Lately we have been hereing more and more information about 343 industries and halo 4 and now new novels by Greg Bear dealing with the forerunners. My theory with these new novels is that they will set us up for halo 4, which will focus on the forerunners.

I think they can still make the Master Chief a larger part of Halo-lore.The planet that he and Cortana are heading toward at the end of H3 appeared to be covered with Forerunner technology. Perhaps there are still Forerunner beings still living there. Would seem to be probable considering its assumed proximity to the Ark. Maybe the planet was the Forerunners' final destination.

Land MC and Cortana on the planet, introduce them to the Forerunners. Flesh out the story arc about the Forerunners' struggles with dealing with the Flood throughout the millenia. They could be angry at MC for destroying one of the Halos and the Ark and their ability to contain the Flood. They were supposedly built for that purpose. Perhaps the Flood issue is much grander than anyone thought. But they could be intrigued with his ability to deal with the Flood on his own and Cortana's ability to adapt to their own technology. They no doubt had to have been watching the whole time.

Throw in some time travel.It's not rediculous to imagine that the Forerunners have that technological ability. They may ask MC to stop the Flood threat before it even started. Send them back 100,000 years to the beginnings of the Ark and the Halo structures to a point when the Flood were still able to be contained. Or to stop the origins of the Flood themself. Maybe the Forerunners had a hand in that as well.

You could build conflict within' MC and perhaps with Cortana with their knowledge of how the time line could drastically be altered with their actions. Would Humans exist? Would the Covenant religion be born? Would the Forerunners dominate the galaxy? But would the galaxy be better off without the continuing threat of the Flood? Perhaps have MC decide not to follow through with this and possibley start a war with the forerunners?

Considering there was a Forerunner structure on Earth from long ago which leads back to the Ark, they no doubt have a hand in the development of humanity. Directly or indirectly.

Perhaps the original role of the Forerunners was to spread a variety of life throughout the galaxy. Perhaps the Flood were an experiment on their part gone horribly wrong.

A lot of intriguing questions of the mysterious history of the Halo universe, if handled well, could make for some interesting stories. Be them in novel or game form.

Thanks for reading and please comment :P