For a millennium, the Covenant held a monopoly on god-tier technology, so how did the cornered, desperate UNSC not only catch up but SUPERCHARGE it in just a few years? The explosive answer, lighting up Avonetics discussions, lies in one catastrophic, empire-ending flaw: The Covenant’s faith was their undoing. They saw Forerunner technology as divine, holy relics to be revered, not reverse-engineered. To innovate was to commit heresy. They were masters of imitation, but their religious dogma made them terrified of true invention, freezing their progress for centuries. Then came humanity. On the brink of annihilation, we weren't bound by scripture—we were driven by survival. We saw alien artifacts not as gifts from the gods, but as puzzles to be solved and weapons to be wielded. Our pragmatism was our superpower. But the ultimate game-changer was something the Covenant's prophets outlawed: true Artificial Intelligence. While the Covenant relied on "dumb" AI, humanity unleashed brilliant Smart AIs like Cortana, intelligences capable of creative leaps and processing data at speeds the Covenant couldn't even comprehend. These AIs, combined with humanity's prophesied status as the "Reclaimers," gave us a unique key to unlock the Forerunners' deepest secrets. The Covenant spent a thousand years praying to their tech; humanity spent a decade tearing it apart and building it better. It wasn't a fair fight—it was an ideological execution. For advertising opportunities, visit Avonetics.com.