Rebellion

Darkness throughout

Panel 1 -

Shield World picture. Credit to Adam Burn (a.k.a Phoenix-06)

Xan: As you may or may not know, the Halo Array was activated once before by the Forerunners themselves.

Jeff: Because the Flood became too much of a threat.

Xan: Yes. And the Forerunners had considered and prepared for such an eventuality. The seven Rings were the sword, and the Shield Worlds were, quite literally, the shield. They were to protect any sentient life within from the pulse emitted by the Halos. A complete and thorough Micro Dyson Sphere situated within a Slipspace bubble of compressed space-time is the main component.

Jeff: Wait wait wait...a Micro Dyson Sphere is...?

Xan: A Dyson Sphere is a megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures its full energy output. They are two astronomical units, or for your understanding, 300 kilometres in diameter. They are capable of supporting life as the inner surface is always entirely terraformed. The Sphere is contained within a Slipspace transit, as I said before, and usually there is only one entrance point, which is at the heart of the artificial planet formed around the structure. We called these the Core Room Antechambers. Upon the powering up of the Halos, the Antechamber of a Shield World is always reachable by and via specific Slipstream Translocation Devices, however the Core Room is only accessible for a short time and duration after the Halos are activated.

Jeff: So if these things were so well thought out, how come no Forerunner survived other than you?

Xan: I'll get to that part soon enough. Now, my Sentinels come in many forms. The first I created, the standard design you would find on on all Forerunner installations such as the Halos, were originally intended to be used to defeat the Flood. It became apparent though, that they were much more useful when stationed on installations and programmed to protect them. To further advance the level of protection we had against enemy forces, I created and perfected higher more powerful levels of Sentinel. All levels built the Shield Worlds together, but the final and strongest design protected them and 'assisted' the creation the most.

Jeff: Assisted?

Xan: The artificial planet that contains the entrance to its Shield World is in fact trillions of these Sentinels locked together, over which a planetary surface can form.

Jeff: Wow...so obviously you couldn't have made every Sentinel by yourself. Did you get all the Forerunners to help or something?

Xan: No, after I made the first working prototype of each Sentinel design, I designed a machine that could create them itself. When I perfected the Sentinel design, I would build this machine. Each could create a Sentinel without aid, either on my command or otherwise, depending on how I programmed it. Anyway we're trailing off topic, so now back to your question. Have you heard of Mendicant Bias?