Rate

Forerunners of different rates and forms. From left to right: a Promethean, a Lifeworker, the Librarian, the Ur-Didact's previous form, the Ur-Didact's final form, a Miner, a Builder, a Warrior-Servant, and Master Builder Faber.

Rates were a set of formally defined caste-like social strata in Forerunner society, further determined by physical alteration carried out on individuals to suit their societal role. Each rate specialized in a particular field of work, and had varying societal function and cultural importance. Rates were divided into several tiers, including forms, guilds and Maniples.

Practices

Adolescent Forerunners, known as Manipulars, were not associated with any particular rate. However, upon maturing, each individual Forerunner would be assigned to a rate, mostly in accordance with the rate of their parents. For example, Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting was expected to become a Builder like his father.

The rates were arranged in a certain hierarchy. This order changed to some extent over the millions of years the Forerunner were in power; for example, the Warriors stood at the top in the early days of Forerunner civilization, ten million years before the firing of the Halo Array.

Each rate had their own ceremonial headgear, worn only on special occasions. However, on a certain day in the Grand Star Season, every Forerunner wore the same style.

List of rates

Builders

Main article: Builder

The Builders were responsible for the design and construction of most Forerunner technology and architecture, including their weapons, ships and megastructures, most notably the Halo Array. The Builders stood highest in the Forerunner social hierarchy and held immense wealth and political power, with their position consolidating even further after Master Builder Faber and his allies gained control of the Ecumene Council for over a thousand years.

Miners

Main article: Miner

The Miners were a rate responsible for obtaining the materials required for the work of the Builders, as well as stellar and planetary engineering. Miner stellar engineers were colloquially known as plasma jockeys.

Lifeworkers

Main article: Lifeworker

The Lifeworkers were a rate specializing in biology and medicine, and the experimentation of various forms of life. The head of the Lifeworker rate was known as the Lifeshaper; the Librarian was the most well-known Forerunner to hold this title.

Juridicals

Main article: Juridical

The Juridicals were the rate charged with judicial matters, including the investigation of crimes and the judgment of criminals within Forerunner society. The Juridical rate was home to Catalog, a collective of evidence-gathering agents. The head of the Juridical rate was known as the Master Juridical.

Warrior-Servants

Main article: Warrior-Servant

The Warrior-Servants were the second-lowest rate and primary military caste in Forerunner society. They were responsible for, among other things, the Forerunner victory over ancient humans during the human-Forerunner wars. The Prometheans were an elite group of Warrior-Servants led by the Didact.

Engineers

Main article: Engineer (rate)

Engineers were a rate presumably focusing on the maintenance of structures and machinery. They were the only rate not represented in the Capital Court.

Theoreticals

The Theoreticals were a rate that existed over one million years before the Didact was sealed in his Cryptum. After one Theoretical named Boundless persisted in studying a certain star in the Spider nebula of Path Kethona despite Warrior orders, she was eventually punished by the Juridicals and sealed within a faulty Cryptum that caused her death. The entire Theoretical rate was then forcibly merged with the Builder rate.

Historians

One of the rates assimilated by the Builders in their rise to power.

Weavers

Main article: Weaver

The storytellers and keepers of folklore, the Weavers were another rate assimilated by the Builders in their rise to power. Weavers told tales as soon as they had the ability to form simple sentences.

Speakers

A rate that had the innate ability to stir a crowd with their passion and eloquence.

Interpreters

Main article: Interpreter

The Interpreters were experts in the study and interpretation of the Mantle, acting in conjunction with the Juridicals in cases of crimes against the Mantle with the Interpreters judgments often taking precedence. The Interpreters were another rate assimilated by the Builders in their rise to power.

The Didact's father, as a descendant of the Interpreters, had the need to uphold the Mantle and bring to light the misuse and misinterpretation and corruption of its laws imprinted on his very essence. The Didact's father became outspoken and passionate about his lost history, his innate ability to stir a crowd on par with the Speakers of old and the best silver-tongued Builders of the Capital. His eloquence appealed to the true heart of the Forerunners, namely their desire for glory, their joy in the diversity of rates and the tremendous loss felt to Forerunner culture when identities and rituals were forgotten. The Didact's father evoked the Twelve Laws of Making and Moving, its Upper and Lower Tenets of Authority, and the Rules of Virtue. As a result, millions of Forerunners began to believe that reparation was in order, calling for the restoration of the lost rates and bringing back the immense knowledge and rituals that had been confiscated and hidden away by the Builders. The Builders saw this movement as a threat, but couldn't silence him thanks to the Didact's mother and together, they united half of the occupied worlds to their cause, leading to the Kradal conflicts when the Didact was just a Manipular. However, the Didact's parents lost the conflict and were executed with a special variant of the Suppressor which left nothing behind of them, not even an essence for the Domain.

As part of the punishment, the Didact, who was just a few domestic years beyond a decade at the time, had his memories of his early life erased and he was renamed Shadow-of-Sundered-Star, his true name and history left forgotten. The Didact would only know about this because the tale had been revealed to him in his later life by those seeking to cause the Didact pain and humiliation. However, the Didact had never wanted to believe that it was true.

List of appearances

• Halo: Cryptum (First appearance)
• Halo: Primordium
• Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
  • Terminals
• Halo: The Thursday War (Mentioned only)
• Halo 4
• Halo: Silentium
• Halo 5: Guardians
• Halo Mythos
• Halo: Fractures
  • Promises to Keep
  • Defender of the Storm
• Halo: Renegades
• Halo: Point of Light
• Halo: Epitaph