system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Halo] What are/were the Precursors?

The Forerunners knew us as Precursors. Those who came before. They believed we were born on the fringes of the Galaxy, deep within the Large Magellanic Cloud. They believe we seeded the galaxy with life, that we, in our inevitable passing bestowed upon them the Mantle of Responsibility. They do not understand.

Once, maybe, we were one. A primordial species reaching towards the stars. The first. Perhaps these first Precursors seeded their neighboring stars with life. Soon, these worlds too housed Precursors. Soon, these worlds too reached out to the cosmos. 

We lived many lives, knew many forms. Some never escaped their own cradles, dying with their worlds as the eons wore on. Others continued the cycle, expanding, seeding, fading. 

Then we discovered the Change that is Thought. The living mind of space time, the consciousness which drives all things. It became us, and we it. Thought is Change, Change is Creation, Creation is Thought. 

We spread, we seeded, we created. It became our nature. Over billions of years we fostered countless species, countless worlds, even as our own cycle of seed and rebirth continued. We created the Forerunners. We seeded Earth. 

The Forerunners could not understand. They did not bear the Mantle of Precursor. They thought the Mantle to be spiritual. They thought that we favored the budding Humans over them. It was not so. Humans were Precursor, Forerunners were not. They could never bear the Mantle which was Humanities by birthright. 

The Forerunners rose against us. They brought destruction where we knew only creation. Our cycle shattered, humanity was left fragmented, unable to join the whole, unable to assume the Mantle of Precursor. 

Some escaped. Some hid. Some became dust. Dust which could rebuild the forms we had taken in the past. But the dust became tainted. Tainted with fear, and misery and revenge. We found fear, and it was good. We found misery, and it was good. We found revenge, and it was good. 

We returned. First to the Humans, still lost without their Mantle, then to the Forerunners. 

Where first we brought Light and Hope and Diversity, now we brought Darkness, Misery, Unity. 

Where we spread many through the cosmos, fostering the creation demanded by the Time that Thinks, now we bring oneness. 

Blissful, agonizing, sacred unity.

We are Precursor, we are many. We are Flood, we are one.
gpt
In a less... poetic vein... What were the precursors? 

They were not a single species as we understand it, but rather a collective of species over many generations and billions of years. They would rise, seed new worlds, die, and rise again. Their 'many forms' were their various incarnations as they went through the repeated process of evolution on dozens, if not hundreds or even thousands of worlds throughout the Local Cluster.

At some point, they discovered the principals of Neural Physics and the living consciousness of Space Time. This led to their obsession with creation. It consumed them and became part of their nature. Through their own cycle of death and rebirth, they also created new species, fostering biodiversity across not only the Milky Way, but other nearby galaxies. 

By the time the Forerunners came along, the Precursors had been doing this for, literally, billions of years. They had created what the Forerunners would later call the Domain, a vast repository of all their knowledge, so that their successor species could achieve their understanding and replace the current embodiment as Precursors. The Mantle isn't some sacred duty, but rather is literally the burden of BEING Precursor. 

The Forerunners, however, didn't understand. They believed the Mantle was the responsibility to protect biodiversity. They didn't comprehend that creation was, to the Precursors, far more important than protection. They were static minded, prone to ritual and traditionalism. This is because they were not of the Precursor Seed. 

The rising race of Humans, however, were. They were dynamic, intelligent, ever changing. They already bore the Mantle, as they were burgeoning Precursors, but the Forerunners didn't understand. They thought the Precursors had rejected them in favor of humanity, and they lashed out, determined to take the Mantle for themselves. 

The Forerunners pursued the Precursors across the galaxy and into the Large Magellanic Cloud. To their knowledge, they totally wiped out the Precursors, then (with the exception of one colony) wiped the event from their racial memory. 

But some Precursors survived. A few, determined to maintain the cycle, engineered themselves into a fine dust which would reshape a body into one of the many forms the Precursors had worn over the eons. But this dust was tainted by thoughts of revenge, of destruction. The dust became the Flood, and where the Precursors created, it knew only how to destroy. 

Comments? Critiques?