Guardian Custode

The **Guardian Custode** or more commonly known as simply the **Guardian**, is a Forerunner construct designed to police an entire solar system and keep the peace through coercive force. Custodes are part of a wider category of policing constructs known as Peacemakers. Along with the Preceptors, the Guardians were classified as tier-two Peacemakers that were largely used for the abovementioned policing of lesser races.

Manufactured by the Minoris Assembler Vats, the Guardians were controlled by ancilla and operated through their connection to the Domain. However, some, like the one in Lumoria went rogue after millennia of isolation and rampancy.

## Class History

### Human-Covenant War

During the Human-Covenant War, a UNSC Frigate named the Endless Horison entered Lumoria, an artificial Forerunner shield world which housed hundreds to thousands of Guardians. In their discovery, SPARTAN May was exposed to the fact that one of the Guardians had gone rogue amd is attempting to wake up the rest of the Guardian fleet with the intention of a forced everlasting peace, by finding the Flood and unleashing the parasite upon the galaxy.

The Guardian, called 734 Antecedent Sage went on a mission to make its madness come true and a ensuing three-way battle between the Covenant, the UNSC and 734 Antecedent Sage's forces ensued. 734 Antecedent Sage was eventually brought down when May activated a powerful EMP that disabled the Guardian at the cost of Brandon's sacrifice.

## Design

### Characteristics

The body of the Guardian Custode is variable and ever-changing, shaping itself to awe, inspire, and maximize effectiveness of all defensive systems. Generally, Guardians have a segmented body and elaborate, phoenix-like wings consisting of multiple segments. They possess a head that is vertically roughly elliptical, topped with a broad, vaguely conical protrusion and a roughly humanoid face similar to that of the Promethean constructs. The appearance of the Guardians unnerved many Forerunners, though all attempts to change their look were unsuccessful.

The Guardians are enormous constructs, measuring just over 1,412 meters (4,635 feet) in height,[1] with a mass of two hundred million metric tons. The wings of the Guardians, known as "focus wings", contain energy condensers which draw power from the surrounding quantum vacuum. They also contain effectors which magnify the Custode's electromagnetic pulse. Guardian shielding is capable of withstanding the attack from a human frigate's Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, as well as numerous missiles. Guardians had the authority to plant assembler vats on the worlds they monitored, which would eventually grow and expand to staging areas and factories for the lesser Sentinels and weapon-ships that served them.

The constructs have no crew and instead each Guardian is controlled by an ancilla who inhabits the Custode. These ancillas have limited personality and empathy, having grown strange and aloof. Service as a Guardian and deep synchronization with the Domain reshaped the minds of the ancillas into a form that was considered best suited to serve the Mantle of Responsibility and enforce the prime directives that had first been outlined when even the Forerunners were young.

### Armament

The Guardian Custode's primary weapon is a single disruption generator, a devastating weapon capable of destroying infrastructure caught in its blast. The Guardian is equipped with two attenuation pulse emitters—a multi-vector electronic warfare weapon that can instantaneously neutralize local power networks through a series of debilitating pulses, capable of even disabling Forerunner systems. However, while their weapon is thorough, the damage it causes is not irreparable and can be repaired with time, particularly by Huragok.

Guardians are also armed with six converging beam cannon emitters, weapons commonly found on Forerunner warships that emit tendrils of energy that track enemy vessels and create a path for antimatter streams to pursue. While six of these beam cannons were more than adequate to defeat the fleets of primitive capital ships, they were of little use when the Guardians faced Forerunner warships infested and captured by the Flood.

## Ships of the Line

* 734 Antecedent Sage (Rogue Guardian of Lumoria)

## Trivia

* The design of the Guardian in Lumoria resembles the older and far more traditional designs of the Forerunners in contrast to the Promethean designs of 343i.