literature

Isolation

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Literature Text

20,000 BCE, 80,000 years after the firing of the Halo Array

Khaphrae System

Installation 03/Gamma Halo
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Installation 03, one of seven rings of the Halo Array designed to wipe out all life the Flood feeds upon.

049 Abject Testament, the monitor of Installation 03, floated through silver metal hallways deep below the surface of the Halo. His silver casing reflected the bright lights and the orange "eye" on his front shone brightly.

Loneliness. A shiny metallic silver door opened, revealing a large chamber lined with stasis units.
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The first thousand years after the Halo Array fired and all was silent were easiest. Over the next seventy nine thousand years, the effects of isolation grew.

First was exploration of the Halo in detail, every inch. From exploring the Control Room and Library, including the vast amounts of information stored within, to exploring the Flood Containment facilities without breaking quarantine.

The small bulbous and ghastly infection forms scurrying about in their containment chambers reminded him of the importance of his duty.

Afterwards were the experiments done for the sake of study.

Exposure of areas of the Halo to vacuum of space. Watching the ground, water, everything shy of the buildings explode upward into orbit, then restoring the damage done. Sometimes he waited for it all to fall back to the Halo, to see what made it and what didn't.

Sometimes he exposed areas of the Halo to extreme temperatures. Freezing temperatures which froze everything solid; trees, grass, sand, even the buildings covered in ice or buried under immense snowfall were common sights. Alternatively, exposure to extreme heat. Cranked up high enough, and some plants burn to a blackened, dead crisp. And metal would become extremely hot to the point if an organic being touched it, third degree burns would be the result.

A thousand years ago, the only interesting thing since the Halo Array fired occurred. A massive asteroid hundreds of kilometers across, maybe thousands, smashed into a planet in the system. If it had any kind of life, it wasn't alive anymore.

The impact was spectacular. When the asteroid struck, it basically destroyed itself, and a large chunk of the planet. The atmosphere was blown away. Molten and semi-molten rocks were ejected into space with great force. The heat and force of the impact were so great they were still glowing after a thousand years. And would continue to do so for many thousands more.

He calculated it would eventually form a debris field, maybe rings, within thousands of years.

More recently, Abject envisioned a Flood infested Halo. Flood biomass covering the ground, all life covered in a brown mass of Flood, endless green mist in the air, and dreary brown clouds in the sky.

Out of options, growing bored, and very lonely; he departed for this very room.
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Can't abandon duty. He floated to a stasis chamber, vertically aligned with the wall and colored blue and silver. The monitor entered. But circumstances...dire. Isolation. Madness.

Abject Testament then adjusted the settings.

‘Stasis duration- Indefinite.’

‘Criteria for awakening- Major event on Installation.’

And just like the Forerunners, we'll be forgotten. 049 Abject Testament went into hibernation and the stasis field took its hold, a field which would preserve him for as long as the Halo had power.
I created this story recently. When I read in the Halo Wiki about 049 Abject Testament, his current wherabouts were unkown...very curious.
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