The Composer
From Halopedia, the Halo wiki
- "The Composer! So many possibilities and capabilities tied up in that strange name... A Composer of minds and souls!"
- — Forthencho, Lord of Admirals[1]
The Composer was an ancient Forerunner machine capable of converting living beings into digital forms.[2]
Overview and function
Although the Forerunners possessed other technology capable of extracting an individual's memories and partial personality impressions,[3] the Composer was designed as a means to achieve true immortality in digital form, allowing the Forerunners to transcend their biological forms altogether. As the Flood only assimilated biological matter, digitally stored intelligences would have remained immune to the parasite. However, the Forerunners never perfectly mastered this capability and the resulting digital personalities became corrupted or fragmented and could no longer be restored to their original biological forms.[4]
The detrimental effects of the Composer are comparable to the rampancy exhibited by human smart AIs, which are likewise created by scanning the neural patterns of a living being. However, in the case of the Composer, these symptoms appear over a much longer period of time, as evidenced by 343 Guilty Spark, a monitor created from a human mind processed by the Composer. Guilty Spark showed occasional signs of instability and his personality suffered fragmentation, but he remained operational and capable of performing his assigned tasks for over 100,000 years.[5]
Aside from creating AIs, personalities stored by the Composer could also achieve self-awareness and retain their original identity when implanted in the genetic code of living beings. This was demonstrated by the ancient human personalities and memories imprinted by the Librarian in humans such as Chakas and Riser. The Composer could also be used to remove these stored personalities, although this did grave physical and mental damage to the individual carrying the imprint.[6]
The Composer did not work on all organic beings; certain individuals could, through genetic manipulation, become immune to its effects. After undergoing mutation in an attempt to gain immunity to the Flood, the Didact's physiology was no longer compatible with the Composer.[7] Similarly, the geas the Librarian placed on humanity allowed the Spartan John-117 to develop a resistance to the Composer; this ability had to be activated, and thus it did not automatically protect all humans from the device.[4]
The Composer was also capable of slowing down Flood infection and the subsequent loss of individuality; however, this process was only temporary and still left the afflicted individuals in their deformed state. The Forerunners attempted to control the gradual degradation of the Composer-processed bodies by using a form of supportive harness which prevented the infectees' decaying bodies from breaking down.[8]
Physically, the Composer was an enormous, monolithic artifact engraved with patterns of lines characteristic of Forerunner architecture. When using its primary capability of scanning living beings, a lens in the center of the device projected a beam of orange light which completely reduced the targets to ash while digitizing their minds. Aside from this direct form of scanning, the Composer was also capable of operating indirectly via intermediary devices. In one such case, the victims' bodies were evidently not destroyed and instead the scan caused them to simply expire as their consciousnesses were removed from their bodies.[9]
History
The first known use of the Composer was when the Librarian employed its primary capability by extracting the memories of the surviving human warriors after the Charum Hakkor campaign in order to preserve these personalities in future generations of humans and to study the stored memories in hopes of discovering how humanity managed to defeat the Flood. The Lord of Admirals, supreme commander of all human forces and one of the humans to have their minds harvested, described the effects of the Composer as "strange, ever-changing" and "multiformed", as it operated via intermediary Lifeworker machinery.[9]
As a result of the risks and irregularities involved with its usage, the Forerunners eventually abandoned the Composer and its existence was made a closely guarded secret known only to few.[10] Even its actual nature remained obscure; whether it was a machine or being remained uncertain to most. Some even believed the Composer to be a "product of its own services"; a Forerunner, perhaps a Lifeworker, suspended in the final stages of Flood infection.[11][12]
Around 100,000 BCE, the Composer was used by the Master Builder to stave off Flood infection in certain Forerunners on Installation 07 to keep them in a docile state. While in control of Installation 07, Mendicant Bias and the Primordial also used the Composer to extract the ancestral memory imprints from Chakas and the other humans from Earth.[6] Later during the Forerunner-Flood war, the Didact used the Composer to convert his Promethean warriors into robotic form in order to allow them to combat the Flood more efficiently and without risk of infection. To bolster his numbers, the Didact used the Composer on the human population of Installation 07, turning them into additional forces in his mechanized army.[7]
The Composer was later placed on Installation 03. In late 2554,[13] the UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence discovered the machine on the Halo ring and transported it to Ivanoff Station, a research facility in the asteroid field in Installation 03's orbit. Some of the scientists were digitized by the Composer while studying it and the sensor data from the incident contained coordinates that led the UNSC Infinity to Requiem.[14] Upon awakening on Requiem in July 2557, the Didact immediately headed for the Composer and successfully acquired the device after launching an attack on Ivanoff Station. Planning to use the Composer to neutralize all of mankind by forever imprisoning them into digital form, he first used it on the human personnel of Ivanoff; John-117 was the only survivor as a result of genetic modifications imbued by the Librarian. The Didact then set course for Earth in order to realize the final stage of his plan. The Didact successfully fired the Composer on an URNA metropolis, New Phoenix, but the effect was halted when John-117 destroyed the Didact's ship, and the Composer along with it, with a HAVOK tactical nuclear weapon.[2]
Gallery
Concept art of the Composer in Halo 4.
Panoramic concept art of the Composer about to be fired on Earth.
Doctor Sandra Tillson undergoing the fatal effects of the Composer.
Scientists being digitized by the Composer.
List of appearances
- Halo: Primordium (First appearance)
- Halo 4
Sources
- ^ Halo: Primordium, page 232-233
- ^ a b Halo 4
- ^ Halo: Cryptum, pages 47-48, 138
- ^ a b Halo 4, campaign level Reclaimer
- ^ Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Terminals
- ^ a b Halo: Primordium, page 355
- ^ a b Halo 4, Terminals
- ^ Halo: Primordium, page 322-323
- ^ a b Halo: Primordium, page 235
- ^ Halo: Primordium, page 271-272
- ^ Halo: Primordium, page 268
- ^ Halo: Primordium, page 278
- ^ Halo 4, campaign level Composer, Audio log
- ^ Halo 4, campaign level Infinity
