With their civilization essentially gone, the last remaining Precursors became obsessed with the Flood and began teaching it to ignore humans, as if they had a natural immunity, and to hunt down Forerunners instead.

However, over thousands of years, these particles became corrupted, and eventually they transformed into the earliest forms of the Flood.

Because the Precursors were capable of changing forms over millions of years, some had assumed the form of tiny dust particles with plans to regenerate in the future. In their desperation to achieve both ends, the Precursors accidentally (sort of) created the Flood, a dangerous parasite with a drive to infect all intelligent life. The Gravemind Image: Bungie/343 Industries/Microsoft Games Studio As the once-great civilization’s last hopes of winning the war grew dim, the Precursors became desperate to both wipe out the Forerunners and help themselves live forever. However, the Forerunners felt that the Mantle should belong to them, and so they began attempting to eradicate the Precursors in order to take control of the galaxy.īy this time, the Precursor society was already in decline and, despite their technological advantage, they began to lose the fight against the Forerunners. As the Precursors’ civilization grew older, they planned to pass the Mantle on to humans. The Precursors believed in an idea called the Mantle of Responsibility, which they felt gave them responsibility to protect all life in the galaxy - in part because they created most of it. The Precursors created both the Forerunners, the race of aliens the Covenant worship, and ancient humans (more on them later). Halo’s history starts with the Precursors, a group of technologically advanced, Lovecraftian beings who ruled the galaxy millions of years before the events of the games. In other words, here’s all the cool stuff the games mostly don’t tell you about. Thankfully, Halo’s ancillary material - like books, comics, short stories, and data logs - helps fill out the background of the universe and explores the millions of years worth of history that lurks beyond Master Chief’s intergalactic travels.įor those who don’t have dozens and dozens of hours to spend (waste?) reading the books - which mostly have names like Halo: Cryptum - here’s an abridged version of what they contain. The games tend to stick to the here and now of where the main characters are standing or who they need to shoot.

The larger world, however, is fascinating there’s a religious cult of aliens, a few different wars, an infectious race that threatens to destroy the universe, and a set of rings designed to destroy it all first. The story of Halo, as told in the mainline video games, isn’t exactly the most interesting tale ever told.

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