The Precursors. When. If.

Community Halo Universe
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Let’s talk about the Precursors. I’m choosing this color for Flood theme. I mean the Precursors that made the Flood, I couldn’t care less about the tribal ones in the past.

Well, we know how the Flood came about from them, and that the Primordial hinted that the Flood would come back. But what about the Precursors themselves?

First off, are there any left? Yes. The Primordial confirmed it seeing as they were the ones that sent the capsules into Ancient Human territory. Buuuut, that plan got kinda ruined when the Forerunners started to get involved.

But now that humanity is becoming “ripe” and all that prophecy jazz, do you REALLY think the Precursors will show?

I say no: Why? Because, even if the UNSC got a hold of every Forerunner artifact and became allies with the Covenant species, I don’t honestly think that something of THAT magnitude will be stoppable.

Now you might be thinking “but it was only to bring them unity.” That’d be kind-of…anti-climactic, if the solution was to just ally with the Covenant (and I’m sick and tired of fighting those guys, I don’t want to keep doing it just to please the freaking Precursors and have them be like “Oh, yeah, you got unified” then pulls the Flood back

I don’t think we’ll ever encounter the ancient Precursors…it’s too much for the universe to handle.

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I agree that the Precursors should be far too powerful for the universe to handle, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. I mean, think back to how the Forerunners were perceived around the time of Halo 3. They were practically gods. People assumed a single Forerunner warrior was capable of smiting starships from orbit, walking unscathed through glassing beams and nuclear bombs, obliterating armies with a thought. Now we have Prometheans as stock enemies that get taken out by Marines with assault rifles. Who’s to say the same won’t happen with Precursors?

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If they return, I don’t want anything like the encounter with the Didact, we need a collision that is 500x that, they need to be seen by the world as a force that literally have no bounds, don’t forget, they have access to Tier 0 technology.

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> I People assumed a single Forerunner warrior was capable of smiting starships from orbit, walking unscathed through glassing beams and nuclear bombs, obliterating armies with a thought.

I never really understood that perception, I mean, with the exception of Onyx Sentinels and Spark (who was a boss fight, who are often magically more durable) most forerunner stuff didn’t seem that relatively more powerful.

The normal sentinels didn’t really seem much better than a marine. Even the Enforcers in h2 were kind of clunky and not too amazingly effective or durable. The described forerunner would have made them easily able to handle bungie-era flood.

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But if the Flood is the twisted remnants of Precursors, wouldn’t that mean we have already seen the Precursors return?
And SJ, did their Tier 0 tech help when the forerunners forced them out?

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> But if the Flood is the twisted remnants of Precursors, wouldn’t that mean we have already seen the Precursors return?
> And SJ, did their Tier 0 tech help when the forerunners forced them out?

Yeah I’ve generally thought the flood is really just the precursor’s most recent form. Their speech in silentium made it fairly clear the precursors are a very fluid species and saying they have one form or another is probably innacurate. It even declares itself the last of the precursors.

If the flood can use star roads as cudgels, I don’t see why precursors can’t though. The forerunners likely had some trump card they’ve since lost, as “the precursors were too peaceful” is kind of hard to explain given the extent of time the forerunners would have had to attack them for.

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The precursors wanted humanity to take over the mantle, which is why the forerunner’s attacked them. If they were to return do you think they would still feel the same way about humans. After all they kinda stopped the Halo’s going off and destroying all life, which may just show how committed the humans are to saving lives, and the galaxy for that matter.

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> The precursors wanted humanity to take over the mantle, which is why the forerunner’s attacked them. If they were to return do you think they would still feel the same way about humans. After all they kinda stopped the Halo’s going off and destroying all life, which may just show how committed the humans are to saving lives, and the galaxy for that matter.

I don’t think they stopped the Halo’s from destroying all life in the universe just to allow humanity to take over the mantle.

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> > The precursors wanted humanity to take over the mantle, which is why the forerunner’s attacked them. If they were to return do you think they would still feel the same way about humans. After all they kinda stopped the Halo’s going off and destroying all life, which may just show how committed the humans are to saving lives, and the galaxy for that matter.
>
> I don’t think they stopped the Halo’s from destroying all life in the universe just to allow humanity to take over the mantle.

No, he means humanity stopped the rings to save everyone, not the Precursors (if that’s what you’re saying?)

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> > The precursors wanted humanity to take over the mantle, which is why the forerunner’s attacked them. If they were to return do you think they would still feel the same way about humans. After all they kinda stopped the Halo’s going off and destroying all life, which may just show how committed the humans are to saving lives, and the galaxy for that matter.
>
> I don’t think they stopped the Halo’s from destroying all life in the universe just to allow humanity to take over the mantle.

You missed his point. He was talking about humanity deactivating the Halos, not the Precursors. He was saying that stopping the Covenant from firing the Halo array was an act proving humanity worthy of the Mantle. I agree that the Precursors would probably view such actions favorably.

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Eh, it also saves their own hides though, it wasn’t really selfless. You can stop a nuke beside you from exploding without caring about everyone else who might have been in the blast.

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> Eh, it also saves their own hides though, it wasn’t really selfless. You can stop a nuke beside you from exploding without caring about everyone else who might have been in the blast.

But there’s something else you’re missing. Stopping the Halos shows exactly how much humanity has changed since the time of the Forerunner-Human war and the first Flood attacks.
When humans were utterly defeated by the Forerunners, their only desire was to drag their enemies down to the grave with them; accordingly, they destroyed all of their Flood-related information in an effort to ensure the Forerunners would be unprepared and helpless when the Flood returned.
Fast-forward to the 26th century: Humanity is once again on the verge of complete extinction at the hand of a vastly superior enemy. Since the continuation of the war between the UNSC and Covenant would guarantee our extinction, there isn’t technically any difference between stopping and allowing the Halos to be fired. If complete revenge was still a human motivation, the UNSC would have allowed Truth to activate the rings, thus ensuring that they die with us.
Instead, humanity fought tooth and claw to stop the array from activating, with saving the entire galaxy as a motivation. I’d say this was a very important action in line with the Mantle.

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As impossible as they seem to incorporate in to a possible human victory without some crazy new addition that would affect the weights, the Precursor just seem too hinted at to not make an appearance.

Maybe 343i just wanted to elaborate on their mention back in, goodness I can’t even remember, was it the Halo 3 terminals or Halsey’s journal where they were first mentioned?

I’ve been a huge proponent on the Precursors appearing, hell I even thought they’d be the “Ancient Evil” in Halo 4. I love their story and how it connects to the Forerunner’s life. But unless 343i is playing them up for the super long run ans may be setting them up for the games after the Chief’s story, I don’t see what their purpose would be Universe-wise.

All of the information gathered within the first few pages when Cryptum first came out were mind blowing, Forerunners worshiping Precursors, then that there was a whole other war. But the Forerunner trilogy’s story could, for the most part, still have happened without introducing the Precursors.

The huge parts that related to the Precursors were, to me, the conflict on Installation 07, which could have still happened with Bias and a Gravemind controlling the events on the ring without the Precursor relations/complications.

And of course, the giant battle and subsequent turn of the Didact in Silentium. Instead of using the Star Roads, or incorporating the Precursors vengeful motives, it could simply have been straight up Flood attacking. And the Didact’s change in character could have been just egged on by the Flood/Gravemind to lure him into his deepest, hidden desires of hate towards Humans.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that their story didn’t need to happen. But it did, and I’m glad it did. It added so much to our understanding of the Forerunners and how they lived, but without them appearing again, it would feel like an unnecessary addition. The Forerunner culture could easily have been drawn with that same amount of detail and information without the Precursor addition. But because they weren’t, and because the Precursor story has been endlessly fascinating(especially to me) I really think they’re gonna appear in Halo 5.

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> And SJ, did their Tier 0 tech help when the forerunners forced them out?

Did the Forerunners Tier 1 technology help when the Flood (and Humans) forced them out?

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> > Eh, it also saves their own hides though, it wasn’t really selfless. You can stop a nuke beside you from exploding without caring about everyone else who might have been in the blast.
>
> But there’s something else you’re missing. Stopping the Halos shows exactly how much humanity has changed since the time of the Forerunner-Human war and the first Flood attacks.
> When humans were utterly defeated by the Forerunners, their only desire was to drag their enemies down to the grave with them; accordingly, they destroyed all of their Flood-related information in an effort to ensure the Forerunners would be unprepared and helpless when the Flood returned.
> Fast-forward to the 26th century: Humanity is once again on the verge of complete extinction at the hand of a vastly superior enemy. Since the continuation of the war between the UNSC and Covenant would guarantee our extinction, there isn’t technically any difference between stopping and allowing the Halos to be fired. If complete revenge was still a human motivation, the UNSC would have allowed Truth to activate the rings, thus ensuring that they die with us.
> Instead, humanity fought tooth and claw to stop the array from activating, with saving the entire galaxy as a motivation. I’d say this was a very important action in line with the Mantle.

But ONI was wanting to use the flood on the covenant, as shown in Mona Lisa.

“Tooth and nail” was a frigate commanded by a woman who both times did not really have whole hearted approval from her Lord Admiral (A character many people have a positive opinion of), and a spartan, and the frigates crew and soldiers…not a particularly high number of humanity.

Miranda as the daughter of Halsey also likely has a forerunner geas, and chief is pretty much confirmed to have one at this point. This makes it more difficult to judge a species when another species has had their hand in fiddling with them.

Humanity also gained an ally in the form of the elites, who did a fair bit of heavy lifting and actually committed more numbers to helping save the galaxy. We were no longer hopeless. We’re now also sabotaging those former allies too.

Also, letting truth fire the halos would have meant he lived, since he was on the Ark. Also following him there made it really easy to defeat him and NOT be destroyed.

The scenario is different as ancient humans had no way out, while modern humans had working with the elites and an enemy that had already mostly defeated itself for them. Ancient humans had allies too, but those allies betrayed them.

The morale of the story seems to be to never trust Prophets.

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> > And SJ, did their Tier 0 tech help when the forerunners forced them out?
>
> Did the Forerunners Tier 1 technology help when the Flood (and Humans) forced them out?

You are missing the point.
Just because we classify these entities as space gods, doesn’t make them absolutely invincible.

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> > And SJ, did their Tier 0 tech help when the forerunners forced them out?
>
> Did the Forerunners Tier 1 technology help when the Flood (and Humans) forced them out?

No, because the Flood assimilated them and gained access to all their tech.

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> > > And SJ, did their Tier 0 tech help when the forerunners forced them out?
> >
> > Did the Forerunners Tier 1 technology help when the Flood (and Humans) forced them out?
>
> No, because the Flood assimilated them and gained access to all their tech.

I would call that a win for the Precursors.

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> > > And SJ, did their Tier 0 tech help when the forerunners forced them out?
> >
> > Did the Forerunners Tier 1 technology help when the Flood (and Humans) forced them out?
>
> You are missing the point.
> Just because we classify these entities as space gods, doesn’t make them absolutely invincible.

I am not missing the point, I clearly countered your statement, with a statement that clarifies that I already know that powerful doesn’t mean invincible.

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> > > > And SJ, did their Tier 0 tech help when the forerunners forced them out?
> > >
> > > Did the Forerunners Tier 1 technology help when the Flood (and Humans) forced them out?
> >
> > You are missing the point.
> > Just because we classify these entities as space gods, doesn’t make them absolutely invincible.
>
> I am not missing the point, I clearly countered your statement, with a statement that clarifies that I already know that powerful doesn’t mean invincible.

Yet you keep pulling this card, ‘Oh, they have Tier 0 tech’. You make it sound like they are eternally going to win.