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The Forerunner are shrouded in mystery. Although their cyclopean architecture still remains, they have
long been absent from their own creations. What little we know of them is explained vicariously through their machinery and
their automatons. Clearly, they were technologically superior to both Humanity and the Covenant. Their empire spanned at least
this galaxy, encompassing both Einsteinian reality and Slipspace.
At one point in the Forerunner's history, they encountered the Flood. For whatever reason, they felt
it was necessary to contain and study the Flood, in colossal facilities capable of omitting sentient life from the entire
galaxy, rather than destroy them outright. Their allowance of the Flood's perpetuation could be considered an inexcusable
lack of foresight for such an advanced civilization, though without knowing their precise reasoning, the passing of judgement
is problematic.
The Forerunner had abandoned this Halo, Installation 04, some time ago, leaving their robotic compatriots
behind to defend and monitor the installation. Seeing the Master Chief and Cortana breach protocol and refuse to activate
Halo upon the Flood's release, 343 Guilty Spark turns Halo's only known internal defensive system on them: the Sentinels.
The Sentinels are floating Mantis-like machines, using what is presumably Forerunner weapon and shield technology. Unlike
the the Human and Covenant arsenal, the Sentinels used some sort of controlled stream of energy. Deadly and precise, they
appear to be more like surgical cutting tools than offensive weaponry, and while effective against the Flood's lower forms,
are easily overcome by the Warrior class.
Their relics are not restricted to Halo 04. The Aztec-esque stones of C'ort Azur, the arches and weathered
inscriptions of Sigma Octanus, the intricate caverns and 3km holographic dome beneath ONI's Reach complex, the ancient stepping-stones
of the Grunt's homeworld, and the Prophet's own claim to have evolved on an abandoned Forerunner planet, not to mention the
countless installations undoubtedly pilfered to allow the Covenant to have achieved their current levels of technology, all
give testament to this galaxy's permeation.
But who were these Forerunner; these Truth-givers? What relationship do the ever reverent Covenant have
to them; does persecuted Humanity have to them? The Covenant, garbed in their glyphs, pay an eery homage to those symbols
depicted in the interiors of Halo's buildings, whereas Humankind seems all too at home, and recognized. But what of 343 Guilty
Spark's comments of their lost history? Have they been destroyed, taken leave, or are they now "in chains"? Much remains to
be answered.
One of the strong
ties between the Covenant and the Forerunner has been the Forerunner symbol on the Elite's back. But we haven't taken much
time to look at the symbols themselves. What can we conclude from them? Can we understand their meaning? I can guarantee that
at least some of them have distinct meaning. And have we even found them all? Here are, in their entirety, all the symbols,
at least that I have found.
Also, I created high res icons (128x128) for MacOSX, when you
can DL here. Windows may be able to view them, I'm really not sure. In the future, if people want it, I may also convert this into a
font.
So what do we know about them.
The glowing cyan
ones are found on the control panel in the Halo control room. The non-glowing cyan one is found on the back of the higher-rank
Elites. The yellow one is found on the Covenant plasma grenade.
All the others
are found in various Forerunner structures, mostly on the level, 343 Guilty Spark.
We can deduce that the purple symbol means Elevator or Lift or something similar, most likely, as it is seen above any
door leading to one of the elevators in 343GS.
Also, above the doors where large Flood storage rooms are, two of the red symbols always appear, leading me to believe
that they are a warning of some sort.
Another thing is that several of the symbols are variations of each other. There are a total of 16 unique symbols; the
other 8 are rotations or croppings of the 16 main symbols. Of note is the fact that the cropped versions may not have been
intended to be cropped. They appear on a wall or something, similar to the non-cropped version, but they are placed
(as decals) in such a way that part of their texture extends past the edge of the poly that they are on, thus clipping it
off. But, in sake of being thorough, I have included them as separate symbols.
So, what more can we learn from them?
What meaning do they have? Send in your comments, ideas, and thoughts.
Also, I'd like to take this time to point out one mystery that, as of yet, has been completely overlooked, as far
as I've seen, Derelict. I remind you that the Halo is not the only Forerunner installation we set foot on, in Halo. The Halo
itself, but also Derelict, the net level. It's quite intriguing. It's a small station, floating in space, with no Halo in
sight. Though it appears to be at the lagrange (sp?) point between a large planet and a moon, just like Halo, and there is
a sun directly above the station. Also of note is how the level seems almost a hybrid of Covenant lighting and Forerunner
design, textures, etc. Let discussion ensue.
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