Domain
From Halopedia, the Halo wiki
- "This Domain is made of light. It is glorious to behold. It fills the spaces between space. There is great power here."
- — Cortana to Warden Eternal after infiltrating the Domain.[1]
The Domain is an esoteric quantum information repository that was once used by the Forerunners to contain vast amounts of knowledge, most notably their cultural and ancestral records.[2] While it was seemingly created by the Precursors, the Domain may preexist even them.[3]
Overview[edit]
The Domain was an immaterial reserve of knowledge and collective experience viewed by the Forerunners as the essence and living expression of their culture and history. In addition to the ancestral impressions and memories contained within, information could also be stored in and retrieved from the Domain for practical purposes. There was a mysterious quality to the Domain; despite its ubiquity in Forerunner culture, its exact nature or origin remained largely nebulous even to Forerunners. Due to these abstruse aspects, the Forerunners treated the Domain as something mystical and transcendent; it was regarded with reverence and connected to the Forerunners' religious beliefs.[4][5][6][7]
Forerunners used the Domain via various technological systems, most commonly their personal armor.[8] While the artificial world of Genesis served as a primary link into the Domain,[9] connecting to the Domain was possible for mature Forerunners anywhere within the Forerunners' sphere of influence, regardless of distance.[2][10] This was typically accomplished via an intermediary, most commonly a personal ancilla as well as Haruspis. A Cryptum also acted as a mediator between a Forerunner and the Domain; meditative xankara in a Cryptum provided a much clearer and more unrestricted experience of the Domain than contact when awake.[11] Dedicated terminals were also sometimes used by ancillas to connect to the Domain when on Forerunner worlds or installations.[12] Cortana was able to connect to John-117 in a vision through the Domain[13] which John later attributed[14] to the "gifts" a personality imprint of the Librarian unlocked in his geas on Requiem.[15]
The Domain was central in major Council proceedings, such as a political trial. Among other things, it was used by judges to store archival and accounting material,[16] assess precedent, and to verify witnesses' testimonies.[17] Ancillas routinely accessed data within the Domain, and Contender-class AIs such as Mendicant Bias were connected to the Domain upon their activation.[18]
Haruspis and its associates were Forerunners dedicated to studying the Domain. Haruspices also sought out specific information within the Domain on a Forerunner's request.[19] The construct known as the Warden Eternal also served as a protector for the Domain.[20][1]
Mechanics[edit]
- "The records don't always stay the same. Sometimes they change. It is not known why."
"Like real memories." - — Bornstellar-Makes-Eternal-Lasting and Chakas discussing the Domain[2]
The Domain had its own set of rules and restrictions it rarely violated. Forerunners could only view information that they already knew or what was otherwise available to them, namely data stored in the Domain in recent times. The deepest records contained in the Domain could not be accessed, due in no small part to the fact that information in the Domain was not static: the records changed over time as new visits by newer generations laid new layers of information which settled into its own patterns and sought to make itself more complete.[21] These changes were regarded as sacred, and were never reversed or corrected.[2] Over long periods of time, older information in the Domain ultimately became unintelligible to all Forerunners, even Haruspis.[22] Due to these anomalies, the Domain was not commonly used as means of communication; messages could be inexplicably altered on the way.[23]
The Domain retained partial impressions of individuals who had visited it in earlier times. Forerunners connected to the Domain could access these essences, although they only manifested themselves as abstract echoes like emotions or memories as opposed to complete personalities.[24] The Forerunners also viewed the Domain as a form of afterlife, believing that the "essences" of individuals passed into the Domain upon death.[4][25][7] It would be later discovered by the Ur-Didact that this was indeed true. The Didact was sent to the outer boundaries of the Domain where he learned that both the Forerunners who died and the humans who fell victim to the Composer -- both Ancestors and from the New Phoenix Incident -- had also been uploaded to the Domain.[26]
An experience in the Domain could be visualized as a journey through an infinite series of hallways, corridors and caverns, with abstractions of records and memories lining and illuminating their walls.[24] Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting described his initial contact with the Domain as initially "deep" and "appropriately shapeless", but it soon took form, shaping into a coherent whole, like a building of majestic yet indefinite architecture, around his consciousness.[27] The Domain appeared to be somehow related to a Forerunner's subconscious; Forerunner scholars theorized that the dreams of early Forerunners accessed the "ground" that the Domain was built upon.[17] The Didact mentioned that the Domain sometimes had a "broken-mirror aspect",[28] making it appear as if one's experience of visiting the Domain was the product of their own mind.[27]
As of the final years of the Forerunner-Flood war, no human was known to have accessed the Domain or left their impressions within. Because of this, the Didact considered the Domain incomplete, as it lacked the knowledge that could be used to predict the humans' reactions in battle.[29] However, much like the Domain would show retrocausal effects of the Halo array's pulse prior to its firing, when Bornstellar was imprisoned by the Master Builder at Janjur Qom, the Domain opened to him briefly and he heard a voice saying, "Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it". Bornstellar noted to himself that the voice may not have been Forerunner. The quote is attributed to 19th-20th century human philosopher George Santayana.[30]
The Domain enabled a user to travel via neural transmission. Neural transmission began by achieving deep synchronization with the Domain, similar to reaching the highest levels of xankara. While this would normally take hundreds if not thousands of years to achieve, a Haruspis was capable of accelerating the process. The being attempting neural transmission had to turn their thoughts away from individuality to unity with the space around them, all things and the Cosmos. Eventually, their essence would break gently apart and sink into the Domain's quantum field and the neural lace that made up its infinite framework. The being traveled down the Domain's neural lace to their chosen destination. Traveling in this manner with the help of the Domain took the user through countless alternate universes and realities to reach their destination, allowing them to see numerous potential outcomes for a situation, although only the eventuality that came to be mattered.[3]
Self-awareness[edit]
- "The Domain keeps its secrets only with difficulty. It wants, it needs, to spread knowledge. It wants to tell us when we're being foolish, but it can only replay the emotions and memories of those who came before. Still, rarely, it violates its own rules."
- — The Ur-Didact describing his experience with the Domain to the Librarian.[24]
The Domain itself was an aware, conscious entity with a will of its own. While this aspect of the Domain appears to have been a common belief among Forerunners and ingrained in their idioms and phrases,[4][5] the Juridicals did not formally recognize the Domain as any form of being or awareness.[19] The Ur-Didact noted that while the Domain kept certain topics secret by nature, it had an urge to spread knowledge and inform Forerunners when they acted against its will. It was not, however, capable of communicating its thoughts directly. Instead it expressed itself via the emotions of the memories and impressions it contained. For example, before the end of the Forerunner-Flood war, the Domain was ingrained with a looming sense of sadness of the impending end of Forerunner history and with it, the Domain itself.[24]
After Boundless' research was suppressed, around 1,100,000 BCE, Haruspis took note of the Domain seemingly favoring her by attempting to push her studies to the fore and make the information known.[31] When accessed by a Juridical looking for information on the Precursors, the Domain itself requested to testify to the Juridical, who disbelievingly asserted that the