rather a new one, or perhaps no one way of approaching the gargantuan responsibility the Mantle entails. Rather, adjusting to whatever challenges or threats arise at time goes on. The Precursors, while more ethically and morally sound, were still defeated, they failed, as the Forerunners failed after them.

Dear Mr. Installation00 guy. Please do a most detailed video explaining everything about Onyx. I have trouble understanding how the Forerunners were capable of building something so insanely massive. And why would the builders even agree to construct any of the shield worlds for the Didact? The Master builder was against the shield world plan I thought. Did the Didact have his own Warrior-Builders or something?? And why the actual fuck didnt ANY of the Forerunners take refuge in them? Apparently you could reach them easily with teleporters like Jul Mdama. Lol I have so many questions...

The grunts deserve the mantle.

let's be honest, the Forerunners were the Halo Universe's British Empire, everything went to shit after it collapsed and they partially are to blame for their own downfall as well.

Our greatest strength and weakness is our ability to communicate and not communicate! Seems the Forerunners have the same solution and problem!

Wow, lots of eye-opening implications about the lore in this video. Like the Forerunner's interpretation of the mantle being basically a corruption of what the mantle originally was, effectively just acting as the Forerunner's justification for galactic imperialism and Forerunner supremacy without it feeling morally wrong. The biggest realization here for me though was the bit about Ancient Humanity having an actual giant and rich history full of lost but familiar culture and architecture. With Halo Legends having such a high level of artistic freedom given to the studios that were involved, I never really thought that the specific appearance of the ancient architecture in the Babysitter meant anything; so I kinda forgot all about it and never got the implications behind it. Most likely I just thought that the architecture was sort of an extension of the mysterious Delta Halo ruins style from Halo 2. Ever since we learned about Ancient Humanity being a thing in Halo lore, I've never been a fan of it and thought it was a dumb addition to the lore. But this new way of looking at it kinda makes Humanity feel much bigger than it is in a very interesting way, almost like a mysteriously huge universal current that's been there for millions of years and just experiences ups and downs; meaning that the 26th century Humanity in Halo is slowly but surely returning to the prominence it used to have, and is going to follow in the footsteps of their ancestors to once again unite us and put us on the proper course that shows the best parts of Humanity in the big actions we collectively take as a species.

No matter how many disguises in the name of a political system, there are only 2 main types: A political system that thinks it is above the people and a political system that thinks it should serve the people.

Had humanity gotten hold of the Mantle before Cortana did, they'd be akin to the Galactic Empire from Star Wars, but far more brutal.

Precursor version of the mantle is like God in Futurama. “If you’ve done things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.” Forerunner Mantle - focus is on the “strongest species” part of the definition. They enact their own will and do not accept the natural flow of nature. Ancient humanity I think proved that they were absolutely on their way to being worthy of the Mantles intended purpose. Namely, by accepting their defeat at the hands of the Forerunners instead of attempting to bring the flood back into the universe as another enemy for the Forerunners to face. They chose to accept their likely extinction rather than risking life as a whole to the flood. Then were forced to go through what the precursors valued most, experiencing life by devolving evolving death rebirth(geas) etc. Humans having conquered worlds isn’t simply enough to say they shouldn’t have the mantle. The precursors for all we know were conquerers in many of their cycles of death rebirth and evolution. Killing or ending a being as we understand it is not the same thing as killing life in the universal aspect. Wars as we would think of them fall well within the natural flow and aren’t in contradiction to being a protector of diverse life as a whole. The forerunners society meant they lost their connection to the natural flow as they exerted their will and control. They way they genetically form and design themselves into their rigid defined classes. Ancient humanity as far as we know sure had technology to play with genetics, but they weren’t pursuing perfection. They were simply experiencing life by acting upon thoughts and instincts at a species wide level. Forerunners at a species wide level was constantly pursuing a hypothetical perfection which was rigid. Humanity was more open to change and flow. A human is not perfect, we can be cruel and horrible creatures. But we can also be wise and caring. At a species wide level they lived in harmony with the natural flow of life. The forerunners tried to dictate a specific flow of life

I wonder how much the de-evolution set humanity back when it came to their ascendance to the Mantle. Cause we can't be sure that Humanity in the Halo Universe is evolving socially in the same way that they did during the time of the Forerunners

I subscribe to the theory that Precursors were raising life simply to feed the universe’s appetite for both joy and suffering, which makes them more like horrific monsters that views living beings as cattle rather than benevolent fosters

The imperial peace was just the forerunners way of upholding and enforcing the mantle. I’m sure we would take a different approach

Yo you should make this a podcast on spotify or apple play.

Humanity is primarily developing benevolent technology to better itself? The Insurrectionists would disagree with that interpretation. Spartans were made to kill rebellious colonists, after all. I think you missed a decent chance to examine whether a species that fights with itself is worthy of ensuring that others flourish.

Amazing vid, you are incredible with info details and your opinion gets through very clearly, amazing work.

You deserve all the subs. You put out fantastic stuff!

At this point ancient humanity is what's keeping me invested in the story at this point.

ONI: Why shouldn't we be trusted to take control and dominate every living thing in the galaxy?

The Mantle of responsibility determines who is the keeper by using war, this was seen with the Forerunners, covenant, and humans except I don’t *think* they know about the Mantle, except for chief. Sorry for being probably totally off, I’m sick and not really thinking straight.

how do you come up with these mind blowing theories so quickly?

Perhaps the real wisdom of this old philosophy was distorted and lost in to the time.

Well, its like the Reapers from Mass Effect whereby all our tech is based off of Reaper tech and thereby guided/limited by what they left behind for the galaxy; which created The Cycle.

Very interesting and thought-provoking video, thank you!

physician over here, enjoying nerding out about selection bias

If the pre-historic human's invented glassing of planets. Where did the covenant pick it up?

You’re spoiling us with all these uploads 👌🏾not complaining tho, keep them coming

In a galaxy where my masters have long since ended their long reign I have been rightfully force to repent for my actions my crimes against the galaxy and never once have I strayed from that path. The goal of assisting humanity in their path to claim the mantle is the end of my great journey to finally full fill my masters wishes of repentance. I only ask of one thing of you reclaimer, that you will not faultier from the path that lays before you and that I will join you till the end of our path and the end of my repentance What I kind of hope mendicant bias says if he both is in the game and joins humanity and the elites in stopping cortana

The Mantle as interpreted by the Forerunners seems to resemble the Chinese Mandate of Heaven in its imperial nature.

They're not ready to take the mantle of responsibility. At least not yet anyway.

Here is conspiracy-theory for you ( What if the Ur-Didact Is Controlling cortana using here avatar and her memory's to manipulate S-117, pretending to be her in a way that way he can order around the Wardon Eternal. Just Maybe Due To how the Ur-Didact disgraced himself he broke some warrior servant law. And He is now hiding behind Cortana's Avatar in order to control every thing?)

This, right here, is the stuff that 343 and other big realese companies should listen to. True heartfelt love for the lore of the universe they created. The true view and value from the fan perspective. Absolutely love your stuff bro!! Keep it up!!

A spiritual reboot could refer to the halo ce being grand and mysterious exploring relics of an ancient civilization while fighting an enemy you really knew nothing about and reboot it by using the ancient humans as the main driving force

Lesson of this; Never take responsibility.

During Halo 4 how many ODPs were used against Mantle's Approach? And how long did the battle last exactly? If it lasted a hour and the ODPs kept on firing imagine how much firepower was used during the battle. Likely in the dozens of teratons and the hull and shields of the ship wasn't even damaged much.

Didn't the forerunners take the mantle from the precursors forcibly?

Mankind already has its own philosophical ideas we dont need some million year old space slimes philosophy

I would be very interested in a video about the philosophy of the forerunners/ancient humans/ or even single persons like the ur-/isodidact/librarian/chakas/Dr. Halsey/arbiter...

I feel like assuming the Precursors were somehow omniscient and benevolent is a mistake. They don’t seem benevolent or wise or all knowing to me, if anything they seem horrifically irresponsible and unworthy of respect

Absolutely amazing you are truly enlightened

Basically, forerunner had the big stupid

I got to thinking, with the Created War going on, if the Flood do return... Who's to say that the Flood end up opposing the Created, much to the surprise of the UNSC and the SOS's surprise.

9:48 and in all likelihood they would still not believe the Humans. This is not without reason, though. The Forerunners has been around for millions of years and their civilization stayed intact for the better part of that, and even if they forgot their ancestors 10million years prior killing the Precursors for giving the Mantle to Humanity, they would still hate Humanity, because they also claimed to be the true inheritors of the Mantle, which made them seen as the uttermost anathema to all the Forerunners represented and stood for. If the Forerunners have been hating the Humans for millions of years, and if contact between the two species was sparse before the war involving the Flood, (as you said, Ancient Human space expanded AWAY from the Ecumene,) then the latter suddenly invading their fringe spaces and seemingly exterminating worlds at random (why would you waste resources to glass low-populated civilian and private sector worlds) with the excuse that suddenly there was this super-adaptive parasite which would take over everything and it needed to be cleansed for the safety of all... that would sound like something that the Humans just made up to cover up their invasion and scorched earth tactics. Even if they showed them evidence of the Flood, the Forerunners would just brush it off as forged or fabricated or acted out in simulation rooms. Any live Flood samples which the Ancient Humans would have, they would not give to the Forerunners (because said Forerunners would be cocky with it and not understand the dangers. This would cause the Forerunner to be suspicious of the samples, thinking that Humanity either engineered or tampered wit it to screw with them. And it’s not like the Humans would let the Flood spread for the Forerunner to slowly realize that it was actually dangerous, because by that point the Flood would’ve spread off world or got to critical mass and the Forerunners wouldn’t know how to pick them out from amongst normal traffic, making the problem exponentially worse. What’s more, the Forerunners, upon realizing the threat, would either treat it like a simple disease or a conventional enemy, both with disastrous results. Instead of bathing the area in neutron radiation or plasma, the Forerunners would send in conventional troops and by the time they get impatient enough to admit they did something wrong, you have a gravemind made up of warrior-servants on the world planning its next move.

>halo infinite is coming out in less than a year >uploaded: 1yr ago

last time I was this early... well, I never was!

Humans shouldn't be Reclaimers...they should've been forerunners and explaining what they were kind of ruined the mystery.

Lore and Theory video on the Minister of Etiology. And a theory on how he could've known about The Flood long enough to have "spent much of his life studying [It]." I just noticed that little piece of info while browsing Halopedia.

Using Forerunner technology for defensive measures like shields, now you can just brutally run over the opposition instead of having to shoot them.

The Mantle of Responsibility should be left as a dead concept.

what if the mantle becomes something for all species? Like the elites and humanity taking the role

This video was brilliant.

Great video. I have two comments. First while watching i was reminded of the halo comic, Halo Escalation where Dr. Halsey and Dr Glassman were separately asked the same question, to cure a fatal disease would use an intelligent species to make it killing them all or would you respect their right to live even though it would lower the chance of success. Both chose different answers and both were deemed correct. Note while both were correct Dr. Halsey cheated and lost the keys and access to the knowledge. The second is that considering that Cortana did the same thing to gain access to the Domain would you like Cortana not to loose because of the Master Chief but because she broke the rules.

"Halo infinite is coming out in less than a year" BIG OOF

I hope you take this as a complement but you're like the Halo version of Luetin09. Love the work keep it up :)

The Mantle of responsibility is a dangerous concept. It is inevitable for a philosophy like it to be corrupted and used to justify tyrannical acts.

Hope u didn’t forget my request for a breakdown of space combat. I’m eager to delve deeper in the lore. ✌️

However we must acknowledge the full circle aspect here. In primordium, and Silentium the captive states “There is only one truth. That which was done will be done again. For we cannot cease from creating, but the end of all our creation will be to look into a reflection and see ourselves for the first time” acknowledging that, a human ascendancy to the mantle deriving from the reclamation of forerunner technology would result in an “echo” in living time. Perhaps the downfall for humanity and the coming of the flood much like the forerunners Pyrrhic victory. “If we who are honored with life, do not perceive the obvious, then we are forced to live it again, from another angle.

Forerunner choose Force to formed their mantle ideal but Human can do better than that and they should choose understanding Rather Power but Before that there will be lot of challenge to overcome

This idea depends on what the Prescursors' Version of the "Mantle of Responsibility" is, as they seemed to have had a Different Philosophy on it. They might simply have meant that Species should not be allowed to be too damaged or wiped out, even by themselves, but that they should otherwise be left alone. The Forerunners, as Usurpers of the "Mantle," are going to be like the Titan Kronos, who destroyed anyone who became too much of a Threat to his Power. This is solidly in line with Forerunner Civilizational Philosophy.

You know, I've never heard anyone talk about the economics and political structure of the UNSC... or the UEG... or whatever it is again. I'm not super familiar with it myself, tbh, but my understanding is economically it's a fairly statist-leaning, and somewhat socialized (but ultimately still) capitalist system, but the exact nature of the political system is unclear. I remember in high school wrestling with how I felt about such an economic system as I was just beginning to develop my own political beliefs. Going from loving, to hating, to loving again through my high school years, to ultimately now finding it to be well intentioned in theory, but more than likely falling short in practice, thus that I neither truly hate it nor love it. Which I suppose makes sense having finally come to identifying as an AnComm and seeing humanity as simply not having gone far enough in progressing as a society. Not to mention also that the Insurrectionists seem to have no viable alternative to that which they oppose, or at least as far as can be discerned from the current lore, besides just wanting to break away and be independent, which I feel is ultimately not the best choice available as a divided humanity will at some point or another war with itself, and that is something that cannot be afforded, esp. in the Halo universe. Goes back to my state's mottos rather nicely, I think. "Together We Stand, Divided We Fall." & [translated from the Latin] "Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law." (The latter is something it's arguably not living so well up to right now, even by the standards of liberals, but I digress.) Anyways, enough of my rambling, just thought I'd suggest it as a topic since I don't think anyone's done it yet, and it would potentially be a chance to do a collaboration w/ Jessie Gender, which I think would be interesting to see.

History always repeat it self.

Okay, I wanna make sure he sees this: On British trains, the plug sockets are labeled phones and laptops only, why? Is it because some mad bloke got on a train with a microwave and started making rustlers burgers? Thank you for reading

*Damn it Cortana! (**05:13**).*

If covenant missunderstood mantle of responsibility and reclaimer concept . Even though they were technological superior still they missunderstood it. Same thing happened with forerunner they also missunderstood the mantle of resposibility given by the precursors .

Careful what you wish for... I always wanted to know more about the H.U. galaxy before the rings were fired. Now I do and some(most) of the mystique that made Halo so interesting is gone, never to return.

I thought the original Mantle was consumption of advanced life? Allowing it to develop, nurturing it, even seeding it, and then waiting until it reached its peak to incorporate all of its memories into a collective so that the Living Universe can share the experiences by consuming it like the Flood.

What are you talking about? The humans are reclaimers!