: In ye olden days, the Jjaro were identical to the Forerunners. I find it most
: interesting that there are still hints in the Halo story of that old plot;
: the Forerunners' "ascension" or "great journey", as
: something apart from the activation of the Halos. See, originally (as in,
: in a much older version of the Halo story), the Forerunners/Jjaro passed
: through three stages: one was a form of biological humans, then only the
: digital/mechanized remains of their civilization, and then... something
: else even greater than that. That is how the Jjaro "disappeared from
: our galaxy millions of years ago" and then were still around a few
: thousand years ago at Lh'owon; the biological Jjaro vanished, but the AI
: form remained.
Very interesting. I didn't know that before. That would seem to be inspired by the species that created the Monoliths from Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 series. As Bowman falls through the top of the Monolith at the end of the novel, he passes through the history of that species, and the book details how they began as ordinary biological creatures, who later moved their brains, and eventually their minds alone, to machines. Once they'd figured out how to transfer the mind without physical medium, they soon discovered a way to become these sort of energy beings.