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Though little is known of the Harbinger, her appearance in Halo Infinite is brief but memorable. Not only does this towering, floating alien easily wipe the floor with Master Chief, but her near-deific presentation is supposedly a hint of what's to come in the Halo series.
Although it's hotly disputed in the Halo community, she appears to be a form of the Endless, a hyper-advanced species that sit in the shadows throughout Halo Infinite, intimidating all who hear about them because of how “worse than the Flood” they were. So if you were left scratching your head at the end of the game as to where she fits in within the series, here's what you need to know about the Harbinger.
Who Is The Harbinger?
The Harbinger is a tall alien female that looks like the Vex from Destiny crossed with an Elite strapped into a suit of power armor that keeps her floating above the ground with gentle jets of energy.
She appears to be part of an ancient race known as Xalanyn, or the Endless as they're called in Halo Infinite. During the conflict on Zeta Halo, she is released from a Forerunner Cylix, a device that essentially acts as a digital prison for a lifeform. Her escape was made possible by the Banished, with the two forging an uneasy alliance as they used her advanced knowledge of Zeta Halo and powerful abilities to take control of the majority of the installation from the remaining UNSC forces.
Together they were able to crush all they encountered as they began repairs to Zeta Halo after it was damaged during a battle between the Banished, Cortana, and the UNSC. The Harbinger's end goal was releasing the rest of The Endless that are imprisoned within Installation 07.
Origins Of The Harbinger
The Harbinger is part of an ancient race known as the Xalanyn, a species that survived happily on its own around the same time as the Forerunners, an equally strong and advanced but incredibly egotistical and paranoid race.
They went undiscovered for a long time but after the firing of the Halo Rings, a system spanning network of doomsday devices, a Forerunner scout found that the Xalanyn had survived. Upon their discovery, the surviving Forerunners that had sheltered on Arks or Shield Worlds initiated parley with this mysterious and equally advanced race with Zeta Halo appearing next to the Xalanyn homeworld as a precautionary measure.
After discussions, the Forerunners came to the conclusion that the Xalanyn were a threat. After all, if a species can survive your superweapon what's to stop them from coming after you? The vast majority of the Xalanyn were then imprisoned within special Cylixes on Zeta Halo with those not sealed away being subjected to cruel experimentation by the Forerunners within the Silent Auditorium on the Ring to figure out if the species had a weakness and what made them able to survive the Halo pulse.
Zeta Halo was then sent off into deep space, its payload forever watched over by the Monitor Despondent Pyre, only referring to her new prisoners as “The Punished”. There they drifted until 2560 where the subsequent conflict on Zeta Halo results in them once again being awoken from their ancient slumber.
The Powers Of The Harbinger
When first encountered, The Harbinger is an unstoppable force of nature, swooping around the battlefield with ease, blasting everything around her with a wave of her hands. Her two main powers are that of levitation and energy manipulation, but she also has other godlike abilities at her disposal, they are:
- Energy shields.
- Enhanced strength.
- Enhanced reflexes to the point of being able to react to incoming fire instantaneously.
- Advanced intelligence.
- Extreme resilience.
- Teleportation both long and short-range.
- Capable of emitting energy blasts that stun, disable shields or send a target flying several feet away.
- Able to manipulate Forerunner technology.
- The ability to cast balls of energy that can lock onto targets and home in on their location.
The fight with her in the climax of the game is a true test of your skills and if you haven’t got that loop down of swapping guns on the fly, being constantly in motion, and reacting to everything in a split second, it’s going to be a brick wall. She is weak to energy weapons since they drop shield fast, so try using the Sentinel Beam mixed with shots from the Bulldog or the Mangler if you’re having a hard time.
Warning Spoilers For Halo: Infinite
Confrontation With The Harbinger On Zeta Halo
The Harbinger never directly intercedes in Master Chief's actions upon Zeta at first. Instead she watches him from the shadows for a while. She tells Master Chief that he is not the future and that the Forerunners' lies are at an end. It’s a dominating performance that sets the tone and her role as an antagonist in the series (albeit a brief one).
After tossing the Chief like a ragdoll, she escapes and is lated encountered within the Silent Auditorium where she taunts John-117 again, saying her race stood silent, unable to speak as The Forerunners passed judgment on their race, imprisoning them for millennia.
Her assault comes in three phases, the entire time she’s summoning the remaining cadre of Banished goons to help defend her, before eventually dueling the Chief in one one one combat. This goes on for a while before she eventually succumbs to her wounds. As she lays dying she broadcasts a signal to what's thought to be Atriox, stating that: “You have what you need. Tell them I am sorry it took so long…” the "them" in question probably being The Endless.
As the Silent Auditorium begins to collapse, the Harbinger seemingly dies, warning that the Endless will return.
In a later cutscene that’s unlocked after beating Halo Infinite on Legendary difficulty, the Endless are released from their prison by Atriox. So until the next game comes out, theories of what will be in store for Chief and his crew will just have to continue.
