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"By reaching out, ordering the ht the plague to Faun Hakkor--"
"How could it communicate? It was hidden naked and half-dead on a lost cinder of a world And then--we froze it in a timelock!
You are confused, Forthencho Besides, the Priave us information, and with it, we saved bilions of human lives"
"That is far from the whole truth Humans themselves discovered what needed to be done to preserve ourselves and our descendants against the Shaping Sickness"
"That has ever been in dispute between us," Riser’s old spirit countered "It ued this way, or that But it is e are here This knowledge, however acquired, is what forced the Forerunners to preserve remnants of those they defeated, rather than wipe us from the slate of history, as they had so many others before"
The Lord of Admirals responded with bitterness, "That race"
"Look around you! The Pri Sickness is here! Forerunners are dying--but we live on! And that is what the Pri to ht, back and forth, round and round I tried to catch the i--those visual ihtmare of the Captive, what the old spirits caled the Primordial--but stamped with a mark of authenticity
The threads of different ages tangled until I did not knoho I as feeling fear, as feeling any eht: Riser lying down on the ground and giving s out through his lips, expressing that ancient agony of knowing al those you love have either died or are about to die, inand incomprehensible even to these dead spirits, to the fundamental children that lie at the center of us al
It is toobefore the true Reclaimer
I am Chakas I aive up being Chakas I withdraw! Please stop your recording, Reclai apart
We are all dead, and even our bones are dust!
AI TRANSLATOR BREAK
Science Team Analysis: Monitor has shut itself down Whether this is due to prior dae is not known AI Translator reports that before the shutdoin strea with or overriding each other Monitor memory may be defective, or rated Repairs are still impossible
The monitor must recover on its own
Resumption of response streams may be problematic
Thirty-two hours elapse
ONI COMMANDER: "I have to say, I’ difficulty with all this information ‘Arks?’ There’s more than one?"
SCIENCE TEAM LEADER: "The Halo as described is also larger than any we’ve encountered That could iht?"
ONI COMMANDER: "Hh probability that thisus is a ruse However ancient, the Forerunners ence, and possible rematch, and prepared for it To the extent that this testiht into their hands"
SCIENCE TEAM LEADER: "That would iiven that Forerunners vanished froo, and left us on Earth as little es"
ONI COMMANDER: "Forerunners didn’t vanish coree about the possibility of a ruse Everything the monitor has related ties in with other Forerunner records we have discovered--including the Bornstellar Relation found on Onyx There is no possibility of recent communication between those points The data matches, and so it is almost certainly accurate"
POLITICAL TEAM LEADER: "The Coathered thus far with relation to the Forerunners has been sequestered and will have no effect upon team morale The interest of the overall Halo/Shield Alliance in the facts and inferences these sessions have produced is sufficient to override all our lower-level concerns
Interrogation will continue"
ONI COMMANDER: "With all due respect, ma’am, we have already seen that thisease"
POLITICAL TEAM LEADER: "Also noted, Colowing
AI Translator receives and converts a new response stream
AI TRANSLATOR COMMENT: What follows is a uous narrative Some phrases, perhaps many, may not be translated accurately
INTERROGATION RESUMES WITH: RESPONSE STREAM 1352 [DATE REDACTED] 1270 hours (Repeated every 64 seconds)
What a hu Then, I went mad I served my enemies They became my only friends
Since then, I’ve traveled back and forth across this galaxy, and out to the spaces between galaxies--a greater reach than any human before me
You have asked me to tell you about that time Since you are the true Reclai? Good Because my memory is broken and covered with thorns I doubt I’ll be able to finish the story