The Forerunners

The ancient and extinct race known as the Forerunners were referred to in various places throughout Halo: Combat Evolved by the Covenant, who have apparently acquired and use Forerunner technology. The mysterious Halo rings, built by the Forerunners, are considered the most holy "artifacts" by the Covenant. The first example is the commander of the Covenant "Fleet of Particular Justice" refused to open fire at The Pillar of Autumn above Halo-04 with heavy weapons for fear of damaging the ring, thus allowing the humans to crash-land. On top of that, instead of using the normal "glassing," or orbital bombardment, on the ring itself, he sent ground troops to try and kill the humans off.



343 Guilty Spark is the monitor for Installation 04, left behind for many millenia by the Forerunners. Strangely, he speaks English. Guilty Spark has an egocentric personality and likes to hum and chatter. His most famous line is probably: "::hum hum hum:: I am a genius!" which he exclaims more than once. 343 Guilty Spark is nearly indestructible and commands a large contingent of combat drones to hold back the Flood forms contained deep within Halo.

Trivia from Wiki:

The number 343 is equal to (7 to the 3rd power), with seven being a number seen frequently in Bungie games and mythology. In Halo 2, the "2401" from 2401 Penitent Tangent is equal to (7 to the 4th power).

When the numbers of each Monitor are examined, a pattern emerges: each seems to be seven raised to the power of the installation number minus one (7(to the power of n-1)); therefore,
Installation -- Monitor
01 -- 1
02 -- 7(1x7)
03 -- 49(7x7)
04 -- 343 (Guilty Spark)(49x7)
05 -- 2401 (Penitent Tangent)(343x7)
06 -- 16807 (2401x7)
07 -- 117649 (16807x7) (117 is also the Master Chief's Spartan number)

So, we can say that if n is the installation number, then (7 to the power of n-1) is the monitor number of said installation.


This is one of 343 Guilty Spark's Sentinels. It's main purpose is to cut down any Flood that try to escape. Sentinels are armed with a "Sentinel beam" that can easily destroy Flood forms. In Halo: Combat Evolves two classes of Sentinel appear; a regular drone that fires a yellowish beam and a more powerful one that fires a blue beam, even though both varieties have the same appearance.


The Index is the key to activating the Halo rings. 343 Guilty Spark cannot activate Halo-04 by himself. A "Reclaimer" (what Guilty Spark calls all humans) must retrieve the key from "The Library" and slot it into a terminal which begins the countdown for the ring's activation. If the firing sequence stops then a silent signal is sent to the other six rings and that readies each one for simultaneous firing when a signal is sent from "The Ark." The Ark's identity isn't revealed to us in Halo: Combat Evolved.

In the game 343 Guilty Spark doesn't tell the Master Chief or Cortana the true purpose of the rings until Cortana finds out herself while looking through Halo-04's database. She stops Master Chief and they escape to destroy the ring by overloading The Pillar of Autumn's engines.