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Florian

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Template:SeeWikipedia Template:Species Infobox The Florians were a people of a diminutive species of human taxonomically referred to as Homo floresiensis and called chamanune (plural chamanush)[1] by contemporary humans themselves.[note 1]

History

They were native to Earth and part of humanity's contemporary civilization shared by other human and hominid species before the firing of the Halo Array.[2] Despite their small size, they were generally respected by other humans and were allowed to go about their own business; it was told that they banded together and took vengeance on those who harmed them.[3] The Florian Riser, a member of a group of Florians living in the Marontik area, served as a guide to Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting, a young Forerunner looking for Precursor artifacts. The Librarian had imprinted Riser's ancestors with a geas that made the subsequent generations seek a way to bypass the defenses around the Didact's Cryptum in the Djamonkin Crater.[4]

In the reintroduction stage of the Lifeworkers' Conservation Measure, the species was relocated to several islands by the new Lifeshaper, Chant-to-Green, at Riser's suggestion;[5] these islands included Flores in Indonesia and Hawaii.[6] The species is known to have survived up until around 13,000 BCE and possibly as recently as 10,000 BCE, living contemporaneously with "modern" humans, Homo sapiens.[7] Though Florians are believed to have gone extinct, various folktales on the islands they used to inhabit appear to be based on them, including the small-sized people known as Menehune in Hawaiian mythology.[6]

Description

Anatomy and physiology

They possessed more "primitive" characteristics than modern humans, including a reduced mandible, lacking a chin, and a smaller cranial capacity and proportionally smaller brain, though were still intelligent. Their most outstanding feature was their small stature, standing at a little over a meter tall.[7] Chamanush were remarkably long-lived; Riser was around 200 years old when he met Bornstellar, and he was still "just a youngster" according to Chakas.[8] At least Florian males were remarkably hirsute, with most of their bodies and faces covered in fur-like hair.[9][10] They were noted for their keen sense of smell in comparison to modern humans.[11][5]

The Didact described the Florians as "peaceful, yet full of cleverness" and asked them to be preserved following the human-Forerunner wars. After the war, Florians were favored by the Forerunners as a servant species, often amusing and instructing their young.[12] Family and ancestry were noted to be important in Florian culture. It was said that unlike hamanush, chamanush "lived with ancestors in their heads", suggesting that they may have possessed a special connection to their ancestors, possibly a genetic memory of some kind.[13] This may have been due to the influence of the Librarian.

Communication and naming

Besides regular speech, the Florians living circa 100,000 BCE communicated in a variety of ways, including "stare-whistle" and "click-song"; clicking noises made with their tongue and cheeks.[8] When communicating in regular speech, Florians spoke in a truncated, simplistic manner; however, their own language, complemented by various gestures and clicking sounds, was highly elegant and complex, including, among other traits, a large amount of inflections and declensions, as well as verb tenses which recognized thirteen different grammatic genders and four directions of time.[14]

The Florian naming system was notably complex, with an individual having a family name, a personal name, and a considerably longer "long name"; for example, Riser's family name was "Day-Chaser", his personal name "Morning Riser", and his long name "Day-Chaser Makes Paths Long-stretch Morning Riser". However, they were typically only called by their first name and rarely revealed their full names to outsiders.[15][8]

List of appearances

Notes

  1. ^ In Halo: Cryptum, the names chamanush and hamanush are used to refer to both gyhChakas' and Riser's species, respectively. The names are reversed in the subsequent Forerunner Saga novels.

Sources

  1. ^ Halo: Silentium, Rebirth Narrative
  2. ^ Halo: Cryptum, page 23
  3. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 31
  4. ^ Halo: Cryptum, page 55
  5. ^ a b Halo: Rebirth
  6. ^ a b Halo: Primordium, page 32-33
  7. ^ a b Homo floresiensis on Wikipedia
  8. ^ a b c Halo: Cryptum, page 35
  9. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 181
  10. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 296
  11. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 224
  12. ^ Halo: Cryptum, pages 82, 86
  13. ^ Halo: Cryptum, page 109
  14. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 213-214
  15. ^ Halo: Cryptum, page 33
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