Precursors (Spartan G-23)

The Precursors are recorded to be the most advanced species to inhabit the Milky Way. They were praised by the Forerunners for gaining the ability to leave the Milky Way long before they could. The Precursors created weapons, vehicles, and star ships that were powerful beyond belief.

History
The Precursors had an incredibly long history that is filled with times of peace and eras of civil war. During the early parts of Precursor space travel, they were a peaceful species often including many new less-advanced species into their society as equals. However, soon racial Prejudice began to form. through this racial prejudice, two groups appeared: the Krimzon Guard, a group of people who wanted all species to be equal, and the Revolutionary Guard, a group that wanted to perform a genocide of all other intelligent species. This started the First Precursor War.

First Precursor War
This was a long and bloody war between the KG and the RG. The KG was made up of those who wanted all intelligent species to be equals. This force was made up of all species. The RG on the other hand, had an advantage. Since the main purpose of the KG was to defend the other species, all the RG had to do was cause mass destruction. After thousands of battles had ravaged hundreds of planets, the KG decided to take the war to measures that no other Precursor force had done before: They introduced robotic beings into combat. With non-sentient beings launched into the fray, the RG quickly loosed ground and took heavy losses whilst the KG lost very few. Only a few months after bringing robots into the conflict, the RG surrendered and all those who supported them were executed.

The Great Extermination
A few years passed after the First Precursor War and all was well within the great empire that the Precursors had created. However, the other intelligent species within the empire feared that they would all be killed if another Revolutionary Guard was formed. As a result, they developed their own militaries derived from precursor technology and struck a vital Precursor supply planet. This caused a lack of robots for soldiers, and the other species thought that they could win. They were wrong. Outraged by the attack, the Precursors launched a fleet of three hundred Dreadnoughts. This fleet went to the homeworlds of all the other species, and used Mk-II Genesis Warheads to burn the surface of the planets. The other species, now with nowhere to run were quickly rounded up, and all of them were executed.

First Contact
It is unknown, what, or how it happened, but some time the Precursors came into contact with a parasitic organism. It happened after they lost contact with a planet on the fringes of the Milky Way. The planet was a large laboratory meant for the research and construction of an inter-galactic hyperspace engine to allow them to reach out to new galaxies. Precursor command was worried and they sent Precursor Reconnaissance Squad 7 out to investigate. Upon reaching the planet, they were sent to this site of the lab. When they landed, they found the lab destroyed and overgrown. As they went through the destroyed lab, they came into contact with the parasite. After a brief firefight in which one of the members was infected by the parasite they contacted the fleet and sent a video of what happened to them before setting explosives on a nearby doorway. After that, all contact was lost. Fearing for their lives, the fleet bombarded the planet via Mk-II Genesis Warheads. No further contact with the parasite was ever recorded and every other planet in the system met the same fate.

Precursor-Antecedent War
The Precursor-Antecedent War was a long and bloody war fought between the Precursors and the Antecedents over control of the Milky Way. It is best known as a large turning point in Precursor history in terms of military size and technology, as well as economic management.

In the war, the Precursors fought with the Antecedents to keep their colony worlds in the Zone of Alienation. After several years of fighting the war, and a death toll of over 1,000,000,000 on both sides, Precursors HIGHCOM ordered on offensive. Using the NAV components and a map from a captured Antecedent ships, the Precursors found all of the Antecedent colonies and made them lifeless via orbital bombardment. Finally, they reached the Antecedent Homeworld where a war was fought in space and on the ground for several days. After suffering heavy casualties on both sides, the Precursors Terra Formed the planet so that it would become an icy wasteland, and they placed a Shielding System in order to stop any other species from finding it in the future.

Second Precursor War
Approximately 2000 years after the Precursor-Antecedent War, colonial expansions was still underway. At this point in time, the Precursor Armed Forces were much larger than needed. Fearing that their troop number would decrease, several high-ranking Precursor commanders took over a handful of fringe colonies and claimed to be independent states, with their troops as their armed forces. Enraged at this, HIGHCOM ordered a swift offensive in order to recapture the planets and kill the commanders. Although they first met with success after success, the tide began to turn on the attackers as the population formed local militia to defeat them. Soon several other Precursor colonies joined the renegade ones, which set off a chain reaction that made 1/4 of Precursor space independent. This further enraged the government, who began a massive campaign in order to bring down the separatists. The war ended after the renegade colonies were either bombarded, then terra formed to allow new colonists, or had their entire population executed and their bodies dumped in their system's star. The war also forced the Precursors to reform their armed forces, and ensure that the soldiers were loyal to the state rather than their commanders.

The Nostrovia Incident
The Nostrovia Incident was a large debacle about intervening with developing life forms. The Precursors discovered the planet Nostrovia, home to the Nostrovians, a species of sentient life that had the technological level that humanity had in the 900s. The Precursors were unsure about whether to meet them or not, as both the war with the Antecedents 2100 years prior, and the war with other sentient life 20,000 years ago both ended badly. Civilians soon protested in either support about intervening with the Nostrovians, and those who opposed it. The protests soon turned violent as many attempted to assassinate leaders of the opposite side. Eventually, the Precursor Armed Forces intervened and arrested the leaders of each side, along with the decision not to intervene. Things, however, turned for the worse when a warlord and several thousand troops armed with old Antecedent rifles and mechs went to the planet and declared themselves as gods. They then declared that others like them would come, and that they were devils who wanted to send the world into chaos. The Precursors then sent troops to apprehend the warlord and disarm him, but an intense guerrilla warfare campaign by the planet's inhabitants caused undermined their effort and they took more casualties than expected. The Precursor Armed Forces ended up victorious, and executed the warlord and all his remaining soldiers. The war, however, devastated Nostrovia and wiped out 25% of its population. The Nostrovians soon joined the Precursors, but had few rights and were essentially slaves.

Government
The Precursor system of government is reminiscent of that of the Ancient Roman Republic. While all three branches of government were controlled by elected officials, these officials all came from families that had strong connections to the military, industrial, scientific, and technological sectors of Precursor society, which ensured that all the power remained in the hands of a handful.

Culture
The culture of the Precursors was shaped by the numerous predatory species of their homeworld, Īweriū. Brotherhood, bravery, honour, cunning, and trustworthiness were valued by the Precursors above all else. The hunters of their homeworld taught them that those who survived were smart, bold, and worked together. Their culture also saw warfare as very important, and soldiers were the most respected in Precursor society.

Military
The Precursors had advanced far beyond most species in terms of military. Originally, the Precursor military was made strictly up of organic life forms, and the creating of Artificial Intelligence was punishable by death. However, after the First Precursor War, basic Artificial Intelligence was introduced as the primary aspect of the Precursor military system.

Infantry Weapons
The Precursors used a wide variety of weapons in land, and ship-to-ship combat. These were, and still are the most advanced weapons created by a sentient life form in the history of the Milky Way.

Anti-Matter Rifle
The Anti-Matter Rifle is the standard-issue rifle given to Precursor infantry. The rifle itself is 1.5 metres long, with a bayonet attached at the end for close-quarters combat. Although the Anti-Matter Rifle lacked the range and rate of fire that most other Precursor Specialist weapons had, but it made up for that by its never-ending supply of ammunition and incredible accuracy. The gun itself has a small storage of Anti-Matter, no larger then the size of a pencil tip. The gun harvests the energy from the anti-matter, and uses it to deliver a lethal blast of energy.

Type-5 PET
The Type-5 Portable Energy Turret, was a Precursor SAW, and was the basis for the Forerunner Sentinel Major Beam. The gun itself has a battery at the top. This disposable battery powers the weapon, and allows it to fire a total of one hundred beams before it is either disposed of or recharged. The gun itself was used mainly as a Specialist or Special Operations gun because its high rate of fire could easily combat enemy infantry and lay down suppressive fire. The PET was discovered by the Forerunners in the middle of the Forerunner-Flood War and reversed engineered to be used on the Sentinel Majors as a means of combating the flood.

Type-6 Sidearm
The Type-6 Sidearm is a light Precursor weapon usually assigned to police and commando units. The sidearm is a robotic piece of light armour that covers most of the user's forearm, as well as their hand. It uses the same power supply and mechanisms of the much larger anti-matter rifle. It also has the same stopping power, but it has a significantly lower recoil, accuracy, and range. A trained soldier with the Type-6 can easily fire a shot every second in semi-auto.

Type-32 Energy Rifle
The Type-32 Energy Rifle was a close-quarters Precursor infantry weapon, and the favoured weapon of the Precursor Special Forces. The Type-32 was similar to the Type-5 Portable Energy Turret, but severely scaled down. The gun was about 1 metre long, and the battery was placed within the rifle, behind the trigger. The Type-32 was capable of fully automatic fire, and could fire 70 shots before it needed to change its battery. Despite the full-auto benefit, it had a very low range and accuracy, and could not take down enemy shields as effectively as most other Precursor weapons, which is why it never became the standard Precursor infantry weapon.

Recon Droid
The Recon Droid is a red robot. In the centre of its structure, it boasts a single video recorder and a lens for sight. The robot is oval shaped, and has two small "wings" at the side. Underneath its body, it boasts a gun similar to the Sentinel Beam. However, as opposed to firing a long beam, it has multiple cooling system to allow for all shots to be seperate and in full-auto which is often used to take out multiple enemies or to lay down suppressive fire.

Assault Droid
The Assault Droid, like the Recon Droid is red. Its main body sits on a rotating platform above four spider-like legs on which it uses for movement. The main body is covered in increased armour as a way of safeguarding its Central Processing Unit. The droid two guns, which are a slightly larger and much more accurate version of that mounted on the Recon Droid. In addition to its guns, it also boasts sixteen auto-tracking plasma missiles, a much smaller and more advanced version of the ones mounted on Covenant warships. The Assault Droid often commands up to one hundred other smaller droids in combat. It is programed with the ability to read its opponents tactics and learn how to counter them, making it similar in terms of tactical abilities to that of an organic officer. In case of rampancy, there is a code meant for each one that will cause it to self-destruct as a fail-safe.

Spider Droid
The Spider Droid is a Precursors Reconnaissance robot. Unlike the the other types of Precursor robots that have been used in combat, these do not have any weaponry. Instead, these bots rely on their stealth in order to take pictures, scope out enemies emplacements, steal enemy data, and create 3D maps for Precursors forces who don't know the area. These robots are painted to whatever camouflage matches its surroundings the best. It sits on 8 metallic legs, which makes it look something like a large camouflaged spider. It sees and gets its data through a camera located at the front of its body.

Type-1 Arracht
The Type-1 Arracht was a Precursor combat vehicle. Named for the Arracht, a near-unstoppable creature from Precursor mythology, the vehicle was a miniature fortress. The Arracht was approximately 10 metres at tallest and 4.5 metres at its smallest, as well as being 4.5 metres in width. It had a lower area at the front for the driver and commander, a medium area for the anti-infantry gunner in the middle, and a large area for the main gunner at the back. The Arracht could hover anywhere from 20 centimetres to three metres off of the ground in order to better navigate terrain. It had four inches of the same alloy used to make Precursor warships, and had shields capable of withstanding massive amounts of damage. The main weapon of the Arracht was a large 120mm Anti-Matter gun, that could control the amount of power used in each shot, allowing it to prevent collateral damage in urban environments. The Arracht also boasted two anti-matter warheads on each side, capable of causing massive destruction to enemy bases. The Arracht had a gunner had a pair of 20mm dual anti-matter guns for infantry suppression. The final weapons was a single Type-5 PET that was controlled by the commander, and was the only weapon incapable of turning 360 degrees in order to fire.

Mk-II Genesis Warhead
The Mk-II Genesis Warhead, otherwise known as the Genesis is a Precursor Weapon of Mass Destruction. The Genesis is made using Neutron Jammer Canceler technology. Throughout their wars, the Precursors would often land Neutron Jammers into the surface of enemy planets, which suppresses nuclear fission reactions by blocking the movement of free neutrons. In order to make sure that they could still harness the power nuclear arms, the Precursors created technology that could cancel the effects of the neutron jammers, which would give them an upper hand in battle. The Genesis had a 100 megaton yield, and they were often used to destroy all life on the surface of the planet via mass orbital bombardment. Although it was one of the earliest and most primitive examples of Precursor technology, it is still one of the deadliest.