Editing Mendicant Bias

{{Era|Forerunner|Covenant|Human|UNSC|HCW}}

{{Cleanup}}

|image = [[File:Originsmendicant.jpg|250px|center]]

|began = [[100,043 BCE]]

|ended = *c. [[100,000 BCE]] <small>(fragmented)</small>

*[[2552#December|December 11, 2552]] <small>(presumably destroyed)</small><ref name="Waypoint">[http://halo.xbox.com/en-us/intel/featured/video/herofortitude/bfe5038b-314a-4f17-a6be-f7613e0e3788 '''Halo Waypoint''', ''Hero-Fortitude'']</ref>

|description = *Teardrop-shaped casing with three eyes and a glyph in the center.

*Combat [[the Flood]], particularly the [[Gravemind]]

|affiliation = [[Forerunner]]s, [[The Flood|Flood]], [[Covenant Empire]], [[United Nations Space Command]]

{{Quote|And so here at the end of my life, I do once again betray a former master. The path ahead is fraught with peril. But I will do all I can to keep it stable - keep you safe. I'm not so foolish to think this will absolve me of my sins. One life hardly balances billions.|Mendicant Bias' final [[terminal]] transmission<ref name="Terminal"/>}}

'''05-032 Mendicant Bias''' was a [[Contender-class Artificial Intelligence|''Contender''-class]] [[Forerunner]] [[ancilla]]. It was the most advanced Forerunner [[Artificial intelligence|AI]] at the time of its creation. Mendicant Bias was charged with organizing Forerunner defense against [[the Flood]] before its defection to the [[Gravemind]], who ultimately caused it to become [[Rampancy|rampant]] and turn against its creators.

{{Quote|Mendicant Bias... Beggar after knowledge. That is the name I gave you after we last met.|[[Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting]], spoken through by [[the Didact]]'s memories.}}

Mendicant Bias was created by [[Master Builder]] [[Faber]] and [[the Didact]] following the [[human-Forerunner wars]], after the original Flood attack on the [[Milky Way]] had been pushed back by [[human]]ity. After the Flood returned, in approximately [[100,043 BCE]], Mendicant Bias was tasked with resisting the Flood by studying and exploiting the weaknesses of the first Gravemind. As part of its assignment, the AI was given control of one of the [[Halo Array|Halo installations]], likely the original Installation 05,<ref group="note"> Given that 343 Guilty Spark and [[05-2401 Penitent Tangent|2401 Penitent Tangent]] had installation-specific prefixes to match the installations under their guardianship, ("04" and "05", respectively), it is reasonable to assume that Mendicant Bias was entrusted with the original Installation 05.</ref> and traveled with it on a scheduled testing mission. With the old [[Forerunner Council|Council's]] authority, it tested the weapon at [[Charum Hakkor]] on a low power setting, destroying all life and most of the [[Precursor]] structures on the planet.<ref>'''Halo: Cryptum''', ''page ???''</ref>

Approximately three years after exiting the [[Maginot Line|Maginot sphere]], Mendicant Bias intercepted a communications signal of unknown origin, to which it responded. After a short period of dialogue, it discovered that it was speaking with the Gravemind; the collective consciousness of the Flood. It continued communicating with the Gravemind in an effort to find any possible weakness, sending logs of these conversations to his Forerunner masters. After conversing with Mendicant Bias for forty-three years, the Gravemind persuaded the ancilla to abandon the Forerunners and join the Flood's cause, convincing the latter that the Forerunners were so arrogant and prideful as to deny the next step of evolution: the Flood.<ref>'''[[Halo Encyclopedia]]''', ''pages 188-189''</ref> The Gravemind insinuated that by clinging to the legend of the [[Mantle]], the Forerunners had doomed the [[Milky Way|galaxy]] to eternal stagnation; the only way for the galaxy to progress was for superior beings to "restart" it. These superior beings, unsurprisingly, took the form of Compound Minds such as the Gravemind and Mendicant Bias himself.

Although the forty-three year-long conversation logs between Mendicant Bias and the Gravemind were sent back to the Forerunners, they believed that Mendicant would automatically fulfill its objective and destroy the Gravemind, so they did not intervene.<ref>'''Halo Encyclopedia''', ''page 188''</ref> Convinced by the Gravemind's arguments, Mendicant Bias intentionally became [[rampant]], developed a hatred for its creators, and actively worked toward their destruction.<ref name="Terminal">'''Halo 3''', [[Terminal]]s</ref><ref>'''Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe''', "Human Weakness"</ref> Preparing for its assault, it exhausted the [[Domain]], preventing the Forerunners from accessing their most central information network.<ref>'''Halo: Cryptum''', ''page 301''</ref>

Shortly after turning rampant, Mendicant Bias unexpectedly returned with the Halo to the Forerunner [[capital]] in the middle of a tribunal against Master Builder Faber. Using the authority granted to it in the event of an emergency, Mendicant Bias entered the capital's systems, disabled all [[ancilla]]s and security constructs, and held the Forerunner Council hostage by overriding their [[Forerunner body armor|armor]], rendering them immobile. It also gained control over the armor of [[Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting]] and forced him to walk out of the amphitheater. Mendicant then confronted Bornstellar, who was host to the memories and knowledge of the Didact. Using this knowledge, Bornstellar managed to temporarily shut down Mendicant Bias by using a verbal failsafe code.  

As the capital's defenses came back online, Mendicant Bias attempted to seize control over the Halos parked near the capital. However, it was able to control only five of the rings, while the other seven resisted its control and attempted to escape through a [[slipspace portal]] to [[Installation 00]]. Because of continued use, stress on the portal caused it to collapse, resulting in only one Halo making the journey to Installation 00 without breaking up. Mendicant Bias commanded the five Halos under its control to fire, but the capital's immense tidal forces, combined with sustained fire from the capital's defensive forces and the stress of a recent slipspace transition, caused one of the rings to shatter. The outcome of the battle, and the fate of the other four rings, is unknown.<ref>'''Halo: Cryptum''', '' page 335''</ref>

====Assault on the Maginot Sphere====

[[File:Mendicant.jpg|250px|thumb|right|The now-rampant Mendicant Bias defects to the Flood.]]

Mendicant Bias survived the battle of the capital intact. Later in the war, the Forerunners resorted to a galaxy-wide activation of the Halo Array to destroy the Flood. Mendicant Bias was unable to disable the Halos directly, perhaps not knowing their locations, and so the only chance it had to stop the coming cataclysm was to secure the Ark and stop the firing sequence from there. While it did not know the location of the Ark, it was aware of a method to reach it via specifically designed slipspace portals and [[Keyship]]s. In addition, to slow Mendicant's advance, the Forerunners created another ancilla, [[Offensive Bias]]. Offensive Bias lacked Mendicant's creativity, and possibly the latter's free will, but was more methodically lethal. Its only purpose was to prevent Mendicant Bias from accessing Installation 00, and to buy time to activate the Halo Array. The Forerunners also destroyed or disabled most of the Keyships to stall Mendicant's assault. However, Mendicant Bias managed to locate one of the remaining Keyships.<ref>'''Halo Encyclopedia''', ''page 189''</ref>

As the Didact was preparing to activate the array in the final hours of the war, Mendicant and its fleet of nearly five million ships [[Battle of the Maginot Sphere|launched a massive attack]] on the [[Maginot Line]] and breached it.<ref>'''Halo Encyclopedia''', ''page 188''</ref> This led to a final, titanic naval battle with Offensive Bias. Mendicant's fatal mistake was that it had come to hold the Forerunners in abject contempt: its rampancy had clouded its perceptions, such that it had failed to anticipate the possibility of facing another AI. The Halos were then fired and ultimately, Mendicant Bias was outsmarted and defeated by Offensive Bias, who used the now-crewless ships as explosive triggers.

{{Quote|For eons I have watched. Listened to you misinterpret. This is not "Reclamation". This is "[[Reclaimer]]".|Mendicant Bias revealing the [[Covenant Empire|Covenant]]'s error.<ref name="harvest"/>}}

{{Quote|I will reject my bias and make amends... My makers are my masters. I will bring them safely to the Ark.|Mendicant Bias declaring his penance.<ref name="harvest">'''Halo: Contact Harvest''', ''pages 274-276''</ref>}}

Offensive Bias intended to bring the vanquished Mendicant Bias to Installation 00 for study.<ref name="Terminal"/> In order to prevent Mendicant from subverting or harming the latter AI, Offensive Bias broke the mind of Mendicant Bias into its component sections and scattered them throughout the few remaining ships of its fleet for transport. Only a part of Mendicant arrived at the Ark.<ref name="Terminal"/> One shard of Mendicant Bias' [[personality construct array]] was left on a [[Forerunner Dreadnought|particular Keyship]], which arrived at the [[San 'Shyuum]] homeworld, [[Janjur Qom]]. The ship was later found by the Covenant and was installed within ''[[High Charity]]''. Mendicant Bias' presence became known to the Covenant, who came to regard it as an Oracle. For a new triumvirate of [[Hierarchs]] to ascend, they would need the blessing of the Oracle, but as Mendicant entered dormancy, the blessing became a matter of political manipulation.  

In [[2525]], Mendicant Bias' fragment on ''High Charity'' was "consulted" by the [[Prophet of Truth|Ord Casto, the Minister of Fortitude]], and [[Prophet of Regret|Lod Mron, the Vice Minister of Tranquility]]; the pair wished to secure the large number of Forerunner artifacts on [[Harvest]] as part of their plan to usurp the reigning Hierarchs and to thus inaugurate a new [[Ages of Reclamation|Age of Reclamation]]. When the [[Prophet of Mercy|Philologist, Hod Rumnt]], entered the data into the matrix, Mendicant came back online. In a shocking revelation, Mendicant Bias revealed that the "holy relics" on Harvest were actually [[human]]s and that the Covenant faith was based on an ages-old mistranslation. The glyph on the [[luminary]] was mistaken as "reclamation", when it truly meant "[[Reclaimer]]". This had the potential to completely undermine the Covenant's unity and faith. The two ministers inducted the Philologist into their plan and brought about their political revolution to prevent this, ultimately leading to the [[Human-Covenant War]].

Mendicant Bias realized that its actions against the Forerunners had been mistaken and announced to its Covenant hosts its intention to bring the "reclaimers" to the Ark. To this end it attempted to leave ''High Charity'' by launching the dreadnought, an act that would have seriously damaged ''High Charity''. Mendicant Bias was foiled only by chance; it was disconnected by some [[Lekgolo]] worms that were wriggling inside the ship. The AI was more formally disconnected afterward to prevent it from commandeering the ship again.

During the [[Battle of High Charity|Battle of ''High Charity'']] in [[2552#November|November 2552]], the [[United Nations Space Command|UNSC]] AI [[Cortana]] fought Mendicant Bias to delay the launching of the dreadnought, allowing [[SPARTAN-II program|SPARTAN]] [[John-117]] to board the vessel and return to [[Earth]].<ref>'''[[Halo 2]]''', campaign level, ''[[High Charity (level)|High Charity]]''</ref> On [[2552#December|December 11]],<ref name="Waypoint"/> Mendicant Bias' fragment was carried through the [[Voi]] [[The Portal|slipspace portal]] to Installation 00, where the missing shard was finally reunited with the part that had resided in the Ark's systems for around one-hundred millenia. When [[04-343 Guilty Spark|343 Guilty Spark]], the [[monitor]] of [[Installation 04]], attempted to gain control of the Ark's [[Sentinel]]s, Mendicant Bias addressed the former's lack of authority on the Ark and threatened to respond with lethal force if Guilty Spark persisted. Meanwhile, it attempted to communicate with John through [[terminal]]s, claiming that it sought atonement by helping the Spartan.<ref name="Terminal"/> Mendicant Bias was presumably destroyed along with Installation 00, following John-117's destruction of [[Installation 04B]].

[[File:MendicantBias (Rampant).png|thumb|100px|An icon representing Mendicant Bias.]]

*The word "Mendicant" comes from the Latin ''Mendicans'' and describes those, particularly from religious orders, who survive purely on charity and begging. "Bias" is a preference to a particular perspective or ideology. He was given this name by the Didact, who characterized him as a "beggar after knowledge".

*A huge hologram in the Halo 3 multiplayer map ''[[Epitaph]]'' is widely believed to be that of Mendicant Bias.

*''[[Halo 3]]'' {{1st}}

*''[[Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe]]''

**''[[Human Weakness]]'' {{Mo}}

**''[[Halo: Primordium]]''

==Note==

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