"ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS AGO, the galaxy was populated by a great variety of beings. But one species—eons beyond all the others in both technology and knowledge—achieved dominance. They ruled in peace but met opposition with quick and brutal effectiveness. They were the Forerunners—the keepers of the Mantle, the next stage of life in the Universe's Living Time. And then they vanished. This is their story."
— Jacket description
Written by award-winning author Greg Bear in 2011, Halo: Cryptum is the first book in The Forerunner Saga, a series of science-fiction novels set in the universe of the Halo video game franchise.
The book takes place during the time of the Forerunners, the ancient race that built the Halo rings encountered in the games.
Contains Examples Of:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Mendicant Bias turns rampant, sides with the Flood, and declares war on his creators.
- Action Girl: Glory of a Far Dawn.
- Big Bad: Faber, the Master Builder. He not only commissioned the Halo Array in the first place, but he's also an all-around jerk, and whenever he shows up in a star system it's generally bad news bears.
- Bittersweet Ending: Bornstellar escapes the Capitol, Glory and Dust both live, and Bornstellar becomes the Didact and spends a stretch of time with his wife; however, the original Didact has been apparently executed, the Forerunner Capitol found itself on the business end of a Halo, and the Flood is now in full assault.
- The Chessmaster: The Librarian's plan to reunite with her husband involved millennial genetic commands given to humans, a self-constructing ship hidden under a mountain, and calling favors from multiple Forerunner officials over a thousand years.
- Cool Ship: The Didact's Planet-Breaker.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The modern War Sphinxes against the Didact's. The latter put up no resistance and are smashed, sliced, and obliterated.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Flood, although they're only briefly mentioned.
- Also, the Timeless One. When a group of humans attempted to communicate with it, it told them things so horrifying that they promptly lost their minds and committed suicide.
- Fantastic Racism: Forerunners toward... well, everybody who isn't a Forerunner. Bornstellar mentions that his teachers told him humans were not much more than animals (which he disagrees with upon meeting some). The Master Builder calls a San'Shyuum a "dirt beast", the "most obscene slur for someone not of [their] race".
- Heck, their racism extends even within their own race. Nobody likes or respects the Warrior-Servants because the Mantle stresses pacifism (ironically, Warriors are shown to be the most devout and honorable followers of the doctrine). The Master Builder especially; he probably considers his rate of Forerunner the only really worthy one.
- Final Battle: Also the largest-scale battle scene in the series.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: Heavily implied with the Confirmer. Halo really loves this trope.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Flood, who are not mentioned until halfway through the book, and whose actions are only seen through their ally Mendicant Bias.
- I Know Your True Name: The Didact's consciousness within Bornstellar tries this with Mendicant Bias, to the letter.
- Insignificant Little Blue Planet: "This station was located on the system's third planet, known as Erde-Tyrene: a forsaken place, obscure, sequestered, and both the origin and final repository of the last of a degraded species called human."
- The Mentor: The Didact acts as a mentor to Bornstellar, the protagonist, and they travel together throughout most of the book.
- Rebellious Spirit: Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting in the beginning.
- Recursive Precursors: The Forerunners are preceded by an older, even more highly advanced race called - you guessed it - the Precursors.
- The Forerunners themselves are viewed the same way by other alien civilizations in the modern day.
- Fun fact: the name "Forerunner" is not, as you might expect, a Translation Convention based on the name humans and Covenant use for them; it's actually a close translation of the species' name for themselves, and Bornstellar even notes that it implies that they are merely a stepping stone towards something else, and perhaps better.
- The Reveal: The very nature and setting of the story makes these commonplace. Though some big ones are dropped near the beginning rather casually with little drama surrounding them, there are many universe-changing ones. First among them seems to be the revelation about the ancient human empire that existed contemporary to the late Forerunners.
- A particularly big one is in the very end:
"We meet again, young one. I am the last of those who gave you breath and shape and form, millions of years ago. I am the last of those your kind rose up against and ruthlessly destroyed. I am the last Precursor. And our answer is at hand." - Sealed Badass in a Can: The Didact is found by Bornstellar inside of a Cryptum, or sarcophagus, where he has been hibernating for thousands of years.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The Timeless One. Also, the backstory for the Flood seems to involve ancient ships containing canisters full of dust-like proteins which seemed benign and even useful at first.
- Shout-Out: The millennial seal on the Didact's Cryptum was sealed by two forces known as the "wisdom of Harbou" and "strength of Lang". This is a shout out to the German actress and author Thea von Harbou and her director husband Fritz Lang,
who were married and made several films together. - Translation Convention: This is actually explained in the beginning of the book, where all terms and idioms are said to have been translated to understandable words.
