Why Humanity aren't literal gods in Halo | Lore and Theory 

Here's my idea of how that could possibly happen: Didact: "How is this possible? We spared no expense to make sure that any and all examples of your makers and their legacy were wiped from the face of reality, and even of any of you evaded us long enough to outlast the war, Faber's accursed rings would have wiped your makers out and the galaxy's life would have been reseeded at a primal level." Servitor: "To start, your strategy of shattering the old empire and preventing macro-scale cohesive response via superior understanding of Slipspace to isolate our territories so you could focus on the critical targes and make a beeline to Charum Hakkor was not perfect. It was a brilliant strategy, and the Ecumene had more than enough resources to wipe out the other territories at their leisure once the main targets were eliminated, but in the time it took you to do that, some human colonies would take it upon themselves to flee known space and start anew outside of your reach. There were many such efforts, and while some were intercepted by Forerunner forces, many others would elude your notice by feigning self-destruction as a form of asset denial and flee outside of the galaxy's bounds. Some sought out the satellite galaxies, others sought out myriad systems within Dark Space, regardless, enough of them survived to set up new civilizations, all with the aim of potentially rebuilding enough to one day reclaim our place in the galaxy and get revenge for the war. Many fledgling empires faded into the dust of history, either from natural scarcity, exterior enemies, or internal strife or failings, however enough survived to grow into mighty empires, eventually finding each other again. For millennia, the survivors and descendants of our makers fought and toiled to earn their place in the cosmos, vanquishing and collaborating with many previously-unknown alien powers in the process, learning and growing until eventually they surpassed even the Ecumene of the time. That's the thing, even though the Ecumene was technologically superior to the old empire to one degree or another in nearly every possible field, after the war's end, your kind would enter into an age of prosperity that would bring more complacency and less of an active drive to innovate. The civilizations of my makers would have had to grow in much more unpredictable and oftentimes dire circumstances, which, in conjunction with the conflicts and collaborations against other alien life, spurred our advancement at a far quicker pace on average than the Ecumene. Many of the successor empires had by now met each other, and combined their existing alliances and conquests into a greater whole, to cooperate on their shared goals. One of those was to build a cordon around the galaxy and anywhere they conquered against possible invasion by the Flood or unknown threats like it, another to build up sufficient forces to retake the galaxy from the Ecumene, and rebuild it under a more far and equitable order, where species would no be repressed and stymied from reaching their full potential by the Ecumene. My makers would stand as the bearers of the Mantle, being the supreme civilization through virtue of merit and accomplishment, making itself more powerful and worse without putting down others. However, our plans were rudely interrupted by the intervention of the Flood. The shaping sickness had made best use of its time and had outplayed us all. No only had it expertly reintroduced itself into the galaxy by assimilating unknown and forgotten fringe systems of lower-tech species and eventually into the backwaters of your Ecumene, who at this point had grown fat and complacent off of millennia of uninterrupted peaceful supremacy, but it had eluded my makers as well. The reach of the Flood was greater than any of us could have imagined, as they utilized Neural Physics to manipulate means of translight travel unknown to all science in order to grow and prepare far beyond the knowledge of any civilization of my makers or their allies. So as the Flood spread across the galaxy under the nose of your Ecumene, it charged at our own ramparts and civilizations with a strength we could not have expected. The Flood had grown beyond any degree we had known them capable of, assimilating species and powers unknown to my of the alliances of my makers. As the Forerunners fought to save the galaxy from the Flood there, the grand alliance of my makers fought to prevent the space and dwarf galaxies surrounding it from falling into its horror as well. Eventually, the extragalactic alliance developed the weapons to be able to counter the Flood on a fundamental level, and thankfully we still had enough territories and forces left to make a difference. However, so caught up with our own conflicts, that we could do nothing as the Ecumene completed the Halo Array and wiped the galaxy (and a not-insignificant of the extragalactic battlegrounds as well) of all life, Flood or other. Credit where credit is due, the sheer shock of this turn of events had allowed us to take advantage in the short-lived lull and confusion in the strategic coordination of the Flood (since they had suddenly lost all contact with all of their intragalactic assets) allows the extragalactic alliance to retake the initiative and eventually push the Flood into a genuine retreat. We could not know precisely how much of the Flood we managed to defeat, but given that the alliance's territory spanned only a fraction of the space surrounding the Progenitor (Milky Way) galaxy at the time, but we would spend the next hundred millennia continuing our efforts to finally wipe out the scourge of the Flood from the Universe proper. As of this day, 100,487.9268 years Forerunner standard time since your incarceration into this Cryptum, we have completely liberated an volume with an approximate radius of 5.2 million lightyears from the Flood, with special attention put into exploring and securing further main galaxies such as Path Ashihito (Andromeda) and Path Kirimaya (Triangulum). We may never fully rid the Universe of the Flood, but we will always strive to spread peace, liberty, and prosperity as far as we are able. So far, the Flood have never managed to muster as large or powerful of a force as during the Dark War (Forerunner-Flood War), but there have been lesser major attacks from time to time, which have always resulted in the alliance learning to weather the assault and adapt to the Flood before counterattacking and cleansing that particular Flood concentration. We suspect that the Flood might be holding back its full might for some reason, maybe it is testing my makers in some way, maybe it has knowledge of something it considers a greater prize or threat, we cannot know for certain. And on a different note, we managed to discover that some parts of the Doman survived and have slowly been aiding in it recovery since the Halo Event, which destroyed all connections to it within it range. Thankfully there were Precursor artifacts in galaxies beyond the range of the Array that had no been or were liberated from the control of the Flood." Didact: "I am skeptical of all that you say, construct. You are clearly advanced enough to back up your claim of coming from such an advanced civilization, but I will require extensive evidence to ascertain the truth of your story. I will not resist for now, I am no fool" (Didact looks around at the numerous combat machines and armored soldiers of both humanoid and unknown alien form around his Cryptum, as well as noticing the Dyson structure built around a singularity in the distance) "as well as some privacy to meditate on the state of the universe." Servitor: "Of course. Take as much time as you need".

@@fadelsukoco3092 This whole thing was great except "that's the thing". An ancient construct that sounded up until then very elegant would never start a sentence with "that's the thing".

bringing back old game enemies isnt it. whats old is never new again.

Didact got killed off in one of the comics. (Or was it one of the books? I don't remember it was one or the other.) So, he won't be making a comeback.

nope didact is alive still even after the comic @@demogod4955

Yeah, he probably cares about what he's making, not being forced to work on something he might find as shit.

That's what genuine love and care for an I.P. can do in the end.

Halo 5 really scarred y’all that much, did it? Installation00 really likes the Halo TV Show so I wouldn’t say he’s that good a judge of writing.

​@@jakespacepiratee3740 if you really listen to him, he likes the Halo TV show, about how the idea of making the chief anti hero is EXECUTED , and he said that, marketing for Halo 5 was done in the right way, and same idea is EXECUTED in the right manner in the Halo TV show. Am i right guys?

@@unknownusrname Right on!

That's actually a surprisingly good theory, especially as Admiral Cole points out that its extremely convenient Humanity got the military build up of the insurrection before the Covenant hit.

Damn, I didn't consider that.

@@MistahFox Humanity got its military built up and the Spartans got their armor just in time for the Covenant. It just feels like very convenient timing.

Sounds like a very Assembly-ish thing to do.

This is a bit of a late reply, yet I'd point out that interestingly enough, both the Carver Findings & the discovery of Onyx (the first evidence of advance technology not of modern Human/UNSC origin) occurred in the same year, 2491. Plus, given that the Assembly have been around since at least 2310 in Halo, if not earlier, then they may have possibly played some part in the failure of the original Project ORION, or at least the loss of some information about it until the 2490s with the new iteration.

But literally. It's awesome to see the passion of the fans and just pathetic watching almost every single thing 343 does

A lot of that is to do with the forerunner dreadnought (the one in high charity) crashing on the home world of the san’shyumm, we were supposed to find it and claim the mantle

@@martynneeson5668 was it a malfunction or what? How did the dreadnaught run into a planet? Somebody had better have been fired for failing to maintain good repair constructs

Well, SOMETHING definitely got fired, lol

​@williamklemp3764 the flood. Around that planet they find other ships that are barely operational. Essentially there orbit is surrounded by ships.

@@williamklemp3764 if I recall it was being piloted by a barely functional Mindicant Bias. He was trying to bring the ship to earth but was forced to try and reach a different species to get to humans later. San'Shyuum mistook its appearance and message to be from gods. You know the rest.

I'm not a regular viewer of I00, what the heck does this mean

@@tausiftaha12 he's been working on the Mjolnir armor in his spare time and a heads up system for a helmet. So he's just following Halsey's footsteps at this point. If you're still confused to read "The Fall of Reach" by Eric Nyuland

@@saladg nah, ik how Halsey kidnapped children to make spartan twos, but man, with context this comment is hilarious 💀

@@tausiftaha12 💀💀💀💀💀

Not going to lie, really hate the addition of the endless. 343 sucks at storywriting.

​@@samdzoay8082agreed 100%. We didn't need a new enemy. The flood is still out there. The banished are still a thing. And cortana's tantrum set humanity back a long way. There was still a lot to work with, but somehow the brain tank at the 343 writing room couldn't find a story in there.

@@joshuastender4871 It really does upset me how unseriously 343 takes the flood, I was really hoping that they would expand upon them more in the main games and show just how grotesque and out of hand they can get when you give them in inch. And finding out infinite was taking place on zeta halo gave me hope it was finally going to happen but then... more AI shit and yet another faction trying to one-up the previous threat, because that's all 343 know how to do apparently. Like you said there's still many serious threats out there, and one day I'd like to see the main story of the entire series have an actual ending, let peace, at least for a while, happen. I wouldn't even mind if chief finally died for it, as long as it is a fitting ending for his story I'd be quite happy with it. Of course this is 343 we're talking about though so I'm not gonna get too hopeful, but just anything for a break from the constant "brand new existential threat that's even scarier than the last one" they do every game.

​@@narcolepticmarshmallow9012 It's not a matter of taking the IP seriously. Zombie horror would give the product a rating that makes it harder to sell in the China market, which is obviously a business drawback.

Cortana was a gift orchestrated by the librarian.

>symbiotic relationship What exaclly AIs get from this relationship? Because "be usefull for 7 years and die" is by no means a "symbiotic relationship"

@@Spacey_key was rampancy and the 7 year life span a thing before 343 did all their retcons? I honestly don't remember. I mean what do the Spartans especially the IIs get out of their service? Recognition and respect mostly along with purpose. We don't really see what the AI or Spartans actually do when not on missions, but I imagine they do have free time especially after 2553.

@@michaelthayer5351 Rampancy was a concept taken from Marathon and was original plan for Cortana in Combat Evolved, you think why the level after library is called "two betreyals"? It was also mentioned in Halo books including *The Fall of Reach* and *First Strike* I don't know about 7 year lifecycle but Rampancy was absolutely a thing under Bungie

@@Spacey_key okay, well it's probably the only way for an AI to actually "die" and was probably little understood like death it's just the end of the body's ability to keep functioning. I am again glad they decided to make Cortana not go rampant in CE, because Asia said I liked the good relationship humans and AI had in Halo.

They are doing it becauee it has been 7 years... Tbh like 5 of those years were spent off game but was shown in legends. So I understand when u say they accelerated it by retconning it.

You too, fellow human.

Well we know where that leads. He’ll wake up a lobotomized test subject who inadvertently makes him the supreme ruler over the facility, turning the actual smart ai into a potat-oh we’re talking about Halo?

​@rocco5361 Wait wait wait wait. I know I know I know. Lady wait. Wait. I know. Wait. Space

The main AI that tells each dumb AI when and what to do is necessarily a smart one, there is no good dumb AI orchestrator because to be an orchestrator you must be flexible and intelligent, putting a dumb AI as orchestrator you get a swarm of agents that is very efficient at doing something but not so smart in choosing what is best to do

@@quantumspark343 I was thinking it could be more like a search engine, you ask a question and the appropriate (hopefully) AI would answer. Maybe it could work like the question answering machine in the film AI : Artificial Intelligence, ask a question with set fields and it spits the answer out

I'm gonna take a guess and say processing power.

I think it was The Assembly lol

If so, it either has to be just their servitors and machinery operating on their own under what they assume to be the intended wishes of their makers, or far, far away from the main galaxy, since the Halo Array would have annihilated all biological life with a central nervous system "within 3 radii of the galactic core" as Guilty Spark said it. I can definitely see there being survivors from the Ancient Human Empire (AHE) trying to escape from the galaxy, seeing as during their time, most of it was under the control or influence of the Forerunners. During their war, one of the Ecumene's greatest advantages over the AHE was their superior understanding and mastery of Slipspace physics, which allowed the Forerunners to jam and cut off human systems from each other and slow down AHE ships in Slipspace to a crawl and set up ambushes for when they did exit. The Didact also focused on essentially charging straight to Charum Hakkor as fast as possible to cut off the AHE's heads of government, only attacking strategic and critical AHE worlds in the way to conserve his resources. This worked since the Forerunners could essentially lock down and suppress the AHE from organizing on a macro-scale, meaning that the Forerunners could dictate when and where the battles would happen. However, this meant that while the AHE was no match for the Ecumene, there was a large period during the war where many human systems were still relatively intact and functional, just isolated from each other (the novels specifically mention how the Didact had blockaded the Charum Hakkor system so well that outside relief fleets could never get to it). In such a situation, some systems could have seen the writing on the wall or assumed the worst and tried to flee outside of all known space in order to escape from the Forerunner retribution they knew would inevitably come sooner or later. Assuming that some of these escape fleets would be intercepted and destroyed, and that others would fall due to complications, a few could definitely have made it all the way outside of the galaxy and towards maybe some satellite galaxies or extragalactic star systems (extragalactic space has quite a lot of stars, even if they are present in far less volume than in galaxies). Assuming that at least a few of these attempts actually start succssful civilizations and don't collapse sometime along the 108 thousand years between then and the current day (26th century) due to a bunch of potential external or internal factors, you could have potentially multiple Ancient Humans successor civilizations running around on an intergalactic scale or possibly beyond, given what kinds of technological advancement they could have potentially made in all that time, again, assuming they don't get wiped out by whatever in the process.

Up until 343 got a hold of the lore forerunners were gonna be ancient humans

Glad you like them!

So say we all...

Yea I’m also curious 🧐

superintelligent AI would be seen as godly in real life, being a god is more about super powers and immortality than creating

The Precipice short stories that accompanied the Chimera armor core.

I can only hope that one day we’ll get a game where we encounter some of our long lost technology, wether it be an ai or a weapons cache. I always wondered what our weapons were like when we fought against the Forerunners AND the Flood 🤔

@@nicwalker882 a cool concept would be trying to escape a flood infected human ship

@@FireChicken747 ancient or modern human? I know ONI found an Ancient Human ship or two…

@@nicwalker882 Ancient. Like a marine or an ODST was on an ancient human ship, and the flood were there. It would be a perfect set up for a horror game.

@@FireChicken747 you know what… that would be perfect for a horror game. That way we’d get a mix of Flood while playing as a vulnerable ODST while learning more things about Ancient Humanity. Perfect 👌

Absolutely, even if the AI are able to make innovations at such a pace that normal humans would never be able to fully comprehend it ability in entirety, you can't really do much with all that knowledge and science without the physical resourcs and infrastructure needed to actually build and maintain the technology you want to have.