Miner

"Miners are rated below Builders, but they are sensible, proud and strong. Miners know the raw, inner ways of worlds. Respect them, and they will treat you well, teach you what they know, and return you to your family with all the discipline and skills a Manipular needs to advance."

— Bornstellar's ancilla

Miners were the second-highest rate in Forerunner society, ranking below Builders but above Lifeworkers. They were responsible for obtaining resources for the ecumene, including the Builders' plentiful construction projects. Miners were also responsible for stellar and planetary engineering, including the formation of planets or manipulating stars for energy collection. Miner stellar engineers were colloquially known as plasma jockeys. Miner planetary engineers were capable of creating planets by melting down an asteroid field and shaping the resulting mass into a protoplanet which could be fully cooled in under 10,000 years. They would also occasionally destroy entire planets to gain access to the resources within. Miners used mining ships which could rapidly excavate large masses of minerals and ore by using powerful energy fields. Miners were generally seen as tough and pragmatic. Their manner of speaking was characteristically direct, lacking the tact most of the other rates were used to.

During the height of the Forerunner civilization, Miners had activity in the Sol system, specifically Mars, then known as Edom. After disobeying his father, Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting, a Manipular from a wealthy Builder family, was sent to work with a Miner family inhabiting Edom.

Known Miners

• Clearance-of-Old-Forests - member of the crew of Audacity during the journey to Path Kethona.
• A Miner who assumed the carapace of Catalog after expediting a planet's violent destruction, murdering their crèche-mate, along with twelve other Miners, out of jealousy.
• Bornstellar's stepfamily on Edom.

List of appearances

• Halo: Cryptum (First appearance)
• Halo: Silentium