User:Forerunner/Useful Cryptum notes

• 248 - It took 3,000 years to design the Halo array and its weapons system. The Forerunner Council chose against the Master Builder's proposal for a field test.

 

• 248 - Bornstellar's father refers to the Halo array as "a horrible weapon that destroys all life-", but does not finish his sentence. The weapons system's 'tuning' has been changed to allow it to be more destructive if fired - the destruction of Precursor technology was not originally intended. Twelve Halos were originally commissioned by the Master Builder.

• 251 - Eleven installations are accounted for; one is missing (It may have been stolen by Mendicant Bias).

• 274 - "By radiating a powerful burst of cross-phased supermassive nutrinos, these installations were capable of destroying all life in an entire star system. Properly tuned and powered, they could do more than that-they could kill all neurologically complex life across whole swaths of the galaxy" - this quote says two things: the radius of each individual ring's weapons system can be arbitrality changed. The difference between "all life" and "all neurologically complex life" is very significant, and suggests that the array can target varying degrees of neurological complexity depending on its instructions.

• 274-275

"The installations had been dispersed. The Halo tested at Charum Hakkor had been fired at very low power, acting as a test bed. That had been an unauthorized use. But then, a second Halo had been used to punish the San'Shyuum. With horror, I realized that what I had witnessed had been only the beginning-and that the San'Shyuum worlds, after our brief, traumatic visit, had been reduced to the awful condition of biological blandness we had seen on Faun Hakkor."

• 275 - The first confirmable sighting of the Flood by the Forerunners is around 300 years before the array's activation. The previous milleniae of actions were mere preparation.

• 282 - Eleven rings are brought to the Capital; one is still unaccounted for.

• 307 - "It seemed that after fourty-three years, the prodigal Halo had returned" - Mendicant Bias returns with the stolen ring.

• 313 - "The monitors are programmed to assume that all who attack an installation are enemies - whatever they look like, or whatever codes they possess." - 343 Guilty Spark's attack on John and Johnson is legitimised as having been forced to engage in defencive protocols. The red light does not indicate rampancy.

• 315 - "The Librarian's specimens-so many worlds are stored on the Halos, so many terrains and beings! What will happen to the fauna?" -

• 316-317 - "Mendicant Bias has turned against us. But I do not believe it has sufficient resources to control more than five installations at once. Other installations are following older instructions, priority protocols-they defend themselves, but are struggling to break free of the Contender's rule. They may reconnoiter outside our galaxy-at the Beginning Place. The Ark." - It would appear that at first reclaimers were not needed to control the array and that the rings' respective monitor was responsible for activating the array. Mendicant Bias is capable of controlling other ancillas, although they have enough personal control over themselves to attempt to fight back.