: I can't recall exactly, but I think you provided the only cogent explanation
: of how to reconcile H3 and Contact Harvest with The Terminals and Iris.
: Still think it's a matter of people's wires being crossed and not being on
: the same page, but you constructed a decent enough interpretation to work
: it.

I remember writing that, and I did an exhaustive search through the archives without finding the post where I laid it all out. In the thread where I surprised you, I just said that I wasn't fond of the ancient humans trope.

: Complaints about writing or style aside, I don't see anything in the books or
: games as invalidating what you're talking about. Humans are caught in a
: web of destiny and "fate", so to speak, paying for the sins of
: their ancestors and for being the unwitting pawn in a game of galactic
: "fuck you"s.

Except the Chief is officially space Jesus now, thanks to all that magitek bullshit about unlocking his genetic potential. He has a destiny, delivered to him by the space elf hiding out in the

: But nothing is set in stone.

Not even the direction that Halo is going. I'm more than pleased that Escalations and Halo 5 have dropped the Didact and the nonsense about evolutionary journeys.

: As I'm pretty sure we've discussed previously, the
: Mantle means nothing unless you believe in it; it's a self-serving
: ideology to justify a might-makes-right view of the universe.

It's also backed up by the transsapient race that knows more about the function of the universe than anybody else, and is currently being claimed by someone that 343i insists "isn't evil". So she's got to be senselessly killing millions of people for a reason, right?

: I know I've brought up Harry Potter before talking about this, but I keep
: using it because it works: prophecies are bullshit, unless the people
: actually believe in them.

Unless this is Greek Mythology, where you are screwed whether you believe in prophecies or not. Not all prophecies are self-fulfilling. And the Librarian openly admitted that she used the Geas to make her prediction a reality.

: Voldemort's own downfall is sealed precisely
: because he buys into something, and the only reason Harry Potter is
: "special" is down to his enemy's choice. Magic blood aside,
: there's nothing special about Harry innately; if he were the best at
: everything there wouldn't be much of an engaging story.

Voldemort didn't have the full prophecy. Snape left the pub before Trelawny could finish the soothsaying, so Voldemort made a decision he wouldn't have made if he'd known the full part. If Snape had been the patient kind of person who would wait until he heard the whole thing, or if he had perhaps been less desperate to save Lily Potter, Voldemort would have received the full prophecy. And the prophecy would have changed to reflect that.

Or perhaps not. After all, the world of Harry Potter is a world where prophecy is unreliable.

: Whatever the
: Librarian planned, she's not around (so far as we know) to make it happen,

She doesn't have to be. That's the thing about bullshit Forerunner technomagic. It doesn't have to make sense for it to work.

"Reclaimer, when I indexed mankind for repopulation, I hid seeds from the Didact. Seeds which would lead to an eventuality. Your physical evolution. Your combat skin. Even your ancilla, Cortana. You are the culmination of a thousand lifetimes of planning."

Doesn't leave a whole lot of room for interpretation. Those seeds would lead to our physical evolution. Our power armor. Our AI. And she's not just saying that her genesong led to us using power armor and making AI, no. Everyone uses armor. The Covenant use it, the Forerunner used it, ancient humanity used it, it's just what people make when they go to war. Same with AI. We don't know enough about ancient humanity to know if they were in common use, but the Covenant refuse to use them because their scriptures tell the tale of Mendicant Bias's betrayal.

For the Librarian's ghost to claim that all has gone according to plan, the armor and AI need to be specific. MJOLNIR is built with this technology and has those features. Cortana is made via this process and has that architecture. And if her genesong can influence hundreds or thousands of researchers working toward different goals, how much free will do you think we actually have?

Alternatively, the Librarian's plan is a hastily retconned plot device that only seemed clever to the person who came up with it. If she was in control, why did we spend 95,000 years after the reseeding crawling around in the mud? Why did it take us so long to rebuild civilization? Ideas like "If you live by rivers and plant seeds in the silt, you can grow food" should be much easier to imprint than the basic underpinnings of AI design, right? Why were we the last ones into orbit? Why did it take us so long to find the portal at Voi?

: and everyone's still an independent actor. Whether they act according to
: what "fate" has decreed is entirely their own character choice.

We saw what it takes to resist a geas in Primordium. It's an overriding urge that can only be resisted if you know it's there and what it wants isn't good for you.