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Halo Cataclysm: Prelude
Posted By: Snake Solid 117<snakesoldi117@yahoo.com>
Date: 18 December 2003, 6:59 AM
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Prelude
-The Fall of the Forerunner-
Over one hundred thousand years ago, a race known now only as the Forerunner existed. The people were in jubilation; for their emperor had united all of the empire under one rule, and ended a civil war that had been plaguing them people for centuries. On the fringe of the Forerunner system of Kirrah, a planet entered its fifth night of celebration. The sky erupted in a brilliant display of lights as orbital flares exploded above, painting the night sky brilliant shades of blue, red and orange. However, the most brilliant sight was not that of the flares, nor of the shattered moon; it was the silhouette of the orbital construction scaffold, its guide lights revealing the true immensity of the structure.
As the festivities progressed, the military ships in orbit had all docked at the scaffold, as so the men and women aboard could see family and friends and enjoy some of the celebration. The Kar-Soban , the final military ship in orbit, began her final run. As she closed on the scaffolding, completing one last pass, her sensors lit up as five ships, of unknown design dropped from hyperspace; the ships slowed to a stop near the scaffold. The Kar-Soban attempted to hail the ships, but the unknown ships did not respond, so she began to close on the lead ship, to confirm if her crew was still alive. Suddenly, the unknown ships lights blinked on, and blue lights began to collect along the sides of each ship. The Kar-Soban then received a message, "The fire of the Gods." Then ships the launched wild blue lights upon the Kar-Soban , annihilating her in a blaze of blue plasma. The crowds below erupted in cheer at the sight of the brilliant blue flashes, oblivious to the atrocity above. With the Kar-Soban destroyed, and the only other active military ships on the other side of the planet, the unknown ships turned to the orbital scaffolding.
Blue flame flew from alien ships, melting away the hull of the scaffolding, incinerating her and her crew. Moments later the scaffolding tilted, as she began to lose orbital stability. The wounds of the scaffolding were to much and she was taken by the planets gravity well; and so she fell to the city below. The spectators soon became fully aware of what was occurring above them. The people of the city watched in horror as the scaffolding entered the atmosphere, her hull and form disintegrating as she fell form the heavens; then, moments later...impact. The massive structure of over three hundred million tons hit the capital. The resulting shockwave leveled building as far away as one hundred and fifty kilometers and sent dust and debris into orbit and the upper atmosphere. Over four million people died in the initial impact, crushed by the scaffolding. However, nothing compared to what followed. Before the dust created from the explosion could touch the sky, fire, blue fire began to rain from above; more than fifty unknown ships now floated in orbit, burning the planet to nothing but molten glass.
Word of the attack did not reach any of the other planets, for not a single soul survived to tell. It was not until four days later, when a transport arrived that the empire knew of what had happened. By then four more planets had fallen to this unknown threat, each one like the last, nothing left alive.
The first naval engagement was above the civilian world Kardesh, in the Teutan system. A large fleet of over three hundred of the unknown ships had amassed on the rim of the system, and engaged the planets advanced guard of one hundred and eighty-five ships. The Forerunner fell before their unknown enemy, they had been overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemy craft. The guard destroyed over two hundred seventy ships, no forerunner survived.
This continued on for over two hundred years, each side taking heavy losses, but despite this fact, the number of unknown ships in each battle grew. The forerunner began to lose battle after battle, at each defeat the planet burned to glass. Soon, only a handful of worlds remained. All fringe, or mid empire planets were evacuated and all fleets, resources, and people were moved to the core system. The final battle began two hundred and thirty years after the fall of Kirrah; above the Forerunner home world, Huur. The planet was defended by over fifteen hundred Elite Guard ships, twenty-two hundred standard naval ships and a massive planetary defense ring surrounding the planet.
The final battle began as the sun rose from behind Huur, the entire enemy armada visible to the naked eye as the star shone onto them. The Forerunner fleets sat in complete disbelief at the size of the enemies force. Over five thousand enemy vessels sat, just out of range of the rings long range magnetic cannons. After four hours at a stand-off, the enemy began its advance on the Forerunner home world. The first weapons to fire were the huge magnetic cannons on the ring. The rounds passed through the enemy lines, each destroying dozens of ships. As the enemy ships drew closer the missile destroyers and frigates fired upon the enemy, again, dozens of enemy ships fell the massive salvo. Finally, after nearly three hundred enemy ships fell the unknown ships fired their weapons; despite the loose control they had on these weapons, almost the entire front line of the Huuran defense fleet was wiped out. The battle carried on for nearly two days, neither side able to gain an advantage. For a while though, the Forerunner fleets began to push the them back, until the unknown forces brought in their final wave. The magnetic cannons of the ring fired on the final wave, but now, each round was only able to destroy one ship; a new type of coherent energy barrier shielded the final wave. The battle then tipped again, and the Forerunner fleets were forced fall back; not even the high powered energy weapons of the new forerunner cruisers could tip the tides again. In fear of losing everything, the Forerunner launched five colony ships, each one using a new type of hyperspace drive, they all jumped with opposite vectors, to different ends of the galaxy. The remaining forces covered the colony ships retreats as the unknown forces enveloped the Forerunner fleets, and destroyed Huur.
However, for the last of the Forerunner, tragedy did not stay away for long. Only two of the original five ships survived; the Karos and Siliim . Each of the ships was designed to continually jump around the galaxy until a suitable planet was found for the crew to inhabit. The crews of all the ships had to placed into cryogenic stasis, as the size of the galaxy, even with hyperspace technology, was massive, and could take thousands of years. Due to failures, malfunctions and natural events, it took the two surviving ships over ninety thousand years to fulfill their orders.
The Karos dropped from hyper space above a small, blue planet with a single satellite. The Karos orbited the planet for three days, scanning, and confirming that the planet was habitable. On the fourth day, as she began entry procedures, a small meteor shower collided with them. Nearly two hundred micro meteors tore through the bridge, and other weak area of the ship; armored areas such as the living areas were unharmed. Life support had been damaged, the command crew was dead, and access to the bridge was nearly impossible. More than eighty percent of the ships crew voted to leave the Karos and try to make it on the planet below. Soon after, with a small group of those who feared the planet and stayed, the Karos lost orbital stability and burned up as she entered the planets atmosphere, uncontrolled.
The Siliim however, was far more fortunate. They dropped out of hyperspace in a binary star system, above a large, blue planet, with a small, similar looking moon orbiting above. The Siliim landed on the plane without incident and the people quickly built a city, named Kardid, after the ship's captain who had died in an attempted mutiny during approach on the planet. Although much technical data was lost when the Siliim took hits from enemy fighters before she jumped; among the data lost being that of the locations and descriptions of their old planets, but the people still had enough to start their lives, almost where they had left off.
The two colonies both flourished on their new home worlds. As time went on, more and more began to forget their peoples past. After only three hundred and fifty knowledge of their true past was lost. Of the two, the Karos 's crew underwent the most drastic changes; the people named their planet, Earth; after the goddess of nature in a newly founded religion. Soon, the ways of their past completely faded: language, traditions, culture, and most importantly, any knowledge of what they once were. The reason for this complete loss of their past is due mainly to the loss of all records, the want to forget what had happened to them, and the lack of remnants of what was. Although the change in the Karos 's crew was severely drastic, the crew of the Siliim forgot little. They lost only the knowledge of what they were, who they were; they only remember they have been driven into exile by an unknown enemy, and wish to return home.
For the Earthling's, life was easy. The unknown forces didn't know of where they had gone, and thus thought them dead. The Siliim however, was not as fortunate. Four thousand years after the Forerunner's empire, the unknown forces appeared again, but this time they had a name; the Covenant. Even though the Siliim 's crew had advanced, their enemy had advanced more. When the first attack came, the defense fleets pushed them back with ease, but the second attack was much more successful. In the attack, more people died of suicide than anything else; they felt they had been condemned by their God, and found life meaningless. So, again, four thousand years later, the descendants of the Forerunner were forced into another exodus. They again launched five ships, each one with a distant, random vector; and for the second time in their history, the Forerunner were wiped out again. Of the five ships launched, only one ever was known to have survived; the Tiir .
The Tiir fell from her jump due to reactor failure, forcing her to follow the course using sub light drives. After a month of conventional space travel the Tiir came upon an incredible sight. A large planet, covered in emerald and azure lay before them. The most amazing sight was not that of the rich colors of the planet, nor that of the planets dual moons, it was that of a gigantic ring that surrounded the entire planet; a halo. The Tiir began her approach on the planet when her ECM (Electronic Counter Measures) systems alerted the crew of a weapons lock. An odd language blinked on, then scrolled across the bridges main screen; a message with a countdown. The Tiir attempted to turn but the timer reached zero before she could leave the "restricted zone". As she passed the ring, two bright yellow flashes flared off of the rings outer metallic surface. The Tiir lost all propulsion as a massive rail weapon blew through the engine bay, and the command crew was lost as a second round destroyed the bridge. Without propulsion or control, she was caught within the planets gravity well. Before she entered the planets atmosphere all of the surviving crew, with whatever information, technology, and personal belongings they cab carry, jettisoned themselves from the Tiir . Due to the emergency, none of the pods were given a "lead" pod to follow, and as the result, the pods scattered across the planet. A majority, over seventy percent, landed on land, while the other thirty landed in water, dying at sea.
Nearly half of a year after the cataclysmic event, all of the surviving crew had reunited. They found that they all needed one another in order to survive, and a leadership was quickly erected. The planet was named Gaalsia, which meant the "Garden of God". Nearly twenty years after planet fall, a capital christened Hanon rose above the landscape. The planets population had grown form only twenty million, to over one hundred fifty eight. While smaller cities had begun to grow beyond the capital, the capital city covered over two hundred square kilometers, and housed over seventy-five percent of the planets population. Nearly eighty years after planet fall they had ventured to the ring, and began exploration and settling. New technologies that had been found in the caverns lining the ring, as well as records, maps, and scattered biological information on the builders. This exploration went on for decades, but no matter how hard they tried, they were barred from over sixty percent of the rings core files, and almost seventy percent of its underlying caverns. Nonetheless, the data acquired from the upper sections of the tunnels allowed the Gaalsians to skip nearly three thousand years of research and development. Now, five hundred years after planet fall, or 500 A.P. (After Planet fall), they have now grown outwards, into the stars, and have again, like their ancestors, planted the seeds for an empire.
Earth too grew, building itself an empire. Although they are not as advanced and developed as the Gaalsians, they managed. However, they now meet a challenge that was more daunting then anything than they have ever experienced before. The Covenant have found the "final" remnants of a disease that was supposed to have been exterminated almost one hundred millennia ago. It is said history repeats itself, and this is true. This war began the same as the one fought over one hundred thousand years ago, but now, it has only been thirty-five years, and the Earths forces are almost in utter defeat; but fate plays in enigmatic ways.
After more than one hundred four thousand years apart, both remnants of the Forerunner will be brought together, to destroy the only enemy they have ever feared, or to fall to them and face complete annihilation at their hands. The ancient war that has never ended begins anew, and this cataclysm will cause the galaxy to shudder, for this will be the war to end all wars.
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