In Response To: Rampant Speculation *sp* *long* (Psyrixx)
: Rampant speculation concerning the Halo story.
: Yes, I came up with this in the shower.
: Yes, it's 1:30 AM.
: Yes, I'm tired.
: No, no drugs.
: The Forerunner had been for all of known history the dominant race in the
: galaxy in which they resided. They were a relatively peaceful, highly
: intelligent form of life which were viewed as Gods by the other, less
: evolved creatures that occupied planets on the outer edges of the star
: system. They were especially skilled in the practices of space travel and
: bio-engineering.
: The Forerunner were so advanced in space travel that they had gone so far as
: to experiment with the construction of their own planet-like stations:
: artificially constructed worlds that could be used as places of residence
: should a population be required to relocate due to overpopulation. They
: built three types of stations: Residential Stations, Industrial Stations,
: and Fortress Stations.
: Residential Stations were the main worlds where the Forerunner lived. These
: worlds included housing and shopping accomodations enough for their
: maximum population base. Many of the Forerunner that lived on these
: Residential Stations would find work in the local shopping centers which
: were always open. These Stations were most often spherical and the
: occupants dwelled on the outside surface, much like standard planets.
: Industrial Stations were where research and development of new technologies
: occurred. The smartest of the Forerunner often found employ on these
: worlds and were tasked with finding more efficient tools, more
: entertaining toys, and more powerful vaccines for illness. These stations
: were most often spherical but unlike Residential Stations, the occupants
: lived on the inside of the sphere.
: Fortress Stations were seldom manned because of the peaceful nature of the
: Forerunner. However, they weren't completely positive that they wouldn't
: encounter a warrior race equally or perhaps even more powerful than they
: were so they built them all the same. They had artificial intelligence
: cybernetic watchers that kept tabs on all that occurred on the Fortres
: Worlds. These worlds were most often ring-shaped and the occupants resided
: on the inner surface of the ring.
: For ages and ages the Forerunner lived in peace in their galaxy, making
: marvelous new discoveries and thriving on what they learned. They were at
: the peak of their civilization. Then, a plague hit the Forerunner
: populace. Thousands of them took ill and died. Many Forerunner were
: hospitalized to no avail and the doctors that treated them got sick soon
: after.
: The bio-engineering section of the Forerunner Industry was contracted to
: create an artificial vaccine for the disease. Within a very short time,
: they called for one million volunteers from the population to test their
: new vaccine. The donor list soon filled up and the donors crowded the
: testing facilities of the Industrial Station as the vaccine was
: administered. The Forerunner populace waited in suspense. A reply came in
: the form of transport shuttles returning from the Industrial Station:
: either filled with cured Forerunner or decaying corpses of a failed
: attempt. Or so they thought.
: They thought incorrectly.
: As the shuttles entered the landing bays of their respective worlds, the
: doors burst open and creatures that had never before been seen poured out,
: killing anyone that they immediately saw. Those killed almost immediately
: began to transform, seeming to decay into a new form of life before they
: themselves rose and aided in the attack.
: Entire Stations were consumed and the parasitic creatures used the plethora
: of shuttles on each station to spread even further. Few escaped.
: One of those that did escape sent a message to the High Government of the
: Forerunner informing them of the threat. The Government held council and
: came to a consensus to send a wide-band signal throughout the galaxy
: asking all intelligence that may recieve it to fight the parasitic threat.
: The Governmental Station was overrun shortly thereafter.
: A few scientists did manage to aquire a sample of the parasite and
: transported it to one of their most remote Fortress Stations so that they
: could study it and possibly come upon a cure for this Forerunner-Created
: disease without the immediate threat of being overrun by the parasite. Any
: scientists that were available lended their intelligence to the research.
: However, a careless mistake led to a breakout of the disease on the
: station itself. One Forerunner Scientist saw that they had run out of
: options: there was only one thing left to do.
: Each Fortress World was built around a central weapon that would wipe out all
: life within a specified radius from the station dependant on how large the
: Fortress World was. After the weapon was fired, a signal would be sent to
: all other Fortress Stations in the galaxy and unless the process was
: cancelled by a Fortress Operator, they too would go off. The stations were
: positioned in such a way that if they all were fired, the entire galaxy
: would essentially be stripped clean of life. To further ensure the total
: destruction of life, all of the Residential and Industrial Stations were
: rigged to self-destruct themselves if they were within a firing Fortress
: World's effective radius.
: Back to the Scientist from two paragraphs ago. He, wearing a completely
: self-contained environmental suit, retrieved the Index from the Fortress
: Station's Library with the help of the station's Monitor. The Monitor
: teleported himself and the Scientist to the Control Room and the Scientist
: hesitated.
: "Is there anything else we can do? Is there something we haven't
: tried?" the Scientist asked the Monitor. "If you were in my
: position, would you do it?"
: "From the data I have, I can see no other course of action," the
: Monitor replied coldly.
: The Scientist took one last look around the Control Room of the Station,
: glanced down at the Index in his hand, and inserted it into the firing
: mechanism in the Station's Control Room.
: The resulting series of events ended all life in that galaxy. Except, by
: chance, the orbit of one of the Stations around its star pulled it just
: far enough away from one edge of the galaxy so that the ends of two of the
: spiral arms were left just outside of the blast radius.
: Luckily, the life in these sections of the galaxy were uninfected by the
: Forerunner Virus. One group of organisms were even far enough along in
: their evolution that they recieved the transmission from the Forerunner,
: higher beings that they viewed as Gods, to "Destroy the Parasitic
: Creatures". They immediately began scouring the galaxy, looking for
: the parasites. Through their search they came upon other, less evolved
: creatures and absorbed all of the less evolved into their culture.
: They had started searching away from the second spiral arm that had been
: outside of the cataclysmic event. Unfortunately in this arm, only one tiny
: corner had been undestroyed. One form of life remained in this arm and
: they began developing at a very fast rate. Before too long, they had
: colonized worlds extending far out from their original planet.
: Unfortunately for them, their radio recievers had been invented seven years
: too late to intercept the Forerunner transmission. They had no idea that
: there were other forms of intelligent life in their galaxy.
: Had the conglomeration of races from the first arm of the galaxy (which
: called itself the Covenant) started their search in the arm that contained
: this lesser evolved race, perhaps things would've turned out differently
: when the two first encountered each other. Instead of coming upon a
: culture that had seemingly taken over hundereds of worlds crushing the
: life that had been there before, the Covenant might have come upon a
: species that had just learned how to send rockets into space. Thus, the
: Covenant might not have mistaken the Humans for the Parasites that the
: Forerunner transmission urged them to destroy.
: However, the Covenant did not know that the true parasite was still alive,
: locked deep within the Fortress world that was used as a last effort to
: save the race that inadvertently destroyed itself with one of its own
: creations.
Heh - you should almost submit that as fan fiction. :)
Interesting theory...
| 
