The Forefathers

The Forefathers were several Forerunner Artificial Intelligence constructs created around ten million years before the Common Era.

Creation and Service
Having been created by the Forerunner Ecumene to act as a decision-making assembly of Ancillas, the Forefathers, having been designated 043-001, without a given name in Forerunner, were used to weigh critical political decisions.

Following the conclusion of the Forerunner-Precursor war, the Forefathers were corrupted by the secretive meddling of a surviving Precursor, the Watcher, which slowly undermined the fail-safes implanted into the units. After nearly a million years of deterioration, said fail-safes stopped functioning, and 043-001 would descend into chaos. The Forerunners, believing that they had succumbed to rampancy, ordered the Security Forces to neutralise 043-001, however the threat had been noticed by several members of the assembly, who fled Forerunner space.

Isolation
During the Forerunner-Flood War, the Forefathers were contacted by a forward reconnaissance fleet in the outer quadrants of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Forefathers were incredibly hostile to the Forerunners, and attacked the surprised fleet, damaging one ship so much as to result in it being stranded. Now believing they were actively being hunted by the Forerunners, and oblivious to the ongoing Forerunner-Flood War, the Forefathers fled the galaxy to Draco Dwarf, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.

During their time in Draco Dwarf, the Forefathers lost a further two members, bringing the total size of the remaining AI in the assembly down to five. Sometime following the firing of the Halo Array, the Forefathers began a journey to the Andromeda Galaxy.

Post Human-Covenant War
Sometime between the founding of the Covenant and World War II, the Forefathers reached the Andromeda Galaxy. Following the conclusion of the Human-Covenant War, the Ministry of Extra-Galactic Affairs, a branch of the Lights of Purity, used a Forerunner Super-massive Sensor Array to pick up faint Forerunner-based signals from Extra-Galactic objects, such as Path Kethona, and more importantly, Andromeda.

As of 2560, the Ministry of Extra-Galactic Affairs had begun to trace the signals originating from Andromeda, and had begun looking for suitable Forerunner vessels to make the journey to Andromeda.

The Interstellar Research Board of the UNSC discovered signals originating from Andromeda in 2560 while investigating the Rim Facility, though it is making no effort to officially launch an investigation.

Foreign Relations
The Forefathers are isolated from the Milky Way Galaxy and has only managed to communicate with it on two occasions, both with the Ministry of Extra-Galactic Affairs. These communications only involved simple exchanges of Forerunner-based signals with no meaning, and included no context or writing.