I have a few questions to do with the story.
1: What was the exact reasoning for the Prophets to replace the Elites with the Brutes?
2: How are the Humans and Covenant races still alive after the Forerunners activated the Halos?
3: What happened to the flood on installation 05? They had taken over it and high charity so how was the flood threat neutralized?
I have just been replaying the games and rereading the books and these questions stick out for me.
> 1: What was the exact reasoning for the Prophets to replace the Elites with the Brutes?
It was the Prophet of Truth’s doing. He claimed it was because the Elites failed to protect the Prophet of Regret but he had amassed a Brute only fleet a long time ago and had actually had all the Elites killed on Earth by Brutes before the Great Schism even officially began.
> 2: How are the Humans and Covenant races still alive after the Forerunners activated the Halos?
The Forerunner known as the Librarian took samples of all life-forms in the Galaxy and stored them on the Ark. After the Halos fired the survivors reseeded the Galaxy with life.
> 3: What happened to the flood on installation 05? They had taken over it and high charity so how was the flood threat neutralized?
Installation 05 was glassed by the Covenant. High Charity escaped quarantine and was destroyed at the Ark.
Ok I mostly got the second one right but I still don’t get why truth bothered killing the Elites. I really don’t see a point to it.
> Ok I mostly got the second one right but I still don’t get why truth bothered killing the Elites. I really don’t see a point to it.
The Elite’s faith began to waiver. There were those who started to doubt the Prophet’s Journey and their declared War against the Humans. As Truth tells the Arbiter before he was killed,
“Your kind…never believed in the promise of the sacred rings.”
Ok cool thanks for the help.
1: What was the exact reasoning for the Prophets to replace the Elites with the Brutes?
If you read Contact Harvest, you’ll find out a lot more background of why the Prophets started the war with humans. This is relevant because later in the war, some Elites start discovering this background, and the Prophet of Truth knows that they are catching on to it. The truth will set the Elites against the Prophets, so before that can happen out of their control, the Prophets decide to act first and entrust the Brutes with more responsibility.
2: How are the Humans and Covenant races still alive after the Forerunners activated the Halos?
As Nihilus said, the Forerunners (or at least some of them) had a plan in place for preserving life from the effects of the Halo.
I just wanted to point out that we still don’t actually know the exact circumstances of the firing of the Halos and the Librarians plans. The Halo 3 terminals say that the Didact was planning to fire the Halos, and apparently he did, but since there is no evidence that any Forerunners survived, and Shield Worlds such as the one in the novels are apparently unfinished and unused, we don’t know if everything went according to plan.
3: What happened to the flood on installation 05? They had taken over it and high charity so how was the flood threat neutralized?
I couldn’t remember specifically, but according to Halopedia, it was mentioned in Ghosts of Onyx and the encyclopedia.