 |
About This Site
Daily Musings
News
News Archive
Site Resources
Concept Art
Halo Bulletins
Interviews
Movies
Music
Miscellaneous
Mailbag
HBO PAL
Game Fun
The Halo Story
Tips and Tricks
Fan Creations
Wallpaper
Misc. Art
Fan Fiction
Comics
Logos
Banners
Press Coverage
Halo Reviews
Halo 2 Previews
Press Scans
Community
HBO Forum
Clan HBO Forum
ARG Forum
Links
Admin
Submissions
Uploads
Contact
|
|
|
The Rise of the Covenant by Jacob Grodman
|
Prologue: The Forerunners
Date: 27 January 2007, 4:05 pm
Prologue: The Forerunners
Year 0001 of the first age, Age of Abandonment, unknown location, home of the Forerunners/Prophets.
Evolution always takes place.
The small insignificant Grolfalo species changed into what would be one most known race in the galaxy. Their frail and weak bodies made them easy prey, but their extreme sentient intelligence kept their extinction at bay.
Unfortunately, everything evolves sooner or later. This time, it was sooner. Another species evolved a few hundred years after the Grolfalo. This species gained opposite attributes of their older rivals. Brute strength was their strong suit, and they quickly multiplied and started to wipe out the Grolfalo.
While the Grolfalo were on the brink of extinction, a single one of their kind discovered an amazing way to leave the chaos of their planet. That individual discovered slipspace, a way to travel vast distances in a rapid amount of time by entering an alternate dimension.
By building a large spaceship that could withstand the extreme pressure during the transition from slipspace to normal space, he was able to convince others of his race that his journey would be profitable for the entire planet.
He soon embarked, with thousands of his comrades, on the journey to find other intelligent life forms.
They destroyed their old city so as to prevent others from finding where they had gone, and then they left their planet forever.
For hundreds of years, their legion roamed space, discovered other species, and out of fear, attacked them.
With their superior technology, this species called them selves Denarkine, which in their language meant "great gods".
At an unknown time, though it is presumed to be about 200,000 B.C.E., the Denarkine landed on Earth. There they built the first Denarkine constructs, which are now called "Forerunner" constructs.
In these constructs, they buried all their knowledge, teachings, and locations across the galaxy.
When the Denarkine left earth, they left a small bacterium, which eventually killed all life forms on the planet at the time.
The Denarkine traveled for a long time before landing on an unknown planet on the outer rim of the galaxy. The planet was desolate and barren, and they soon discovered why: a parasitic life form lay dormant on the planets surface.
A single Denarkine ship was unfortunate enough to travel too close. The parasite boarded the vehicle, destroyed it, and infected its crew.
The great intelligence of the Denarkine mixed with the strength and malice of the parasite, created a monster that destroyed half of the galaxy. Thousands of the parasite, which the Denarkine called "flood," scoured the galaxy, controlling life forms and destroying their bodies due to their sick feeding process.
No life forms though became quite as terrible as when the Denarkine were controlled. It took a strike force larger than any in past or present to capture the parasite and quarantine them on an unmapped planet.
But thousands of years later, after the Denarkine had conquered the galaxy and developed an empire, the parasite escaped once more.
This time the Denarkine were ready. They had found a simple organism that was lacking a nervous system, thus depriving the Flood of its way to control a host. They put this organism in large suits of armor, and gave it large weapons and shields with which to fight the Flood. These "Flood Hunters" had the desired effect on their enemies, slowly wiping out the infestation.
But the Flood was underestimated, and all beings can adapt to their surroundings. The parasite discovered ways to defeat their hunters, so the Denarkine were forced to relinquish them of their duty temporarily.
Out of options, the Denarkine built giant metal rings to house and quarantine the Flood. They also installed a great weapon in these rings as a last resort. In the situation of the flood escaping once again, the weapon could be activated, and would kill all possible hosts for the flood.
10 of these rings were made, so as to cover the vast distance of the galaxy with the range of their weapon. They called these rings Halos.
The Denarkine then traveled the galaxy, leaving complex structures that gave clues to the locations of the rings.
Year 0001 of the Second Age, Age of Conflict, Ggoynall
One such structure was on the planet that would later be called Reach. This building was put under the highest security possible, and hidden from anyone besides those who know what to look for, or those with extreme luck. In this construct they placed crystalline artifact with the power to bend time and space. There is no record of how the Denarkine came upon this item. They sealed the entrance to the structure, and left; never to return again. The Denarkine continued to conquer the galaxy, destroying planets relentlessly; but there were those who fought back.
On a giant planet with super-chilled methane atmosphere lived a small pig-like sentient beasts which are now called Unggoy. The Denarkine studied these animals and realized their fighting habits. When in a large group, the Unggoy will throw themselves relentlessly, almost as if to prove themselves to their peers; but when alone, or in a small group, cowardice would take over, and they would run.
Trillions of the small animals populated the giant planet, creating a formidable force of which the Denarkine were afraid to attack.
The Denarkine then left the planet and found a world not far away from the Unggoy.
They were immediately attacked by a tall biped creature with great strength and intelligence. Scores of vehicles with attached weapons patrolled the planet and put fear in the hearts of the Denarkine. Therefore, they devised a scheme to conquer the planet.
They sent spies onto the surface to kidnap young children and bring them back to their ships. Their plan went flawlessly, and when the children were kidnapped, an unsuspected bonus occurred. When the bipeds found that 62 of their children had been taken, they blamed each other, causing a civil war.
During the confusion, the Denarkine infiltrated the bipeds ranks and stole hundreds of their vehicles. Then they attacked the major cities with those vehicles, but were only able to conquer one city by the time that the bipeds formulated a resistance. The bipeds amazing battle prowess soon defeated the Denarkine, leaving their civilization severely wounded. Not being able to accept their loss, the Denarkine called upon their Flood Hunters to deal with their new-found enemies. The Hunters annihilated all threats that passed them, quickly and flawlessly. But the bipeds were never conquered
Eventually, the Denarkine were forced to forfeit and leave the planet, not accepting defeat, but not winning either.
The Denarkine then resumed their search for intelligent life. They found a planet filled with purple skinned beings that floated in the air on large gas bladders. Once the Denarkine landed their ships on the planet, the weird animals immediately boarded their ships and started to repair the damage that they had taken during their battle with the bipeds. The Denarkine decided to call the animal "Huragok," which in their language meant engineer. The Denarkine stayed many years on that planet, learned the animal\'s language, and later convinced them to come on their ships.
The Huragok became excited when they heard that they could learn about the Denarkine\'s highly advanced technology.
The Denarkine learned that the Huragok were pacifists, and hardly interfered with galactic affairs. Their life\'s ambition was to learn about and fix technology. The Huragok helped the Denarkine build advanced weapons, which later were called "plasma weapons", despite their lack of actually plasma. With these new weapons, the Denarkine traveled through the galaxy and conquered planets.
Later they landed back on their home planet, and left a record of "legacy" there. Then they left, never to return again.
Remembering the beauty of the planet Earth, the Denarkine traveled there once more in hopes of ending their journey at last. Unfortunately, the Denarkine found that the planet was already populated by a race of biped sentients called Humans. Although, the humans were very undeveloped, the Denarkine found them an interesting, smart, and very strong race; and they eventually became friends.
The Denarkine decided to make the humans the "Reclaimers" of the 10 Halos that they had created. Being the Reclaimer of Halo meant that only the Humans could activate their constructs. They also built a large mechanism that can activate all the rings remotely on Earth. They called this device "the ark" and then left earth to finish their galactic conquest.
The last things that the Denarkine built were machines with a plasma laser type weapon that was effective in fighting the Flood, should they ever escape their quarantine. They called these machines "sentinels." Then they built a globe like machine to command these others flood weapons. In these globes they put all their knowledge and history of conquests. Then, leaving their halos for the last time, they found the planet on which they had originally found the Huragok. On this planet, the flood gathered for an attack.
Fearing that the flood could escape the planet eventually, the Denarkine gathered up all their forces, including the Flood Hunters, Sentinels, and all weapons built by the Huragok; and the second greatest battle in the history of the galaxy ensued.
Although when the battle turned in favor of the Flood, a single Denarkine panicked, and activated the weapon of a nearby Halo. The radius of the Halo wiped out 1/10th of the galaxy, luckily not including Earth, Reach, Ggoynall* or any other major populated planets.
The Denarkine were no more.
But in the thousands of years that they had been journeying, the Denarkine had forgotten those of their species that they had left behind before leaving their home planet.
Year 0001 of Third age, Age of discovery, unknown location, home of the Forerunners/Prophets,
A young male of an unnamed species was digging for a new well in the mountains when his shovel hit what the male thought was a stone.
It was dozens of years later that the species discovered that it wasn\'t a stone. They found a giant technologically advanced city, which had been deserted by its former civilians.
In this city, they found an ancient legacy that told of an amazing race that traveled the galaxy on a journey of conquest.
They also found technology: the original prototype slipspace generator, primitive electric weapons that the Denarkine used before they found the Huragok, and schematics for a large spaceship.
After spending hundreds of years building spaceships and the slipspace generators, the species set out to follow their "Forerunners." The species thought that the forerunners had left their planet to embark upon a "great journey" to the "divine beyond," but the truth was that the forerunners had left to conquer the galaxy and died out in the process.
As the species was searching through the forerunners city, they found a structure that held all the information of Forerunner conquest and the halos. Although the structure only mention the Halos briefly, not noting their cause or what they looked like, the species interpreted the halos as Holy Constructs. Unfortunately for the species, but fortunately for all life in the galaxy, the structure did not house the locations for the halos.
The species left their home planet to follow the Forerunners, which they worshiped as gods. They searched for Halos, which they thought would send with the forerunners to the divine beyond.
But unforeseen complications arrived. A small group of the prophets; or will of the gods, which they called themselves; stumbled upon a giant ring which they could not identify. The ring had its own nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere and gravity, but as the prophets landed upon the ring, half their number was captured by a terrifying parasite.
The prophets assumed that the parasite was put upon the rings to protect the forerunner secrets; but some thought that the parasite was on the ring by accident, and that activating the ring would send them into the divine beyond as well as destroying the parasite.
The non-parasitic prophets left the ring in a hurry, and set out to find a way to destroy the parasite, which they discovered was named Flood.
They settled on the idea of using deception finding other willing civilizations to use as a weapon that would land upon the sacred ring and clear a way, or rather, lead the Flood away from Prophets, so that the prophets could activate the ring and send themselves (but not necessarily the other species) to the divine beyond.
The prophets changed their names to "The Followers" and chose their most intelligent and respected spiritual leaders to govern their race, and lead them to the forerunners:
The Prophet of Truth
The Prophet of Mercy
The Prophet of regret
The Prophet of Wisdom
These four prophets commanded the Followers into scouring the galaxy looking for races that would do their work for them.
|
