: I think that's the quote. That's off the top of my head.

: While the idea could certainly be explained much better, I think it pretty
: much amounts to: Would you rather have an uneducated, still-growing child
: making moral and ethical decisions, or an adult who has had time to
: experience more and find balance within their own life?

: Obviously, it's an idealistic view. The Forerunners, it is very clear, were
: not worthy of the Mantle, and their society was slowly torn apart from
: within due to their various conflicting ideas about what the Mantle
: actually means.

: It's incredibly rare for a race to advance to the same societal stage as the
: Forerunners (and beyond, to the level of the Precursors, before their
: corruption). Because it is so unlikely, it would be rare for more than one
: to achieve this state at the same time. As such, the race which has
: reached this point and has had the most time to meditate on the sanctity
: of life and apply this understanding to their society is the one to
: protect the galaxy's inhabitants. This serves as a reminder and a
: deterrent to this society possibly breaking down and betraying these very
: teachings (as the Forerunners' did). When one race is no longer worthy,
: they will either pass the Mantle on to the next worthy successors, or will
: likely be wiped out by this imbalance in their society, combined with
: their level of power.

: I think where fans are getting mixed up is that they're assuming the
: Forerunners were executing the Mantle as it was supposed to be, rather
: than seeing it as their flawed understanding of the Mantle.

Yeah, sorry about that Postmortem, but scarab fleshed it out a little better as to what I was saying. It seems to me like both the Precursors and Forerunner failed miserably in upholding the mantle, and they were EONS ahead of humans in their current state. Maybe John's hyper-evolution from the Librarian is the first step in making humans capable or something, but in our current state in the halo universe, the mantle seems like way too large of a responsibility for us with no extra or outside benefit. We're just way too immature.

- MacGyver10