HALO Lore Summarized: By SimoTheFinlandized - 2022 CE

============================ HALO Summarized: By SimoTheFinlandized - 2022 CE ============================ Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the mantle of responsibility belonged to the Forerunners. However, the Precursors wanted to remove such power from Forerunner hands and give it to the human race. In retaliation, the Forerunners drove the Precursors into extinction. Among the last of the Precursors, one let out a spore, hoping for it to spread and repopulate the Precursors. It spread like wildfire. However, instead of creating Precursors, the spore made a parasite known as the Flood. The Forerunners fought the Flood, which spread through infestation of sentient life, overran much of the Milky Way Galaxy. Exhausting all other strategies, the Forerunners conceived the Halo Array — ring-shaped megastructures and weapons of last resort that would destroy all sentient life in the galaxy to stop the Flood. Delaying as long as they could, the Forerunners activated the rings and disappeared. ============================ Nearly a hundred thousand years later in the 26th century, humanity—under the auspices of the United Nations Space Command, or UNSC—colonize many worlds thanks to the development of faster-than-light "slipspace" travel. Tensions between the government and colonies desiring independence sparks violent clashes. The UNSC sponsors the SPARTAN-II Project to create an elite group of enhanced supersoldiers, whose purpose is to suppress the rebellions covertly. In the year 2525, human worlds come under attack by a theocratic alliance of alien races known as the Covenant, whose leadership declares humanity heretics and an affront to their gods — the Forerunners — and begin a genocidal holy war. The Covenant's superior technology and numbers prove decisive advantages; though effective, the Spartans are too few in number to turn the tide of battle in humanity's favor. After the Covenant invade Reach, the UNSC's last major stronghold besides Earth, Master Chief John-117 is one of the few remaining Spartans left. ============================ The rediscovery of the Halo rings sets the humans against the Covenant, who believe they are instruments of transcendence, not destruction. Master Chief and his artificial intelligence Cortana are instrumental in the destruction of a Halo ring to stop the Covenant and the threat of the Flood. The Covenant descends into civil war following the expulsion of the Sangheili species, with many grappling over the revelation that their religion is false. The disgraced former Covenant Sangheili commander known as the Arbiter, along with the rest of his race, help the humans destroy the Covenant and stop its leader, Truth, from activating the Halo Array via the Ark. The Human-Covenant War ends, though new conflicts begin to emerge throughout the universe. ============================ In the post-war era, the UNSC created a new generation of Spartans, and tensions between the UNSC and colonist rebels resume. The Forerunner known as the Didact briefly returns to assert supremacy over humanity, though he is foiled by the Master Chief and Cortana, who is believed to perish in the attempt. Cortana's survival through the Forerunner repository of knowledge known as the Domain leads her to break with the UNSC and assert a new hegemony over the galaxy, with artificial intelligence (the "Created") in control. After two years of a scattered war, during which the Created are successful in completely dismantling the UNSC, Cortana attacks the Banished, a mercenary organization largely led by the Jiralhanae race. The Banished win the resultant conflict, terminating Cortana and battle the UNSC for control of Zeta Halo. ============================