The Charum Hakkor campaign was a conflict between the Forerunners and the Human-San 'Shyuum alliance, a union between the human empire and the technologically advanced San 'Shyuum race; the campaign was the last conflict in the human-Forerunner wars. It took place above and later on the planet Charum Hakkor, the heart of the humans' interstellar empire, around nine thousand years prior to the Forerunner-Flood war. It concluded in the Forerunners defeating the humans' empire.[1]
Despite extensive amount of preparation and study gained from humanity's early conflicts with the forerunners, humanity was pushed backwards and cut off from reinforcements as the forerunner military disrupted humanity's slipstream tunnels effectively preventing reinforcements and blockading Charum Hakkor from the rest of the Human-San 'Shyuum alliance.
Using Precursor unbending filaments to link their orbital defenses, the collective human specie managed to hold off the Forerunner military for fifty years. Forthencho, commander of the last fleets of Charum Hakkor, managed to successfully resist the The Didact for three years of continuous attacks despite being overwhelming outnumbered and using inferior slipstream and AI technology. The final blow came as the forerunner naval fleets sacrificed significant number of ships, both Fortress class warships and picket class cruisers, in mass waves to create openings in the human orbital defenses and overwhelming the human defenses with shear force. In the final moments before the fall, a debate was held at the highest levels of the human government to purposely draw out the flood and use them against the Forerunner ecumene in order to buy time. Ultimately, the plan was rejected as being too dangerous for the rest of the galaxy and the humanity surrendered despite knowing the inevitable outcome.
Knowing what was to happen to them if they lost, (forced relocation and the removal of technological privileges), the majority of the human population committed mass-suicide.[2] Those who surrendered had their memories extracted before their execution; these "essences" would later be imprinted to certain humans through a geas imposed by the Librarian. At some point during the campaign, the Didact met his wife, the Librarian, for the first time.[3]
List of appearances
- Halo: Cryptum (First appearance)
- Halo: Primordium