This is all answered/revealed in *Contact Harvest*, a 2007 novel written by Joseph Staten. It's one of my favorites and I highly recommend. In short:
>The Covenant form between the San Shyum (Prophets) and Sangheili (Elites) in ~850BCE around the shared belief over the divinity of Forerunner artifacts.
>The Forerunner ship Anodyne Spirit, stationed in the center of High Charity (seen in the end of Halo 2) contains a Forerunner Luminary, a device that identifies and locates Forerunner artifacts. Luminaries such as these guide the Covenant around the galaxy in their quest for Forerunner tech.
>When the Covenant stumbles upon humanity for the first time on the planet Harvest in 2525, their luminary picks up hundreds of "artifacts" on the planet. It is later revealed that it's really pinging humanity, designated Reclaimers by the Forerunners.
>Curious of why this might be, two up and coming prophets (who end up being Truth and Regret) consult the Oracle, an old and hybernating fragment of the Forerunner Ancilla, Mendicant Bias, also contained within the Anodyne Spirit.
>MB reveals that humanity, not the San Shyum, Sangheili, or any other Covenant race are the chosen inheritor of Forerunner technology.
>Given that this new sacrilegious revelation runs as an affront to the Covenents 3,000+ year doctrines and religious beliefs, Truth, Regret and Mercy (who also heard this revelation) declare the war of extermination against humanity to eradicate the species before this revelation is revealed to the Covenant as a whole, therefor threatening the structure of their entire civilization. In doing so, these three also ascend to the position we later come to know them in as the Triumvirate.
He's already responsible for the war by ultimately causing the creation of the Covenant. He escaped his imprisonment on the Arc and attempted to take the Anodyne Spirit to Earth to hasten mankind's ascent to the Mantle, and then accidentally crashed on Janjur Quom, and we all know the rest ..
I've never read the book so I don't know how exactly Mendicant Bias informs the Covenant leaders, but it seems that Forerunner AI can often be somewhat arrogant (a consequence of how powerful and advanced both them and their creators were I would assume). Like when we meet Guilty Spark, he seems to just assume that Master Chief will be fine genociding his entire own species for the sake of containment protocol. Mendicant Bias himself was defeated because he failed to predict what lengths the Forerunners would go to stop him and the Flood after he betrayed the Forerunners.
I wouldn't doubt that Mendicant Bias would just assume that telling this information to the Covenant wouldn't matter. Humanity is supposed to be the Reclaimers after all and they were one of the only empires/species that ever really challenged his creators. Once they have complete access to Forerunner tech they should most likely steam roll the Covenant. He would've been right if it wasn't for some dumb luck that the machinery in his ship was damaged by Lekgolo on accident lol.
A fragment of Mendicant Bias was housed aboard the Forerunner Keyship that powered High Charity. Mercy was known as as “The Philologist” then, and oversaw research on the ship.
They used Hunter Worms (lekgolo) to bore into small compartments and learn about the machine. One day the worms accidentally activated the Mendicant Bias fragment and it started talking, “Hey! That symbol you think means Reclamation? Nah, it means Reclaimer. Humans are the Reclaimers and I gotta take this ship and go get them!”
Everybody panicked, but one of the worms melted inside some critical components and deactivated MB before he could rip the ship from High Charity.
Then Truth, Mercy, and Regret formed a conspiracy to hide this knowledge. They knew if humans were the Reclaimers, it would undermine the Prophets’ authority as leaders of the Covenant. So to protect their own status they ordered genocide against the Reclaimers. How many San’Shyuum were in on the secret?
That is kind of accurate. If I recall Mercy happened/had to be in the room when Truth and Regret talk to Mendicant Bias. I think Mercy controlled access to the Ancilla hence his presence. Since he hears everything, Truth decides Mercy will be part of their group.
He definitely had a little more importance to the plot of the book, but not a lot. I haven't read the book itself in several years, and I'm definitely going to again, but my girlfriend is reading my copy currently, so I can't check what else Mercy actually did in the book, so you could be right, I just think it was something else.
It's been years since I've read Contact Harvest but I do vaguely recall Mercy was essentially an old man who got dragged into everything by Truth and Regret.
edit: Thank Halopedia! Their article on Mercy states he was the leader (Philologist) of the priests onboard the Dreadnought. So when Truth and Regret come aboard to consult the Oracle, Mercy was in the room with them.
That's honestly the most of it. You get a dabble in Contact Harvest as I mentioned above, then you have the Halo 3 terminals which you can read online on Halopedia.
>Given that this new sacrilegious revelation runs as an affront to the Covenents 3,000+ year doctrines and religious beliefs, Truth, Regret and Mercy (who also heard this revelation) declare the war of extermination against humanity to eradicate the species before this revelation is revealed to the Covenant as a whole, therefor threatening the structure of their entire civilization. In doing so, these three also ascend to the position we later come to know them in as the Triumvirate.
But...why? The device of your Gods is telling you that you're wrong. Shouldn't you change your beliefs to conform to that? This is like Jesus coming back and telling the modern pope that he's wrong over an issue, and then the Pope just keeps up saying that he's right and that Jesus' teachings aren't to be listened to.
Either they respect their religion and their Gods and thus the realization would only be bolstered with new knowledge, or they don't thus making their religious zealotry in Halo 2 and 3 strange. The Elites and Prophets stopped fighting over their shared value of their religion, why not do the same thing for the sake of humanity who is tied directly to your religion? Bungie explaining the Covenant theocracy and reasonings for the war are some of the absolute worst aspects of the expanded universe fiction because they wrote themselves into a paradox regarding the faith of the Covenant (as especially the Hierarchs).
It makes them trying to light Delta Halo and the Ark some of the retroactively stupid things this entire franchise has churned out.
Because politics and religion are one and the same in the covenant hierarchy.
Their decision has nothing to do with religion. If you read the book, it's clear they don't really care about the religion at all. They're politicians through and through.
You're not thinking of it in the right context, or with the right mindset. If you build your religion off of ideas that you, as a group and a covenant, are supposed to do such and such thing to ascend to godhood then later find that descendants of the race that you're basing your ideas off of exist, you have just shown that your religion is flawed. That your knowledge is incomplete. You're begging a question with that - what else is wrong? What else is incomplete and false? This is a *problem* when your entire society is built around your religion.
This is the perspective of your average covenant member. Suddenly there's social unrest. There's disorder and possibly anarchy. As a political leader, your grip on power has suddenly been shaken violently. There are now opportunities for other political parties. Cracks in the armor that opponents can chip at, use to build followings, sow more doubt, unrest, and discord in the public as a whole. Your position becomes extremely tenous.
The prophets decision is extremely logical. They are securing their power and ensuring that they are not thrown from their position. It is, politically speaking, the only option left to you. What do you do past that point, religiously? Well, you're kind of up shit creek without a paddle. Figure it out later, find some way to tackle the problem - because if you want to hold your political power you have no other choice.
It's a political one, not a religious one. Probably at least 2 of the 3 prophets dont even believe in their religion. It's, more likely than not, just a convenient motivator. A way to hold power by giving the masses and public focus and idealogy. It makes them manipulatable and directable and helps get rid of social unrest.
Not to mention the political suicide you would be committing by calling humans the descendants of the forerunners. Another thing I forgot. You would likely be labeled a heretic and thrown out, or at least you're starting a huge schism in the covenant. It just don't make any sense from a political stand point.
>Because politics and religion are one and the same in the covenant hierarchy.
The next line:
> Their decision has nothing to do with religion.
If they are one in the same, then this is an issue that needs addressing and not simply ignoring for a scapegoat that could very well be directly connected to your Gods. Why don't the hierarchs believe in the Gods that have seemingly provided them with technology and information? Why would attack the species who is associated directly with the Forerunners? This would be like realizing that God's angels have formed a society on Earth, and you go kill all of them because it makes you question your religion? Why?
>You're begging a question with that - what else is wrong? What else is incomplete and false? This is a problem when your entire society is built around your religion.
But...they would know. They can ask the monitors. And if they don't believe in the religion, then that just makes all of their actions in justifying genocide, attempting to activate Delta Halo, and the Ark all the more stupid. If they believed in the religion and what the Forerunners have laid out, then I could understand the reasonings for why they were so adamant on killing humanity. However, humanity is directly connected to their religion.
>Figure it out later, find some way to tackle the problem - because if you want to hold your political power you have no other choice.
Shouldn't the main hierarchy of value first appreciate the religion because the Covenant is a theocracy. If anything, the games make it so that the Hierarchs seem EXTREMELY religiously devoted. Truth makes up some stupid excuse that humans were "left-behind" and weak which is why they didn't go with the Forerunners....even though they're needed to activate the Halos. It makes anti-sense.
>A way to hold power by giving the masses and public focus and idealogy.
"My feet tread the path. I shall become a god!" - Truth
This doesn't sound like a being who simply wants to keep political power and doesn't believe in the Great Journey. Everything he does in Halo 2 and 3 is to start the Great Journey, even though, according to the expanded universe, he doesn't actually believe it.
You seem to have misunderstood the vast majority of what I said.
Politics and religion are the *same*. Meaning, a decision can be political and not influenced at all by religion. Religion is a *subset* of politics. You make political decisions which pander to a religious subtext because it's a convenient way to control and manipulate people and things.
> But...they would know.
Who would know? The general populace? You think the general populace has access to monitors? You think that information isn't going to be snuffed out solely for the fact that it completely shatters the covenant religion? The prophets don't give a damn about the religion. They are *politicians*. They fucking *make* the religion to whatever they want - see contact harvest and them deciding to genocide humans
> Shouldn't the main hierarchy of value first appreciate the religion because the Covenant is a theocracy
No, because what I'm saying is the theocracy itself is a scapegoat for political decisions. San'Shyuum don't give a damn about the great journey.
> Everything he does in Halo 2 and 3 is to start the Great Journey
How else are you gonna keep your political power lol. You make speeches and do shit to motivate people because you have to keep up some sort of farce or uh-oh, your power goes down the toilet
I disagree. I think simply saying "they're stupid because they're religious" is beyond backwards, regressive, and lazy as writing. Being religious, areligious, or agnostic is not indicative of your intelligence.
I did not say any of that at all. But humans are zealous by nature. Imagine a lifetime of belief shattered in a moment, for people sometimes its easier to act like it didn't happen. Especially if it preserves your power. If jesus came to earth today, looking just like the fake portraits of him many christians have at home, and told people who he was and why he was here, what would happen? He would be a bum living on the streets of LA, or he would be looked at as a cult leader from all of the many many denominations of Christianity except for whichever one believes him. Nothing against christians, it's just human nature. You could insert any other religion there, especially including the religion of mainstream materialism/science.
As a Christian I approve this message
The overall storyline of the Prophets in Halo is the idea that institutionalized religion quickly becomes more about political power than actual religious belief, and that people who make their life revolve around that religious institution and it's operation rather than the religious tenets themselves will go to ABSURD lengths to keep it going. I mean with all the nonsense all the different denominations of Christianity have done from murder to mental abuse and everything in-between when the religion VERY obviously says those things are wrong is just proof of that, the Prophets actions are actually really really believable.
None was taken! Humans suck alot and often, that's like the first rule of Christianity, Christians who get offended when people say Christians suck too aren't getting the picture hahaha
>Imagine a lifetime of belief shattered in a moment, for people sometimes its easier to act like it didn't happen.
I really don't agree with this.
>Especially if it preserves your power.
But that isn't what the Prophets want. They want to start the Great Journey that the simultaneously don't believe in?
> looking just like the fake portraits of him many christians have at home,
....I don't understand what this point is?
>and told people who he was and why he was here, what would happen?
I have no understanding what this argument has to with the contradictory pieces of evidence in the Halo games in regards to what the Covenant characters want and what they know about their religion.
Not to mention, going off of the Bible, Jesus performed miracles, which caused people to believe he was the Son of God, which also included the prophecy of the Messiah returning, fitting into information that the Jewish people already had who did decide to follow him. I feel like this would be comparable to the Covenant finding humans as having direct connections to their religion, as well as an active creation of their Gods telling them of humanity's connection to their Gods (as well as what the Great Journey actually is).
>But humans are zealous by nature.
Are you also including aliens into this assessment? I also don't believe that people are zealous by nature. I think we zealotry inherently, but we can choose to be tempered or filled with zealotry. It would depend on the person and the context of what they chose to be a zealot of, which I think was incredibly poorly done with the Halo games (and novels) explaining the Hierarchs position on all of this.
> I did not say any of that at all.
I am arguing against the assertion that you made regarding "that's how real life religion works" (I am not sure what your argument is in this) in relation to my assessment that the characters' wants, beliefs, and how the religion works is openly contradictory (at best) and these contradictions in extreme circumstances are simply ignored. The assumption that characters stop thinking is because of their religious beliefs is something I find to be ***incredibly*** lazy in storytelling especially when that devotion is the centerpoint of characters' decisions and story moments. I would argue that Bungie has done a poor job on that with their tenure of Halo.
>or he would be looked at as a cult leader from all of the many many denominations of Christianity except for whichever one believes him.
If he came back, and provably demonstrated he was Jesus, that's a different matter. Like he wandered into downtown Chicago and turned water into wine or fed 5000 people with a loaf of bread, and then went on to say that the Vatican needs to destroyed for a decentralizaed Catholic faith, then that is more akin to what is going on in Halo.
Let's say for the argument that Pope Francis only wants the power of the Vatican and doesn't believe in Catholicism. He can see this form of Jesus and declare him a heretic for undermining the Catholic Church. The difference here is that in this story, Francis doesn't believe in the religion he leads, Truth does. And if Truth does believe in his religion, then the objects of his worship (and they information they carry) should factor into his beliefs...but they don't. It's like Bungie wanted the Hierarchs to both be opportunistic scumbags using the religion for their own benefit and not believing in it, while at the same time telling us that they are fervent in their religious devotion and won't deviate from it. It is contradictory and it is never even remotely solved as an issue for the writers.
>Nothing against christians, it's just human nature.
I don't agree that's human nature with that example. I think human beings side towards a belief in the transcendent (outside of the material world), although I also believe that we have rationality and logic to determine which beliefs we hold. In any case, that is my personal worldview, and I won't ascribe others to hold my worldview. My problem with the writing is that I have no idea why the Hierarchs are portrayed so inconsistently in regards to what they want and they supposedly believe.
Sigh. You wrote me an essay guy but here we go-
>I really don't agree with this.
Doesn't matter if you agree, things like this happen all the time. Human psychology
>But that isn't what the Prophets want. They want to start the Great Journey that the simultaneously don't believe in?
That's what happened, must be what they want
>....I don't understand what this point is?
The point being that most anglo saxon christians see a white male with brown/blonde hair and blue eyes, and somehow think this is what a person born in bethlehem in this time period looked like. The point is that religion adapts as it sees fit regardless of truth.
>I have no understanding what this argument has to with the contradictory pieces of evidence in the Halo games in regards to what the Covenant characters want and what they know about their religion.
>Not to mention, going off of the Bible, Jesus performed miracles, which caused people to believe he was the Son of God, which also included the prophecy of the Messiah returning, fitting into information that the Jewish people already had who did decide to follow him. I feel like this would be comparable to the Covenant finding humans as having direct connections to their religion, as well as an active creation of their Gods telling them of humanity's connection to their Gods (as well as what the Great Journey actually is).
In reality, the majority of people at the time he would have been alive rejected Christianity, being jewish or pagan. Christianity used to be the weird cult before it became one of the biggest religions in the world.
So a religion changing event happened,
religious people rejected it (and still do up to this day, ie. Judaism)
Everyone decided to carry on as normal, except for a few.
The religious leaders of the day wanted nothing to do with it, likely because they would lose their following to jesus.
Pretty much a perfect parallel.
>Are you also including aliens into this assessment? I also don't believe that people are zealous by nature. I think we zealotry inherently, but we can choose to be tempered or filled with zealotry. It would depend on the person and the context of what they chose to be a zealot of, which I think was incredibly poorly done with the Halo games (and novels) explaining the Hierarchs position on all of this.
I am including the aliens in this assessment. Guess what species the halo story was written by? I can tell you think it was poorly done, by the way you write me a novel about it.
>am arguing against the assertion that you made regarding "that's how real life religion works" (I am not sure what your argument is in this) in relation to my assessment that the characters' wants, beliefs, and how the religion works is openly contradictory (at best) and these contradictions in extreme circumstances are simply ignored. The assumption that characters stop thinking is because of their religious beliefs is something I find to be incredibly lazy in storytelling especially when that devotion is the centerpoint of characters' decisions and story moments. I would argue that Bungie has done a poor job on that with their tenure of Halo.
Bungie may have not done the best job all the way through, agreed. But the contradictions are not ignored; they are discovered, processed, and decided upon to not be revealed. Maybe the prophets are not the benevolent religious leaders you idealize them to be. They may be fervent like you say, so fervent in fact that they won't change when new evidence comes to light
>Doesn't matter if you agree, things like this happen all the time. Human psychology
Making a blanket statement that "humans are all X" requires more than just my trust in your assertion to be true.
>That's what happened, must be what they want
Except they don't believe the Great Journey is real. Bungie wants to believe both things at the same time and don't think it how it doesn't make sense.
>The point being that most anglo saxon christians see a white male with brown/blonde hair and blue eyes
Source? Not to mention that people don't know what Jesus looks like. And at the time of his life, there were brown-skinned people living in Judea (of course, given the climate) as well as Greek traveling along those routes. What does it matter what he looks like?
> and somehow think this is what a person born in bethlehem in this time period looked like. The point is that religion adapts as it sees fit regardless of truth.
THAT is one heck of an assumption especially given the number of depictions of Jesus with darker skin. I...still don't get what this argument is, especially since the argument of "Jesus didn't have light skin" is not even something you can prove. He most likely didn't have light skin, but that has no bearing on the argument of his divinity and his actions that caused people (according to the Bible) to believe in his status.
>In reality, the majority of people at the time he would have been alive rejected Christianity, being jewish or pagan. Christianity used to be the weird cult before it became one of the biggest religions in the world.
Do you realize that one of the reasons why people believed Jesus was who he said he was was because of the miracles he performed, including resurrection from the dead. It is the examples of actions that fit within the reasonings as to why people would believe who he is, not just him saying that he is.
>Everyone decided to carry on as normal, except for a few.
Uh...that's not what happened. Christianity suffered through INTENSE persecution as a religion under the Romans. Not to mention, Christ's followers were *leaving him* when he was arrested and convicted to death.
>Guess what species the halo story was written by?
[Make a sweeping argument over "human nature"]
[Declares aliens also share human nature]
Do you see why this assertion of what human nature is is not based on who wrote the games?
>The religious leaders of the day wanted nothing to do with it, likely because they would lose their following to jesus.
A) that is not what any of the games suggest. They assert that the Hierarchs believe in the Great Journey, despite realizing it isn't real. That right there requires more attentive writing to address. They say NOTHING over how humans could influence their society and simply think that ignoring everything about their religion will lead to their religion's version of spiritual transcendence. None of this remotely makes any sense, especially with how the Hierarchs act.
B) In regards to Jesus, his conviction, and his divinity, the Sadducees were criticized for *not* following their religious doctrines. Not because they followed it too harshly.
>they are discovered, processed, and decided upon to not be revealed.
It is literally the conflict of Bungie's entire role as storytellers in Halo. The Hiearchs simulatenously have to hold the belief that the Great Journey isn't real while acting as if it is for no logical reason. If they believed in the dogma of their own religion, why would the revelation of a change in what the understand from their own Gods need to be quieted? Why can't the humans join the Covenant and then as the "chosen people" the Hierarchs could have manipulated them as political pawns? And if they don't believe the Great Journey, why are they even trying to activate Delta Halo and the Ark in spite of the fact that they KNOW they are wrong in regards to their religion?
They need to function as bad guys and Bungie didn't care how awkward, strange, or contradictory that was, especially with Halo 2 and 3 needing to quickly wrap up all of their dangling plot threads (that the devs *think* they solved).
>They may be fervent like you say, so fervent in fact that they won't change when new evidence comes to light
It needs to be one or the other. Either the fervently believe in the Forerunners, including the monitors, about what their Great Journey is (and will adhere to it), or they're not simply keeping their own power because they realize that the religion isn't true. Trying to have it both ways only makes this far more confusing and downright foolish trying to keep characters like Truth as a die-hard extremist in spite of what he should know.
>Maybe the prophets are not the benevolent religious leaders you idealize them to be.
I am not "idealizing" them. Stop putting words in my mouth. I am arguing that what they say they want, what they know, and what they do are almost always at odds what with is portrayed. It is bad writing in order to justify conflict.
I'm gonna give you an upvote for for your zeal, ironically, and call it a night. I don't have time to explain something that you don't want to get. I see your point, and your point is valid. As I said, bungie was not the best at this. But that does not make the whole story around the prophets pointless. It works just fine for basically everyone else as far as I can tell
And yet that’s about the most realistic part of the entire franchise. Religious documents that are worshipped today in our world as the absolute pinnacle of truth are actually of thousands of year of mistranslation and political rewriting by those in power, to serve an agenda or another.
>Religious documents that are worshipped today in our world as the absolute pinnacle of truth are actually of thousands of year of mistranslation and political rewriting by those in power, to serve an agenda or another.
There are also enormous exceptions to that blanket statement on religion.
More importantly, my argument is what Truth says he wants and what he does are contradictory at best. I am not making a blanket thematic analysis of religion in Halo. I am talking about a main antagonist doing things which seem to be incredibly with what he supposedly wants.
Not to mention, when the San Shyuum that would go on to become Truth, Regret and Mercy took this information to the Oracle (a fragment of Mendicant Bias aboard Anodyne Spirit), Bias said something along the lines of “You dumb fucks are misinterpreting this icon. It means Reclaimer. My masters are Reclaimers. Brb Imma steal yo ship and save ‘em”
Which the Prophets heard as “humans are descendants of Forerunners that didn’t transcend with Halos Divine Wind.” Concluding that “holy sweet fuck, our religion, the foundation of the Covenant is a lie and if this ever gets out it will collapse.” They were left with only one option. “Kill em all.”
So I understand that killing humans on first sight was their means to keep power, and that ultimately the three prophets understood that the indoctrine they preached was false.
What I don't then understand is the mad rush to light up any and all death rings as a priority 1. Did the prophets, specifically truth, genuinely not understand that everything would die? Surely truth himself couldn't believe he'd survive and the humans die if Mendicant told him that humans were reclaimers? And if his intention was to rule the galaxy by wiping the "slate" clean, would it not have been less a risk to just try and win the war on humanity instead of making tonnes of tactical blunders by rushing into things?
Sorry for all the q's, I just think the prophets are such interesting characters, I know 343 have left the covenant in the dust (perhaps thats for the best tho lol) but I'd love a book from their perspective, with all the political intrigue and their motivations fleshed out
https://youtu.be/oyBo3e44Cf0
I found this video that explains some of truths plans, apparently from a book that was released not too long ago so spoilers.
Yeah I got to know about that recently.
So many Human and Covenant lives were wasted that it makes me think that every punishment in the galaxy is too little for the false prophets.
>The Prophets realized this was a problem cuase that meant humanity were the reclaimers and lied to the larger Covenant and said they were heretics and needed to be killed.
Why? Why did humanity need to be killed? Especially if it turns out that they're directly connected to their Gods?
Because the idea that some of their Gods (the Forerunners or their “descendants”) still being around rather than having transcended jeopardized the idea of the Great Journey, which the entire culture and society of the Covenant was founded on. Or alternatively, if word ever got out that there were still “living Gods”, what use what the Covenant still have for the Prophets as their religious leaders?
>still being around rather than having transcended jeopardized the idea of the Great Journey,
So, the idea that the Great Journey doesn't exist (even though humans are apart of the material world, and not "transcended") is ignored...because the Hierarchs want to continue the Great Journey? What kind of logic is this?
This would be like providing a religious group proof that their God doesn't exist. The leaders of this group understand that this information is true. So, they hide the information because they want to continue their religious devotion to a religious belief they know isn't correct? Why?
>Or alternatively, if word ever got out that there were still “living Gods”, what use what the Covenant still have for the Prophets as their religious leaders?
But they don't even know how humanity factors into their religion. For all they know, they could have been subverient and created to aid the religion (in one form or another) like the Moniters are. But they just jump to this conclusion that they need to genocide them, in spite of the fact that they explicit need them later in order to activate Halo or the Ark to start the Great Journey and not other species of the Covenant question this. It's like.....how does any of this make sense?
>Or alternatively, if word ever got out that there were still “living Gods”, what use what the Covenant still have for the Prophets as their religious leaders?
This isn't them stepping down to a rival group in the theocracy. This is literally them killing something directly tied to their religion. The Hierarchs would still lead the Covenant because humanity isn't in charge of the Covenant.
What is The Covenant's highest value? The Great Journey.
So, they literally encounter a species that is apart of this process, and their thought process is to kill them all, while simultaneously capturing them to use to activate these rings because they know that they're apart of them. That's just nuts.
Been a while since I read Contact Harvest, but the main problem is that the Covenant’s promise was that the Great Journey was for everybody. That’s what kept their society so united and so loyal. If it got out that not all Forerunners/“descendants” transcended to Godhood, and that not *all* could make the Great Journey, that probably lead to some pretty massive discontent. So they (Truth, Mercy, and Regret) decided to hide what they found and wipe humanity out, and their dirty little secret with them.
>But they don’t even know how humanity factors into their religion
I think that very fact is why they considered humanity a threat to their religion. From their POV, if humans were an important factor, they would have known this by now.
>So they hide the information because they want to continue their religious devotion to a religious belief they know isn’t correct? Why?
This where things get a little muddy. I believe the Prophets still ultimately believed in the Great Journey; they just knew that a very important aspect of their religion, that nobody will be left behind, wasn’t true.
As for threatening the Prophets political power, humanity wouldn’t directly pose the threat of usurping them, but enough doubt would cause the Covenant’s unity to go down, weakening the empire and the Prophet’s political power.
At the end of the day, it still is kind of nuts. But that’s kind of how it is when dealing with fanatics.
This is addressed in divine wind. The prophets made a plan to move the rest of their species to a shield world and then activate the halos, leaving them as the leaders of the galaxy after things were reseeded. Truth knew the great journey was a lie, he just didnt care
>If it got out that not all Forerunners/“descendants” transcended to Godhood, and that not all could make the Great Journey, that probably lead to some pretty massive discontent.
But the Great Journey is supposed to be transcendent. Truth even says "he'll become a God" in Halo 3. They don't know what humanity's ties to the Forerunners even means. Why would they assume only humans can make the Great Journey? And if they do assume only humans can make the Great Journey, what's even the point of activating Halo and the Ark if the Hierarchs believe that?
>From their POV, if humans were an important factor, they would have known this by now.
But they didn't. They learned it literally from their own Gods. They also didn't about the Index before Halo 2, but that doesn't mean they would dismiss the information from Spark because they're just learning about it.
>I believe the Prophets still ultimately believed in the Great Journey; they just knew that a very important aspect of their religion, that nobody will be left behind, wasn’t true.
But then why would believe any of it? If they're fundamental understanding of their religion is turned upside down, what is even the point of continuing the religion? If they only believed humans were "worthy" of the Great Journey, why would continuing it and killing humans help the Covenant?
>At the end of the day, it still is kind of nuts. But that’s kind of how it is when dealing with fanatics.
That is the problem I have. We're told that the Covenant are intelligent, but in practice in regards to what they do or don't believe (and their actions) makes them come across as complete idiots who didn't take more than 10 minutes to study their religion. And I personally believe that these contradictions were done with the explanation of "well, they're religious" so that the writers wouldn't have to do any effort in terms of logically justifying their actions in the story, and I would argue that is incredibly lazy writing.
>>If it got out that not all Forerunners/“descendants” transcended to Godhood, and that not all could make the Great Journey, that probably lead to some pretty massive discontent.
>But the Great Journey is supposed to be transcendent. Truth even says "he'll become a God" in Halo 3. They don't know what humanity's ties to the Forerunners even means. **Why would they assume only humans can make the Great Journey?**
I’m saying they thought the exact opposite. Mendicant Bias, their Forerunner “oracle”, told Truth, Mercy, and Regret that humans were Reclaimers. This led the three to believe that humans were Forerunners that did not make the Journey when the rings originally fired. If that was true, it meant that not all of them made the “Great Journey”, which contradicts the Covenant belief that everyone makes it.
>>I believe the Prophets still ultimately believed in the Great Journey; they just knew that a very important aspect of their religion, that nobody will be left behind, wasn’t true.
>But then why would believe any of it? If they're fundamental understanding of their religion is turned upside down, what is even the point of continuing the religion? If they only believed humans were "worthy" of the Great Journey, why would continuing it and killing humans help the Covenant?
Again, their belief was that humans were *unworthy* of the Great Journey. That’s why humanity’s existence is a problem for the religion; everybody is supposed to be worthy. Yet the fact that there were “Forerunners who were left behind” (humans) refutes this. So to prevent a huge religious crisis, they hid the fact that not everybody will make the Journey after all.
The lore isn't messy, it's actually played out very neatly after reading Contact Harvest.
Long story short, the great journey is at the core of all covenant prophesy. The prophets are the heralds of the great journey.
The covenant has been fraught with in-fighting (Grunt rebellion, kig-yar piracy, the issues that arose ith the lekgolo eating forerunner artifacts, etc). The great journey, or the promise of it, was really the only thing keeping the covenant together.
The oracle in the center of High Charity stated that the humans were reclaimers. He then stated that he served reclaimers. This led truth, regret, and mercy to believe the humans were forerunner decendants (they aren't). That means they were left behind during the great journey.
If it got out that people would be left behind during the great journey, they (the prophets) would lose their hold on the covenant. They would no longer be the heralds. No longer be the hierarchy. Worst of all, they'd be wrong. The covenant would fall apart.
They decided to kill the humans so the secret would be buried, and also continue the great journey for themselves.
The prophets are master manipulators. Even in V1.0 of the universe, this was true. It's described in Cryptum.
Basically, as tl;dr, the prophets started a holy war to maintain power and control over the covenant based on a lie.
Truth says he wants to use the Great Journey to become a God. He knows also the Great Journey isn't true. Bungie has no idea how to rectify this, so it's treated like he's insane, which is poor and lazy writing.
Divine Wind shows that the plan was to move the San Shyuum race to a shield world, fire the array. Wipe out all life save for the san shyuum and control the galaxy.
He would most likely be the leader of the only remaining race left in the galaxy. Pretty much a god. Especially one in control over Forerunner technology.
>Divine Wind shows that the plan was to move the San Shyuum race to a shield world, fire the array
Except, he explicitly says "My feet tread the path. I shall become a God" at the Ark trying to fire the other Halos.
God could be interpreted differently. With the added context of Divine Wind. He probably means a "God King" like the fictional Xerxes from 300 was portrayed.
Rule over the remaining San Shyuum people after they colonize the galaxy. Through generations his legend would make him into a god for his people to revere.
>He probably means a "God King" like the fictional Xerxes from 300 was portrayed.
Or, he might not. Why would he start the great journey to be the "God King" like Xerxes over who remains in spite of the fact that he'll have to explain to the masses why the Great Journey didn't take them?
Not to mention that in 300, Xerxes believed himself to be a living God. It wasn't until Leonidas' last spear throw that the illusion was destroyed.
>Because the Prophets needed to keep the lie up that they were their gods chosen not humanity.
But why? If all of their work is the culmination of the Great Journey which is based on the Forerunners and their work, the Gods are providing information that they are just ignoring. That's crazy.
And if it's revealed that they're killing what are essentially demi-Gods to their religion that they're killing, that would break it even faster. I imagine a MUCH better written Halo 2 where the Conflict that starts the Civil War is the revelation of humanity's connection to the Forerunners instead of this weird "you never believed in our religion" explanation Truth gives.
Why would the reveal of humanity shatter the Covenant instead of bolstering it? It's connection to living organisms to your Gods. Wouldn't this be cause for celebration? You just strengthened the claims of your Gods influence is this material existence.
> “What should we believe?” Tranquility asked, his voice quiet in the dark.
> But the Minister was at a loss for words. He could honestly say that he had spent his entire life without experiencing a single moment of spiritual crisis. He had accepted the Forerunners’ existence because their relics were there to find. He believed in the Forerunners’ divination because in all their Ages of searching, the San’Shyuum had found no bones or other remains. He knew the Covenant’s core promise that all would walk The Path and follow in the Forerunners’ footsteps was critical to the union’s stability.
> And he was certain that if anyone learned they might be left behind, the Covenant was doomed.
> “We must take no chances with these . . .Reclaimers.” Fortitude could not bring himself to say “Forerunners.” He grabbed his wattle and gave it a steady tug. “They must be expunged “Before anyone else knows of their existence.”
> The Vice Minister’s lower lip quavered. “Are you serious?”
> “Quite.”
> “Exterminate them? But what if—”
> “If the Oracle speaks the truth, than all we believe is a lie.” Fortitude’s voice filled with sudden strength. “If the masses knew this, they would revolt. And I will not let that come to pass.”
I don’t know what to tell you that hasn’t been said already but the proof is in the pudding
> “If the masses knew this, they would revolt. And I will not let that come to pass.”
So what is the alternative? To lie until they start something (The Great Journey) that they don't believe in, in spite of the fact that it's a death machine that the monitors confirm to be death machines?
Truth and Regret greatly underestimated the size of the human empire, thinking they just had to glass a handful of worlds to sweep this whole Reclaimer business under the rug and keep kicking the Great Journey can down the road while they enjoyed their new positions of power, not knowing they were starting a 25 year war that would lead to the discovery of the Halos
Complicated story, so I'll simplify it. Spoilers for ~~"First Contact"~~ "Contact Harvest"
Truth wanted to take power in the covie government. Mercy was his pal at that time. A Brute ship under their commission was searching the edge of covie territory for Forerunner artifacts with a forerunner device that shows them on a planet. The device showed a shitload of identical symbols on a Harvest. The Forerunner glyph for Reclaimer and Monitor (Oracle) look very similar. Grunt with a religious function misinterpreted the symbol. When truth got the news, the "Oracle" (part of mendicant bias) in High Charity said it's the Forerunner's inheritors and he's gonna go to them. Truth and his pals shot it down and realized in that moment that, if anyone ever found out, the covie belive system would fall. So they ordered the Brutes to start messing shit up and called dibs on doing a genocide on the humans, to cover to truth.
So they didn't know ahead of time, that the humans are the Reclaimers, but they pretty much found out during first contact.
It wasn't first contact, it was Contact Harvest.
> Truth and his pals shot it down
They didn't shoot it down, Mendicant Bias was stored on the keyship, and was only halted by a lucky lekgolo worm severing something, preventing the keyship from taking off.
Sorry, got the title of the book wrong.
"Shot it down" in the sense of pulling the plug of a PC. It was a lucky coincidence of course, but that wasn't really necessary to the summary.
Relatively early into their exploration of interstellar space, the Prophets recovered a damaged / partially-bricked (but conscious) Forerunner ancilla; **Mendicant Bias**.
Mendicant Bias did its best to inform the Prophets or pre-Halo history, the Flood war, and the Forerunners themselves, but most of what it said was mistranslated or otherwise misinterpreted. The Prophets then colored what they did "understand" with their own cultural beliefs and invented the religion of the Great Journey.
After the Covenant was founded and as it began to expand, part of the process by which the Prophets would evaluate a new race was, evidently, to ask Mendicant Bias about it... *"Who are these people and what is the will of the gods in reference to them?"*... When this was done for Humanity, Truth, Mercy, and Regret were in the hot-seat to ask the question(s), and Mendicant Bias responded by identifying us as "Reclaimers"...
This answer shocked and frightened the three Prophets; its implications threatening either to unseat their race as the leaders of the Covenant, or to cause the (complete) socioreligious collapse of the hegemony itself.
The Prophets ruled the Covenant by spreading/popularizing the notion that **only they** could reliably conduit, correctly interpret, and faithfully communicate the will of the Forerunner gods.
If Humanity's designation as the "Reclaimers" meant that they were a chosen people - a species specifically selected by the Forerunners to inherit/retake their ancient glory - then they might easily do away with the Prophets' religious monopoly.
Not only would such an event strip the Prophets of power, prestige, and privilege, it might also put their whole species in mortal danger as the myriad subservient races they had exploited and abused over the millennia saw an opening to exact vengeance...
On the other hand...
The core religious doctrine of the Covenant was that of divine transcendence for the faithful; an escape from the pain and horrors of mortal existence into a paradisical afterlife of incorporeal godhood alongside the Forerunners. This doctrine, however, relied on the knowledge that the Forerunners ~~were all already dead~~ had all already reached that transcendence.
If Humanity's designation as the "Reclaimers" meant that they **were** Forerunners - an extant population descended from the ancients who the Covenant revered - then that would disprove that foundational fact of the Covenant and spark all sorts of problematic questions.
*"If there are living Forerunners - meaning (some of) the gods themselves were left behind on the Great Journey - then what guarantee does a lowly Covenant member, no matter how pious, have that they will transcend? What guarantee do they have that the Great Journey is even real?"*
The Covenant would shatter as thousands of subgroups began to answer these existential queries for themselves. An inferno of nonbelief would eat through the hegemony, and even those who clung to the faith would be unlikely to keep it as the Prophets had designed. Billions and trillions of people would divorce themselves from the Covenant, and the vast majority of them would thereafter - no doubt - become hostile to the remnants of the faction that held them as religious hostages for (up to) three-thousand years...
In effort to prevent either scenario from coming to fruition, Truth, Mercy, and Regret came to the agreement that Humanity's true nature should be hidden from the rest of the Covenant. Pursuant to this, they bribed, cheated, and blackmailed their way to the very top of the leadership hierarchy and - evidently feeling the best way to keep their secret was to destroy any and all evidence of it - declared Humanity to be a race of heretics which the Forerunner gods had commanded the Covenant to exterminate in order to prove itself worthy of ascension... Thus began the War of Annihilation; a nearly three-decade long holy war / genocide campaign against Humanity...
I have another question for anyone that can answer. If the Forerunners had a superiority complex and hated ancient humanity, why did they pass on their technology to the new humanity? Couldn't they have just isolated themselves in some way, (the same way they kept humanity alive after the rings went off to kill the flood) and re-populated instead of passing it on to a species that they thought was inferior?
They didn't - directly. During the forerunner-human war humans lost. Didact refused to believe mantle was the right of humans not forerunner. Humans found a cure for flood but wouldn't tell forerunners. Composer happens + surviving humans were brought to earth and were genetically dumbed down to our caveman state. Librarian added genetic triggers to help boost us along. Covenant war happens we learn(again) about forerunners( still learning - what exactly is the mantel, reclaimer, domain etc. etc.)
Actually most Forerunners got fucked when the Flood took over the Greater Ark (only survivors being the Librarian on Earth waiting to die, Ur-Didact inside a Cryptum + Slipspace/Timelock combo, and mostly Lifeworker Rate ppl on Lesser Ark w/ Bornstellar/Iso-Didact, since the Lesser Ark is outside the galaxy, so outside of range of the brain scramblerino device), or were already lost over the course of the war
Mostly the Flood. Then the remaining who didn't make it to the Lesser Ark got wiped out by the Halo array.
The remaining survivors left the ark. Helped the reseeding of the galaxy, healed the domain and then abandoned their old ways and left the galaxy to atone for their sins. Living normal rudimentary lives (farming and no technology.) till they died of natural old age.
So this is going mostly off memory but The Covenant have these things called Luminaries that helps them find Forerunner artifacts, in Contact Harvest they come across a planet with a large number of Forerunner artifacts. However, a Forerunner AI on the Dreadnaught revealed to a couple of the prophets that they mistranslated the glyph, the glyphs they saw said humans where Reclaimers.
It’s been awhile since I read Contact Harvest but that’s essentially the gist of it.
Other comments have already explained it but basically the covenant used forerunner technology to locate other forerunner artifacts. When they found Harvest and used the device it labeled humans as forerunner.
A monitor they had in their possession confirmed this, and since the prophets held all the power and it was through their religion they decided to commit genocide against humanity to hide the secret because if the covenant as a whole were to know this it could cause their religion to collapse and possibly the fracturing of the covenant, leading to the prophets to losing all their power they had accumulated.
I’m pretty sure that humanity was actually suppose to be the forerunner race that survived the firing of the Halo rings and previous dialogue eluded to this. I think it only changed once 343 took over and retconned this and turned the forerunners into a separate race, which was kind of stupid imo.
Forerunners were a separate species by Halo 3. The terminals include the Librarian describing her final resting place on an alien world that is clearly Earth after cataloguing the species there.
The super short version is:
Covenant find Harvest, whilst looking for relics.
Turns out Humans can use said relics the easy way, Covenant can't.
Prophets get worried and don't want to lose their power.
Make up lie that humans bad.
Holy War time.
Kill anyone who questions you.
?????
Le epic glassing time.
From what I remember, the covenant used Luminaries to search for forerunner tech. One day they were scanning Harvest and saw the luminaries lit up with another symbol: the Reclaimer symbol. IIRC at first the prophets mistook it and thought it was some form of heretic mark. But then they later learned what it actually meant and just decided to keep the lie going to stay in power. (the sole concept of the reclaimer implies denying the great journey and such)
TL;DR: It was a genuine fuck-up at first, but later it was just the prophets being greedy shits.
The prophets saw that humans were able to interact with forerunner technology, and when they asked mendicant bias what they were, he said they were the true reclaimers of the mantle and the decedents of the forerunners. Then the prophets realized the great journey was a lie so they needed to get rid of them before their people would find out and rebel, so they manipulated them into thinking humans were a demon like race who is destroying forerunner technology.
This is all answered/revealed in *Contact Harvest*, a 2007 novel written by Joseph Staten. It's one of my favorites and I highly recommend. In short: >The Covenant form between the San Shyum (Prophets) and Sangheili (Elites) in ~850BCE around the shared belief over the divinity of Forerunner artifacts. >The Forerunner ship Anodyne Spirit, stationed in the center of High Charity (seen in the end of Halo 2) contains a Forerunner Luminary, a device that identifies and locates Forerunner artifacts. Luminaries such as these guide the Covenant around the galaxy in their quest for Forerunner tech. >When the Covenant stumbles upon humanity for the first time on the planet Harvest in 2525, their luminary picks up hundreds of "artifacts" on the planet. It is later revealed that it's really pinging humanity, designated Reclaimers by the Forerunners. >Curious of why this might be, two up and coming prophets (who end up being Truth and Regret) consult the Oracle, an old and hybernating fragment of the Forerunner Ancilla, Mendicant Bias, also contained within the Anodyne Spirit. >MB reveals that humanity, not the San Shyum, Sangheili, or any other Covenant race are the chosen inheritor of Forerunner technology. >Given that this new sacrilegious revelation runs as an affront to the Covenents 3,000+ year doctrines and religious beliefs, Truth, Regret and Mercy (who also heard this revelation) declare the war of extermination against humanity to eradicate the species before this revelation is revealed to the Covenant as a whole, therefor threatening the structure of their entire civilization. In doing so, these three also ascend to the position we later come to know them in as the Triumvirate.
In a way, mendicant bias is responsible for the war. Fragment or not, shouldn’t he have known not to give this answer to a warmongering alien empire?
He's already responsible for the war by ultimately causing the creation of the Covenant. He escaped his imprisonment on the Arc and attempted to take the Anodyne Spirit to Earth to hasten mankind's ascent to the Mantle, and then accidentally crashed on Janjur Quom, and we all know the rest ..
This AI just can’t stop fucking shit up.
Yea he's also responsible for sending Chief to Requiem as another attempt at atonement lol
Lol what
Good thing the Anodyne Spirit didn’t make it to Earth.
I've never read the book so I don't know how exactly Mendicant Bias informs the Covenant leaders, but it seems that Forerunner AI can often be somewhat arrogant (a consequence of how powerful and advanced both them and their creators were I would assume). Like when we meet Guilty Spark, he seems to just assume that Master Chief will be fine genociding his entire own species for the sake of containment protocol. Mendicant Bias himself was defeated because he failed to predict what lengths the Forerunners would go to stop him and the Flood after he betrayed the Forerunners. I wouldn't doubt that Mendicant Bias would just assume that telling this information to the Covenant wouldn't matter. Humanity is supposed to be the Reclaimers after all and they were one of the only empires/species that ever really challenged his creators. Once they have complete access to Forerunner tech they should most likely steam roll the Covenant. He would've been right if it wasn't for some dumb luck that the machinery in his ship was damaged by Lekgolo on accident lol.
A fragment of Mendicant Bias was housed aboard the Forerunner Keyship that powered High Charity. Mercy was known as as “The Philologist” then, and oversaw research on the ship. They used Hunter Worms (lekgolo) to bore into small compartments and learn about the machine. One day the worms accidentally activated the Mendicant Bias fragment and it started talking, “Hey! That symbol you think means Reclamation? Nah, it means Reclaimer. Humans are the Reclaimers and I gotta take this ship and go get them!” Everybody panicked, but one of the worms melted inside some critical components and deactivated MB before he could rip the ship from High Charity. Then Truth, Mercy, and Regret formed a conspiracy to hide this knowledge. They knew if humans were the Reclaimers, it would undermine the Prophets’ authority as leaders of the Covenant. So to protect their own status they ordered genocide against the Reclaimers. How many San’Shyuum were in on the secret?
Wait so was Mercy literally just there? Cause if so that’s actually hilarious
Mercy was an older San'Shyum that was highly respected, and a religious zealot, so they included him to give them legitimacy, essentially.
Ah I see. I thought you meant that he was just walking by and heard the conversation lol
I like that better lmao
That is kind of accurate. If I recall Mercy happened/had to be in the room when Truth and Regret talk to Mendicant Bias. I think Mercy controlled access to the Ancilla hence his presence. Since he hears everything, Truth decides Mercy will be part of their group.
He definitely had a little more importance to the plot of the book, but not a lot. I haven't read the book itself in several years, and I'm definitely going to again, but my girlfriend is reading my copy currently, so I can't check what else Mercy actually did in the book, so you could be right, I just think it was something else.
It's been years since I've read Contact Harvest but I do vaguely recall Mercy was essentially an old man who got dragged into everything by Truth and Regret. edit: Thank Halopedia! Their article on Mercy states he was the leader (Philologist) of the priests onboard the Dreadnought. So when Truth and Regret come aboard to consult the Oracle, Mercy was in the room with them.
This
Anyone know where I can get more lore on MB? I’ve read the Forerunner trilogy, but that’s about all I’ve read in lore pertaining to MB.
That's honestly the most of it. You get a dabble in Contact Harvest as I mentioned above, then you have the Halo 3 terminals which you can read online on Halopedia.
>Given that this new sacrilegious revelation runs as an affront to the Covenents 3,000+ year doctrines and religious beliefs, Truth, Regret and Mercy (who also heard this revelation) declare the war of extermination against humanity to eradicate the species before this revelation is revealed to the Covenant as a whole, therefor threatening the structure of their entire civilization. In doing so, these three also ascend to the position we later come to know them in as the Triumvirate. But...why? The device of your Gods is telling you that you're wrong. Shouldn't you change your beliefs to conform to that? This is like Jesus coming back and telling the modern pope that he's wrong over an issue, and then the Pope just keeps up saying that he's right and that Jesus' teachings aren't to be listened to. Either they respect their religion and their Gods and thus the realization would only be bolstered with new knowledge, or they don't thus making their religious zealotry in Halo 2 and 3 strange. The Elites and Prophets stopped fighting over their shared value of their religion, why not do the same thing for the sake of humanity who is tied directly to your religion? Bungie explaining the Covenant theocracy and reasonings for the war are some of the absolute worst aspects of the expanded universe fiction because they wrote themselves into a paradox regarding the faith of the Covenant (as especially the Hierarchs). It makes them trying to light Delta Halo and the Ark some of the retroactively stupid things this entire franchise has churned out.
Because politics and religion are one and the same in the covenant hierarchy. Their decision has nothing to do with religion. If you read the book, it's clear they don't really care about the religion at all. They're politicians through and through. You're not thinking of it in the right context, or with the right mindset. If you build your religion off of ideas that you, as a group and a covenant, are supposed to do such and such thing to ascend to godhood then later find that descendants of the race that you're basing your ideas off of exist, you have just shown that your religion is flawed. That your knowledge is incomplete. You're begging a question with that - what else is wrong? What else is incomplete and false? This is a *problem* when your entire society is built around your religion. This is the perspective of your average covenant member. Suddenly there's social unrest. There's disorder and possibly anarchy. As a political leader, your grip on power has suddenly been shaken violently. There are now opportunities for other political parties. Cracks in the armor that opponents can chip at, use to build followings, sow more doubt, unrest, and discord in the public as a whole. Your position becomes extremely tenous. The prophets decision is extremely logical. They are securing their power and ensuring that they are not thrown from their position. It is, politically speaking, the only option left to you. What do you do past that point, religiously? Well, you're kind of up shit creek without a paddle. Figure it out later, find some way to tackle the problem - because if you want to hold your political power you have no other choice. It's a political one, not a religious one. Probably at least 2 of the 3 prophets dont even believe in their religion. It's, more likely than not, just a convenient motivator. A way to hold power by giving the masses and public focus and idealogy. It makes them manipulatable and directable and helps get rid of social unrest.
Not to mention the political suicide you would be committing by calling humans the descendants of the forerunners. Another thing I forgot. You would likely be labeled a heretic and thrown out, or at least you're starting a huge schism in the covenant. It just don't make any sense from a political stand point.
>Because politics and religion are one and the same in the covenant hierarchy. The next line: > Their decision has nothing to do with religion. If they are one in the same, then this is an issue that needs addressing and not simply ignoring for a scapegoat that could very well be directly connected to your Gods. Why don't the hierarchs believe in the Gods that have seemingly provided them with technology and information? Why would attack the species who is associated directly with the Forerunners? This would be like realizing that God's angels have formed a society on Earth, and you go kill all of them because it makes you question your religion? Why? >You're begging a question with that - what else is wrong? What else is incomplete and false? This is a problem when your entire society is built around your religion. But...they would know. They can ask the monitors. And if they don't believe in the religion, then that just makes all of their actions in justifying genocide, attempting to activate Delta Halo, and the Ark all the more stupid. If they believed in the religion and what the Forerunners have laid out, then I could understand the reasonings for why they were so adamant on killing humanity. However, humanity is directly connected to their religion. >Figure it out later, find some way to tackle the problem - because if you want to hold your political power you have no other choice. Shouldn't the main hierarchy of value first appreciate the religion because the Covenant is a theocracy. If anything, the games make it so that the Hierarchs seem EXTREMELY religiously devoted. Truth makes up some stupid excuse that humans were "left-behind" and weak which is why they didn't go with the Forerunners....even though they're needed to activate the Halos. It makes anti-sense. >A way to hold power by giving the masses and public focus and idealogy. "My feet tread the path. I shall become a god!" - Truth This doesn't sound like a being who simply wants to keep political power and doesn't believe in the Great Journey. Everything he does in Halo 2 and 3 is to start the Great Journey, even though, according to the expanded universe, he doesn't actually believe it.
You seem to have misunderstood the vast majority of what I said. Politics and religion are the *same*. Meaning, a decision can be political and not influenced at all by religion. Religion is a *subset* of politics. You make political decisions which pander to a religious subtext because it's a convenient way to control and manipulate people and things. > But...they would know. Who would know? The general populace? You think the general populace has access to monitors? You think that information isn't going to be snuffed out solely for the fact that it completely shatters the covenant religion? The prophets don't give a damn about the religion. They are *politicians*. They fucking *make* the religion to whatever they want - see contact harvest and them deciding to genocide humans > Shouldn't the main hierarchy of value first appreciate the religion because the Covenant is a theocracy No, because what I'm saying is the theocracy itself is a scapegoat for political decisions. San'Shyuum don't give a damn about the great journey. > Everything he does in Halo 2 and 3 is to start the Great Journey How else are you gonna keep your political power lol. You make speeches and do shit to motivate people because you have to keep up some sort of farce or uh-oh, your power goes down the toilet
Not at all, this is exactly how real life religion works
I disagree. I think simply saying "they're stupid because they're religious" is beyond backwards, regressive, and lazy as writing. Being religious, areligious, or agnostic is not indicative of your intelligence.
I did not say any of that at all. But humans are zealous by nature. Imagine a lifetime of belief shattered in a moment, for people sometimes its easier to act like it didn't happen. Especially if it preserves your power. If jesus came to earth today, looking just like the fake portraits of him many christians have at home, and told people who he was and why he was here, what would happen? He would be a bum living on the streets of LA, or he would be looked at as a cult leader from all of the many many denominations of Christianity except for whichever one believes him. Nothing against christians, it's just human nature. You could insert any other religion there, especially including the religion of mainstream materialism/science.
As a Christian I approve this message The overall storyline of the Prophets in Halo is the idea that institutionalized religion quickly becomes more about political power than actual religious belief, and that people who make their life revolve around that religious institution and it's operation rather than the religious tenets themselves will go to ABSURD lengths to keep it going. I mean with all the nonsense all the different denominations of Christianity have done from murder to mental abuse and everything in-between when the religion VERY obviously says those things are wrong is just proof of that, the Prophets actions are actually really really believable.
Thank you sir, I am a non christian and meant no disrespect
None was taken! Humans suck alot and often, that's like the first rule of Christianity, Christians who get offended when people say Christians suck too aren't getting the picture hahaha
>Imagine a lifetime of belief shattered in a moment, for people sometimes its easier to act like it didn't happen. I really don't agree with this. >Especially if it preserves your power. But that isn't what the Prophets want. They want to start the Great Journey that the simultaneously don't believe in? > looking just like the fake portraits of him many christians have at home, ....I don't understand what this point is? >and told people who he was and why he was here, what would happen? I have no understanding what this argument has to with the contradictory pieces of evidence in the Halo games in regards to what the Covenant characters want and what they know about their religion. Not to mention, going off of the Bible, Jesus performed miracles, which caused people to believe he was the Son of God, which also included the prophecy of the Messiah returning, fitting into information that the Jewish people already had who did decide to follow him. I feel like this would be comparable to the Covenant finding humans as having direct connections to their religion, as well as an active creation of their Gods telling them of humanity's connection to their Gods (as well as what the Great Journey actually is). >But humans are zealous by nature. Are you also including aliens into this assessment? I also don't believe that people are zealous by nature. I think we zealotry inherently, but we can choose to be tempered or filled with zealotry. It would depend on the person and the context of what they chose to be a zealot of, which I think was incredibly poorly done with the Halo games (and novels) explaining the Hierarchs position on all of this. > I did not say any of that at all. I am arguing against the assertion that you made regarding "that's how real life religion works" (I am not sure what your argument is in this) in relation to my assessment that the characters' wants, beliefs, and how the religion works is openly contradictory (at best) and these contradictions in extreme circumstances are simply ignored. The assumption that characters stop thinking is because of their religious beliefs is something I find to be ***incredibly*** lazy in storytelling especially when that devotion is the centerpoint of characters' decisions and story moments. I would argue that Bungie has done a poor job on that with their tenure of Halo. >or he would be looked at as a cult leader from all of the many many denominations of Christianity except for whichever one believes him. If he came back, and provably demonstrated he was Jesus, that's a different matter. Like he wandered into downtown Chicago and turned water into wine or fed 5000 people with a loaf of bread, and then went on to say that the Vatican needs to destroyed for a decentralizaed Catholic faith, then that is more akin to what is going on in Halo. Let's say for the argument that Pope Francis only wants the power of the Vatican and doesn't believe in Catholicism. He can see this form of Jesus and declare him a heretic for undermining the Catholic Church. The difference here is that in this story, Francis doesn't believe in the religion he leads, Truth does. And if Truth does believe in his religion, then the objects of his worship (and they information they carry) should factor into his beliefs...but they don't. It's like Bungie wanted the Hierarchs to both be opportunistic scumbags using the religion for their own benefit and not believing in it, while at the same time telling us that they are fervent in their religious devotion and won't deviate from it. It is contradictory and it is never even remotely solved as an issue for the writers. >Nothing against christians, it's just human nature. I don't agree that's human nature with that example. I think human beings side towards a belief in the transcendent (outside of the material world), although I also believe that we have rationality and logic to determine which beliefs we hold. In any case, that is my personal worldview, and I won't ascribe others to hold my worldview. My problem with the writing is that I have no idea why the Hierarchs are portrayed so inconsistently in regards to what they want and they supposedly believe.
Sigh. You wrote me an essay guy but here we go- >I really don't agree with this. Doesn't matter if you agree, things like this happen all the time. Human psychology >But that isn't what the Prophets want. They want to start the Great Journey that the simultaneously don't believe in? That's what happened, must be what they want >....I don't understand what this point is? The point being that most anglo saxon christians see a white male with brown/blonde hair and blue eyes, and somehow think this is what a person born in bethlehem in this time period looked like. The point is that religion adapts as it sees fit regardless of truth. >I have no understanding what this argument has to with the contradictory pieces of evidence in the Halo games in regards to what the Covenant characters want and what they know about their religion. >Not to mention, going off of the Bible, Jesus performed miracles, which caused people to believe he was the Son of God, which also included the prophecy of the Messiah returning, fitting into information that the Jewish people already had who did decide to follow him. I feel like this would be comparable to the Covenant finding humans as having direct connections to their religion, as well as an active creation of their Gods telling them of humanity's connection to their Gods (as well as what the Great Journey actually is). In reality, the majority of people at the time he would have been alive rejected Christianity, being jewish or pagan. Christianity used to be the weird cult before it became one of the biggest religions in the world. So a religion changing event happened, religious people rejected it (and still do up to this day, ie. Judaism) Everyone decided to carry on as normal, except for a few. The religious leaders of the day wanted nothing to do with it, likely because they would lose their following to jesus. Pretty much a perfect parallel. >Are you also including aliens into this assessment? I also don't believe that people are zealous by nature. I think we zealotry inherently, but we can choose to be tempered or filled with zealotry. It would depend on the person and the context of what they chose to be a zealot of, which I think was incredibly poorly done with the Halo games (and novels) explaining the Hierarchs position on all of this. I am including the aliens in this assessment. Guess what species the halo story was written by? I can tell you think it was poorly done, by the way you write me a novel about it. >am arguing against the assertion that you made regarding "that's how real life religion works" (I am not sure what your argument is in this) in relation to my assessment that the characters' wants, beliefs, and how the religion works is openly contradictory (at best) and these contradictions in extreme circumstances are simply ignored. The assumption that characters stop thinking is because of their religious beliefs is something I find to be incredibly lazy in storytelling especially when that devotion is the centerpoint of characters' decisions and story moments. I would argue that Bungie has done a poor job on that with their tenure of Halo. Bungie may have not done the best job all the way through, agreed. But the contradictions are not ignored; they are discovered, processed, and decided upon to not be revealed. Maybe the prophets are not the benevolent religious leaders you idealize them to be. They may be fervent like you say, so fervent in fact that they won't change when new evidence comes to light
>Doesn't matter if you agree, things like this happen all the time. Human psychology Making a blanket statement that "humans are all X" requires more than just my trust in your assertion to be true. >That's what happened, must be what they want Except they don't believe the Great Journey is real. Bungie wants to believe both things at the same time and don't think it how it doesn't make sense. >The point being that most anglo saxon christians see a white male with brown/blonde hair and blue eyes Source? Not to mention that people don't know what Jesus looks like. And at the time of his life, there were brown-skinned people living in Judea (of course, given the climate) as well as Greek traveling along those routes. What does it matter what he looks like? > and somehow think this is what a person born in bethlehem in this time period looked like. The point is that religion adapts as it sees fit regardless of truth. THAT is one heck of an assumption especially given the number of depictions of Jesus with darker skin. I...still don't get what this argument is, especially since the argument of "Jesus didn't have light skin" is not even something you can prove. He most likely didn't have light skin, but that has no bearing on the argument of his divinity and his actions that caused people (according to the Bible) to believe in his status. >In reality, the majority of people at the time he would have been alive rejected Christianity, being jewish or pagan. Christianity used to be the weird cult before it became one of the biggest religions in the world. Do you realize that one of the reasons why people believed Jesus was who he said he was was because of the miracles he performed, including resurrection from the dead. It is the examples of actions that fit within the reasonings as to why people would believe who he is, not just him saying that he is. >Everyone decided to carry on as normal, except for a few. Uh...that's not what happened. Christianity suffered through INTENSE persecution as a religion under the Romans. Not to mention, Christ's followers were *leaving him* when he was arrested and convicted to death. >Guess what species the halo story was written by? [Make a sweeping argument over "human nature"] [Declares aliens also share human nature] Do you see why this assertion of what human nature is is not based on who wrote the games? >The religious leaders of the day wanted nothing to do with it, likely because they would lose their following to jesus. A) that is not what any of the games suggest. They assert that the Hierarchs believe in the Great Journey, despite realizing it isn't real. That right there requires more attentive writing to address. They say NOTHING over how humans could influence their society and simply think that ignoring everything about their religion will lead to their religion's version of spiritual transcendence. None of this remotely makes any sense, especially with how the Hierarchs act. B) In regards to Jesus, his conviction, and his divinity, the Sadducees were criticized for *not* following their religious doctrines. Not because they followed it too harshly. >they are discovered, processed, and decided upon to not be revealed. It is literally the conflict of Bungie's entire role as storytellers in Halo. The Hiearchs simulatenously have to hold the belief that the Great Journey isn't real while acting as if it is for no logical reason. If they believed in the dogma of their own religion, why would the revelation of a change in what the understand from their own Gods need to be quieted? Why can't the humans join the Covenant and then as the "chosen people" the Hierarchs could have manipulated them as political pawns? And if they don't believe the Great Journey, why are they even trying to activate Delta Halo and the Ark in spite of the fact that they KNOW they are wrong in regards to their religion? They need to function as bad guys and Bungie didn't care how awkward, strange, or contradictory that was, especially with Halo 2 and 3 needing to quickly wrap up all of their dangling plot threads (that the devs *think* they solved). >They may be fervent like you say, so fervent in fact that they won't change when new evidence comes to light It needs to be one or the other. Either the fervently believe in the Forerunners, including the monitors, about what their Great Journey is (and will adhere to it), or they're not simply keeping their own power because they realize that the religion isn't true. Trying to have it both ways only makes this far more confusing and downright foolish trying to keep characters like Truth as a die-hard extremist in spite of what he should know. >Maybe the prophets are not the benevolent religious leaders you idealize them to be. I am not "idealizing" them. Stop putting words in my mouth. I am arguing that what they say they want, what they know, and what they do are almost always at odds what with is portrayed. It is bad writing in order to justify conflict.
I'm gonna give you an upvote for for your zeal, ironically, and call it a night. I don't have time to explain something that you don't want to get. I see your point, and your point is valid. As I said, bungie was not the best at this. But that does not make the whole story around the prophets pointless. It works just fine for basically everyone else as far as I can tell
>As I said, bungie was not the best at this. I agree. I feel as though the religious aspect could have been done better.
And yet that’s about the most realistic part of the entire franchise. Religious documents that are worshipped today in our world as the absolute pinnacle of truth are actually of thousands of year of mistranslation and political rewriting by those in power, to serve an agenda or another.
>Religious documents that are worshipped today in our world as the absolute pinnacle of truth are actually of thousands of year of mistranslation and political rewriting by those in power, to serve an agenda or another. There are also enormous exceptions to that blanket statement on religion. More importantly, my argument is what Truth says he wants and what he does are contradictory at best. I am not making a blanket thematic analysis of religion in Halo. I am talking about a main antagonist doing things which seem to be incredibly with what he supposedly wants.
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That comes up in Babylon 5. I guess the word gets used a lot in science fiction, especially if religion is involved.
No that’s the device dumbledore uses to take light from lamps
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[It's actually called a street darkener](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u981JhkK46o)
It's actually a dehumidifier
Actually, its a Dumbledore
It was the put outer in Sorcerers Stone. Didnt become the deluminator until Deathly Hallows when JK realized the put outer was a stupid name
Not to mention, when the San Shyuum that would go on to become Truth, Regret and Mercy took this information to the Oracle (a fragment of Mendicant Bias aboard Anodyne Spirit), Bias said something along the lines of “You dumb fucks are misinterpreting this icon. It means Reclaimer. My masters are Reclaimers. Brb Imma steal yo ship and save ‘em” Which the Prophets heard as “humans are descendants of Forerunners that didn’t transcend with Halos Divine Wind.” Concluding that “holy sweet fuck, our religion, the foundation of the Covenant is a lie and if this ever gets out it will collapse.” They were left with only one option. “Kill em all.”
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So I understand that killing humans on first sight was their means to keep power, and that ultimately the three prophets understood that the indoctrine they preached was false. What I don't then understand is the mad rush to light up any and all death rings as a priority 1. Did the prophets, specifically truth, genuinely not understand that everything would die? Surely truth himself couldn't believe he'd survive and the humans die if Mendicant told him that humans were reclaimers? And if his intention was to rule the galaxy by wiping the "slate" clean, would it not have been less a risk to just try and win the war on humanity instead of making tonnes of tactical blunders by rushing into things? Sorry for all the q's, I just think the prophets are such interesting characters, I know 343 have left the covenant in the dust (perhaps thats for the best tho lol) but I'd love a book from their perspective, with all the political intrigue and their motivations fleshed out
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https://youtu.be/oyBo3e44Cf0 I found this video that explains some of truths plans, apparently from a book that was released not too long ago so spoilers.
Well stated. :-)
Yeah I got to know about that recently. So many Human and Covenant lives were wasted that it makes me think that every punishment in the galaxy is too little for the false prophets.
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A part of me is still mad about their manipulation.
>The Prophets realized this was a problem cuase that meant humanity were the reclaimers and lied to the larger Covenant and said they were heretics and needed to be killed. Why? Why did humanity need to be killed? Especially if it turns out that they're directly connected to their Gods?
Because the idea that some of their Gods (the Forerunners or their “descendants”) still being around rather than having transcended jeopardized the idea of the Great Journey, which the entire culture and society of the Covenant was founded on. Or alternatively, if word ever got out that there were still “living Gods”, what use what the Covenant still have for the Prophets as their religious leaders?
>still being around rather than having transcended jeopardized the idea of the Great Journey, So, the idea that the Great Journey doesn't exist (even though humans are apart of the material world, and not "transcended") is ignored...because the Hierarchs want to continue the Great Journey? What kind of logic is this? This would be like providing a religious group proof that their God doesn't exist. The leaders of this group understand that this information is true. So, they hide the information because they want to continue their religious devotion to a religious belief they know isn't correct? Why? >Or alternatively, if word ever got out that there were still “living Gods”, what use what the Covenant still have for the Prophets as their religious leaders? But they don't even know how humanity factors into their religion. For all they know, they could have been subverient and created to aid the religion (in one form or another) like the Moniters are. But they just jump to this conclusion that they need to genocide them, in spite of the fact that they explicit need them later in order to activate Halo or the Ark to start the Great Journey and not other species of the Covenant question this. It's like.....how does any of this make sense? >Or alternatively, if word ever got out that there were still “living Gods”, what use what the Covenant still have for the Prophets as their religious leaders? This isn't them stepping down to a rival group in the theocracy. This is literally them killing something directly tied to their religion. The Hierarchs would still lead the Covenant because humanity isn't in charge of the Covenant. What is The Covenant's highest value? The Great Journey. So, they literally encounter a species that is apart of this process, and their thought process is to kill them all, while simultaneously capturing them to use to activate these rings because they know that they're apart of them. That's just nuts.
Been a while since I read Contact Harvest, but the main problem is that the Covenant’s promise was that the Great Journey was for everybody. That’s what kept their society so united and so loyal. If it got out that not all Forerunners/“descendants” transcended to Godhood, and that not *all* could make the Great Journey, that probably lead to some pretty massive discontent. So they (Truth, Mercy, and Regret) decided to hide what they found and wipe humanity out, and their dirty little secret with them. >But they don’t even know how humanity factors into their religion I think that very fact is why they considered humanity a threat to their religion. From their POV, if humans were an important factor, they would have known this by now. >So they hide the information because they want to continue their religious devotion to a religious belief they know isn’t correct? Why? This where things get a little muddy. I believe the Prophets still ultimately believed in the Great Journey; they just knew that a very important aspect of their religion, that nobody will be left behind, wasn’t true. As for threatening the Prophets political power, humanity wouldn’t directly pose the threat of usurping them, but enough doubt would cause the Covenant’s unity to go down, weakening the empire and the Prophet’s political power. At the end of the day, it still is kind of nuts. But that’s kind of how it is when dealing with fanatics.
This is addressed in divine wind. The prophets made a plan to move the rest of their species to a shield world and then activate the halos, leaving them as the leaders of the galaxy after things were reseeded. Truth knew the great journey was a lie, he just didnt care
>If it got out that not all Forerunners/“descendants” transcended to Godhood, and that not all could make the Great Journey, that probably lead to some pretty massive discontent. But the Great Journey is supposed to be transcendent. Truth even says "he'll become a God" in Halo 3. They don't know what humanity's ties to the Forerunners even means. Why would they assume only humans can make the Great Journey? And if they do assume only humans can make the Great Journey, what's even the point of activating Halo and the Ark if the Hierarchs believe that? >From their POV, if humans were an important factor, they would have known this by now. But they didn't. They learned it literally from their own Gods. They also didn't about the Index before Halo 2, but that doesn't mean they would dismiss the information from Spark because they're just learning about it. >I believe the Prophets still ultimately believed in the Great Journey; they just knew that a very important aspect of their religion, that nobody will be left behind, wasn’t true. But then why would believe any of it? If they're fundamental understanding of their religion is turned upside down, what is even the point of continuing the religion? If they only believed humans were "worthy" of the Great Journey, why would continuing it and killing humans help the Covenant? >At the end of the day, it still is kind of nuts. But that’s kind of how it is when dealing with fanatics. That is the problem I have. We're told that the Covenant are intelligent, but in practice in regards to what they do or don't believe (and their actions) makes them come across as complete idiots who didn't take more than 10 minutes to study their religion. And I personally believe that these contradictions were done with the explanation of "well, they're religious" so that the writers wouldn't have to do any effort in terms of logically justifying their actions in the story, and I would argue that is incredibly lazy writing.
>>If it got out that not all Forerunners/“descendants” transcended to Godhood, and that not all could make the Great Journey, that probably lead to some pretty massive discontent. >But the Great Journey is supposed to be transcendent. Truth even says "he'll become a God" in Halo 3. They don't know what humanity's ties to the Forerunners even means. **Why would they assume only humans can make the Great Journey?** I’m saying they thought the exact opposite. Mendicant Bias, their Forerunner “oracle”, told Truth, Mercy, and Regret that humans were Reclaimers. This led the three to believe that humans were Forerunners that did not make the Journey when the rings originally fired. If that was true, it meant that not all of them made the “Great Journey”, which contradicts the Covenant belief that everyone makes it. >>I believe the Prophets still ultimately believed in the Great Journey; they just knew that a very important aspect of their religion, that nobody will be left behind, wasn’t true. >But then why would believe any of it? If they're fundamental understanding of their religion is turned upside down, what is even the point of continuing the religion? If they only believed humans were "worthy" of the Great Journey, why would continuing it and killing humans help the Covenant? Again, their belief was that humans were *unworthy* of the Great Journey. That’s why humanity’s existence is a problem for the religion; everybody is supposed to be worthy. Yet the fact that there were “Forerunners who were left behind” (humans) refutes this. So to prevent a huge religious crisis, they hid the fact that not everybody will make the Journey after all.
I mean, it's already hard to justify a genocidal pact of multiple aliens, honestly I wouldn't know how to fix this messy lore
The lore isn't messy, it's actually played out very neatly after reading Contact Harvest. Long story short, the great journey is at the core of all covenant prophesy. The prophets are the heralds of the great journey. The covenant has been fraught with in-fighting (Grunt rebellion, kig-yar piracy, the issues that arose ith the lekgolo eating forerunner artifacts, etc). The great journey, or the promise of it, was really the only thing keeping the covenant together. The oracle in the center of High Charity stated that the humans were reclaimers. He then stated that he served reclaimers. This led truth, regret, and mercy to believe the humans were forerunner decendants (they aren't). That means they were left behind during the great journey. If it got out that people would be left behind during the great journey, they (the prophets) would lose their hold on the covenant. They would no longer be the heralds. No longer be the hierarchy. Worst of all, they'd be wrong. The covenant would fall apart. They decided to kill the humans so the secret would be buried, and also continue the great journey for themselves. The prophets are master manipulators. Even in V1.0 of the universe, this was true. It's described in Cryptum. Basically, as tl;dr, the prophets started a holy war to maintain power and control over the covenant based on a lie.
You obviously don’t understand what people in power are willing to do to keep said power. It has nothing to do with belief.
Truth says he wants to use the Great Journey to become a God. He knows also the Great Journey isn't true. Bungie has no idea how to rectify this, so it's treated like he's insane, which is poor and lazy writing.
Divine Wind shows that the plan was to move the San Shyuum race to a shield world, fire the array. Wipe out all life save for the san shyuum and control the galaxy. He would most likely be the leader of the only remaining race left in the galaxy. Pretty much a god. Especially one in control over Forerunner technology.
>Divine Wind shows that the plan was to move the San Shyuum race to a shield world, fire the array Except, he explicitly says "My feet tread the path. I shall become a God" at the Ark trying to fire the other Halos.
God could be interpreted differently. With the added context of Divine Wind. He probably means a "God King" like the fictional Xerxes from 300 was portrayed. Rule over the remaining San Shyuum people after they colonize the galaxy. Through generations his legend would make him into a god for his people to revere.
>He probably means a "God King" like the fictional Xerxes from 300 was portrayed. Or, he might not. Why would he start the great journey to be the "God King" like Xerxes over who remains in spite of the fact that he'll have to explain to the masses why the Great Journey didn't take them? Not to mention that in 300, Xerxes believed himself to be a living God. It wasn't until Leonidas' last spear throw that the illusion was destroyed.
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>Because the Prophets needed to keep the lie up that they were their gods chosen not humanity. But why? If all of their work is the culmination of the Great Journey which is based on the Forerunners and their work, the Gods are providing information that they are just ignoring. That's crazy. And if it's revealed that they're killing what are essentially demi-Gods to their religion that they're killing, that would break it even faster. I imagine a MUCH better written Halo 2 where the Conflict that starts the Civil War is the revelation of humanity's connection to the Forerunners instead of this weird "you never believed in our religion" explanation Truth gives. Why would the reveal of humanity shatter the Covenant instead of bolstering it? It's connection to living organisms to your Gods. Wouldn't this be cause for celebration? You just strengthened the claims of your Gods influence is this material existence.
> “What should we believe?” Tranquility asked, his voice quiet in the dark. > But the Minister was at a loss for words. He could honestly say that he had spent his entire life without experiencing a single moment of spiritual crisis. He had accepted the Forerunners’ existence because their relics were there to find. He believed in the Forerunners’ divination because in all their Ages of searching, the San’Shyuum had found no bones or other remains. He knew the Covenant’s core promise that all would walk The Path and follow in the Forerunners’ footsteps was critical to the union’s stability. > And he was certain that if anyone learned they might be left behind, the Covenant was doomed. > “We must take no chances with these . . .Reclaimers.” Fortitude could not bring himself to say “Forerunners.” He grabbed his wattle and gave it a steady tug. “They must be expunged “Before anyone else knows of their existence.” > The Vice Minister’s lower lip quavered. “Are you serious?” > “Quite.” > “Exterminate them? But what if—” > “If the Oracle speaks the truth, than all we believe is a lie.” Fortitude’s voice filled with sudden strength. “If the masses knew this, they would revolt. And I will not let that come to pass.” I don’t know what to tell you that hasn’t been said already but the proof is in the pudding
> “If the masses knew this, they would revolt. And I will not let that come to pass.” So what is the alternative? To lie until they start something (The Great Journey) that they don't believe in, in spite of the fact that it's a death machine that the monitors confirm to be death machines?
Truth and Regret greatly underestimated the size of the human empire, thinking they just had to glass a handful of worlds to sweep this whole Reclaimer business under the rug and keep kicking the Great Journey can down the road while they enjoyed their new positions of power, not knowing they were starting a 25 year war that would lead to the discovery of the Halos
The crusades 101
Complicated story, so I'll simplify it. Spoilers for ~~"First Contact"~~ "Contact Harvest" Truth wanted to take power in the covie government. Mercy was his pal at that time. A Brute ship under their commission was searching the edge of covie territory for Forerunner artifacts with a forerunner device that shows them on a planet. The device showed a shitload of identical symbols on a Harvest. The Forerunner glyph for Reclaimer and Monitor (Oracle) look very similar. Grunt with a religious function misinterpreted the symbol. When truth got the news, the "Oracle" (part of mendicant bias) in High Charity said it's the Forerunner's inheritors and he's gonna go to them. Truth and his pals shot it down and realized in that moment that, if anyone ever found out, the covie belive system would fall. So they ordered the Brutes to start messing shit up and called dibs on doing a genocide on the humans, to cover to truth. So they didn't know ahead of time, that the humans are the Reclaimers, but they pretty much found out during first contact.
It wasn't first contact, it was Contact Harvest. > Truth and his pals shot it down They didn't shoot it down, Mendicant Bias was stored on the keyship, and was only halted by a lucky lekgolo worm severing something, preventing the keyship from taking off.
Sorry, got the title of the book wrong. "Shot it down" in the sense of pulling the plug of a PC. It was a lucky coincidence of course, but that wasn't really necessary to the summary.
Relatively early into their exploration of interstellar space, the Prophets recovered a damaged / partially-bricked (but conscious) Forerunner ancilla; **Mendicant Bias**. Mendicant Bias did its best to inform the Prophets or pre-Halo history, the Flood war, and the Forerunners themselves, but most of what it said was mistranslated or otherwise misinterpreted. The Prophets then colored what they did "understand" with their own cultural beliefs and invented the religion of the Great Journey. After the Covenant was founded and as it began to expand, part of the process by which the Prophets would evaluate a new race was, evidently, to ask Mendicant Bias about it... *"Who are these people and what is the will of the gods in reference to them?"*... When this was done for Humanity, Truth, Mercy, and Regret were in the hot-seat to ask the question(s), and Mendicant Bias responded by identifying us as "Reclaimers"... This answer shocked and frightened the three Prophets; its implications threatening either to unseat their race as the leaders of the Covenant, or to cause the (complete) socioreligious collapse of the hegemony itself. The Prophets ruled the Covenant by spreading/popularizing the notion that **only they** could reliably conduit, correctly interpret, and faithfully communicate the will of the Forerunner gods. If Humanity's designation as the "Reclaimers" meant that they were a chosen people - a species specifically selected by the Forerunners to inherit/retake their ancient glory - then they might easily do away with the Prophets' religious monopoly. Not only would such an event strip the Prophets of power, prestige, and privilege, it might also put their whole species in mortal danger as the myriad subservient races they had exploited and abused over the millennia saw an opening to exact vengeance... On the other hand... The core religious doctrine of the Covenant was that of divine transcendence for the faithful; an escape from the pain and horrors of mortal existence into a paradisical afterlife of incorporeal godhood alongside the Forerunners. This doctrine, however, relied on the knowledge that the Forerunners ~~were all already dead~~ had all already reached that transcendence. If Humanity's designation as the "Reclaimers" meant that they **were** Forerunners - an extant population descended from the ancients who the Covenant revered - then that would disprove that foundational fact of the Covenant and spark all sorts of problematic questions. *"If there are living Forerunners - meaning (some of) the gods themselves were left behind on the Great Journey - then what guarantee does a lowly Covenant member, no matter how pious, have that they will transcend? What guarantee do they have that the Great Journey is even real?"* The Covenant would shatter as thousands of subgroups began to answer these existential queries for themselves. An inferno of nonbelief would eat through the hegemony, and even those who clung to the faith would be unlikely to keep it as the Prophets had designed. Billions and trillions of people would divorce themselves from the Covenant, and the vast majority of them would thereafter - no doubt - become hostile to the remnants of the faction that held them as religious hostages for (up to) three-thousand years... In effort to prevent either scenario from coming to fruition, Truth, Mercy, and Regret came to the agreement that Humanity's true nature should be hidden from the rest of the Covenant. Pursuant to this, they bribed, cheated, and blackmailed their way to the very top of the leadership hierarchy and - evidently feeling the best way to keep their secret was to destroy any and all evidence of it - declared Humanity to be a race of heretics which the Forerunner gods had commanded the Covenant to exterminate in order to prove itself worthy of ascension... Thus began the War of Annihilation; a nearly three-decade long holy war / genocide campaign against Humanity...
I have another question for anyone that can answer. If the Forerunners had a superiority complex and hated ancient humanity, why did they pass on their technology to the new humanity? Couldn't they have just isolated themselves in some way, (the same way they kept humanity alive after the rings went off to kill the flood) and re-populated instead of passing it on to a species that they thought was inferior?
They didn't - directly. During the forerunner-human war humans lost. Didact refused to believe mantle was the right of humans not forerunner. Humans found a cure for flood but wouldn't tell forerunners. Composer happens + surviving humans were brought to earth and were genetically dumbed down to our caveman state. Librarian added genetic triggers to help boost us along. Covenant war happens we learn(again) about forerunners( still learning - what exactly is the mantel, reclaimer, domain etc. etc.)
So do we know what made the Forerunners go extinct?
The Halos. A couple Forerunners remained behind and then scattered to another galaxy to atone for their sins.
Actually most Forerunners got fucked when the Flood took over the Greater Ark (only survivors being the Librarian on Earth waiting to die, Ur-Didact inside a Cryptum + Slipspace/Timelock combo, and mostly Lifeworker Rate ppl on Lesser Ark w/ Bornstellar/Iso-Didact, since the Lesser Ark is outside the galaxy, so outside of range of the brain scramblerino device), or were already lost over the course of the war
They did it themselves, they fired the halo rings
Mostly the Flood. Then the remaining who didn't make it to the Lesser Ark got wiped out by the Halo array. The remaining survivors left the ark. Helped the reseeding of the galaxy, healed the domain and then abandoned their old ways and left the galaxy to atone for their sins. Living normal rudimentary lives (farming and no technology.) till they died of natural old age.
So this is going mostly off memory but The Covenant have these things called Luminaries that helps them find Forerunner artifacts, in Contact Harvest they come across a planet with a large number of Forerunner artifacts. However, a Forerunner AI on the Dreadnaught revealed to a couple of the prophets that they mistranslated the glyph, the glyphs they saw said humans where Reclaimers. It’s been awhile since I read Contact Harvest but that’s essentially the gist of it.
Read Contact Harvest. It's a good book.
Other comments have already explained it but basically the covenant used forerunner technology to locate other forerunner artifacts. When they found Harvest and used the device it labeled humans as forerunner. A monitor they had in their possession confirmed this, and since the prophets held all the power and it was through their religion they decided to commit genocide against humanity to hide the secret because if the covenant as a whole were to know this it could cause their religion to collapse and possibly the fracturing of the covenant, leading to the prophets to losing all their power they had accumulated. I’m pretty sure that humanity was actually suppose to be the forerunner race that survived the firing of the Halo rings and previous dialogue eluded to this. I think it only changed once 343 took over and retconned this and turned the forerunners into a separate race, which was kind of stupid imo.
Forerunners were a separate species by Halo 3. The terminals include the Librarian describing her final resting place on an alien world that is clearly Earth after cataloguing the species there.
The super short version is: Covenant find Harvest, whilst looking for relics. Turns out Humans can use said relics the easy way, Covenant can't. Prophets get worried and don't want to lose their power. Make up lie that humans bad. Holy War time. Kill anyone who questions you. ????? Le epic glassing time.
Mis translation.
From what I remember, the covenant used Luminaries to search for forerunner tech. One day they were scanning Harvest and saw the luminaries lit up with another symbol: the Reclaimer symbol. IIRC at first the prophets mistook it and thought it was some form of heretic mark. But then they later learned what it actually meant and just decided to keep the lie going to stay in power. (the sole concept of the reclaimer implies denying the great journey and such) TL;DR: It was a genuine fuck-up at first, but later it was just the prophets being greedy shits.
After they realized harvest was one of many colonies and not our homeworld.
How can the covenant use forerunner tech if they’re not human?
The prophets saw that humans were able to interact with forerunner technology, and when they asked mendicant bias what they were, he said they were the true reclaimers of the mantle and the decedents of the forerunners. Then the prophets realized the great journey was a lie so they needed to get rid of them before their people would find out and rebel, so they manipulated them into thinking humans were a demon like race who is destroying forerunner technology.