Halo 4 Story 101

Games Other Halo
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It has been 5 months since the release of Halo 4 and the return of the Master Chief and his awakening to save humanity from an ancient evil. Yet questions still remain about the events of that story and the details that make it up. As a sort of community service, I thought that I might as well try to clear up any lingering details that I can by the best of my abilities. I’ll hit the really major parts that have caused confusion and if there are any lingering questions I didn’t answer, feel free to ask. Either I or someone else will likely give you the answers you seek.

> Table of Contents
>
> The Covenant
> The Ur-Didact
> Ancient Humanity
> The Composer
> The Librarian
> The UNSC Infinity
> More to come!

The Covenant

With the conclusion of Halo 3 it looked as if aggression between humanity and the Covenant had come to an end. Humans would rebuild there shattered civilization while the races of the Covenant would split apart. Yet the flames of war had not gone completely out. The Office of Naval Intelligence, the secretive organization of the UNSC that oversaw the Spartan Programs and other clandestine operations, sought to ensure human dominance by weakening their most likely threat: the Sangheili (Elites).

Under the orders of Admiral Margaret Parangoksy, an ONI black ops team called Kilo-Five led by Captain Serin Osman, the future leader of ONI and Parangoksy’s successor. Osman and her team funneled arms and supplies to Avu Med 'Telcam, a former Fieldmaster in the Covenant and leader of a religious cult of Sangheili called the Servants of Abiding Truth. 'Telcam would go on to challenge the Arbiter, the only Sangheili who showed signs of being the leader of his people, in a civil conflict to establish a conservative, orthodox government build on a religion that continued to revere the Forerunners as gods.

One Sangheili embroiled in this civil war was Jul 'Mdama. 'Mdama, a former Shipmaster in the Covenant Navy, also opposed the Arbiter and his friendly relationship with humanity, a race 'Mdama believed threatened his people and family. He initially joined Avu Med 'Telcam’s cult in order to strike the Arbiter and then turn the Servants against humanity. His plans took a turn for the worse when he discovered humanities role in the Servants acquisition of arms and was captured by member of Kilo-Five.

'Mdama was taken to ONI Research Stations Trevelyan, formerly the Forerunner shield world of Onyx, and imprisoned there. He would become acquaintances with a Huragok, or Engineer, named Prone to Drift and this relationship would allow him to escape Trevelyan through a portal linked to the Sangheili colony world of Hesduros. There he would learn that a rebellion started by Avu Med 'Telcam was quelled by the UNSC and his wife, Raia, perished as a result.

Swearing revenge, 'Mdama rallied the colonists of Hesduros as a prophet of sorts to lead them to the Didact, a Forerunner he learned about while imprisoned on Trevelyan that hated humans. The Didact’s location? Requiem, a world where Jul’s forces would wait in fervent patience for over 4 years until it was opened due to the presence of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn and its Spartan occupant, the Master Chief.

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The Ur-Didact

Over 110,000 years ago, the mighty Forerunner Ecumene controlled the galaxy. Their most supreme commander was the Didact, a member of the high ranking Warrior-Servant class known as Prometheans. His tactician skills were challenged when ancient humanity, once a proud space-faring civilization, began encroaching on Forerunner territory and seizing worlds. Unknown to the Didact and the Forerunners, humanity was actually fleeing from the Flood parasite and taking Forerunner worlds to bolster their strength against the parasite. While they succeeded in making the Flood retreat from the galaxy, they were defeated by the Forerunners and their evolutionary progress undone. The Flood would return to threaten the Forerunners and the Didact rallied behind his shield worlds as a solution against the Flood, but lost due to political maneuvering by the Master Builder, a high ranking Forerunner of the Builder class. His solution? The Halo Array. In shame, the Didact placed himself inside of a Cryptum, a Promethean structure that preserves its occupant for thousands of years in meditative hibernation.

His slumber would be interrupted by a young Forerunner treasure seeker named Bornsteller Makes Eternal Lasting and his de-evolved human companions Chakas and Riser 1,000 years later. The Didact formed a bond with Bornsteller and guided him through maturation. The Didact’s freedom was short lived as a trip to the San 'Shyuum homeworld to uncover truth behind the events over the past thousand years was interrupted by the Master Builder and a rouge Halo ring controlled by the corrupted AI Mendicant Bias. The San 'Shyuum were exterminated with the Halo and the Didact was captured and cast into a Flood-infected star system.

Eventually the Didact was rescued and resumed command of the Forerunner military against the now rampaging Flood parasite, though he was no longer the only Didact as Bornsteller became the Bornsteller-Didact in his absence turning the former Didact into the Ur-Didact, or the original Didact. His pursuit for an immunity to the Flood would be met with failure after failure until his only option was to convert his own biological warriors into mechanical soldiers known as Promethean Knights to give them an edge over the Flood with a device known as the Composer. While successful warriors, they were no match against the Flood’s numbers. In a growing sense of insanity, the Didact used the Composer on de-evolved human specimens being tended to by the Librarian. This choice would put him at odds with his wife and likely the ruling Forerunner government. On his command world of Requiem, the Didact was knocked unconscious and forced into another Crpytum in the hope he would move past his madness and biases against humanity and guide them as the Reclaimers of the Forerunner legacy and the legacy of their lost empire.

He did not and renewed his aggression against humanity once he was freed unwittingly by Spartan John-117, the Master Chief.

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Ancient Humanity

During the time of the Forerunners, there was another civilization that rivaled them in technological prowess and power, humanity. 110,000 years before the discovery of Installation 04, humans roamed the stars. Yet this empire was tested by the arrival of the Flood. At first, the Flood arrived in the galaxy as a powder encased in capsules on board an unknown alien vessel 300 years before the Forerunner-Human War. The powder appeared harmless at first, but soon mutated those it was exposed to into the parasite most are familiar with. Humanity suffered heavy losses against the Flood, but were able to develop a cure that targeted the Flood due to the influence of a being known as the Primordial.

The Primordial was an ancient biological entity discovered on a planetoid by the humans and was speculated to be the last Precursor, a race of beings credited with making all life in the galaxy. Others believed it was a highly-advanced Gravemind. Whatever it was, the Primordial supplied humanity with a way to beat the Flood, yet the information was so terrifying, many humans committed suicide upon hearing it. The Flood was quelled, but humanity was eventually put down by the Forerunners and de-evolved. Those who were suspected of having information about the Flood cure were Composed by the Librarian and implanted in their de-evolved brethren for preservation. Unfortunately, the Librarians plans to rebuild the ancient humans power was nearly destroyed by the Ur-Didact and his Composing of some of her human specimens to bolster his Prometheans.

Knowledge of the ancient human empire would be rediscovered thousands of years later by the Master Chief through contact with a genetic memory of the Librarian on Requiem.

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It’s a shame not many people read the books, because with the extra information the campaign of Halo 4 is really good. I’m not saying there weren’t plot holes, there were a bunch of them, but I didn’t notice them since I had read the books prior.

Too bad 343 couldn’t have integrated some of that info into the campaign, it would’ve made it a lot better, and not have masses of people not knowing why the events are happening.

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> It’s a shame not many people read the books, because with the extra information the campaign of Halo 4 is really good. I’m not saying there weren’t plot holes, there were a bunch of them, but I didn’t notice them since I had read the books prior.
>
> Too bad 343 couldn’t have integrated some of that info into the campaign, it would’ve made it a lot better, and not have masses of people not knowing why the events are happening.

Do you happen to have any recommendations I should cover next? Information on the Infinity, Composer and Halsey are in the shoot at the moment.

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> Do you happen to have any recommendations I should cover next? Information on the Infinity, Composer and Halsey are in the shoot at the moment.

I’d say cover the Composer next since that’s also not really well explained, just that it’s a forerunner thing that disintegrates things with lasers.

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Was it really insanity that drove him to do the unthinkable? Seemed more like desperation (like how the ancient humans were forced into Forerunner territory by the Flood).

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It’s a good thing you explained the Covenant. Because 343i didn’t want to during the game…

Also, I really hate the idea of pre-humanity. That they were already flying through the stars and were forced back.

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The Composer

The Composer is a mysterious piece of Forerunner technology designed to bridge the physical, biological realm and the digital. The Forerunners had hoped that the Composer would allow them to become immortal and gain a foothold against the Flood. It is currently unknown just how many functions it possessed, but two are known. The first function was the ability to preserve the memories of Composed individuals for implantation into a living host or for use in the construction of the personality of a Monitor. The second function was the Composing of individuals into Promethean Knights.

There was one fundamental flaw behind the Composer that limited its use as a practical weapon against the Flood. Converting biological lifeforms to digital ones proved successful, but turning them back into psychical beings was met with failure. Abominations and deformities were a common problem for those who were brought back into the physical realm.

It was this hurdle that left the Composer as a last resort in the eyes of the Ur-Didact. Nevertheless, his own Promethean warriors sacrificed themselves without question to serve as the first beings to be made into Promethean Knights. The Ur-Didact himself was unable to be Composed due to mutations he performed on himself in pursuit of the Flood cure. As the war progressed and the Flood continued to spread, the Ur-Didact would use the device on human populations set up by the Librarian of at least one Halo ring before he was imprisoned on Requiem.

The Composer was then hidden away on Installation 03 and was rediscovered prior to 2557 by the UNSC and placed on the Ivanoff Research Facility that orbited the Halo. According to Dr. Sandy Tilson, it took to 3 months for the UNSC Infinity to pull it off of Installation 03. This process resulted in the vaporization of several scientists who worked on the device and the uncovering of coordinates to the Infinity’s next destination: Requiem.

Notable examples of beings digitized by the Composer include the Lord of Admirals, the main military commander of humanities forces during the Forerunner-Human War, and Chakas, one of the human companions of the Bornsteller-Didact before he assumed the previous Didact’s military obligations.

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Double post, will be replaced with a future update.

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I’d say you cover the Librarian next, seeing how she’s a very important part of the game, puling the strings since ancient times.

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I do not read the Halo books so I don’t know the answer to this, Is the Bornstellar-Didact still alive and if not, is the Ur-Didact the only living Forerunner?

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> I do not read the Halo books so I don’t know the answer to this, Is the Bornstellar-Didact still alive and if not, is the Ur-Didact the only living Forerunner?

According to the Halo Encyclopedia, Bornsteller and a few other Forerunners are alive, they performed an exodus either outside the galaxy or outside of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way. I’m fairly sure it is the latter that is correct. This is also backed up by the Halo 3 Terminals as the Ur-Didact would not be able to communicate with the Librarian since he was imprisoned.

Halo: Silentium should answer these questions better.

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Great job, some of the community definetly needs this.

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I didn’t read the books… rather enjoyed the campaign… yeah got lost a few times… but still enjoyed it.

Nice post OP.

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> I do not read the Halo books so I don’t know the answer to this, Is the Bornstellar-Didact still alive and if not, is the Ur-Didact the only living Forerunner?

I am pretty sure that the Bornstellar-Didact was the one that activated the Halo rings, so he is most likely long dead. As for him being the only Forerunner left alive, well that’s up for debate. In my opinion, his speech after the credits sounds like he’s talking about the events that just happened, so he’s got to be talking to someone.

But it remains to be seen if either of those are the case since the third and final Forerunner book is not out yet.

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This is great! Thanks!

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> Jul’s forces would <mark>wait in fervent patience for over 4 years until it was opened due to the presence of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn and its Spartan occupant, the Master Chief.</mark>

This alone would make a great Parody.

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I haven’t read any of the novels past Ghost of Onyx. It’s so refreshing to read all of the new lore that wasn’t explained in the campaign. Everything makes much more sense now. I’d thank you for each of your explanations twice if I could.

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I wouldn’t mind knowing a bit more of Halsey and what’s going on in Spartan Ops myself, thanks for the info very helpful.