Precursors (Necros)

The Precursors are the most advanced species to have ever lived. They preceded the Forerunners, and their technology far exceeded the Forerunners as well, eventually allowing them to leave the galaxy.

Early History
Precursors existed for at least 300,000 years before the Precursor-Hydra War. Their history had many ups and downs, both times of peace and times of war, times of life and times of death.

The Precursor-Hydra War
The Precursor's encounter with the Hydra would be their last stand. The war with the advanced parasite would kill off most of the Precursors, while the Hydra would suffer little. After the war, the Precursors soon left the Milky Way Galaxy.

The Leave Taking
After the war with the Astuto, the Precursors were devastated: most of what they had created had been destroyed, their planets had been ravaged, and most of the Precursor population was dead. So, they set out to rebuild their civilization and retake the galaxy that had once been theirs.

Military
The Precursor military evolved over their civilization's long and glorious lifetime, passing through three stages.

The first stage was the common place stage held by almost all civilizations, and it was the use of their own troops for all of their military operations. Due to the Precursor's high reproduction rate, their population, and consequently their army, was the largest ever seen in the galaxy, and as time moved on the Precursor's creativity and ingenuity allowed them to created more and more complex weaponry, vehicles, and eventually unmanned drones, which in the end led to the second stage of their armed forces.

When at last the Precursors moved to the second stage, they already had half the galaxy under their control, and were at war with another Tier 1 race known as the Antecedents. It was in this time that the Precursors perfected their drone technology, creating many forms of robots that were on par and above the capabilities of the Forerunner's Sentinels and Monitors. During this timeframe, the Precursors also began to use cybernetically augmented troops, as well as cyborgs; the latter of these, however, was outlawed after being deemed inhumane, as dead bodies were used to create them, though cybernetic enhancements continued to be used until the Precursor's disappearance.

The final phase of the Precursor military came late in the Precursor-Astuto War: this third form of military was the use of genetic manipulation and cloning to create "grown" armies of beings that would prove useful to them. These armies were not used very long, and most were still in the process of being grown during the Precursor-Forerunner War, so they lay dormant in the many facilities that housed them.

Technology
The Precursors were, and still are, the most advanced species to have ever existed in this galaxy and likely all others, and their technological achievements matched this fact. Whether it be in the field of starships, weaponry, armor, robotics, genetic manipulation, cloning, artificial intelligence, or any other, their technology far exceeded most of Humanity's wildest imaginations.

Weapons
The Precursors had managed to master technology that was far beyond any other civilization, and used weapons that varied greatly in their field of origin, from kinetic weapons to energy weapons, bullets to explosives, and everything else imaginable.

One of the Precursor's last inventions, and most inventive, was organic acid generators for their slave armies: placing small, cybernetically-augmented acid glands within the bodies of the slave races, the soldiers were capable of producing acid in large quantities so long as they consumed a small amount of sustenance, and this acid could then be sprayed from ports located at the wrist.

Similarly, the Precursor's managed to produce a laser that operated on a biologically fueled power core that was small enough to be placed inside a body without difficulty. Powered through a combination of using natural acids from the body to cause chemical reactions, as well the motions of both blood and organs to create kinetic energy, the small power core is capable of creating a laser of equal or greater strength than the UNSC's SPARTAN Laser with only a tenth of the cool-down time (the laser itself being fired from a gun grafted onto the soldier's arm).

A more familiar form of weapon was the Precursor's perfection of the Rail Gun: firing explosive, armor-piercing bullets that were little larger than standard UNSC pistol ammunition, the Precursor's used magnetic acceleration technology to fire the bullets at unbelievably high speeds; what the Precursor's did to perfect it, however, was that they managed to make the weapon's rate of fire extremely high using a rotation of multiple barrels, micro-energy cores to power the blasts, and split-second cooling systems.

One of the Precursor's most powerful and technical weapons was the Energizer Cannon: firing a beam of pure energy, the blast was sufficient to destabilize the opponent's molecular structure: overcharging the foe's atoms with the energy, the atoms would near instantaneously change from the solid phase of matter to the gas phase. However, while the energy charge was to vaporize infantry and light vehicles or robots, heavier foes were usually protected enough for the Energizer Cannon to have little effect on them.

The most devastating piece of technology in the Precursor's arsenal, however, was the Devastator Cannon, nicknamed the "Starurst" or "Sun Crusher": firing a concentrated energy blast, similar to a large scale Energizer Cannon, the Devastator would manage to destabilize the star or stars of a solar system, causing them to go supernova; even if the wave of fiery destruction that followed did not destroy all the system's inhabitants, the resulting black hole would destroy the remainder soon enough.

Starship Technology
The starships that the Precursors created ranged from very small to very large in size.

Genetics
The Precursor's greatest field of achievements was in the field of genetics: this field was divided into wo sections, cloning and genetic manipulation, each of which was equally used and mastered.

In the field of genetic manipulation,

AI
Precursor Artificial Intelligence were the most advanced ever known to the universe: it was once remarked by a Precursor that they had "practically created sentient beings". The AI were capable of storing near-infinite amounts of data, and, at the end of the Precursor's time in our galaxy, their lifespans had been expanded to the point of near-immortality: this is evident in the fact that several such AI that had served in the Precursor-Hydra War survived all the way until the Necros War.

Rampancy was a problem that plagued the Precursors for some time, as it does all races with AI, but in the end they managed to solve this problem: precautions were taken at all times to prevent rampancy in the first place, ranging from constantly giving AI's tasks to perform, to allowing the AI to shut down for short stints to allow their "minds" (hard-drives) to stop and in effect move the rampancy process backwards. In the event that an AI did achieve rampancy, however, they would at first be placed into a form of "cyber-prison", and if they could be made to "reform", they would released and kept under constant watch; if they did not reform with a short timeframe, they were shutdown.

Physical Description
The Precursors were humanoid to a point, but bore a great resemblance to the earthly insect known as a moth. They stand, on average, at eight and a half feet tall, but most of this is made up by their long legs, which are 60% of their height.

Zeban
Zeban was the Precursor homeworld.

Names
Precursor names followed a simple pattern, as all ended in the suffix "el", usually preceded by either a, i, or u. Those that served in the military also had a word added to the end of their name (i.e. Ekard for bombardier, Nrevyw for CQC specialist, etc), which was coupled with a number to tell the degree of such a rank. Lists for both name suffixes and notable Precursors follows:

Suffixes

 * Arijog: Grand Commander of the Armed Forces, effectively de facto leader of the Precursors
 * Ihcoro: Commander of either the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines. First is for Army, Second for Navy, Third for Air Force and Fourth for Marines.
 * Nogard: Special Rank. Only one member of said rank, a super soldier created to fight the Hydra.
 * Gnol : Regular Infantry
 * Uyr: Airman
 * Harodihg: Marine
 * Igoomi: Navy
 * Adnam: Sniper
 * Nrevyw: Close-Quarters Specialist (Melee, Shotguns, etc)
 * Ekard: Heavy Weapons Specialist (Grenades, Rockets, etc)
 * Ardyh: Information Warfare
 * Mryw: Special Anti-Hydra Soldier
 *  : Medic
 *  : Special Forces Trooper

Notable Precursors

 * Michael-Arijog
 * Gabriel-First Ihcoro
 * Azrael-Second Ihcoro
 * Raphael-Third Ihcoro
 * Uriel-Fourth Ihcoro
 * Lucifel-Nogard
 * Metatrael
 * Simiel
 * Orifiel
 * Zachariel
 * Sataniel
 * Sachiel
 * Shamshel
 * IsRamiel
 * Gaghiel
 * Israfel
 * Sandalphel
 * Matariel
 * Sahaquiel
 * Iruel
 * Leliel
 * Bardiel
 * Zeruel
 * Arael
 * Armisael