epsiloneridani07:

Atlus Arcadium Rex, the Monitors, and How It All Fits Together

or Why could the Cosmic Powers just drop a cyclops if they’re not gods?

The Cosmic Powers do some pretty extraordinary things. Early on in the season, we presumed that this was because they were some form of ascended/higher beings – with all the power that might imply.

But then we hit Episode 13 and get this bit of dialogue:

The ‘gods’ were AI (Forerunner Monitors) the entire time.

And well…that’s a revelation. So the question remains: if they were Forerunner AI the entire time, then how did they accomplish any of the feats we saw earlier in the season?

First, let’s take a look at what Monitors are, and then more specifically, what they can do.

A Short Intro – Forerunners

The Forerunners were, basically speaking, just a race of very technologically advanced beings. They had an empire that spanned star systems. They created the Monitors for a wide variety of functions, but most notably to maintain the Halo Array – or other important installations. These Monitors’ purpose was to be caretakers, whatever that meant for their specific assignment.

What Monitors Are

In Halo canon, the Monitor 343 Guilty Spark was responsible for safeguarding Alpha Halo; when it was destroyed, so too was his initial reason for being. He tells us again and again that ‘protocol’ dictates his actions. Though the way he interprets his directives ultimately determines his decisions, his purpose is always clear: to safeguard the Halo ring – to safeguard his installation.

The Cosmic Powers aren’t that different. We’re told that Chrovos created them with the express purpose of manipulating lesser powers, maybe to do his bidding on a smaller scale, maybe for some master plan (taking over the universe? – “a project of galactic proportions”) that we’re not entirely aware of yet. Their directive, then, was whatever he dictated to them – and as Monitors like 343, they were presumably free to interpret that in their own way as long as it served their ultimate purpose. Their conclusions guided their actions and ultimately led them to deceive and imprison their maker. Maybe they were trying to save the galaxy. Maybe they have their own plans to condemn or transform it. We’ll see.

Monitors Are Forerunner AI

They don’t look or act like the AI we’re used to seeing projected, sure, but that doesn’t diminish the classification: their abilities are equal to and greater than those of UNSC AI like Alpha. Monitors, for example, can infiltrate ship systems (like 343 Guilty Spark), influence a helmet display (Ebullient Prism 686 did this to a Spartan), and attack other AI – in much the same way Omega jumps from helmet to helmet in the BGC or how Sigma manipulated and brainwashed Maine into becoming the Meta.

What This Makes Chrovos

In short, a Forerunner – but most likely a Forerunner scientist or researcher who broke away from the empire and went rogue, studying time-travel so he could bend the galaxy to his will. It’s possible he started his research to serve the empire, maybe to undo their mistakes, maybe to go back and get a redo when something didn’t work out the way they wanted or needed it to. Maybe he wanted them to never encounter the parasites that drove them to create the Halo Array – and were eventually their downfall anyway: The Flood.

Whatever the case, his knowledge of time-travel is indicated by what Atlus tells us:

To influence a human (Loco) to build a time machine, first he had to know how to build a time machine.

What Monitors Can Do

Maintaining and safeguarding Forerunner installations is a monumental task. Monitors are equipped accordingly – but they don’t have or know everything. Their knowledge is highly specialized and very much directed toward their individual installation or task. This was a Forerunner protocol meant to prevent information from falling into enemy hands if one of the Monitors was captured by The Flood.

But Chrovos is a rogue. He doesn’t care about the rules. He only cares about his goal. Why, then, would he build any such stringent limitations into his AI – his Monitors, the Cosmic Powers? There’s an abundance of abilities to which general monitors never had full access – teleportation, other-dimensional realms where time can be manipulated or stopped entirely (slipspace bubbles or pockets) – and so on. If he fully intended for his AI to be perceived as gods, then it’s logical to conclude that he gave them at least some access to anything that served that purpose. After they imprisoned him, they retained these powers.

That’s not to say that Chrovos let the Monitors go completely unchecked. The firewall preventing them from harming the Reds and Blues is, of course, one such precaution. Considering they eventually imprisoned him, maybe he didn’t take enough of those.

Case in Point: The Cyclops

First, where did the cyclops come from?

The Forerunners kept a vast collection of beings from all over the galaxy, since they intended to repopulate worlds with these beings after they turned on the Halo Array and wiped out any hosts for The Flood. They were also scientists and conducted various experiments, all of them with varying degrees of success. The cyclops could have been a byproduct: a failure or an odd achievement.

Second, how did Atlus summon the cyclops?

• There could have been a Forerunner installation near enough to Iris (the Vacation Moon) that Atlus could teleport the cyclops to attack Kai and Tucker
• Chrovos may have given the Monitors access to small slipspace pockets, potentially ones that housed experiments that no one could find a feasible use for (like a cyclops)

Finally, why did the cyclops listen to Atlus and attack?

• It’s been locked in a slipspace bubble for who knows how long. Maybe it’s bored.
• Maybe it’s just an aggressor by nature.
• We don’t know how much intelligence it actually possesses.
• Assuming it has a degree of intelligence that permits it to at least roughly communicate, maybe Atlus and the other Cosmic Powers promised freedom, greater comforts, etc.

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TL;DR: The Forerunners built a lot of really advanced technology. The Monitors took care of it. Chrovos is a rogue Forerunner genius who gave his Monitor AIs too much power. They locked him up. The Monitors can do all of these god-like things because of said really advanced technology.