[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] grey101 I don't believe that because from the point of view those statements were given in, the Forerunners, of course they are going to see any expansion other than their own as "excessive". Even Bornstellar picked up and pointed out the hypocrisy.[/quote] I know this, and I used to make this very argument myself about how the Forerunner's leadership were hypocritical, hegemonizing -blam!-s and the majority of their populace content with genocide and susceptible to the very fallacy they accuse Humans of; generalizing whole species and being bigoted. In other words, all in all, no better themselves. Bear probably wrote this in to show their hypocrisy, but it just seems to me that 343i and Traviss are just taking it a face value and running with it in the most shallow way possible. Despite how hard I tell myself that Bear was intending for there to be hypocrisy there, the fact that Jul basically says exactly what the Didact says makes me think that 343i don't really see it that way. I didn't mind it in Cryptum when I read it the first time (Well I did a little bit; there was a complete lack of any sort of contention to the Didact's ridiculous opinions, and Born's statements seemed a bit too anvilicious and naive to be definitive), but now I am starting to realize that this is possibly a systemic theme running all throughout 343i's work. I mean it's not even the fact that they took the Forerunner down that road about being moralizing, hypocrisy or not, that I really find silly. I could put up with it if they were criticizing Humanity as it is now, or the UNSC, as these are clearly flawed societies with a lot of messed up stuff currently happening. In a way, the Didact is right about us just now. However, this Ancient Humanity is not us and it isn't the UNSC. It is supposed to be a Tier 1 civilization most likely with thousands of years of development behind it - and the best you could expect out of Humanity after all that time was basically the same old - xenophobia, warmongering, irrationality, etc. The Forerunners being hypocrites in this case doesn't really help, because hypocrites can still be right about that which they criticise. The only way I'd be happy is if it turns out that the Didact was flat out wrong in what he said, as well as being a hypocrite, and of course there being little to no mention of it in Glasslands, where it never fit in the first place.