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Geas

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"This ring contains significant dangers, and even with your assumed legacy, I must verify the presence and pitch of your gei before allowing full access."
— 343 Guilty Spark in a transmission to the UNSC Pillar of Autumn[1]

Geas (plural gei[note 1]) was a Forerunner term[note 2] that referred to a genetic command imposed on an organism or species. Under the influence of a geas, an organism could be given a set of subconscious orders that would either be specific to that organism, or passed on to their children, in some cases lasting several generations. Only highly skilled Forerunner Lifeworkers, such as the Librarian, were capable of creating a geas. Forerunner students of the Mantle also hypothesized that the Precursors may have imposed a geas on the Forerunners themselves.[2]

During her stewardship of Earth and humanity, the Librarian imposed a geas upon various humans at birth; they later recalled the experience as her physically visiting them, but in reality she used an automated imprinting system of "beacons" to broadcast the geas remotely.[3] Humans who were part of the Librarian's "special population" on Earth were used as living archives,[4] with their geas containing extracted memories and personalities of their ancestors who had fought in the Human-Forerunner War. These memories required specific triggers in order to awaken within the carrier individual; for example, the ancestral memories of Chakas and Riser surfaced after they traveled to Charum Hakkor, once the heart of the human empire.[5][6] Once active, an archived personality could effectively exist as a fully aware consciousness alongside the carrier's own mind, or in some cases, even subvert their consciousness and take control of their physical body.[7] The memories of the archived individual often manifested themselves in the carrier's dreams,[8] and encompassed specific knowledge the archived individual may have had on subjects such as physics, engineering and mathematics.[9]

Gei imposed on various humans played a crucial part in the Librarian's elaborate plan to reunite with her husband, the Didact. Riser's ancestors were imprinted with a drive to pass the defenses surrounding the Didact's Cryptum in the Djamonkin Crater and create a safe path through the various traps that surrounded it. Riser himself was instructed by his geas to seek out young chamanush and find them work; this resulted in him meeting and befriending a chamanune known as Chakas.[10] Both also began to have dreams of a young Forerunner visiting them in search of treasure,[11] which soon became a reality as a Manipular called Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting, who had been manipulated by an ancilla secretly assigned to him by the Librarian, came to enlist the humans' guidance in finding Precursor relics. Chakas and Riser led the Manipular to the Djamonkin Crater, where the sight of the Didact's Cryptum triggered pre-programmed songs which served as verbal codes to activate the Cryptum.[12]

On Installation 07, the transplanted human populations were given a geas through a similar imprinting system. For example, in the event of encountering a strange visitor, humans were programmed to bring such curiosities to Lifeworker outposts for evaluation.[13] New or altered orders could also be triggered remotely via the beacons that transmitted the signal across the installation. Such an event occurred after Master Builder Faber seized full control of operations on the Halo; all humans born on the installation were given instructions to seek out research stations, known to the humans themselves as "Palaces of Pain".[14] Such a need to travel would manifest itself in many ways, including a seemingly innate knowledge of where to go in the event of trouble,[15] pleasing mental images of the destination, such as safety, home, food, water, or shelter, as well as a voice in one's head telling them where to go.[16] Ignoring the influence of a geas took remarkable willpower, to the point that resisting it was nearly impossible even with the conscious knowledge that it may be harmful, as demonstrated by Vinnevra's struggle to avoid her geas-induced urge to travel to a "Palace of Pain".[17]

The Librarian also imposed a broader geas on the entire human race, which has affected them a great deal throughout their history following the activation of the Halo Array. The geas includes, among other things, a familiarity with Forerunner technology and control interfaces,[18][19] as well as subconscious instructions on how to gradually achieve more sophisticated technology, including smart AIs and MJOLNIR armor.[20] In addition, as a result of the Librarian's influence on humans, the basic image of what humans view as an ideal female is based upon the Librarian.[21] Some of the features of the geas are carefully hidden and will only be activated by the right triggers, such as a latent immunity to the effects of the Composer. On Requiem, a personality imprint of the Librarian activated John-117's Composer immunity in order to allow him to defeat the Didact, who planned to use the Composer to imprison all of humanity into digital form. It was indicated she did more than this, saying she was going to advance his evolution by activating his geas, telling him she'd left humanity many gifts, of which the Composer immunity was only one.[20]

List of appearances

Notes

  1. ^ In the first terminal of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, the subtitles render 343 Guilty Spark's line as "geas", even though he pronounces it as "gei". The correct pronunciation for the real-world term geas is [ɡɛʃ] or "gesh". It is unclear whether this is an error in the subtitles and Spark is indeed meant to be referring to geas in plural, or if the voice actor simply mispronounced the word.
  2. ^ In Halo: Cryptum and Halo: Primordium, it is noted that most terms and phrases are translated to "localized" analogues in order to be intelligible to the reader. The word "geas" comes from a Scottish Welsh corruption of the Old Irish word "geis", which can mean "curse", "spell", or "command", which closely reflects the Halo universe definition of the term, but was most likely not the original term used by the Forerunners.

Sources

  1. ^ Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary - Terminal 1
  2. ^ Halo: Cryptum, page 49
  3. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 374
  4. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 45
  5. ^ Halo: Cryptum, page 121
  6. ^ Halo: Cryptum, page 341
  7. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 226
  8. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 128-129
  9. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 44
  10. ^ Halo: Cryptum, page 55
  11. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 31-32
  12. ^ Halo: Cryptum, page 55
  13. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 183
  14. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 184
  15. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 74
  16. ^ Halo: Primordium, pages 244, 276
  17. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 284
  18. ^ Halo: The Flood, pages 84, 146, 170
  19. ^ Halo: First Strike, page 142
  20. ^ a b Halo 4, campaign level Reclaimer
  21. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 375
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