Talk:Ancestors

Considering it took us roughly 100,000 years to go from Tier 7 to Tier 3 (26th century), that must mean that the human race appeared roughly 200,000 years ago in order for us to have reached Tier 3 in the past. Does this hold up with our real-world current knowledge of human pre-history? Basically, was there enough time to become space-faring?--File:PENGUIN4.gifFluffyEmoPenguin^{(ice quack!)} 17:11, 2 January 2011 (EST)

I don't think the humans that ventured out into the galaxy would be recognisable as such today, at least not physically. The first Homo species diverge from Australopithecus around 2.4 or 2.3 million years ago, and archaic Homo sapiens appear between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago. Modern Homo sapiens has come a long way, but has done so sporadically - short bursts of advancement and occasional relapses back into barbarity, ie; the Dark Ages following the fall of the Roman Empire. I think the timeframe we have available leaves plenty of room for ancient humans to have built up a small interstellar empire. -- Specops306 ^{Autocrat Qur'a 'Morhek} 17:38, 2 January 2011 (EST)

The Forerunner known as "the Librarian" was able to control the human population, with people being programmed to seek her out. Perhaps the Precursors used a similar technology to program generations of Forerunners and humans to desire the improvement of their own technology - an ancient rennaisance. The Forerunners themselves suspected that both they and the humans had had their genes tampered with long ago by the Precursors to create an example of "convergent evolution".-- Forerunner 19:27, 2 January 2011 (EST)

I have to say I disagree with this statement "After forty thousand years of expansion" on the basis of what source does this come from? If it is being based on Halo Legends: The Babysitter because of the ancient ruins that resemble East Asian architecture then the statement is based on conjecture. It is never established if in fact those ruins were built by the Human Empire or not. Deep Reverence 16:30, 14 January 2011 (EST) Ya I mean how do we know it was never sourced#@lof@n1234 20:57, 30 January 2011 (EST)

The novel says somewhere in the first two chapters that humanity had been space faring for 40,000 years before their war with the Forerunners.-- Forerunner 16:47, 14 January 2011 (EST)

Rename

• Strong Support. "Ancient" does not convey the appropriate time, and "prehistoric" is much more appropriate. -- Specops306 ^{Autocrat Qur'a 'Morhek} 02:42, 9 January 2011 (EST)
  • Support. Same here, of course. --"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have." -Thomas Jefferson 11:12, 9 January 2011 (EST)
  • Support, per Specops306. -- SFH 15:27, 9 January 2011 (EST)
  • Very Strong Support, This is a page about a civilization/Empire and not the Human species of the time. We already have a Humans page where we can deffine the species it's self as "Ancient Humans" in there. Not only that, the links provided also tell us they are talking about the humans not the civilisation as they also say FORERUNNER NOT ECUMENE. So I fully agree we need to change it back. -- Primordial 16:21, 8 January 2016 (EST)

De-evolved

I can’t help but noticed we have conflicting information on humanity’s de-evolving namely whether the Forerunners de-evolved us or not, I believe the Halopedia community needs to come to solid position over this - MCDBBlits 20:50, 30 January 2011 (EST)

The Forerunners reduced past humanity to a more ancestral form, from which other variants were restored by the genetic manipulation and guidance of the Librarian - Florians, Neanderthals, modern humans, etc. I'm not entirely sure how that works, since Neanderthals appear in the fossil record before humanity supposedly achieved spaceflight, while Florians don't appear at all until after the activation of the Array, but hey, it's also lampshaded in the story, commenting that the human fossil record was completely mixed and jumpled by the process. -- Specops306 ^{Autocrat Qur'a 'Morhek} 22:31, 30 January 2011 (EST)

I'm aware of that but the point I was making was that on one page says that human were defeat and de-evolved on their own and on others it states that the Forerunners de-evolved us, and that we at Halopedia need to improve internal continuity or change all relevant pages to state that the Forerunner government de-evolved humanity but told their people that it happened naturally - MCDBBlits 17:25, 1 February 2011 (EST)

Really? But the Didact remembers the florins in the war along with the hamanune.-- Forerunner 18:30, 1 February 2011 (EST)

The Forerunners de-evolved all humans including the florins to an early point in their history - MCDBBlits 19:33, 1 February 2011 (EST)

Before the war, Humanity had the same appearance, this is stated early in the book ("When your people and mine looked the same" Riser and Chakas). Later, when Bornstellar is reflecting about the state of his race, he mentions the point about reducing their foes to lemurs, wondering how many times they had done this. This notion is supported not only statements, but also from the Forerunners ability to mutate their bodies into different rates. The technology, I do not doubt, was abused to reduced their foes into defenseless state.--Totem 02:57, 6 August 2011 (EDT)

Erda and Erde-tyrene

Is Erda and Erde-tyrene the same planet? From what I gathered in halo: primordium, they are 2 seperate planets. Am I wrong? - The Divine One

Primordium made it very clear that they're one and the same - when Chakas tells Gamelpar about Erde-Tyrene, Gamelpar recognizes it as his homeworld and says his wife called it Erda. There's other examples later on, like the one cited in the article (page 238), where Forthencho alternates between the two names when describing Earth. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 13:00, 22 May 2012 (EDT)

Halo 4 and Ancient Humans

Hey anyone got screenshots of the ancient human ships from the 2nd terminal? those would be good to add.Flavius Aetius 17:12, 10 November 2012 (EST)

I think we already do have a screenshot already. --Xamikaze330 (talk|contribs) 17:14, 10 November 2012 (EST)Xamikaze330

Awesome Flavius Aetius 16:42, 11 November 2012 (EST)

Hey could we possibly also post that Armor picture ont he Combat SKins page? In Halo 4 the Librarian says they use the same term for it in one of the terminals I think. Flavius Aetius 12:05, 13 November 2012 (EST)

I hope you are referring to the Forerunner combat skin, and not the prehistoric human combat armor. Because technically, combat skin does not apply to non-Forerunner technology, such as the prehistoric human advanced combat armor seen in the Halo 4 terminals. --Xamikaze330 (talk|contribs) 12:16, 13 November 2012 (EST)Xamikaze330

Planet Heian and PHC Culture

could we add info on the ruins of Heian to this article? The article on Heian states that its ruins are of PHC origin. The ruins on Heian display alot of what PHC culture is like, which seems to be a hybrid of Greco-Roman, Middle Eastern and East Asian cultures. --C0mbust4bl3L3m0nz (talk|contribs) 5:33, 22 December 2012 (EST)C0mbust4bl3L3m0nz

Already added. Read this section. Tuckerscreator^(stalk) 20:47, 22 December 2012 (EST)

Concept Art Human Ships

Does anyone else notice that some of the human ship designs in the concept art were repurposed for Forerunner ships in the terminals particularly Terminal 2 and 6. Compare them and you see it.

"Ancient humans"

The Waypoint Universe encyclopedia conclusively identifies the humanity of this era as being referred to as "ancient humans" (as in, not just a descriptor). Not the most original or specific name they could've come up with, but it's something. Should we call this page "ancient human" (in line with the title of the Human page, focusing on the species in particular) or "ancient humanity" (which I prefer)? --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 10:47, 10 November 2014 (EST)

For simplicity sake, I would go for the former.— subtank 10:57, 10 November 2014 (EST)

Yeah... just sounds a little odd as a title for a page about a civilization. Might work though. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 12:35, 11 November 2014 (EST)

This is a page about a civilization/Empire and not the Human species of the time. We already have a Humans page where we can deffine the species it's self as "Ancient Humans" in there. Not only that, the links provided also tell us they are talking about the humans not the civilisation as they also say FORERUNNER NOT ECUMENE. So I fully agree we need to change it back. -- Primordial 16:21, 8 January 2016 (EST)

Forthencho head quote

"Once, we were one great race, united in power and concerted in our goals."

— Forthencho reminiscing humanity's age of flourish

What is the context of it? Was he implying that prehistoric humanity was ethnically homogeneous, in contrast to modern day humanity, or that, compared to modern day humanity, prehistoric humanity had no inner strife spawned by things like religion, nationality, ethnicity, sexuality, etc.? Am I looking to far into this? Just curious. (I haven't read any of the books.) Noddy (talk) 16:05, 23 January 2015 (EST)

The quoted statement is in response to Chakas' musing about humanity's weakened and divided state c. 100,000 BCE. The context suggests he's using "race" in a very general sense (ie. "the human race"). While it makes for a nice article quote, Forthencho's claim is also acknowledged to be a gross idealization of the truth, as noted by Chakas in the very next line: "But I saw quickly enough that this was not precisely true, and soon realized that what the Lord of Admirals believed and what he knew were at times quite separate matters. Even alive, it seemed, the original mind that had lived these ancient histories had shared the contradictions I was all too familiar with in myself and in my fellows, back on Erde-Tyrene and here on the great wheel." This is later elaborated on when the internal strife within the ancient human government comes to light.

It should be noted, however, that there's been a bit of a back-and-forth on part of 343i and Greg Bear on whether the ancient humans were one species. The Waypoint article seems to suggest they were, and there's a single mention in Cryptum that the humans were "shattered into many forms" after their defeat, but then we also have references throughout the Forerunner Saga that at least some of the different human species existed before the "devolution" imposed by the Forerunners (the Didact asked the Florians to be preserved after the war, though it's also noted that they didn't serve in the ancient humans' fleets—while humanity as a whole may have been more varied, it seems that the bulk of the military was made up of the übermenschen described in the Waypoint article and depicted in the Halo 4 terminals). Regardless, a far bit of internal ethnic variation seems likely, given how the humans are stated to have formed separate populations on numerous worlds over hundreds of thousands of years. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 10:12, 25 January 2015 (EST)

Thankie thankie for the answer. I really appreciate it. Noddy (talk) 17:34, 25 January 2015 (EST)

Human skin tones

It states in the article that some human kin tones were gray or dark green. They don't look those colors to me but to be fair it's hard to tell in the terminal with the lighting on the ship bridge. Is that proven that these skin tones are accurate? --Forthencho (talk) 23:07, 29 January 2015 (EST)

I think it's fairly logical to assume their skins are various shades of brown and it's just the bridge's lighting that might make them look green or gray to some. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 00:33, 30 January 2015 (EST)

Yeah true, but I don't if we should remove the bit about the skin tones from the article unless we get comfirmation on them. I mean I can't tell what skin tone the human who tells LOA that they're in position over the forerunner planet is while the other guy looks tanned or even fair but again I can't tell. While ancient humans having gray or other non-real-life skin tones would further reinforce a potential genetic link with te forerunners(who's skin tones we're told range from pink to blue to gray. On the other hand, green to gray skin tones seems to weird for them to have, I mean why don't their devolved escendents have them then. And I don't know if prolonged stay on other planets however unique would effect skin tones in that way as I'm no biological expert or physicist.--Forthencho (talk) 12:53, 30 January 2015 (EST)