: Having now taken the time to re-read Cradle of Life (which I probably haven't
: seen since 2007), I can safely say that I have no idea how you are
: reaching the conclusion you have reached. This N'Challa guy simply
: observes the Strato-Sentinels, which he apparently considers to be gods of
: some kind. He does not see an actual Forerunner in the flesh, only their
: machines (and as far as we're aware of, in Bungie-era Halo lore the
: Librarian was the only actual Forerunner at Earth). Ergo, Cradle of Life
: says absolutely nothing about the nature of Forerunners as a species, only
: that a primitive human on Earth witnessed Strato-Sentinels building what
: is presumably the Ark portal, and that he believed what he witnessed was a
: divine occurrence.

: As for the Halo 3 Terminals, the Librarian makes the following remarks:
: "I'm trapped. On a beautiful, empty world. Its inhabitants have been
: safely indexed, every single one of them. They're special - well worth the
: effort it took to build one final gateway, even at this late hour." -
: Terminal #4

: "Did I tell you? I built a garden. The earth is so rich. A seed falls
: and a tree sprouts or a flower blooms. There's so much... potential. We
: knew this was a special place because of them, but unless you've been
: here, you can't know." - Terminal #6

: The Librarian merely remarks that there's something special about humans, but
: doesn't specify what that special something is. It could be anything.
: Perhaps finding a biologically similar species, one that could be your own
: progenitor species. While Bungie only made a passing mention of the
: Precursors in Halo 3's material (and indeed they never mentioned them in
: future material), the Bestiarum refers to them as a "Tier Zero"
: species, and states that "they can travel intergalactically and
: accelerate evolution of intelligent life." It's entirely possible
: that the Forerunners were an artificially-evolved population of humans
: transplanted from Earth to elsewhere by the Precursors. At least that was
: a possibility before 343i's alterations and additions to the canon. In any
: case, the Halo 3 Terminals neither confirm nor deny any biological link
: between Forerunners and humans.

: However, both Guilty Spark and Mendicant Bias, through all their various
: commentary, did essentially confirm that humans and Forerunners were one
: and the same. If Spark didn't make it clear enough, Bias made it pretty
: explicit by calling us his makers and masters.

: Bungie never fleshed out the Forerunners like 343i did, and they only ever
: made a passing mention of the Precursors, and they may have intended for
: them to remain largely a mystery, but one thing that Halo CE, Halo 3, and
: Contact Harvest, taken together, made clear is that, yes, Forerunners were
: humans. 343i either failed to take note of those revelations or simply
: didn't think they were conducive to the kinds of stories they wanted, and
: thus we have the Forerunners being a separate species that originated on
: another planet millions of years before humans did. Humans are now merely
: who the Precursors, and later the Librarian and her allies, chose to be
: the Reclaimers, the inheritors of the Mantle. And Sparky is now a former
: human himself.

Even the Forerunner trilogy remarks upon the possible common ancestry of Humans and Forerunners; this has not been dismissed. Even though the Terminals have been recon'd to some extent, if we look at Bungie in-game only content and take the Terminals at face value, even they state that Humans are not strictly equal to Forerunners. They may share common ancestry, but that's like saying Humans = Gorilla. We share Forerunner ancestry and we are meant to inherit their legacy but we aren't REALLY them. That leads me to believe that Spark is an unreliable source of information (I mean was he ever that reliable?).

As far as the comic goes, that further reinforces the idea that there was such a thing as humans that were primitive at the time of the Forerunners. Again, common ancestry, but ultimately they are distinct enough that it's not a direct equivalence.

Now obviously things have changed and been retcon'd, but I was open to the initial wave of changes 343i had to reposition the narrative toward the story they wanted to tell as long as they were unifying their narratives (which they have). Now to work on the quality bar.