[quote]at the beginning, the Didact wants to save the Humans. I don't see how this could lead to his hatred of them.[/quote]The Didact is a strict adherer of the Mantle. His original intention was to smack them on the back of the wrist to show them the errors of their ways. However, as the war escalated and billions were killed over 1,000 years, the Didact's more hopeful outlook on the war changed. [quote]Furthermore, the Librarian seems to want to destroy the humans, yet in the next terminal, she wants to save them (it seems like her and her husband are in opposite opinion.[/quote]The Librarian has an interesting view on the Mantle. She didn't follow the Mantle early on, finding it futile as the Ecumene's enforcement of the Mantle was a parody. Her initial and arguably extreme reaction towards Humanity's aggression was the result of her view on the attacks. As the Forerunners expanded, they displaced countless species. As a result, the Lifeworkers relocated them to world preserves on the edge of the Ecumene. These are the worlds humanity attacked. In effect, the Librarian saw humanity as destroyers of life and her work. As she looked deeper, she began to realize the true nature of the attacks. (Note: Not all the Terminals take place in chronological order) [quote]in the second one, the humans hav found a planet they think might be flood-free. how hard could it be to send a message to the forerunners "hey, there's this alien parasite attacking us, it'd be great if you guys could help out. also, this is why we've been eradicating your planets. you would have done it, too."[/quote]Forerunners were already not fond of humans. Claiming that a stellar parasite has infested their planet would lead to bureaucratic discussions, or outright disbelief, allowing the parasite to spread and gain strength. The infestation on Earth is a good comparison. Had the area and human population centers on the west side of Africa not been vaporized, the [i]"Earth would have fallen in hours."[/i] [quote]how could the halos be a better plan than the didact's prometheans (which were decently effective. option 1: killl everything in the galaxy. option 2: let stuff live, get more soldiers in the composer, and defeat the flood. then return life to the galaxy. it seems like the halos are ridiculously unreasonable when the prometheans (in enough numbers) could at least put up a good fight.[/quote]The Prometheans themselves violate the Mantle. Not only that, but it was at the end of the war. The Didact created the Prometheans in the final year of the Forerunner-Flood War. Halos were the best option, because they were the last option. Every other possibility had been tried and failed through actual ineffectiveness or political expedience. [quote]why didn't they just leave the galaxy? it's not like they couldn't make it to another near by galaxy. i know that they touch on the galaxy topic a bit in cryptum, but that doesn't explain why they'd rather completely irradicate life in that galaxy instead of just moving to another one.[/quote]Wielding the Mantle means you serve as protectors of all life in the galaxy. In their ideology, they couldn't just abandon their principles. Not only that, but the logistics of moving to a different galaxy combined with slipspace debt would be impossible. Even if they did pull it off, they'd be damning the galaxy. After the Flood consumed the galaxy, they would simply move on to the next and so forth. It's like asking why the Native Americans didn't just migrate away from the colonists. Same goes for any conflict. It's their home, and they feel they have the right to defend and protect it.

For your first question: they were at war with humanity, they knew nothing about the flood, later when they found out, it changed the way they looked at the humans, the didact realized that the humans were doing his job, to protect people. Librarian realized that humans weren't barbarians killing for no reason.

The didact met the last precursor, and it told him that the humans were going to be the next guardians, and that the forerunners age was over.

How did the precursor powder become ineffective? I imagined them to be infallible and successful in all their endeavors.

I'll get started in a bit.

[quote]at the beginning, the Didact wants to save the Humans. I don't see how this could lead to his hatred of them. Furthermore, the Librarian seems to want to destroy the humans, yet in the next terminal, she wants to save them (it seems like her and her husband are in opposite opinion.[/quote] This is the Didact when he was the noble, heroic teacher and general in Forerunner society. It was early days in the war, so we can surmise that his children are still alive at this point, he has yet to reach a point where he hates humanity. Librarian favours more rash decisions, she knows little to nothing about humanity at this point outside of the tensions that are running between their species. It's only when she spends over a thousand years studying them following their devolution that she comes to love them. [quote]in the second one, the humans hav found a planet they think might be flood-free. how hard could it be to send a message to the forerunners "hey, there's this alien parasite attacking us, it'd be great if you guys could help out. also, this is why we've been eradicating your planets. you would have done it, too."[/quote] The Forerunners did not believe that the Flood was a credible threat to the Ecumene, in fact many thought that it was simply a human bio-weapon developed to give humanity an incentive to push into Forerunner territory and expand. The Forerunner Ecumene spanned 3 million worlds, humanity had something like 10,000 because they were pushing away from the Orion Complex (away from Forerunner dominance). All the Forerunners saw were their worlds bombarded to a cinder and the human ships that had done the deed. Likewise, when the Forerunner [i]did[/i] discover the Flood, they treated it like a disease to be cured. They would've totally impeded humanity's efforts against the Flood because they spent so many years looking for a way to cure it, during which time the Flood was assimilating whole systems. Humanity knew what had to be done and their scorched earth policy ultimately paid off, the Forerunners would have impeded that at first (but then, after some hundreds of years, they ended up resorting to the same tactics humanity had used). [quote]how could the halos be a better plan than the didact's prometheans (which were decently effective. option 1: killl everything in the galaxy. option 2: let stuff live, get more soldiers in the composer, and defeat the flood. then return life to the galaxy. it seems like the halos are ridiculously unreasonable when the prometheans (in enough numbers) could at least put up a good fight.[/quote] The Forerunners don't understand ho to use the Composer properly, it only subimates one way. Once you become a Promethean, you cannot go back to being an organic being - when the Forerunner attempted this, the organic bodies they had created for the composed minds to be put in began decaying extremely fast and resulted in abominations. Librarian describes it as "manifest holocaust". It was not a viable solution, it was a crime against the Mantle, and the Ur-Didact's plan was to have the Prometheans become his own personal army who would wipe out any species that might one day contend the Forerunners for power. Likewise, the Prometheans only came about at the very end of the Forerunner-Flood war. There were very few Forerunners left and hardly enough in the way of other species to supply an army of Prometheans to take on the Flood - [b]let alone the immortal Star Roads[/b]. [quote]why didn't they just leave the galaxy? it's not like they couldn't make it to another near by galaxy. i know that they touch on the galaxy topic a bit in cryptum, but that doesn't explain why they'd rather completely irradicate life in that galaxy instead of just moving to another one.[/quote] What? The Flood came from outside the galaxy when humanity pushed them back, it's highly implied that the Flood spent those ten thousand years infecting local satellite galaxies to build up some of their strength for their return to the Milky Way. Likewise, slipspace access was almost completely closed off by the Star Roads. The Halos being constantly moved across the galaxy during the war essentially used up the 'bandwidth' of slipspace, and the Forerunners did not have the capability to travel across galaxies. Librarian's trip to Path Kethona, the local spiral galaxy just outside the Milky Way, in a single ship almost completely bankrupted the Ecumene.

[quote]at the beginning, the Didact wants to save the Humans. [/quote] from complete eradication, yes. [quote]I don't see how this could lead to his hatred of them. [/quote] erm, you're right. the causation occurs later [and additional context is provided in silentium]. [quote]Furthermore, the Librarian seems to want to destroy the humans, [/quote] yes she does. [quote]yet in the next terminal, she wants to save them (it seems like her and her husband are in opposite opinion.[/quote] erm... i'm too lazy to check right now but isn't the next terminal the one where the librarian basically states "oh sh1t it's war and humanity's got the plans and i don't like war didactmandude?" the real reason the librarian wants to save them is after seeing what the didact's punishment was. just watch the rest of the terminals. seriously, this is like a mini version of the tried and true "character development = character inconsistency" except OP is actually sincere in judgement and not going under a weird confirmation bias. [quote]in the second one, the humans hav found a planet they think might be flood-free. how hard could it be to send a message to the forerunners "hey, there's this alien parasite attacking us, it'd be great if you guys could help out. also, this is why we've been eradicating your planets. you would have done it, too."[/quote] because forerunners would have taken over the place. [quote]how could the halos be a better plan than the didact's prometheans (which were decently effective. option 1: killl everything in the galaxy. option 2: let stuff live, get more soldiers in the composer, and defeat the flood. then return life to the galaxy. it seems like the halos are ridiculously unreasonable when the prometheans (in enough numbers) could at least put up a good fight.[/quote] A) mantle of responsibility/idealism plays a part here in that librarian feels that they are unworthy. B) prometheans would never have been able to stop the flood. ever. [i]ever.[/i] even with the didact's desired numbers. librarian even calculates this [well she probably does] and [i]then[/i] says that the halo array is the only choice. [quote]why didn't they just leave the galaxy? it's not like they couldn't make it to another near by galaxy. i know that they touch on the galaxy topic a bit in cryptum, but that doesn't explain why they'd rather completely irradicate life in that galaxy instead of just moving to another one.[/quote] A) but they did. B) because the flood would reach a goddamn interstellar phase and follow the nearest form of suitable biomass to wherever the fck.

This topic should be named "Lord of Admirals, halp."

[quote]at the beginning, the Didact wants to save the Humans. I don't see how this could lead to his hatred of them. Furthermore, the Librarian seems to want to destroy the humans, yet in the next terminal, she wants to save them (it seems like her and her husband are in opposite opinion.[/quote]LoA would be better at answering this one. [quote]in the second one, the humans hav found a planet they think might be flood-free. how hard could it be to send a message to the forerunners "hey, there's this alien parasite attacking us, it'd be great if you guys could help out. also, this is why we've been eradicating your planets. you would have done it, too."[/quote]Again, LoA would be best at answering this. [quote]how could the halos be a better plan than the didact's prometheans (which were decently effective. option 1: killl everything in the galaxy. [/quote]Because The Flood had access an the ability to use Precursor tech, such as Star Roads. And Precursor tech can only be destroyed by the Halo Rings. [quote]option 2: let stuff live, get more soldiers in the composer, and defeat the flood. then return life to the galaxy. it seems like the halos are ridiculously unreasonable when the prometheans (in enough numbers) could at least put up a good fight.[/quote]Because The Flood would absolutely demolish them. Again, the Precursor tech comes into play, which would essentially rip them a new asshole multiple times over. [quote]why didn't they just leave the galaxy? it's not like they couldn't make it to another near by galaxy. i know that they touch on the galaxy topic a bit in cryptum, but that doesn't explain why they'd rather completely irradicate life in that galaxy instead of just moving to another one.[/quote]Because the Flood could just follow them and continue to kick their shit in.

I consider this one of the weaker parts of the Halo lore.