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Cortana: Knowing the Record Before the 'Lost Time' (First Part)
Posted By: Traumatised Marine<rbecalick@hotmail.com>
Date: 31 March 2003, 9:58 AM
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They had been cruising in Slipspace for some time, thankfully in recent years even craft as small as Longsword fighters were equipped with Fujikawa Shaw generators.
The Chief was in a very shallow sleep, making up for the several days he'd had of sleepless combat.
Cortana wondered if anyone could afford to sleep soundly anymore, with so much hostile intent relentlessly searching for them. Cortana, of course, would never know sleep. Not that she minded, it seemed like a ridiculous waste of time, but she also understood that it was necessary for the biological mind.
But her mind was not biological, and she preferred to say active and occupied, and after being where she'd been, even her mind had plenty to think about.
Also, she had much time to muse over it
She reminisced over the time she'd spent in the Halo mainframe, the revelations she'd had while inside.
It had been inside that database she had discovered the origins of all life in the galaxy, the history of a race turned to dust, and all it's secrets. One of these secrets being the key to life itself.
She remembered the history of events that lead to the Forerunners' eventual demise…
FORERUNNER TIME RECORD
YEAR: 50 589 793 BC (Human Date)
We have finally come to an agreement, after scouring the galaxy for other forms of sentient life, a task that our race has been consumed with for millennia, we have charted the whole of our galaxy.
The findings defied any of our predictions, it seems that we truly are alone in the galaxy, not just in terms of sentience, but in terms of living organisms, we have found not even the most basic alien biological form of life on any other planet.
It seems that our existence and life as we know it, is a freak phenomenon. It seems that life does not form given the right circumstances and environmental factors. That life is not like a reaction that will always occur with the right elemental conditions. It seems our existence is a single, isolated, freak event.
Which leads us to wonder, why do we exist? What is it that begins life? The guilty spark that turns that which is not living to life?
This has become our new purpose, to discover the guilty spark, and when we find it, to recreate it, it will be the ultimate achievement of our race. To produce meaning from chaos.
FORERUNNER TIME RECORD
YEAR: 50 590 215 BC (Human Date)
Though it has taken our race many centuries, we have finally discovered it; the key to life, the guilty spark.
With it, we have created life, meaning from chaos, we are creators of a new lifeform from that which was nothing. This moment in time marks our greatest achievement, testimony to our brilliance. We look ahead to the future of our new life with anticipation.
FORERUNNER TIME RECORD
YEAR: 50 590 217 BC (Human Date)
It was speculated that our new lifeform needs somewhere to evolve, as our race did. For our race only exists and became what it is from the struggles and craftings of early life trying to survive. It needs an isolated world away from our activities to flourish. One can only dream of what this life will craft itself into, it will be the purpose of our race to observe for a very long time. But we are patient, and ever watchful.
FORERUNNER TIME RECORD
YEAR: 50 590 218 BC (Human Date)
It seems finding an isolated world for our new life will be harder than we thought, for our own race needs worlds to live on. Wish this world to be isolated from our presence and activities, yet not so far from our colonised part of the galaxy that we cannot monitor it properly. There has been one suggestion put forward that we keep finding ourselves returning to.
At the end of the Great War in the ancient history of our race, when we fought amongst each other, unenlightened and without whole unity, weapons were crafted.
Weapons of vast, titanic, unimaginable power, they were our doomsday devices, they ended the war through fear of ultimate destruction.
The Fortress Worlds.
The Fortress Worlds used a newly discovered weapon, Betawaves.
These were so horrifyingly dangerous because of the range they could reach, given the broadcasting structure was large enough. The Fortress Worlds are huge ring-like structures, they can send these waves deep into space, with an effective range of 25000 light years, a phenomenal distance. The Betawaves are damaging to the functions of a brain, they counteract neural functions, scrambling the mind's pathways. The bigger the brain the worse the consequences of this brain damage. If the brain is large enough to be sentient it will certainly die, killing the sentient life form. This meant that a single Fortress World could kill trillions upon trillions of Forerunner.
The Fortress Worlds are the ultimate weapons, capable of bringing the ends of our existence.
However with the uneasy cease-fire that came to be because of the ever-present threat of destruction by the Fortress Worlds, the different Forerunner nations came to peace.
In time, the rifts that had existed in the past were lost to history and we became united with one goal:
To find new alien life.
So these great, powerful reminders of our dark past remained untouched for millennia… until now.
It has been suggested that the Fortress Worlds could be the cradles for our new life. With some simple terra-forming and the installation of gravity and atmosphere, we could turn the inner curve of these superweapons into worlds for our life to flourish in.
It is ironic that structures of such evil power should provide the cradle for new life to live in.
FORERUNNER TIME RECORD
YEAR: 50 590 432 BC (Human Date)
We have been hyper-evolving the life in an attempt to speed up their development. This simply means we have been putting the life forms through varying events and conditions, eg. long periods of cold, etc.
The results have been different on each installation. On some of the Fortress Worlds the life has died out, extinct. Others the life has barely left it's single-celled form.
However one installation, 04, is showing promising results, the life has already begun to pass the multi-celled level and is beginning to develop specialised cells. It is tremendously exciting. It is evolving, and we are all eager to see what the life will become.
FORERUNNER TIME RECORD
YEAR: 50 591 232 BC (Human Date)
We have monitored our life developing on installation 04 for centuries now, and it has reached a level of such complexity that we can wait no longer. We cannot simply observe from a distance anymore, the life has reached an incredible level of evolution in a short time, thanks to our intervention. They could now be described as creatures, or animals, no longer bacteria or simple, basic life forms. We must go to the installation, examine the creatures for ourselves, and collect specimens for dissection and examination. We are incredibly excited.
FORERUNNER TIME RECORD
YEAR: 50 591 233 BC (Human Date)
Something unexpected and terrible has happened. It seemed that this new life has reached a level we had not been prepared for. We now know how they reproduce, and it has cost many lives to find out.
It seems there was an accident when examining the specimens, and one escaped into the laboratory. They are able to reproduce at a phenomenal rate, using the bodies of their hosts as food and reproduction frames.
Within days these creatures converted the whole planet of Forerunner into creatures of their own kind.
We are deciding what our next course of action should be now.
FORERUNNER TIME RECORD
YEAR: 50 591 234 BC (Human Date)
Disaster.
These creatures work with collective intelligence.
The used our ships to get to other worlds, countless planets in our galactic empire have been completely converted into these creatures, used as hosts and food. They continue to spread, and though we wage our whole forces against them, we are losing the battle. Our military is very weak, as we have not needed it for thousands of years, we never foresaw a struggle such as this after millennia of enlightened peace reigning throughout our galaxy. I fear that this will be our races' end.
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