On a remote Office of Naval Intelligence research facility orbiting the shield world of Requiem, a science team known as ASSENT has extracted and brought aboard an ancient Forerunner transcript revealing the secrets behind the construction and possible location of the Halo Array.
Only the team's leader and commanding officer holds the answers to these secrets, but refuses to reveal for fear of great impending chaos and turmoil.
Through these newly discovered, translated Alien documents, we learn of deep Forerunner back-story as we chronicle the checkered past of the Prospector and the ever-so exhausting social and political struggles involved in the arrangement of the Halo Array, including the inescapable threat of the Flood.
Now, facing a proposed expulsion and immediate decommissioning, ASSENT's leader must insure that this exceedingly confidential information does not fall into the wrong hands, or else die in the process.
Author's Note: Story is about 4/8 complete. Just started working on it last week and it's already turning out to be pretty well. For any of those who may be confused, the story sort of breaks the forth wall by revealing a set of 8 discrete Forerunner "diaries" in no particular order, written by the Prospector, a Forerunner character I made up. For fear of straying too far off into any canonical inaccuracies, I tried my absolute best to insure that this story was as refined and original as I could make it while still borrowing literary and fictional elements from that of Greg Bear'sHalo: Cryptumand Halo: Primordium. If you will, please give the first 4 documents a read. If they are successful, I will finish writing the other 4. Thanks!
PROSPECTOR RECORDING 0029
Translated Forerunner documents.
DATE:
XXXX
ONI ASSENT BREAKDOWN:
Initial translation informs us about the assembly of an unknown Halo installation. I'm curious to know more about this "Prospector." Which ring was he working on? More importantly, what is it with this extreme hatred of the Flood? No, forget I even asked that.
TRANSLATION:
LOCALIZED (additional details fragmented)
Rotten, stinking, offensive. May them be the only few words I shall use to describe such a sickness. My name is the Prospector, follower of the Master Builder, leading instructor in my Builder's assigned Installation.
They call them Halos, were you aware? Such an elegant term to impart on such a grand, intricate structure. Albeit, an admirable structure, indeed, but far more destructive by its very nature.
My Builders grow weak with each and every carefully designed layer in our Installation, and yet I stress the cause of which is held so dearly in our society. I reverberate back and forth on the very progress of opposing Forerunner squadrons, and ponder my Master's plans to alleviate the galaxy of this imposed affliction.
I will continue to protect the cause my people withhold as I pursue the completion of this Installation. My name is the Prospector...and I shall have my vengeance on the Flood. The Master Builder was wise in his decisions.
/TRANSLATION ENDS
PROSPECTOR RECORDING 0032
Translated Forerunner documents.
DATE:
XXXX
ONI ASSENT BREAKDOWN:
These complexities are incapable of human understanding.
TRANSLATION:
LOCALIZED (additional details fragmented)
I stand and watch as my Builders drain the fabrics of Forerunner vitality into my Installation, but cannot help but feel aggravated by their efforts. My ancilla consciously agrees with these beliefs.
A Builder of mine, intensely devoted just as a young and ambitious Manipular would be, approaches my corridor in the shadow of slipspace, and states, "Prospector, leader of my people, carrier of the Master's plans, I arrive with quite positive news on this night."
On this night? On this night, I am assumed to reflect back on my Builder's progress to further lay out forthcoming arrangements. And yet, this halfwit defies my very logic.
"The basic framework of our assigned Installation is nearing completion, just as you had requested. However, our resources are limited and the Flood continues to exhaust every known supply of building material throughout the quadrant. We must send for the Council."
I snarl with irritation. "Builder, it is not the Flood that is to blame for our faults, but your clouded methods in constructing this ring. You continue baffle my logic, and I shall bring about entirely new altercations to be used against your party in such an event."
"I'm sorry, Prospector?" asks the Builder.
"Leave this place...and consider a different approach to the assembly of our Installation. I am unable to shred the Council of lasting building material until I can be sure that this menacing sickness has been suppressed to the core."
And so he departed. The Master Builder would be very displeased given our current situation.
/TRANSLATION ENDS
PROSPECTOR RECORDING 0014
Translated Forerunner documents.
DATE:
XXXX
ONI ASSENT BREAKDOWN:
The Flood was never quite so disastrous when we had encountered it upon its initial release on Installation 04. Luckily enough, our short-lasting conflict with the parasite was more or less limited to the boundaries of our galaxy.
TRANSLATION:
LOCALIZED (additional details fragmented)
A severe misfortune occurred earlier on in my slumbers in which I had failed to predict, or even plan for. So many lives and so many futures, seized by the Shaping Sickness. That is what it has been termed by my people, the Forerunners, now tasked with facing this horrendous burden which torments this galaxy.
A pack of my Builders, loyal in nature, and unprepared for the ambush, perished in these dark hours. The numbers are countless. I order the Council to issue a more secure division for our Installation's assembly, but they are unable to conceive my logic.
The truth of this most recent occurrence pierces my heart and damages my morale, but I must recall. As the tale be told, to my accuracy, my Builders had been applying the finishing branches to the Installation's second thousandth wing, whereas a giant consuming parasitic clump of biomass wrapped its presence around one of the lower arms. Its origin is unknown, but I have been led to believe that the Sickness does not currently wield the capacity to harvest slipspace technology, unless it somehow managed to take hold of one of the human's vessels.
Visions of the atrocity are unfathomable. My ancilla tries its best to process the data collected around the moment of the encounter. As its' tentacles blanketed the outer perimeter of the ring's designated branch, bundles of the Sickness painfully struck away a number of my Builder's, absorbing their bodies into the depths of its shameful majority. How this...creature or thing operates is beyond my understanding, but I swore I could have still spotted their facial complexions beneath the parasite's surface.
A perplexing title is commonly heard on Forerunner intercoms, and I bear a leeching tendency to speculate its actual meaning. "Gravemind", as they declare, is stated on multiple occasions and somehow pertains to this peculiar Sickness that has swept my building force. If the rumors are held true and the mass continues to feast on all life in and around the sector, then this Shaping Sickness or whatever it may be called shall grow to the size of a planet...and eventually the galaxy.
Master Builder, where are you now?
/TRANSLATION ENDS
PROSPECTOR RECORDING 0009
Translated Forerunner documents.
DATE:
XXXX
ONI ASSENT BREAKDOWN:
Who would have suspected that an immensely powerful race such as the Forerunners held something even close to a belief? I am determined to know more.
TRANSLATION:
LOCALIZED (additional details fragmented)
Our project has not only begun to affect the lives of the Builders, but myself included. The Installation's skeleton has been fastened together. With it, came the arrival of my closest faithful companion and Manipular who had apparently freshly aged out of his First Form. While far from his scheduled mutation and unable to comprehend the knowledge level of a normal Forerunner, he is still equipped to understand the Mantle. And yet, he refuses to convict himself to such a belief. Why, I ask?
My companion even addressed the concern during our latest appointment, although she fails to realize the upsetting balance of work and family matters. What am I to do if our Manipular no longer abides by the preservation and creation of all life in the galaxy if I for one am currently sought to destroy it? It is a task I am incapable of handling and will surely not let it conflict with the assembly of my Builder's Installation. We're already too far into the operation.
"Prospector, my husband, will you not assist me in encouraging our Manipular's faith in the Mantle of Responsibility? It will only ravage his morality otherwise." asks my companion.
"No, my faithful companion. It is no one else's choice to be made whether or not the poor Manipular protects the common cause our people have shared for generations past and generations to come. I must refuse."
"What generations will be left when that damned ring of yours annihilates all life in the galaxy? Perhaps our Manipular was right in his desecration of the Mantle after all."
"Our Installation was assigned a task in starving the Sickness so that there shall be no more generations to feed on. Enough with this! I will talk to the Manipular myself."
And so I ventured in to his stationary lodge where he'd been rendered to complete silence. Is this what my absence has provoked?
"Manipular, blood of my companion, what say you in your troubles? Do you deify the Mantle in these hours?" I ask with intense curiosity.
It takes several moments for the Manipular to respond.
"Very much so, father."
"And why is that?"
There is a considerable length of time in and between his acknowledgments. What thoughts and feelings lie beyond the Manipular's frustration? I must know more.
"Must I explain or has it not struck you fully? You've committed yourself to a devious course and I am regularly expected to support a belief your forces abuse. I will not be subjected to these lies any longer."
The Manipular brings about a valid point. However, it is not in my favor to defile the Master's wishes based on the opinions of a young and feebleminded Forerunner. I refrain from any pending arguments and ready myself for another period of building. I bid him farewell for the last time.
"Manipular, when this ring has reached its final stages, polished with every last trace of the Librarian's touch and wholly prepared to resist whatever threat there may be, then perhaps you shall understand. And only one day will you begin to truly appreciate its' charm."
/TRANSLATION ENDS