Harbinger

This article is about the entity introduced in Halo Infinite. For the Halo 5: Guardians achievement, see Harbinger (achievement).

Harbinger
Biographical information
Died:	c. May 28, 2560
Cause of death:	Died from injuries inflicted by John-117
Personal details
Species:	Xalanyn
Gender:	Female
Eye color:	Reddish purple
Political and military information
Affiliation:	Skimmers Allied with the Banished
Notable info:	Allied with the Banished during the Installation 07 conflict.

"Hear this, Forerunners! Your Auditorium has fallen. The Endless found. Your sins undone. Today WE return!"

— The Harbinger speaking to the Master Chief

The Harbinger, or the Harbinger of the truth, was a female Xalanyn who was active in the year 2560 during the Installation 07 conflict. The Harbinger was awoken from a Cylix by the Banished as they both sought to repair Zeta Halo in order to unleash the Endless.

Biography

Early life and imprisonment on Zeta Halo

Very little is known about the Harbinger's early life, other than that she, along with the other Endless, survived the firing of the Halo Array - a feat which surprised and alarmed the remaining Forerunners. In 97,368 BCE, she and the rest of her species were imprisoned on Installation 07 by order of the Grand Edict.

Freed by the Banished

Main article: Installation 07 conflict

Thousands of years later, the Banished leader Atriox learned of the Harbinger during his time on the Ark. He sought her out, believing her to be the key to unlocking Zeta Halo's secrets. Following Atriox's apparent demise when Cortana sacrificed herself to destroy the Silent Auditorium and disable the Ring, his second-in-command and old mentor, War Chief Escharum, assumed his place as leader of the Banished and set out to fulfill Atriox's goal of releasing the Harbinger in order to seize control of the Ring.

After driving the UNSC away from the Reverie's crash site, the Banished established Outpost Tremonius, which they used as an excavation site and storage facility for Forerunner artifacts. Eventually, the Jiralhanae Warlord Tremonius located and recovered the Harbinger's Cylix from beneath the Outpost. Escharum then forced a UNSC POW, Lucas Browning, to release the Harbinger from the Cylix. Upon being released, she introduced herself by proclaiming to be the Harbinger of the truth, and that all that the Banished knew was at an end. The surrounding Sangheili, Kig-Yar, and even Jiralhanae were terrified of her, but Escharum stepped forward and claimed delight over the Harbinger's proclamation.

Alliance with the Banished

The Harbinger agreed to help the Banished take control of the Ring in exchange for their help in locating and freeing her people, the Endless. In order to achieve both objectives, the Silent Auditorium had to be repaired first - a process known as the Reformation. Only the Monitor of Zeta Halo, Despondent Pyre had the ability to initiate the Reformation. Despondent Pyre resided in an underground Forerunner facility called the Conservatory, so Escharum ordered the establishment of Site Novem for the purposes of breaching the Conservatory and capturing the Monitor. At one point, the Harbinger herself inspected the site. She modified a Banished mining laser, enabling it to pierce the Ring's Forerunner alloy. By May 15, 2560, the Banished had used their modified mining laser to successfully breach the Conservatory.

The Harbinger also bolstered the Banished forces with her own minions, flying creatures that came to be known as Skimmers. Some Banished troops regarded these creatures as more nuisance than help.

During this time, the Harbinger had Chak 'Lok bring Lucas Browning to her so that she could show the human her truth, an experience which eventually destroyed Browning's sanity.

Encounter with John-117

On May 28, 2560, the Harbinger captured Despondent Pyre and forcibly extracted the Monitor's encephalon, killing Despondent Pyre in the process. Using the Forerunner routines contained within Despondent Pyre's encephalon, the Harbinger constructed a protocol capable of summoning the Reformation Spires across the fragmented section of Zeta Halo. Master Chief John-117, who had witnessed Despondent Pyre's abduction, followed the Harbinger to the top of the Conservatory and confronted her as she prepared to summon the Spires. The Harbinger initially did not view the Chief as a serious threat and told him that she wasn't his enemy. She then unleashed an energy pulse that froze the Chief's armor and summoned dozens of Reformation Spires. With the aid of his AI Companion, The Weapon, John-117 broke free of the armor lock and tried to stop the Harbinger, but she blasted him out of the Conservatory. She then escaped to the Command Spire, where she tried to send the initialization sequence needed to fully activate the Spires. However, the Spire network resisted her attempts because the summoning protocol she'd constructed from Despondent Pyre's routines hadn't been entirely correct.

After John-117's and the Weapon removed one of the Spires from the network and defeated the two Spartan Killers Hyperius and Tovarus, the Harbinger told Escharum to send all his forces against the human. Escharum, who desired to personally face the Chief in battle, replied that odds would not break the Spartan. The Harbinger noted that the Master Chief had an ally connected to the Ring, who could potentially be exploited. She then directed Escharum to have his forces defend the Command Spire while she initiated the Reformation. Escharum agreed, but warned her to prove her worth. The Harbinger replied that once the Banished had control of the Ring and once the Endless were found, he would never question her worth and she, in turn, would never question his judgement.

The Reformation

When the Master Chief arrived at the Command Spire, the Harbinger altered the Forerunner sequence needed to open the the Spire's door, thereby making entry impossible. The sabotage forced the Chief and the Weapon to gather data from a network of Forerunner communication beacons in order to reconstruct a pure version of the sequence. During this time, the Harbinger spied on the Weapon and determined she could utilize the UNSC AI's routines in conjunction with those from Despondent Pyre's encephalon to break through the Spire network's resistance.

While collecting data from the beacons, the Weapon sensed the Harbinger's presence within the beacon network and eventually realized the latter's intentions. Since the Spires still hadn't been activated yet, the Master Chief initially wanted to abort their current plan, effectively leaving them and the Harbinger in a stalemate. However, the Weapon believed that the Harbinger would eventually find a way to activate the Spires on her own, so they had no choice but to finish gathering the data needed to enter the Command Spire.

Later, upon reaching the Nexus, the Weapon accessed the facility's systems in order to activate a gravity lift that would take the Chief and her into the Command Spire itself. The Harbinger sprung her trap and hacked the Weapon, intent on using her to start the Reformation. The Weapon, in turn, used her link to the Harbinger to try to steal Despondent Pyre's encephalon. Despite the Master Chief's attempt to delete the Weapon - an effort which the Weapon herself stopped - both the Harbinger and the Weapon succeeded in their respective goals.

As John-117 ascended the Command Spire, the Harbinger declared to him that the Monitor's encephalon had already served its purpose and that nothing could stop the Reformation now. However, the Master Chief fought his way through the Harbinger's allies to reach the Spire's Observation Platform, where the Weapon used the encephalon to shut down the Spire network and stop the Reformation. After this, Escharum furiously accused the Harbinger of having failed. The Harbinger retorted that Silent Auditorium had been partially rebuilt, although she wasn't sure if enough of it had been restored to achieve their goals.

Death

The Harbinger traveled to the partially rebuilt Silent Auditorium, where she prepared to use the facility to locate and free the rest of the Endless. The Master Chief, after facing and killing Escharum inside the House of Reckoning, arrived at the Auditorium and confronted the Harbinger inside the central chamber. The Harbinger called out to the Forerunners and declared that the Endless would return this day. She then opened a connection between the Auditorium and somewhere else on the Ring. The connection, which the Weapon described as being sentient, began searching the Ring for the location of the other Endless. The Weapon attempted to intercept the connection by disabling the Auditorium's transmitters. With the help of an unknown entity, the Weapon managed to shut down all three transmitters, but not before the connection successfully located the Endless.

At the same time, the Master Chief fought and eventually defeated both the Harbinger and her Banished and Skimmer allies. As the Harbinger lay dying, she sent a message to an unseen ally of her own, telling them that they had what they needed and asked that they tell the Endless she was sorry it took so long. In her last moments, she told the Master Chief that the Endless would return. After her death, the Auditorium's central chamber collapsed, though the Master Chief and the Weapon escaped through a mysterious portal that sent them three days into the future.

Personality and traits

Due to her imprisonment within Zeta Halo, the Harbinger held tremendous hatred and disdain for the Forerunners. She believed that her people had done nothing wrong and that they'd been imprisoned simply because the Forerunners couldn't control them.

Her partnership with Escharum was a tenuous one. The War Chief did not fully trust the Harbinger and questioned her true intentions. Her tendency to speak "in riddles" also annoyed him. The Harbinger, in turn, regarded the Banished as little more than primitives who were simply a means to an end. She did, however, sympathize with the Banished over the destruction of Doisac at the hands of Cortana and the Created. In her mind, both the Endless and the Banished were victims of the Forerunners' lies and arrogance.

Initially, she harbored no ill-will towards humanity. She even showed sympathy towards Lucas Browning for the torture he was subjected to at Chak 'Lok's Tower, though she still drove him insane by showing him her "truth". During her first confrontation with John-117, she claimed that she was not his enemy. However, after the Master Chief's interference became too much of a liability, her attitude towards him became much more hostile.

After being mortally wounded by the Master Chief, the Harbinger displayed no fear and peacefully accepted her fate with the belief that her people would be free.

Physical description and appearance

The Harbinger is a tall, slender female Xalanyn who has two legs with backward pointing feet, and two arms, with four fingers on each hand. Her skin is light blue, her eyes are large, round and reddish-purple, and her mouth is surrounded by a pair of flipper-like tentacles. The Harbinger wears a regal-looking crimson headdress and a matching set of armor with a trio of thrusters on her back which she uses to hover in the air due to her unusable feet. Golden light shines out of a cavity in her armored chestplate.

Trivia

• The Harbinger is voiced by Debra Wilson in Halo Infinite.
• The Harbinger was originally going to be called the Inquisitor.

Gallery

• 

  Concept art of the Harbinger for Halo Infinite.

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  Concept art of the Harbinger by Theo Stylianides.

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  More humanoid looking concepts.

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  Concept art of the Harbinger by David Heidhoff.

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  More concept art of the Harbinger.

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  The Harbinger's face.

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  The Harbinger with 117649 Despondent Pyre's encephalon.

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  Harbinger as she attacks.

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  Harbinger floating with her thrusters.

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  Harbinger attacking John-117.

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  The Harbinger's face with no helmet on.

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  The back of Harbinger's armor.

List of appearances

• Halo Infinite (First appearance)