Editing Halo: Primordium

|name=''Halo: Primordium''

|publisher=[[Tor Books]] (2012)<br>[[Simon & Schuster]] (2019)

|publication=[[2012|January 3, 2012]] (original)<br>March 26, 2019 (2019 edition)

|length=384 pages (original)<br>400 pages (2019 edition)

|ISBN=[[Special:BookSources/0765323974|0765323974]], [[Special:BookSources/978-0765323972|978-0765323972]], [[Special:BookSources/978-1982111779|978-1982111779]]

Like the rest of ''The Forerunner Saga'', the novel's story has resonant connections to ''[[Halo 4]]'', among them the introduction of the [[Composer]].{{Ref/Reuse|SDCC}} ''Primordium''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s framing narrative of [[343 Guilty Spark]], the {{UNSCShip|Rubicon}} and Spark's search for the [[Librarian]] is picked up in the [[2019]] novel ''[[Halo: Renegades]]'' taking place three years later.

{{Article quote|What am I, really? A long time ago, I was a living, breathing human being. I went mad. I served my enemies. They became my only friends. Since then, I’ve traveled back and forth across this galaxy, and out to the spaces between galaxies — a greater reach than any human before me. You have asked me to tell you about that time. Since you are the true Reclaimers, I must obey. Are you recording? Good. Because my memory is failing rapidly. I doubt I’ll be able to finish the story. Once, on my birth-world, a world I knew as Erde-Tyrene, and which now is called Earth, my name was Chakas…<ref name="tor">[http://www.tor.com/stories/2011/12/halo-primordium-excerpt '''Tor.com''': ''Halo: Primordium (Excerpt)'']</ref>}}

{{Spoiler/begin}}

During Mendicant Bias' [[Battle of the Capital|attack on the Capital]], the ship carrying Chakas is destroyed and his escape pod crash-lands on a Halo installation. He is found by a human girl named [[Vinnevra]], who has been sent to the crash site by her grandfather, [[Gamelpar]]. It is revealed that the Halo is home to humans of various kinds, who collectively refer to themselves as [[Tudejsa|"the People"]], and have been transplanted there long ago as part of the Librarian's [[Conservation Measure|preservation efforts]]. However, the Master Builder took control of the ring and began to use the humans in his experiments on the Flood. Many humans were seen to be immune to the Flood, prompting the Master Builder to bring in more humans from Earth in order to retrieve the ancient records stored in their genetic material in hopes of finding the secret to this supposed immunity.

After crossing the lake, the three are found by a Lifeworker named [[Genemender Folder of Fortune]], several [[Denisovan]]s, and a [[Wikipedia:Gigantopithecus|large ape]]. Strangely, Genemender and the humans cast off no smell and the insects are not interested in them. After being fed by Genemender and sent to sleep, Chakas awakens to see Riser, who warns him not to trust the Lifeworker and the other humans. Genemender then takes Chakas to a laboratory and explains what has occurred regarding the history of the [[Flood]], the [[Halo Array]], the devastation of [[Janjur Qom]], and the battle of the Capital. Genemender also explains that the Master Builder's attack on Janjur Qom caused a small civil war to break out among the Forerunners defying the Master Builder, of which Genemender was one. Genemender is eventually forced to reveal that he and the humans in his compound are not actually alive, but [[mind transfer|archived personalities]] manifesting as lifelike [[hard light]] [[holography|holograms]]. Genemender, who is actually based within a monitor, is under orders to salvage the humans' genetic records to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Flood and the Master Builder. The monitor wants to do this to Gamelpar, who is dying, but Gamelpar rejects him and has Chakas accompany him in his final moments. Before dying, Gamelpar has Chakas promise to watch over Vinnevra. The systems in the area then power down, leaving Chakas, Riser, Vinnevra, and the ape, whose name is revealed to be [[Mara]] by Riser, who can communicate with her, to continue their journey.

Shortly afterward, the Didact brings a mortally wounded Chakas — who is already undergoing conversion into a monitor — with him to confront the Primordial, who has been imprisoned. The ensuing conversation reveals that the Primordial is actually a Gravemind, and that more Precursors may have survived [[Forerunner-Precursor war|their war with the Forerunners]]. The Didact claims that war happened because the Precursors resented any who might take up the [[Mantle]], but the Primordial explains that the Forerunners had been deemed unfit for the Mantle. The Primordial asserts that "there is no difference" between the Flood and the Precursors, although it does not reveal the precise nature of their relationship. It also reveals that no human was ever truly immune to the Flood, but the Flood can choose whether to infect or not infect. The Primordial states that the Flood is a test to judge a species' worthiness of inheriting the Mantle, stating that the Forerunners are to be eliminated and that humans will be tested next once they rise again. At the conversation's conclusion, the Didact kills the Primordial by activating a [[Slipspace bubble|reverse stasis chamber]] that forces the Primordial to go through a billion years of aging in several seconds, causing it to disintegrate.

*[[Merse]] {{Mo}}

*[[Precursor]]

*[[Installation 00]] {{Mo}}

**[[Sarcophagus]] {{Mo}}

**[[Fate of Maethrillian]]

**[[Battle for Gyre 11]] {{1st}}

*[[Forerunner-Precursor war]] {{Mo}}

**[[Battle of Charum Hakkor]] {{Mo}}

*''[[Geas]]''

*[[Metarch-class ancilla|Metarch]]

*A preview of the novel's first chapters was released on December 28, 2011 on Tor.com and [[Halo Waypoint]], with the first chapter released on Tor.com and the second and third chapters as well as part of the fourth chapter on Halo Waypoint.{{Ref/Reuse|tor}}

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