Monday, December 8, 2014

Gamalpar and Vinnerva:

His health was fading him the whole book, from the moment we see him, we know something is wrong. through the book it just gets worst, and he starts to lose faith in himself, but they wont let him fall behind, and eventually end up carrying him. But the number one thing on his list was to protect Vinnerva. His health gets to a point where he can no longer do anything, but fade away, and die. In response, he leaves everything to Chakas, including Vinnerva as his mate for life, (she never quite agrees, but hints that she likes him) for him to protect with his life as the old man's dying wish. But even through all that, the old man did not let it get him down, he continued with his witty jokes, and joyful comments, keeping up the small morale of those around him. He will be missed as one of my favorite Characters of all time.

With Vinnerva we truly see what its like for a person to touch the brink of insanity and make it back alive. In the beginning we see this sweet girl, who wants nothing more than to save Chakas and Gamalpar. So she helps the two on the epic voyage across the ring, along the way, her Geae activates, a beacon, drawing her to the Palace of pain. To put how this must of felt for her into perspective, imagine not being able to breath, when air was right there in front of you, but no matter how much you choked, you didn't die, but nothing would stop your suffering but to take a breath. That is what it felt like for her, so she was slowly driven to insanity where the two men could not leave her alone, but when they reached the Village, she was no longer affected by it, and returns to her normal happy self. All seems happy for her, until then, right as she starts to feel joy, here Grandfather dies, with nothing she could do. so she entered despair, and for the rest of the book she doesn't really change at all.

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Riser:
In the beginning we see Riser as a Wise old man, who seemed to know exactly how much trouble everyone around him was getting into, and as we see across this book, that never really Changes, And that's what I love about Riser, he doesn't really let anything affect him, because to him, the Woman in his head is just another person to tell his stories to, not the other way around. and while it seems that he may not be to smart, because he does not speak very well, and what he says is very simple, his words mean a lot more than what he says, and while we hear him speak in his native language while telling Chakas the story of how he got there, we can see how fluently and poetically he actually speaks. It just goes to show, that just because someone sounds like they are idiotic, doesn't mean they aren't the smartest person in the room.
Chakas really changed over the Course of these books which we can especially see as we read the second book through his own eyes,

 At the beginning of these stories we see a young, ignorant thief, not really capable of doing anything great. As we follow along the book we start to see progression in his character. it all seems to start when his Geae first starts to affect him. on the island within Damonkijin Crater he starts to talk to the Diadact, seeming to give him advice, when for the duration of the book it had been the other way around. then as they visit Charrum Hakkur, the spirit truly comes awake, and instead of thinking and talking with others, Chakas seems to starts arguing with himself. He develops Knowledge of everything that ever was before humans were de-evolved, but not only the knowledge develops, we start to see this hatred bursting within him, hatred towards the Forerunner for all they had done. This took his distrust of everything even further.

On the Halo, we start to see him take on a Responsibility, of helping the old man, and the young woman survive, for it was him dragging them along. He also starts to trust things around him, with the exception of gaining the knowledge of what is safe to trust, and distrusting what is not. as his Knowledge seems to expand, so does his personality, going from, hating, distrusting, and scheming, to Knowledgeable benefactors of those around him (what is good and bad for him), Knowing how much he can trust things before they betray him, and Strategic survival, looking for each possible best route as he tries to survive the ring world.

One could say he went from being an ignorant Child, to a very Wise man in a Child body. Of which he did, he became not only the Voice inside of him, but his own voice through that.

A nice little tag on, we see that this book was told in a First Person Narrative, as was the first, so we really do get to see inside the character's head, furthering our understand of what exactly was going on in there

Some Pictures of Characters to help you imagine them
Four Main (except Riser || Mara was the Ape):

 The Precursor (imaging this thing but made of humanoid shapes)
Here's the Giant summary of the Second book of the Series:

The second book starts off with Chakas waking up in a small hut, surrounded by several black skinned people (and I mean black). he was lying with a pure-black skinned women nursing him to health, he would remain laying there for a few days, before he was able to talk. after he first came to, it was just he and the woman in the room. He asked her questions about where he was, and who the people were. The men in the hut, they were the men, seeking to marry her. Where they were, well, she did not have much of an answer, but when he stepped outside, he saw, the ground meet the sky, but not on the top. the sides. The ground stretched up on either side of him, meeting each other at the top. It was then that he realized that he was on one of the great Halos, like the one that destroyed Charrum Hakkur. Soon he found out that he was not the only Human who had been shipped here from off planet (the village being born here.) but that the woman's Grandfather was not from here.

Before we advance, we here of this woman's identity, she is a women the same age of Chakas named Vinnerva, with midnight black skin, who had been born on the ring, she had her own Geae, but it was much different from an ancient human, one planted by a builder, and not the librarian. Her Grandfather, Gamalpar, was another human of her race, who had been brought to the ring when it had just been constructed. He did have a Geae like Chakas, and was himself from Erde-tyrenne. both of them were survivors, they told stories at night, and hunted during the day, but nothing prepared them for the journey they were about to undergo.

 Seeking answers, to get as far away from the palace of pain (an unknown building humans were repeatedly kidnapped and taken to) as they can, they decide to embark on a journey across the ring. along the way they stumbled upon the old city of the humans, before most of them were taken for testing at the palace of pain. Inside they found broken Forerunner ships, as it had appeared the Forerunners were fighting themselves, and every last one of them died. But yet, nothing knew that it was dead, every ship, suit, and piece of technology would suddenly snap on, try to re assemble itself, but shortly snap back off as they failed to come back to life. Chakas reported back to Gamalpar, and Vinnerva, and they decided to go around the city, in fear of anything left behind. suddenly Vinnerva stops and turns around, as she said "I want to go there." nothing more, as she started running in the unknown direction. The old man and Chakas catch up to her, ad stop her right before she dives into a pit. as they look down, they see hundreds of humans at the bottom, rushing into a building at its base (the Palace of pain), with a massive creature hovering on a plate above it (whom we would find out to be the creature set loose from Charrum Hakkur, through subtle hints), as the two humans recognise this, they forcibly take Vinnerva away. I thought it was very interesting because they decided to use her as a compass, heading in the opposite direction of where she wanted to go. eventually they come to a stop when they meet a giant wall, made of bark and crossed thorns blocking the way. they stay there, and do there best to survive the night, eating berries, and taking turns sleeping, to watch over Vinnerva. Suddenly, in the night, the thorns retract into the trees, opening up a path into the forest ahead, in fear of the thorns closing again, the hurry to run through the jungle, and make it to the other side just as they close up again.

 When they break through to the other side of the Forrest, they are faced with a lake, stretching from side to side of the inner wall of the ring. The beach that they stand upon stretches just as far, but with Forerunner bodies strewn across it. They search the beach for a few hours until they find a boat, made of the same materials as the forest they came from. They then found more bark near the treeline and used it as oars to cross the lake, which they fear what might comes from the depths. As they continued across the lake, they spotted a Village, and started to paddle towards it. As they were about to reach it, the boat shook, and as they looked over into the clear lake, they could see the giant green mass pass beneath them, so they hurried to the dock, and entered the village. While they explored it, (no survivors) they heard something, almost as if they was a silent crying in tune with the slowly swaying structure, when the cry grows stronger and the Village starts to shake, when it abruptly stops. Chakas and Gamalpar explore the temple of which it had appeared to have come from, when they find the massive beast sitting in a cage. As it awoke, dim lights lit up across its body, and as it steps into the light, Chakas sees that it is not a massive creature, but several forerunners conjoined in a giant mass with arms and legs, each forerunner seemed to be fully awake, and horrified ant the monstrous form they had taken up. simultaneously, every mass on the creature said at once, "help, me" in separate sloppy tones, so that it sounded like a crowd, but it also sounded like one being. They fled from that place, leaving the monster behind, quickly rushing to the boat where Vinnerva waits, refusing to inform her as to what happened before continuing once more. As the make it to the opposite shoreline, several creature come up from the deep and show off their beauty around the three, reminding the characters that this ring was still a home to many amazing things.

As they tread through the jungle after reaching the shore, they gather a substantial amount of food before getting discovered by a giant ape during the middle of the night. As they soon found out the ape was accompanied by a Forerunner, a LifeWorker, and four brown-skinned humans, who interrogated them and took them back to his camp, but something was different about them, as Vinnerva and Chakas realized, they had no smell. Once at the camp, they settle in before dinner, at which, we see several different breeds of humans enter the dining hall, (127 as described by the LifeWorker), whom all eat, and report back to their own huts, leaving the 3 humans alone in their separate hut. While they were sleeping, Chakas is suddenly woken up by a shadowed mass hovering over him, as he sat up, he slowly recognized the figure, it was riser! Happy to see his old friend he greets him and asks him how he found them, but Riser is more focused on the camp they are in, no one has smells. As the LifeWorker approaches the hut, Riser hides and addresses Chakas not to alert the Forerunner of his presence. The Forerunner appears at the door, looks in, and asks Chakas to come with him, as he takes Chakas to a lab in the jungle, and has him stand in the center of it. But as machines close in around him, he starts to interrogate the Forerunner, and finds out that the Forerunner is trying to upload him into the one of the monitors, as he finds out was the fate of everyone else at this camp, and that no one but, him, the three other humans, and the ape were still truly alive.

As he rushes back to the hut, he finds Gamalpar and the rest of the live people outside the hut, Gamalpar was dying, as his health was finally failing him. The 'Forerunner' was upset by the fact that he was going to lose the Geae of the old man, and tries to force him to upload himself into the system, but as the power of the ring was failing, the Forerunner vanished, and the monitor that he was, or at least that he was uploaded to, replaced him, soon dimming and falling to the ground. They are once again, forced to enter the jungle, and continue their journey along the ring, riser no where to be found. Later on, they are rejoined by the small Florian and the two ancient spirits of Chakas and Riser speak to one another through their hosts' mouths. They shared their knowledge on the final battle of the war, who they were (finding out that Chakas's was the leader of the last army, and that Riser's was the first to lose a battle.), and what they thought the Forerunners were doing, not much was learned. Afterwards, Riser decided to tell his story as he crossed the ring.

He had first landed with 3 Forerunners, one locked in his suit, and the rest of them free. As the journey through the desert in which they were stranded, the suits started to squeeze in on them, and they quickly shed them, the locked on, not so lucky, as he was crushed within his suit. once they reached the end of the desert, a black pillar raised from the center of it, dispersing spores into the atmosphere, once the three reached cover, they decided to sleep. When Riser awoke, he found the two Forerunners bonded together into one being, so he ran, and found the camp, in which he waited for Chakas to appear.

After sharing Riser's story with the group, they continued on until a group of humans on a transport found them. with little other choice, the group got onto the transport and were taken deep into the rings to the rest of the humans with Mendicate Bias the AI left on the planet to converse with the gravemind that was the last Precurser. Who informs them that the ring is going to collide with a planet unless they re-position it so that the planet passes through the ring. So Chakas agrees to sacrifice his life to pilot the ring around the planet. Just before they succeed a fleet appears around the ring, led by Bornstellar Diadact, and the Diadact. The Diadact comes on board to save the ring when he discovers Chakas mortally wounded piloting the ring, he takes over the process, and talks to Chakas. After realizing that the process would not affect his thought, Chakas agrees to be uploaded into a monitor, and during that process, is taken with the Diadact to converse with the Precursor.

They quickly find out that the Flood was not a disease, but a test, to see if a species was truly able to take up the mantle, of which the Forerunners were not able. And that the Flood and Precursor were not different, hinting that those afflicted by the flood slowly become one as a Precursor, and that is how they have returned. At the end of the conversation, the Diadact activates a reverse stasis on the chamber the Precursor was held within, aging the being billions of years in mere seconds, instantly disintegrating the Precursor.

And then the Story ends, as we now see back in present day, with Chakas finishing his tale, in the body of 343 guilty spark. The humans who interrogated the device no longer have a use for the Monitor, and so they power it down and launch it into space. Little did they know that Chakas had uploaded himself to the ship, destroyed the AI, announcing that the Librarian was still alive, before putting the entire crew to sleep, and starting the ships journey to her current location.

Honestly, I loved this book and this was just the summary, do I recommend reading it, heck yeah I do 9/10
The Summary of the first book as far as what you need to know (NOT very in-depth)
Now that you have had a brief introduction into the Forerunner way of life, its time to start with the synopsis.
So Cryptum starts out with a young Manipular from the class builder, who had been exiled to a new family on what we can assume to be mars, consisting of Miners. the Reason this Manipular had been sent to a new family, was because he repeatably defiled his father, instead of wishing to achieve his evolution, he sought out adventure instead, he actually even attempted to sneak out from his fathers grasp and go on one. he was caught, so his father decided it was good for him to be placed with a miner family until he learned discipline. but, the Manipular escaped from that families grasp and got onto a supply ship heading to the neighbor planet named Erde-Tirenne, which we can safely assume is Earth. he was told by his ancilla that the great adventure he was yerning for would take place on this planet, at the time, we do not know this, but the ancilla was a special one, programmed by the main LifeWorker, known as the Librarian, who was behind the great journey by all life that was about to take place.
The Manipular Reaches earth and quickly finds humans to help him on his journey. Chakas, a *normal* human, whom was biologically very similar to the average human today, and a thief, very untrusting of all of those around him, but eager to earn money. and Riser, his best friend the one who took him in and taught him how to be an honest man, who was very smart and funny, a Florian a race that is a midget form of humans, with dull facial features, but lives for a few hundred years. these men take him across a lake known as dmankajin crater, to a vault of LifeWorkers said to hold an artifact of the Forerunners. while crossing the lake, which was flooded by creatures known as Merse, whom remained calm only if pleased by a travelers music, started to become uneasy, not happy with the music they had been playing, but the humans speed up the boat and make it across safely. while there, the Humans' Gaea, an ancient human spirit implanted in all de-evolved humans at birth, activate and guide the Manipular to a tomb or Cryptum , instead of the temple in which he wished to go, interested in the new adventure in front of him, the Manipular enters the Cryptum to find lifeless statues inside, after progressing further, he is confronted by a voice, asking him if he wishes to raise the Diadact out of his slumber, the former head of the warrior servants during the great war *destroyer of humans*. at his peek of interest the Manipular decides to awaken the Diadact as he nurses him back to health over a the next week. now in his health, the island senses the Diadact's presence and awakens, causing the center mountain of the island to seemingly disappear, and be replaced by a sphere being constructed, as the sphere nears completion the miner family finds the Manipular, but is too late, when the Diadact teleports him, Chakas, and riser onto the ship, and the go off into space. as the Diadact was in a great slumber for several centuries, due to his exile from the horrible tactics he used in the great war, he did not know what had happened since. their first stop was Charrum Hakkur, the final battle of the great war, ruins, this was surprising because the planet was the original home of the precursors, with architecture that even Forerunners couldn't destroy. while there the Diadact visited the time lock, a device that humans used to contain the last precursor. the device was broken and the precursor was gone, a foreshadowing of what is too become. meanwhile the human's Gaea's come to the surface, and the humans now have two voices in their heads instead of one, which are slowly informing them of everything that happened. The humans continue their journey though the universe, as the Manipular has a forced evolution, where he first picks his name 'Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting', taking an imprint from the Diadact, he continues to become the new role of the Diadact and becomes separated from the humans. what happens to them is unknown. afterwards the Forerunners spread into chaos, as the master builder (the leader) betrays the mantle and turns the halos on them to ensure his rule.

That's it for the Summary, that all you need to understand to know what is happening in the second, but I still recommend that you read this book, to get the full story, as well as the rest of the series for a great story.
Pictures of the Human Forerunner War:
At Charrum Hakkor:
Behind the Scenes: (there are not many illustrations mid war, but afterwards of this there is still ongoing battles of the Flood and human which can be found here http://www.halopedia.org/Flood )