No he didn't. He basically said that "Bungie didn't have everything set in stone", which is true. He then talked about a whole bunch of stuff that came out after Bungie that said "Humans aren't Forerunner" without bothering to reconcile with 343 Guilty Spark's "You are Forerunner or Mendicant Bias's revelation in Contact Harvest.

I think you could, just barely, reconcile Contact Harvest and that one cutscene in Halo 3 with the revelation in Iris and the Terminals that we are a distant relation of the Forerunner. But now that humans are direct descendants of Ancient Humanity, whose connection to the Forerunner is prehistoric and all but forgotten, you just can't reconcile all three of them.

Last time this topic cropped up, I opined that I preferred the connection implied in Halo 3, where Earth was the Forerunner's long-lost homeworld, and we were what was left behind, but I thought that the trope of ancient humans in general (Ancient Humanity or Forerunners being human) was trite and boring. You popped in and thanked me for legitimately surprising you, and I wish I'd thought to ask what was so surprising about my post. It's been bugging me for months.

I think my dislike of ancient humans (Besides the niggly questions about fossil records and the abundance of natural resources on Earth) stems from what I believe to be a major difference between fantasy and science fiction. In fantasy, a man's importance is determined by his birth. Luke Skywalker is important because his lineage makes him a powerful Force user, and the Force uses him to correct imbalances and redeem his father. In the Shanarra series, which got me reading fantasy in the first place, all of the main characters come from the same bloodline.

Science fiction always seemed more egalitarian. People are important not because of who they were born to, but what they do. Who is Juan Rico? Who is Louis Wu? Who is Ziani Vaatzes? One became the poster soldier for the Bug War through luck and hard work, one explored the far reaches of Known Space including the iconic Ringworld, and the third is an engineer who designed a war and destroyed the mightiest city on the continent. Their achievements are their own. Fate had nothing to do with it.

Now, humanity is no longer special because of what they do. We're special because we're the products of the Librarian's hastily retconned plan. We're special because our ancestors were the Forerunner's most tenacious foe, and the Flood doesn't count for some reason. It's the blessed duty of our race, decreed by eons-old gods, to assume the Mantle and rule the galaxy. Even the Forerunner have adopted a hammy manner of speech that wouldn't be out of place in an epic fantasy novel.

I used to be a massive lore nerd. I used to be in love with Halo. But now I'm on several other sites with active discussion, and whenever the discussion turns to the ancient humans and Forerunners and Mantle and Precursors, my eyes just glaze over and I lose all interest in the topic.