Clearance-of-Old-Forests was a Forerunner Miner. Circa 100,950 BCE, he accompanied the Librarian on the expedition to Path Kethona as a crew member of the Audacity.
Biography
Clearance-of-Old-Forests was from an ancient Miner family and had a blunt manner of speaking characteristic of Miners. After the second-last jump to Path Kethona, for the duration of which the crew had entered stasis due to excessive reconciliation effects, Clearance handed out drinks infused with restoratives to the other Forerunners. He noted that the Librarian looked unwell and gave her a double dose of the restoratives. She noted that Clearance looked out of place too; he agreed, stating that he found the complete emptiness of the intergalactic void distressing, being more comfortable near planets.[1]
Over the course of the journey, Clearance made occasional sardonic comments to the Builder members of the crew, being teased in return several times. When the crew discovered a series of undeniably ancient causality-adjustment constructs, Clearance assessed that the structures may have been Forerunner in origin. When crew members of higher rates showed approval of this theory, he made a rather unconvincing attempt to conceal his pride at his hypothesis. He was the first to voice the obvious fact that the ancient, long-abandoned Forerunner fleet they later discovered was a fleet of war, sent out millions of years ago to carry out a massive campaign of extermination unrecorded in Forerunner history.[2]
After the crew discovered a planet with a population of primitive Forerunner relatives, Clearance remarked—perhaps jokingly—that the locals were all Miners, as they had to dig to find materials for their stone and clay buildings. The Librarian had Clearance stay by their seeker transports and stand watch in the event anything went wrong while she and Chant-to-Green went to greet the locals. Clearance was highly apprehensive of the Librarian's choice to forgo her armor and returned to his seeker immediately as the natives began to surround the Lifeworkers. By the instant one old female bit the Librarian, Clearance flew the seeker over them, scattering the crowd and retrieving the two Lifeworkers. Clearance strongly protested to the Librarian's decision to leave her bite wound untreated, pointing out the fact that he and the rest of the crew were responsible for her.[3]
The next day, Clearance, Chant and the Librarian returned to the town where the Librarian met with the old female who had bitten her, intending learning more about the people's origins. Following the instructions of the elder, named Glow-of-Old-Suns, Clearance took the party's seeker to a valley housing what turned out to be a biological analog to the Forerunners' Domain, recording and storing the local history dating back ten million years. After the Librarian had spent some time tapping into this biological reservoir and learning the truth about the origin of the locals, Clearance and the rest of the crew returned to the ecumene aboard the Audacity.[4]
List of appearances
- Halo: Silentium (First appearance)