Talk:Precursor Race/@comment-66.44.92.2-20170117185435/@comment-96.44.121.37-20170124025153

The precursors in Halo are a different species. They basically created the forerunners which in turn made other species. However when the precursors refused to give the forerunners the mantle of responsibility. As a result the forerunners betrayed their creators and drove all except one to extinction. (Sourced from halo nation) The Primordial, a  Gravemind that identified itself as the last Precursor, revealed that the Precursors had been ruthlessly killed in a war with the Forerunners millions of years before the events of Halo and that "their answer is at hand" - implying that a proto- Flood form (described as a fine dust contained in hundreds of glass cylinders) was created as revenge or as a failsafe. The fact the Gravemind considered itself a Precursor  implies that the Precursors created it for revenge against the Forerunners. If so, then they were entirely successful. However, in Halo: Silentium the Flood is revealed to be another form of Precursor made via the powder referenced to in Halo: Cryptum that was also revealed to be actual Precursor desiccated remains. They were annihilated by Ancient Forerunners, who wished to seize the Mantle of Responsibility from the Precursors instead of letting them give it to Humanity. Some Precursors hid in stasis while others changed into the dust found by the ancient humans (the latter created the Flood). The Flood attacked humanity for only a short while because the Precursors favored humanity. The Flood/Precursors found humanity worthy of the Mantle and instead traveled to take revenge against the Forerunners.

It was later revealed that the Flood was not a creation of the Precursors, but the Precursors' perverted and insane remains of themselves. The dust that humanity had discovered that led to the birth of the Flood threat was one of the failsafe measures the Precursors put into place to try and avoid their extinction. Over the Eons, however, the dust became flawed and corrupt; rather than rebirthing the Precurors as they were, it only brought a cancerous plague and death. The remaining Precursors, driven to insanity by the betrayal of their creations (the Forerunners) instead embraced the disease they had accidentally birthed, guiding it to cease infecting humanity as if they had successfully immunized themselves. The Precursors, insane, but driven by a need to create new life, decided that the Flood would be their instrument; all life they made from then on would know only suffering, and would never have the chance to throw down their makers ever again. The very act of being exposed to the Precursors minds within the Gravemind drove the Ur-Didact to a brooding, hate-filled insanity.