The Flood: a species so eminently threatening that a powerful and ancient civilization constructed habitable rings ten thousand kilometres
in diameter to contain and observe them. The Flood are as numerous as they are voracious; they neither surrender nor retreat.
The Flood appear to be sentient and omni-parasitic, preying upon any host utilizing a certain minimum level of sentience and
bio-mass, and can infiltrate "even advanced life forms". It is not known whether they were merely encountered, or created
by the Forerunner for some purpose known only, as of yet, to themselves.
There are four known types of Flood. There are the Ranger/Infection class, the Carrier/Incubator class,
a Worker/Soldier class, and what can be, as of yet, described only as a Command form. (343 Guilty Spark also mentions "spores"
during his own synopsis of the Flood life-cycle, which may be either another term for the Infection form, or an even more
base type of the Flood.) To explain how the process begins would lead into a chicken-and-the-egg discussion, so we'll begin
at the Rangers. The Rangers are small, tentacled creatures which have their own defined biological framework, which are not
dependent upon a host. A Ranger will seek out any life of capable biomass to sustain itself, and proceed to attempt to use
the creature as a host, by tapping into the spinal system, suppressing the host's consciousness, embedding itself in the thoracic
cavity, and releasing spores which cause the host to mutate. From here, it is assumed that one of two changes will occur in
the host.
The first is that the host will remain relatively physically unchanged, save for the Ranger attached to
it. These would be the Worker/Soldier class, used for manual labor such as building, gathering, repairing, or defensive/offensive
actions. So far, only marines and Covenant Elites have been seen to mutate into Workers/Soldiers.
The second host possibility is that of the Carrier, which presumably only affects creatures who are physically
or mentally unsuitable to be Workers/Soldiers. The Carriers grow large epidermic sacs which contain several Ranger-class Flood.
When a Carrier is in close proximity to any number of suitable hosts, it triggers some manner of biochemical reaction, causing
the pus-filled sacs to explode and spread the Rangers in order to infect more hosts, and perpetuate the cycle of reproduction.
When the Flood's inability to suitably care for the host body has caused sufficient degeneration, the Worker/Soldier class
will also change into the Carrier form.
The Command form is seen only once and discussed even less, therefore the process of its creation remains
uncertain. Found on the bridge of the Truth and Reconciliation, this large multi-appendaged amalgamation appears to be a combined
symbioses including several, at least in this case, Human hosts. Other than extracting information, its capabilities and roles
are unknown.
Though they have a relatively simple procedure for reproduction, as 343 Guilty Spark states, the "parasitic
nature of the Flood belies their intelligence". What's interesting is that they're able to function the machinery and technology
of their host to an amazing degree, and are able to fire weaponry and repair damaged electrical and mechanical machinery at
a surprisingly nominal level. The Command form (as we learn through Keyes) has the ability to access host memory, strip it
from them piece by piece, and utilize it to it's advantage; the lesser Flood also possess some semblance of this ability,
though from what we have seen (Jenkins) it does not appear to have such a pronounced sense of self; it does not exert the
same levels of mental force or operate nearly as methodically.
And although the Halo network is meant to ultimately starve and eradicate the Flood, their continued existence
after a previous firing and eons of isolation shows ever more that though they may be contained and slowed, as a whole they
are not so easily destroyed...
The Flood were created by the
Forerunner in a vain attempt to control populations...
Charles George (georgec2@union.edu) writes:
Playing through level 5, Assault on the control room I noticed Cortana said something that kind of caught my
ear. She called Halo a fortress world. With a little help from Google I learned that a "Fortress world" is also a model for
future earth. More info can be found here:
http://www.hf.caltech.edu/whichworld/explore/scenarios/scenfw_top.html
Basically a fortress world is the a world where the rich and poor are extremely segrated and constantly at war. The
world is overcrowded, filled with Disease and lacking in the food and natural resources to feed it's ever growing population.
In this world a few nations grow excessively rich and territorial, like the US (except for the whole military forced isolation
thing ;).
My Bungie anylisis skills arent that great, but I'll give it a shot. Halo is a fortress world, a world where
the rich forced themselves into fortress areas and try to keep out the poor of the world looking for the respite. In order
to control the poor they released the flood virus into their population, perhaps to make them subservient (notice how the
flood seem to serve a central intelligence). But when the experiment went horribly wrong the Fore runnner converted the Halo's
into the giant bombs that we play on. They built the libraries on each Halo in an attempt to contain the flood through research,
but they failed and eventually the flood won the day.
Just some rampant musings.
That the Flood might have been
created by the Forerunner would certainly be an interesting twist...
-mnemesis
permalink
Alan Wu addresses the Hunters:
And what about Hunters? Are they affected by the Flood infection forms? We know that Elites are turned into
warriors while Grunts and Jackals become carriers. But what happens to the Hunters? (Maybe it's a good thing they don't get
infected: imagine an 8' tall Flood warrior with a fuel rod gun, nearly impervious armor, and a huge shield/melee weapon, combined
with the dexterity and strength of a normal Flood warrior. Not a happy thought).
No, not a happy thought at all...
-mnemesis
permalink
Alan Wu (ti_programs@yahoo.com) writes:
This message raises an interesting question: what exactly does Keyes get turned into? We know that it's a form
of the Flood, yet it is rather large (larger than any we have seen before). Besides, what is Keyes doing on the ship? There
is also a question of how long it takes the Flood to mutate a host. In the 343 Guilty Spark level, you are told that Keyes
and his men arrived at the swamp about 12 hours before. You go in and find the Flood, including some Marines-turned-into-Flood
(I think). Several hours after you first encounter the Flood, you board the Covenant cruiser to save Keyes. He is still somewhat
human (until you find him, then he's a Flood). But why the time difference? After 12 hours, infected Marines are Flood warriors,
yet Keyes is still partially human after 12+ hours. Is it because the Flood know that Keyes is somehow special and interrogated/tortured
him in order to gain information before turning him into a Flood?
Alan Wu
PS
Attached you will find a file
that fulfills the dearest dream of most, if not all, Halo players. At least if it isn't in Halo 2, Halo fans can still enjoy
the fulfillment of their dearest dream. ;) (It can be used as an AIM buddy icon if you're so inclined)
The file Alan mentions can be
found here. Nice work!
-mnemesis
permalink
Max also writes in with some
theories of the Flood's necessity (which, unfortunately, don't involve turnips-though tomatoes may be a safe bet for the underlying
metaphorical essence of his submission).
As far as Halo theory, I was always under the impression that the Halo only destroyed sentient life, as the
Flood could only infect sentient life. If the Flood required the death of ALL life in the galaxy, then I think the Forerunner
would just all out destroy them. A weapon (the Flood) that feuls on ALL life should be destroyed, by all accounts. The Forerunner
aren't stupid (obviously). Since the Forerunner DID perpetuate their species, it's possible that they NEED the Flood, in some
state, to survive. It's only when they get ahold of a host body that they truly become dangerous. And a host body must require
sentience. Now, why the Forerunner WOULD need the Flood, I don't know... Maybe Flood are "cute" in their bacterial stage...
--Max
While 343 Guilty Spark does
say at the beginning of Two Betrayals that "Any species of sufficient biomass and cognitive capability is a potential factor,"
it is unknown at this point whether the Flood can still infect non-sentient hosts. If the trees on 343 Guilty Spark are any
indication, the answer is likely yes, which means that Halo would still need to be able to destroy nearly all forms of life
(except perhaps bacteria, which, if I recall my biology class correctly, cannot be infected by viruses. But I'm not sure,
so if I'm wrong, by all means, point it out). So then the question remains: why did the Forerunner not simply destroy the
Flood outright, if they were so dangerous as to warrant a network of weapons so powerful as to reduce all life in the galaxy
to unicellular organisms. Quandries indeed....
-Ape Man
permalink
Drow780@aol.com (Drow780@aol.com) writes:
Somebody recently speculated about why Covenant Elite can be infected and not the Master Chief. Well, in Two
Betrayals, you end up stumbling across a dead Elite and a dead Grunt, both covered by Flood Infection forms. No matter what
you do, (save shoot them) you cannot get those Flood to react to you. My best guess at the matter is that they are converting
the dead Covenant into Flood.
So I guess what makes the Master Chief special over the Elites is that he isn't dead.
Well, we certainly hope not... ;-)
-mnemesis
permalink
There's been some speculation
as to why the Flood can infect other species, like the Elites, and yet not infect the Master Chief. It's been noted that the
Chief's shield was engineered from Covenant technology, thus seeming to make him at least as vulnerable as any of the Covenant
species. Cannibal Harry, however, notes something that has been overlooked...
Robert Boggs aka Cannibal Harry (Robert.Boggs@morganstanley.com) writes:
Kinda surprised I haven't seen this, or perhaps I just skimmed over it. But the reason the elites can be infected
and the MC can't should be fairly obvious. Even after the MC's shields drop, he's still wearing a suit that's been sealed
against vacuum. The elites aren't.
I doubt even the flood can infect vacuum sealed containers without breaching them
first.
Good point. Anyone want to try
the secret "remove helmet" command and see what happens? ;-)
-mnemesis
permalink
Ryan Mears (mearsrya@msu.edu) writes:
I have read several posts talking about the intro for "Two Betrayals". In it, they mention 343 GS's remark
of "Which means any lifeform with sufficient biomass is a potential factor" (don't persecute me if I don't get it down to
the letter). Anyway, I believe that 343 actually says potential VECTOR, as in a disease carrier (i.e. a mosquito is a vector
for malaria.). So does this mean the flood is classified as a disease instead of a sentient life-form?
So, is it "factor" or "vector"?
Let us know what you think!
-mnemesis
permalink
Sentinels: Poorly Designed Hardware,
or Overtaxed Guardians of Virtue? You be the Judge!
Jonas (jonas@twcny.rr.com) writes:
We all know the sentinels are pushovers. They totally suck at fighting the flood, which is what they were,
by all rights, designed to do by the forerunners, who were supposed to be almost godlike in thier technological sophistication.
This seems to be a contradiction, but it can be explained: There were not supposed to be humans/covenent on halo. The flood
infection forms, the only kind there were supposed to be, the sentinels are well suited to take out, especially becuase they
can't assimilate a machine. The reason they do so badly is that they simply weren't made to fight a flood warior, I mean,
who could have concieved that some other race would land on halo?
Good point.
-mnemesis
permalink
343 GS seems to recognize MC and starts calling him the 'Reclaimer'. GS states that the other Halo's would
follow suit, but it seems the process needed to be started by this 'Reclaimer'. Perhaps the suit MC wears is based on Forerunner
technology, stolen from the Coventant, who have been studying / worshiping? the Forerunner for who knows how long.
343
GS says Halo(s) was used before, yet the flood still live, meaning that something about the Halo is keeping them alive. Perhaps
the Forerunner were good enough to provide a feeding / norishment process. In their absence, though maybe the Flood are actually
driving Halo. Enter the 343 GS quote that the purpose of Halo was 'something their race [Forerunner or Flood?] depended on'.
And 343 GS seems a little off his rocker himself sometimes, getting notions of being a wiley genius ("Hmmm, thats a good idea"
"I'm a genius").
There is a note also about the strange weather patterns, that seem to contradict the nature of the controlled
environment Halo is supposed to be. And if the Flood can control beings like they did Keyes, who knows where else they could
be? Could they be in control of the Halo?
The question of why the Flood were never destroyed is still a mystery, but when
I read the Fall of Reach timeline in the part where Humans nuked a Covenant ship, I got a strange feeling. What if the Forerunner
were a group of nations, and the Flood were their weapon. The Cold war between US and USSR was similar. Nukes were only used
as a threat. Perhaps the Flood, and maybe the Halo's destructive power, was a threat that kept each nation from invading the
other.
Very interesting possibilty.
It would explain the need to keep the Flood alive, yet be able to "neutralize"
them by destroying their food source. If so, then it would seem that there would need to be some sort of a counterpart to
the "Reclaimer", who would release the Flood rather than set off the Halo. Hmm...
-mnemesis
permalink
Could the Flood have been a
part of the Forerunner? We again revisit this quote from 343 Guilty Spark:
The
installation was specifically built to study and contain the Flood - their survival as a race was dependent on it. I am grateful
to see that some of them have survived to reproduce.
Jehkoh (Jehkoh@aol.com) writes:
The SURVIVAL part may be intended for the Forerunner. Maybe the Forerunner were dying out and needed to reproduce
quickly as to ensure their cotinuing existence. To do so, the Forerunner may have used the Flood as a gene pool, taking the
REPRODUCTIVE gene (asexual one at that) and implanted it into their own biogenetic reproductive organs/systems/ rest of body,
etc. Maybe after that they moved on either due to over population or just to colonize new galazies. Maybe something went horribly
wrong in their genetic code and ended up wiping themselves out due to that Flood gene, completely backfiring. The Flood are
a bacteria (as stated in manuals, guides, almost anything having to do with Halo) so they can be used to harbor and grow genes,
unlike a virus.
Of all of Halo's conundrums,
this remains one of the most perplexing: Why did the Forerunner preserve the Flood, yet ensure the potential to destroy the
Flood's food source at will? What good
are the Flood?
-mnemesis
permalink
An interesting HBO forum thread
that expands on some theories seen here earlier (see Matt Wright's post, below). The thread was began by ZeroRavenX, with
this post by Patroclus quoting the Bible passages.
Patroclus writes:
I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again
will there be a flood to destroy the earth.
Go check it out, then get back
here for more speculation. By the way, has anyone finished the homework I assigned a while ago? ;-)
-mnemesis
permalink
Mr Yun writes:
There has been speculation as to why the Forerunner would keep the Flood alive.
Considering that the
Forerunner are an advanced species, we should be more surprised if they completely erradicated the Flood.
Think about
it, what kind of idiotic race kills an entire species just because it is dangerous (present company excluded, of course)?
Why
not kill all tigers and snakes and alligators and sharks too? (yeah, I know we're trying.)
Well, heres why you shouldn't
eliminate every species that is apparently bad: You never know what the future may hold.
Even humans, a moderately
advanced race, keeps live specimines of everything from cholera to ebola. During the 1990's we tried to resequence and revive
the Spanish Flu (1918 flu), that killed 100 million people world wide...in one year.
So it should be ASSUMED that the
Forerunner would keep specimens of the Flood for research. Maybe they could prevent another species from evolving into the
flood in another 1 billion years. The Forerunners were thinking ahead...they're supposed to be smarter than us.
Excellent points.
-mnemesis
permalink
Syn Vulture (sinvulture@clan-mac.com) writes:
As an avid follower of the marathon story line, I have migrated to Halo looking for some grains of truth that
may relate back to the thing I love ;)
While reading about The Flood, I may have figured out what they are for. Some
have asked why the Forerunners would have kept The Flood alive rather then destroying them outright, This may be why; I believe
someone already brought up 'The Flood as Doomsday Device' theory, and I would like to expand on it a little. It was really
what 343GS calls the player, 'Reclaimer' that got me on this line of thought. If The Flood was being used as a Cold War style
weapon, say it was used. The Flood is released from the Halo(s) and kills whatever the Forerunners may have been in opposition
to. So now you have a lot of space unusable because of all this 'Flood' floating around. Now you 'Reclaim' the space by detonating
the Halo(s) (since I remember seeing it mentioned that those on the Halo(s) at point of explosion some how survive) thus wiping
the space free of any Flood.
Of course, this brings up the point that if the Forerunners could make a device able to
clear such an expanse of space, why would you need The Flood at all as a Doomsday Device?
Well, inscrutable, enigmatic
alien races are awfully hard to figure out, sometimes... ;-)
-mnemesis
permalink
In an HBO forum post, ferrex, a designer extrordina're at Bungie, reveals some specific info about the workings of the Flood:
"The useful parts of the host organism are kept alive and functional by the Flood organism, which gradually replaces
the functions of systems which it can improve upon.
And unfortunately
for the host, the nervous system is considered a useful system."
Next time you go blasting away at those
poor hapless souls, you might think about this...
...for a second or two. ;-)
Btw, if there are any of you out
there who have any thoughts about the Flood, or any other Halo-related ruminations, send 'em in! (I know, I know. I've gotten terribly sloppy about updates. :-( Take heart, though! Your submissions are always kept and
considered, it's just that acting on those considerations has been difficult, lately...)
writes:
-mnemesis
permalink
We've had a lot of speculation
on the "usefulness" of the Flood, but Allan Crossman makes a good point.
Allan Crossman (a.crossman@blueyonder.co.uk) writes:
It's pretty clear that the Forerunners thought that letting them escape the Halo was a bad idea - hence the
containment protocols and Halo's final weapon. But why is it bad for the Flood to escape? Obviously not because the Flood
are a hazard to sentient life, since the Forerunners were willing to eliminate all sentient life in the galaxy... so apart
from the threat to sentient life, what's so bad about the Flood?
And when I say a lot, I really
mean a lot of speculation has come in with theories on the potential use,
misuse, and/or purpose of the Flood. Think about this, though: The Flood don't need to exist as a weapon of some kind, because the Halo itself provides a much more powerful and absolute solution. What, then,
makes the Flood so special, that the extermination of all sentient life is
called for in the event of their 'release'?
In other words, what would happen if the Halo didn't fire, and the Flood were allowed to spread across the galaxy?
-mnemesis
permalink
Speaking of the Flood (like
I'm sure you always are), Sean's got an idea as to their purpose.
Sean Srakannas (nerox666@hotmail.com) writes:
...maybe the flood are used as some sort of information gathering tool, maybe they collect DNA and any other
info on the species they infect and then the forerunner may have extracted this knowledge and created other races...
While it's an interesting excercise
to assign altruistic abilities to the Flood, it's difficult to imagine them as anything but a viral catastrophe. After all,
they were never presented in a sympathetic light during the game. Or were they? Maybe Sean's on to something...
-mnemesis
permalink
I also think that the flood were the failed splices of themselves and that they were actually some of the leaders
of their race.
We'd looked before at the concept
of the Forerunner creating the Flood, but it's interesting to note the possibility of the Flood being "an experiment gone
awry."
-mnemesis
permalink
Galaxy cleansing technology
or galaxy cleansing xenoform...which to use, which to use...
Dustin Green (dustin_green@hotmail.com) writes:
...But in my opinion, the most logical reason that you would keep a dangerous organism is if you needed it.
perhaps it was neccisary for research, food, i think as a weapon is unrealistic since they already had the halos which can
destroy all significant life. anyway, i think the answer lies in examining t! he basic needs of the Forerunners.
Why would the Forerunner need
the Flood? They have the ultimate super-weapon, so there's no need for an inferior, biological alternative. (Even if the Halo
was only built after the first encounter with the Flood, the Forerunner nevertheless
had the ability to manufacture such a thing) To create a "mass strilization protocol" such as the Halo's primary weapon, they
must have felt pretty strongly about the survival of the Flood. After all, a whole galaxy is a terribly large thing to gamble
on. Unless, of course, they didn't think there was anything worth saving in this particular galaxy...
-mnemesis
permalink
David Winn (dwinn@airmail.net) writes:
I was reading your section about the Forerunners, and I'm surprised no one has said what I think it obvious:
the Flood probably weren't harmful to the Forerunners, or at least not enough to warrant immediate destruction. Maybe they
were robotic, or, as one person suggested, hyper-evolved plants, or of some other form of life, but the forerunners probably
didn't destroy them because they didn't pose a direct, serious threat to them.
Indeed. It's been proposed that
the Forerunner were built much like humans, but there are any number of possible ways that they would not be "appetizing"
to the Flood. Lucky us, we and the Covenant seem to be quite tasty, though.
-mnemesis
permalink
Ben Haire (mastacheef@hotmail.com) writes:
During the mission 343 guilty spark, when you first come across the installation, I noticed something that
caught my eye. As you approach it, a fairly large group of covenant run away from it, like they often run away from you when
you have the upper hand. They are being fired at with an assault rifle. Of course most people think this is the flood, but
if it was, then why didn't it follow the covenant out? Have you ever known a flood warrior to not pursue it's target?
Which
leaves a human force, but in all honesty, do you think the humans would be able to break a covenant force they like that?
Especially after being attacked by the flood, they'd just want to get out of there.
The next clue comes when you walk
into the installation, as you approach the elevator, it returns from the bottom of the shaft, indicating someone has just
gone down there. In my mind, that definitely rules out the flood. So, the question is, who or what, could break a covenant
force using a human assualt rifle no less, then ride down an elevator into a flood installation?
Is it the Flood? Or is it something much
more than that? ;-)
-mnemesis
permalink
Ever thought about what it would
be like if the Flood did get out? If we were unable to stop their "galactic
joyride"? Here's an idea.
Spartan 117 (spartan117@charter.net) writes:
...With a race like the Flood, a single ship is the begining of the end. The race that started exploring the
world that the Flood originate from probably fell victum to the Flood themselves. Now say they only brought one ship with
them and 40 of them were on it. Now that one ship and those 40 hosts are out in the galaxy. They land on a world and the spores
disperse among the populace. That is a world that can only be Reclaimed by quatentining it and burning every potential host
the Flood could take. But, say those military forces that land there either don't know that is the only way to contain the
disease or are unwilling to slaughter those thousands or millions of creatures. Then the world provides a lot of host bodies,
but more importantly, a lot of ships. These ship baring Flood scatter to the wind and one shows up on this world, another
here, another there. These worlds fall and very quickly it becomes all but impossible to destroy this force that is so deadly
not because of they military might that it imploys, but because that it is so multaplicative. It only takes a very small amount
to start, but that sets of a chain reaction that unleashes countless thousands.
-mnemesis
permalink
Nate (nathanjfealko@hotmail.com) writes:
Drow780@aol.com wrote the following:
"Somebody recently speculated about why Covenant Elite can be infected
and not the Master Chief. Well, in Two Betrayals, you end up stumbling across a dead Elite and a dead Grunt, both covered
by Flood Infection forms. No matter what you do, (save shoot them) you cannot get those Flood to react to you. My best guess
at the matter is that they are converting the dead Covenant into Flood.
So I guess what makes the Master Chief special
over the Elites is that he isn't dead."
I want to bring up a contradictory point. On the level "343 Guilty Spark,"
if you actually take the time to listen to everything the frightened marine with the pistol yells at you, he says "That's
what I did...I played dead. They took the live ones!" (I may have misquoted a word or two, but the message was the same.)
This brings up a mystery/puzzle/enigma/conundrum. If the Flood appear to infect dead bodies (remember Cortana's observation
of the Flood gathering dead bodies in the "Keyes" level), then how did this marine escape? Why did the Flood take the LIVE
ones?
-Finn
permalink
Could the Flood still exist
because of a moral dilemma? Because of sympathy?
Shawn Stevens (shawnbethany@netzero.net) writes:
Why keep the Flood alive? Well since the Flood has demonstrated a large degree of intelligence (maybe the most
important one being that they wanted to take control of the Covenant's ship to leave Halo) it would be genocide if the forerunners
completely destroyed them. However this poses a logical problem because the Forerunners have no problem wiping out innocent
life in a whole galaxy to insure there is no food for the Flood. So then could it be that the Flood was spared simply for
research? This is the most logical conclusion. GS says,
"The installation was
specifically built to study and contain the Flood . Their survival as a race was dependent on it. I am grateful to see
that some of them have survived to reproduce."
This statement has a lot of meaning in it and we haven't
been given all the background info yet. The Forerunners have something up their sleeve here. I don't see them as some type
of benevolent race. There is something darker at work with them and I believe we will see what they are all about eventually.
Until
we see the MC without his helmet,
make mine Halo
Shawn Steven
Who knows what evil lurks in
the hearts and minds of...
-Finn
permalink
Continuing this, from KitzBritz
( KitzBritz@aol.com):
I've been thinking along the lines of why the flood are so important, or so dangerous, to a race that extinguish
all life from a galaxy in one fell swoop. We know the rings are meant to stop the flood because Cortana says so, and so this
rules out many possibilities (one of which may have been that the Forerunners were simply sparing the galaxy a gruesome fate).
Perhaps the Forerunners were afraid of what the Flood could one day become. Think about it: Why doesn"t the weapon merely
destroy the Flood, instead of all life in a galaxy? The sentinels make it obvious that the Forerunners could kill the Flood
if they really tried, which must mean that they think the energy it would take to preserve carbon-based life would be better
spent on other things, so they figure they"ll just kill the food supply and end the Flood, much like the way we might think
of lesser creatures on earth. Perhaps the Forerunners were not alive the way we know life. This is supported also by the fact
that has been pointed out many times; sentinels were not made to handle converted races. A few drones can easily overwhelm
a sentinel, as can the MC.
After all this, the best theory I can come up with is this: The Flood are not carbon-based
at all, or are not alive in the way we think of it. Otherwise, Halo would kill them, as well as every other large mass of
life in the galaxy.
One would think, from what we've
seen, that the Forerunner would obviously possess the tools and the know-how to kill the Flood in whatever form they manifested
themselves. If it is a question of priorities or convenience, what is it that their energies could be better spent on?
-Finn
permalink
We ain't seen nothing yet? The
Flood may have more secrets than we imagine (as if there weren't enough already):
bhoo (irishone@mts.net) writes:
Very few people (as far as I can tell) have wondered what the Flood are going to evolve into by the end of
their parasitic metamorphosis. What if 343GS destroys their food so as to not let them get that far? What if the flood ARE
the Forerunner and that 343GS killed them off long ago for some devious reason and cannot allow them to "re-evolve" and get
their revenge on him (assuming that the spores still contain memories from the past fight with 343GS)?
And maybe 343GS
had kept some Flood alive in order to attempt to retrieve some memories or info from whatever "brain" they may have in spore
form (those computers are all about retrieving as much info as they can, regardless of the dangers that may present).
But
now that Master Chief destroyed Halo 004 (and any chance of retrieving memories from the flood spore), 343GS may have added
him and the rest of Humanity to his list of enemies to destroy. If this AI is as vengeful and mean-spirited as I imagine him
to be, then I wouldn't put it past him to align himself with the Covenant in some way, shape or form to take down Earth for
good.
-Finn
permalink
And of the same ilk, Spoonjoppa
(spoonjoppa@yahoo.com) writes:
writes:
How does Halo work as a weapon? It's not a cudgel, but it's also not a nuke. It doesn't blow everything up
and wipe out all life, just that with sufficient bio-mass. So what kind of weapon would pick out only things that are large
enough to kill flood? Perhaps Halo, when detonated, sends out a mutant form of flood that simply eat and eat or mutate incorrectly
and then die out quickly. Maybe that's the reason for keeping the flood... to make a mutant form whose DNA can be contained
within the Index???
Lastly, how did Bungie get to be so frickin' awesome? I just got an idea! Maybe the forerunners
started Bungie and with all their advanced technology, so they could make the best game ever...
Bungie? A mere front for Forerunner
operations? Hmmm... That explains quite a bit actually ;)
-Finn
permalink
Wrap your head around it...
I understand that people don't understand the need of the Flood if the halo is capable of destroying sentient
life.
How about this, Halo destroys sentient life by RELEASING the Flood into the galaxy. After all, the Flood feed
on sentient life. Once all sentient life has been wiped out by the Flood, what do the Flood do? Die of starvation. Leaving
planets free for colonisation. The perfect weapon. And we ARE told that the way to kill the Flood is to activate the halo....
well in a round about way this IS achieved. Destroy the Flood by starvation by activating the halo and killing sentient life.
That
works (in my opinion!)
-Finn
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A few keen Marathon connections
relating to our theme:
kareem ramos (kareemr69@mail.com) writes:
I once asked a Bungie employee if the Forerunner in Halo are the equivalent of the Jjaro in Marathon. He said,
"Pretty much." Those two words alone explain quite a bit! So, to know the Forerunner, you need to know about the Jjaro. Who
were the Jjaro? Here's a little bit of what I know...
The Jjaro were one of two or more races that first appeared in
the galaxy. It's unclear how many other races were present then. One of the terminals in Marathon 2 has this to say about
the Jjaro:
"The Jjaro were a mysterious race that disappeared from our
galaxy millions of years ago, leaving behind military and civilian outposts on the moons of many habitable worlds. Most of
the Pfhor's technology was plundered from sites abandoned by the Jjaro."
Sound like the Forerunner? That's
what I thought...
Those outposts could be the equivalent of the Halo's that we know, and the Covenant could have plundered
lost and forgotten Forerunner tech from them. A more plausible theory is that the Covenant and the Forerunner had close ties.
The Bungie employee said that the Covenant have a long history with the Flood - and who created the Flood? The Forerunner.
That would also explain the similarity between the Covenant and Forerunner tech. It's similar because it IS from the Forerunner.
It was given to them!
In Marathon, the Jjaro were probably cybernetic. They made a race of part cyborg/part sentient
beings called the S'pht, plus another race based on the S'pht, called F'lickta (they look like "Swamp Things" ::cough:: ...Flood...
::cough::). The F'lickta were used to terraform planets. In Halo, I think that the Flood were created for this same purpose.
Guilty Spark tells us that they can make repairs to ships, so I'm assuming that they can keep a planet nice and tidy also!
Tantalizing indeed. But terraforming
to who's specifications? "Your environment suit should serve you well", so assuming Guilty Spark guesses you to be Forerunner,
it seems the atmosphere is not being changed more to your benefit or liking. Oi. More questions than answers :(
-Finn
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The Flood as a symbiote armour
Larry (Lfm662@aol.com) writes:
My theory is that the forerunners were trying to create super soldiers (like the MC) by using the flood as
a sort of super symbiote. This would explain why halo has so many different types of terrains for which the soldiers could
train on. Then something must have happened and the flood got loose and got out of control and began to take over Halo.
Hey, this suit fits like a glove...
Yeah, a really scary glove that burrows inside you chest ;)
-Finn
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Finally! Someone that has read
Starhammer and has a few words to say about it! Ryan had also posted this to the HBO forum, where a spirited discussion ensued.
Ryan Parsons (ryan.parsons@gamewatchers.net) writes:
Every race reaches a level where the only way to go is out, to expand, to find other planets and galaxies in
which to gather resources to supply the endless appetite of it's peoples. Imagine this; Forerunner ships reach the Milky Way.
They have traveled hundreds of light years, and find a few blooming races that pose no threat as of yet, but do resist the
initial attacks. So, they design a few devices to keep these races at bay until reinforcements arrive. These devices? Fortress
worlds. Worlds that have the power to completely eradicate the galaxy of all sentient life. Or, if destroyed, release the
flood. Either way, everything in this galaxy is in trouble. This is the common link that Starhammer and Halo have. Both have
a weapon of enormous power that contains an adaptive super-parasite. In Halo, these weapons were structures hidden in out
of the way solar systems. In Starhammer, these weapons were gigantic crawling machines hidden in the bottom of oceans in out
of the way solar systems. Also, both weapons had an AI guardian bound by strict rules (343 Guilty Spark and the Keeper) who
were tasked with keeping the virus contained within the structure.
Once again people, if you're
at all interested in what the Flood are, how they function, and what their role in the Halo Story is, you really ought to
try to find these books.
(Not that the Flood are entirely derived from Rowley's works, but as starting points go, these three books are as good as it gets. ;-))
-mnemesis
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So, the Halo kills the Flood's
food when it is activated, but how resilient are the Flood themselves? A
faithful observer wonders the same thing.
Joseph Holewka (seasaw@adelphia.net) writes:
...Is it also possible that the explosion on Halo killed all of the Flood?
If one had read the Vang books,
as one has been admonished to many times by now, one might suggest that the ranger form of the species in those books could survive for unbelievably long times in deep space or encased in a planetary crust. As much
as we go on about it, however, the Flood are not the Vang (inspired by the Vang, definitely). But can our Flood survive the vaccuum of space? Time will tell. ;-)
-mnemesis
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Okay, so you've got your intelligent,
adaptive parasite locked up, ready to be studied. Now what, Mr. Smarty Pants?
Matt Motea (rcmhome@optushome.com.au) writes:
...I also don't see how they were studied, or where they were studied from, and unless the Forerunners were/are(hmmm...)
immune to the Flood, it would be, er, fatal to observe them properly.
Good point. We know, for instance
that the Sentinels have some weaponry (of a dubious effectiveness), but perhaps they performed other functions? Is there any
evidence on 343 Guilty Spark (or elsewhere) that there are any other automated units that might have been used for the observation
and study of the Flood?
-mnemesis
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UPDATE
Matt
confirms (pretty much) that 343 Guilty Spark doesn't, in fact, say, "They could soon evolve" as we've got on the Library page, but that he says,
"They consume all."
That certainly changes a couple of things...
-mnemesis
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It's true that Forerunner would
seem to have no need for the Flood as a weapon, given their ability to create a tool such as Halo. However...
Noah "I don't care if that's
God's own personal anti-son-of-a-bitch machine or a giant hula-hoop" Piczeli (noah@clientsandprofits.com) writes:
I have something to add to the "Flood as a Doomsday Weapon" theory. Sure, the Forerunners could have just wiped
people out with the Halos, but why make it quick and painless, when you can make your enemies suffer, and use them as an example
to other species.
Sounds great. I just get nervous
around the part when the Flood get out of control and start "making an example" out of me :\
-Finn
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Halo-Myth Crossover Action!
Check out this older (er, finely aged ;) ) post from Roger Wilco here.
-Finn
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Reiyou (tristan98006@yahoo.com) writes:
Keyes is still en-route which means when he went in, the flood decided to have a second dinner and munched
on marine. However, How do the flood know to keep Keyes as non-combative flood? The answer is the Covenant. The
elites would know and if elites are part of the flood hive mind, it would obviously know how to access their memory
storage.
Covenant: They're not just for
dinner anymore.
-Finn
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A chilling prediction.
William Petraiuolo (wjp@adelphia.net) writes:
I have a new theory on the flood. I think they are a highly evloved disease. ... However it is possible that
the evolved diseases outlived the forerunners as will proably be the fate of us....
If they're really able to remain
dormant for hundreds of thousands years and still pose such a threat, can there be any doubt who will survive whom?
-mnemesis
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Taylor Cone (conty42@hotmail.com) writes:
I was wondering about the flood on halo before anyone showed up. How did they survive if they reproduce by
eating other organisms and using them as carriers if no one was on halo until the humans and covenant showed up? Halo was
there for an unknown period of time, so how did they survive?
It seems, from Halo: The Flood,
that Flood spores can survive without food for extremely long periods of time. Eons, really. This echoes a characteristic
of the Vang, the parasitic species from the Starhammer books (remember those?). Did they really go all that time without anything? Or does 343 Guilty Spark have other, more domestic, duties besides browsing
the Library and slowly going mad?
-mnemesis
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SA Premium Pilchard (sapp@centralonline.com.au) writes:
What THE FLOOD are is simply a parasitic lifeform that the forerunner have found on a planet. Then they found
out that they are threatining to there survival so they built these ring worlds to contain them. Or The FLood could simply
be the products of Thousand and millions of years of evoulution on halo. Like the evolution of the human race the flood may
have been different many years ago.The other ring worlds may contain the flood but they may only be called the flood. They
could be totally diffent to the ones on halo installation 04.The Forerunners could have placed different genetically engineered
DNA into halos waters and well "waited".
343 GS is also known as The Moniter and well his name all says it "The Moniter"
he may be simply a moniter of the Floods improvment in growth and evolution.As GS also says
"I am glad that the flood
clould reproduce."well he is glad becoase the Forerunners must have realised that The Flood have grown into a parasitic life
form and could change halos "perfect"atmosphere,landscape and whether so they contained them in holding cells and studied
them from there And by not being able to feed them maybe it worked like this. One spore flood dies the dead spore flood feeds
3 spore floods.And although this has not been the greatest nousishment they have become crazey for real food.And also could
be a bit mentle because they have been eating there own species so they may have developed mad flood disease.
So other Halos would have creatures
on them, creatures which were once the same as what "our" Flood once were, only now they've mutated and evolved and OH MY
GOD LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU!!
"Mad Flood Disease," though, that shouldn't
be too much of a problem. We've got armor and shielding and it's not like we're gonna eat
them, right? Right?
-mnemesis
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In a big ol' rambling paragraph,
Aaron notes some irregularities in regards to the Flood and their activities.
Aaron Claussen (AOClaus@msn.com) writes:
...was in reference to GS saying that the Flood were hard at work repairing "your ship" (referring to the Chief
and the POA). It was argued that there was no evidence that the Flood were making any sort of repairs to the POA and that
they were in fact blowing bits of it up during the fighting we see during the rush to get to the Longsword fighter. I submit
that there was no evidence that the Flood were repairing any Covenant vessels either, and that they were "shooting up the
place" in those ships as well. And there were parts of the POA we never visited, locked away parts that the Flood managed
to infiltrate during the Covenant's occupation of the vessel, who knows what they were doing there if they were hidden away?
I also had the thought that if the Flood were truly that intelligent they were most likely repair any and all vessels they
possibly could to get off of Halo, purely as a means of escape and the fact that what better way would there be to approach
Earth and a Covie world but than in a vessel of that world, a sort of Trojan horse if you will.
We certainly didn't see all
of either of the ships, but he's definitely right about the Flood blowing bits of the POA up. Has anyone ever looked at the
various things going on during the Maw run to see if there is any organization to it? Eggs are nice, but has Rex hidden anything
else, anything story-related, in all that chaos? ;-)
-mnemesis
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HBO Forum speculation strikes
again! Relative newcomer Mooreberg puts out a unique theory on the "usefulness" of the Flood. In a nutshell, the idea is that some aspect of the Flood was utilized to ensure the health
of the Forerunner, not unlike the way radiation is used to treat cancer.
This is really the only way I can think of that would fulfill the crieria of 343 GS' seemingly contradictory
statement. Halo contained the flood so they could be studied and used to treat plagued Forerunner, but also acted as a failsafe
to prevent the flood from spreading and making the galaxy [un]inhabitable. If the Forerunner could build Halo and develop
technology far beyond what humans of the 26th century had seen, than terraforming and repopulating the galaxy wouldn't be
such a difficult task.
Jamirus99 (among others) responds
with a link to a previous post of his own that has some good complementary points, some of which have already been posted here. He claims that his theory
disproves Mooreberg's, but I'm not sure about that. Go give both threads a read and join the discussion! As always, feel free
to send us your thoughts.
-mnemesis
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SN (sorenn@attglobal.net) writes:
The debate over why human weapons are so useful against the flood despite Guilty Spark opinion. My first idea
is adaptation, assuming a few flood awaken from stasis or get loose every millennia or so and they would be contained by the
sentinels and have little chance to make an effective escape because of the lack of hosts. Seeing that they have been microwaved
by those pesky red beams for so long why not adapt to resist them. The covenant, having based their tech on the forerunner
have similar weapons, so the flood could resist those as well. But not having been exposed to projectile weapons are not yet
used to them (not that they couldn get resistant to those in short order as well). The only problem with this is that it does
not explain Guilty Spark dislike of them. Another more original idea (at least I think so) that does explain is that while
the human weapons are great in skirmish combat, in a large-scale battle they would be less effective. Seeing that projectile
weapons in general tear up and distort flesh (a physical change), it would make the flesh unusable of a body, but not for
food. The burning lasers (or whatever they are) of the sentinels would burn the flesh removing all nutritional value (a chemical
change). So with a gun you might take down your enemy but there is nothing to stop his friends from coming and eating him
(like all good friends should) later.
-mnemesis
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SN (sorenn@attglobal.net) writes:
The weather around the control rooms has been speculated over a fair amount, I think I may have a suitable
answer. Although this might seem a rather small effect perhaps the reason for keeping a constant winter around the Control
Room was to preserve bodies. Perhaps the cold made it take longer for the flood to break down the bodies for food or to infect.
I don know about you but I think I could eat jackal tenderloin faster than I could a gruntcicle. Seeing that this cold weather
would not really affect the sentinels it could be a small battle advantage. And what better place to do this rather than at
the most important installation. My best guess as to why not do this over all of halo would be that they wanted to test the
flood in different environments or something to that effect.
-mnemesis
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Socrates (fuel4freedom@yahoo.com) writes:
All this talk about the weather has gotten me thinking. What I'm thinking is this: what if the 'incliment weather'
seen on Halo is not an accident or environmental variation, but a weapon against the Flood? It seems to me that (like the
Borg from Star Trek) the Flood would want to have a higher-than-normal temperature. If the Covenant discovered the flood sometime
during our romp in AotCR, then the systems of Halo itself may have, as a first response, began a temperature change to make
things as cold as possible. Perhaps extremely cold temperatures inhibit the Flood's mobility or ability to infect/eat/take
over hosts/food, thereby slowing down the spread of the Flood.
-mnemesis
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Eric Hampton (psichotykdragon@hotmail.com) writes:
Okay, we know that 343GS has access to all kinda nifty stuff(i.e. teleporter grid and such). Maybe he can also
"scan" someone's DNA? If so, maybe being a "Reclaimer" means that one possesses a genetic resilience to the Flood. This could
definitely explain why the Flood left Mobuto's body mangled; it was useless to them.
Very interesting hypothesis.
The "Anti-Flood" gene: Do you have it?
-mnemesis
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Greg Salber (hsalber@attbi.com) writes:
Has anyone considered that the flood could be some sort of warped mutated age old form of the forerunner?
Maybe they could have wiped themselves out in some sort of nucleur war. As a result they mutated into other forms. (You
know, Planet of the Apes style) 343 guilty spark hints at the reason for the study of the flood, "their survival
as a race was dependant on it." Maybe the survival is dependant on them being studied to find out how to return them
to their original state. Perhaps 343 mistakes you as one of the surviving forerunner.
So 343 Guilty Spark is the custodian
of his former masters, crippled beyond recognition, awaiting a "reclaimer" who can restore the species to their once noble
and proud state. I like it. :-)
-mnemesis
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The Flood as an attempt to create
the perfect organism.
Trevor continues,
This next bit of pondering is merely fanciful thought, but what if the Forerunner believed that genetic perfection
was most important above all else. They would be the organic equivalent to Star Trek's BORG. They searched the galaxy looking
for genetic material with which they could further their quest for perfection. The Flood just happened to be one of these.
After they had introduced the plus parts of the Flood or any other genetic material into their own matrices they would cleanse
or "Reclaim" the space that material inhabited so that only they (The Forerunner) with their perfect selves would exist. This
still doesn't answer what happened to the Forerunner, who knows maybe they died out because of lack of new genetic difference
(inbreeding is bad).
So were the Flood encountered
and used in this quest for genetic supremacy, or were they created as a product of it? Would they be an attempt at, or a stepping
stone to, the perfect organism?
-Finn
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Trevor White (twhite1721@hotmail.com) writes:
I believe that the Flood were at one time a dying race. The Forerunner found this dying race and being all
technologically advanced realized that the Flood had the ability to improve upon systems within the body of a life form that
had suitable bio-mass. The Forerunner, not unlike humanity, had the most basic instinctual drive of preservation and they
rounded up/collected all specimens of the Flood they could find and they put them into specifically designed research facilities;
i.e. HALO. The Forerunner would have also realized the huge danger in such an undertaking and in realizing this they also
added a built-in fail safe device in case the Flood ever escaped. If this is the case then the Flood are nothing more than
an endangered species that is making a comeback, kinda like the California Condor.
Once again, do the Flood still
exist out of sympathy?
-Finn
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Chris Davies (insertkoin@hotmail.com) writes:
Basically, it's a matter of looking at the shape of the canyon that the Control Room is in- a relatively thin,
very deep slit in the ground. At one end of the canyon is the shrine; at the other is a very tall, frozen waterfall. Now,
let's imagine that the Flood have managed to get to the stage when they start to alter the atmosphere, and let's imagine further
that this alteration makes things warmer on Halo. Okay, Occam's Razor is screaming for mercy at this point, but we'll ignore
that.
As the temperature rises, the waterfall at the back of the Control Room canyon begins to melt. Looking at the
surrounding area, there seems to be nowhere for this water to go, so the Canyon starts to fill with water...
...and
before too long, the Control Room is buried under millions of gallons of water, making it pretty damn hard for anyone to get
to it. The coldness of this area is a failsafe; if the Flood ever get numerous enough to threaten the safety of the Halo,
its most important room is sealed away by a system that requires no electronics, no-one to activate it, and no moving parts.
...but
if you look at the doors to the main chamber itself, there are two sets of double doors, which would make a pretty effective
airlock.
Not too shabby! Quite an ingenious
solution. Those inscrutable alien races can be so clever sometimes.
-mnemesis
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Regarding the door that the covies sealed and keyes then opened in 343 Guilty Spark.
As has been mentioned,
the flood were already out and about doing their thing, so why seal the door?
Perhaps it wasn't to keep something in,
but to keep something out. Now if I remember correctly, weren't the gun placements and shields set up in a way that appeared
to be wanting to keep something out, rather than keep something in?
On the top when u first enter the complex there
are no defences, if u wanted to keep something in, that would be where u would place your last line of defence as it were,
but if u think of trying to keep something out, then that same area is undefendable, its too open, so they move their first
line to where it is after u get off the lift, because any enemy coming in would be concentrated in a smaller space and easier
to take out.
All gun placements are pointed at the doors you go through (coming from outside, going in). As are the
shields.
Perhaps there was something important in that facility and the covenant knew that if they wanted to keep it,
they'd have to fight for it.
Keyes' stated reason for going
down there in the first place was to retrieve an arms cache. In Halo: The Flood, however, we learn that it's a cache of Covenant
weapons that were brought there to help guard the place. It wouldn't be that
unusual for the Elites, Jackals, and Grunts to not know all of the specifics of the contents of the structure they've been
sent to guard.
-mnemesis
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Please, do not feed the Flood.
Pete (peter.paglia@tekelec.com) writes:
What if the flood are only dangerous when they eat? What if the nature of flood organisms is altered by the
feeding response? Maybe that's why Halo only destroys the food, not the flood themselves? Then the Flood would revert to their
natural state (we've not seen this yet, since our very presence excited the Flood feeding response.)
What if the Flood
are to the Forerunners, like piranha fish are to us? Piranhas are dangerous to other fish, but we (humans) can easily observe
them when they are contained in a fish tank. I've even seen divers swim among piranha safely, as long as there not feeding.
A behaviour changing "feeding frenzy" is not limited to piranha and sharks, ever see shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving?
Although once the food (sentient
life) is gone and the Flood no longer are at risk of succumbing to their volatile feeding response, who then is safe from
them, as the Flood is still spread throughout space and there is no one left TO BE safe (they are all dead at the Halo's hands),
except the Forerunner perhaps, if they have evaded the blast and have suitable means to study the newly pacified parasite.
Nonetheless, any attempt to reoccupy the areas that still contain this now docile Flood would immediately prompt the dangerous
food response. Curious...
-Finn
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Three to get ready...
kareem ramos (kareemr69@mail.com) writes:
We have yet to see it the Flood can survive in space, but if they can, then the Flood are probably spread all
over the galaxy by now (in one of the Vang books, it says that the Vang can survive in space as long as the universe exists;
they travel in space pods that look like big, silver pumpkins). Some probably found their way onto Covenant worlds. I recall
some Bungie employee (Jason Jones?) saying that the Covenant and the Flood have a long history together. In Starhammer, there's
a race of slavers called the Laowon who ran into the Vang, and were forced to glass two of their own planets in order to sterilize
the threat. I'm guessing the Covenant have had a similar experience.
Perhaps they have. The Prophets
at least did not seem surprised by the Flood's presence on the ring at all, though many Elites, 'Zamamee included, did not
have the slightest clue...
As for the vacuum resilience of the Flood, for our sake let us hope we find them quite vulnerable.
-Finn
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E Parker writes:
My theory on the Flood are that they are a multi-celled virus, and we, are their multi-celled host "cells."
As the Flood only take the live ones, so too do our one-celled not-so-friendly DNA-in-a protein covering, aka the virus.
Also,
like many invertebrates inhabiting caves and deep oceans, perhaps the Flood enjoy the ability to come together to form a "community,"
all working toward the benefit of the whole. Certain flood may be components of an arm or an eye, a leg or a claw. In order
to unite, however, they'd need to do their own version of terra-forming in which they alter the atmosphere. This is what GS
was talking about when he complemented the Chief on being "a good planner."
This reminds me of another aspect
of ::gasp:: the Vang (by Christopher Rowley). The Military Form has a strong genetic compulsion to produce a Higher form,
a ruling Hostmaster, but only when the surroundings and foreseeable future seems reasonably secure enough to do so safely.
Is atmospheric change merely a precursor to something more?
-Finn
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claire bloom (claire@warrandytehigh.vic.edu.au) writes:
Just realized this, why the hell would the Flood need to change the atmosphere of Halo? They're ADAPTIVE, it
makes very little sense for a race such as the flood to need to change an atmosphere. I don't really care how they would change
the atmosphere, I think why is the real question!
-Finn
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John Kinzey (JKinzey@trevornet.org) writes:
I read somewhere that the water level on halo may have been higher when it was first constructed. So I took
a closer look at the flood spores and they reminded me of some kind of alien fish. Maybe the flood where originally aquatic
and the water level was lowered on halo in an attempt to contain the spores. But over millions of years the flood spores evolved
to become amphibious to survive on the newly formed land.
From docks to wave breaks and
reservoir chasms to pipes, so much of Halo seems to be built around water. For what end purpose though?
-Finn
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Ronnie "you can be my wingman
anytime" Smith (iceman_78133@yahoo.com) writes:
I looked up the word 'Cognitive' and it's a fancy word for intelligence apparently. 343 Guilty Spark states
that any species that has enough Bio-mass (is large enough) and cognitive capabilities (smart enough) is a potential vector,
or host I'll presume.
So with a little research the answer is simple. While the Hunters are more than big enough they
are just too stupid to be useful. Hunters may be big, and strong, but aren't too bright.
Halo: The Flood shows more concretely
the Flood's usage of both Jackals and Grunts to produce Carriers, yet we still receive no official word whatsoever on the
Hunter's own susceptibility. For now, this will have to do ;)
-Finn
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Which brings me to the monitor. Like stated before, if he's there to keep a tight lid on the Flood, then how
come he doesn't have complete control? And if there were any other mechanical units there, did they even have the ability
to activate Halo's primary offensive/defensive weapon? I think that t he monitor was only there as a light upkeep defensive
measure, like if a stray few hundred flood-popcorn ran towards a lab with a bunch of Forerunners in it. Something like a leutenant,
who has a certain amount of authority, but not enough to make large decisions. Well, in which case, the Monitor would be there
to assist with small amounts of Flood accidents/attacks. If you ask me, the Forerunners were all "assimilated" into the Flood,
thus killing all access to Halo's weapons, for the time being, leaving poor ol 323 GS to his lonesome with his dronies. It
all leads down to, why in gods name would halo have control panels, if actual (at least) humanoid presence did not exist?
The Forerunner assimilated by
the Flood? Hmm. I don't know, I can't seem to work up any compassion whatsoever for the little tentacled gasbags. Waste 'em.
(Kind of puts a damper on future Forerunner-Human political relations, though)
-mnemesis
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I also might be able to explain why flood infected hunters are never seen in Halo. It is pretty much obvious
that Fuel rod cannons are extremely unstable (The ones that Grunts drop explode with the same destructive power as a plasma
grenade). Maybe the Hunters have some sort of natural, organic mechanism inside their body that keeps their Fuel rod gun stable,
that hangs on even after death. What happens when the flood infect, though, may inadvertently bring about the death of themselves.
Flood pretty much ignore all stimuli from their hosts (This is why sniper rifles don't work on them and they keep getting
back up after being shot) Maybe when the flood infect the hunter, they disable that organic mechanism/ gland/ appendage/ whatever
that keeps the fuel rod gun stable and ignore the stimuli from the host that say, "Hey, dumbass, that thing in my arm's gonna
explode!" The cannon would quickly destabilize and explode, killing the flood, the flood's host, and any nea! rby flood. Once
the flood are dead, they cannot adapt to something, so they'd never figure out that infecting a hunter results in a big boom.
It would sure be fun to see,
though. :-)
-mnemesis
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Kyle M. (zkilibon918@yahoo.com) writes:
Anyways, I have a theory on why Halo was built. It's fair to say that most people agree Halo was built to hold/
contain the flood. However, what we don't know for sure yet is why the forerunners were attempting to contain and/or study
the flood instead of destroying them outright. Apparently, the Forerunners must have had some use for them to invest the manpower
(and possibly funds, if they had a monetary system). It stumped me for a while, but then I read one line about the Flood that
gave me a revelation:
It would seem that the Flood have some ability to access host memory, and utilize it to their
advantage.
Is it at all possible that the flood, in their base state, know something critically important to the Forerunners?
Would it be so important that they were desperately trying extract it from the flood, and in doing so, brought about their
own dissapearance? Maybe the knowledge that the flood contain is the "Forbidden fruit of eden" that the covenant are fantically
trying to protect?
Excellent idea. If the idea
of a species that serves to hold racial memory is intriguing to you, I suggest you read Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space, or either of the other books in that series. Good stuff.
-mnemesis
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The Flood just can't take the
pressure... or the lack of it in space, as the case may be.
Nate (Uukla the Mok) Emch (npe@jacksonkelly.com) writes:
Kareem Ramos wrote "We have yet to see if the Flood can survive in space..." to which Finn replied "As for
the vacuum resilience of the Flood, for our sake let us hope we find them quite vulnerable." From my observations the chances
of the Flood being able to survive in a vacuum would be even less than that of a human. Let me explain my reasoning:
When
you shoot or melee a Flood infection (their "true" form) they "pop" or explode, and they do so with enough force to start
a chain reaction of explosions amongst themselves. Logic would dictate that this points towards the Flood having some sort
of gas under a significant amount of pressure within their bodies. In a vacuum this gas would most certainly exert intolerable
amounts of pressure causing the Flood to explode (and thus, die).
True, the ranger form seems
as if it would be susceptible to the depressurization of space. However, is there not a spore form that may be more tenacious?
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Further analysis of the installation
found on the level 343 Guilty Spark:
Ryan7 (dallon7@hotmail.com) writes:
If we look at the installation in 343 Guilty Spark, the whole place is reminiscent of a prison/lab. Think about
it - when you pass through those passages that link the rooms (such as the one you go through before meeting the traumatized
marine) there are two small rooms on each side with locked doors, almost like cells or holding pens. They even have a grate
in the floor which could be a drain (do the flood go to the bathroom?!)
Also, the larger rooms are separated into two
levels. It is possible that the lower level housed flood samples while the forerunner observed them from the higher "viewing
platforms". And what of the large, glass-walled cases you see in some rooms? Could these have once housed flood samples for
observation or experimentation? If the above two points are true, the forerunner didn't bank on the flood's climbing abilities.
;)
Or, as has been previously asserted,
perhaps they had been examining the Flood in a less... how should we say, volatile state.
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Darl & Pam Rantz (rantzdp@cox.net) writes:
I read the first theory on the story page about the flood. It said that halo was a fortress world that separated
the rich and poor. He theorized that the Flood had been created by the Forerunner to control the poor. I thought that the
forerunner could be drastically different from humans. What if the "poor" were the Flood. The forerunner could be the upper-class
and the flood could be the lower-class. Even the forunner could look like the flood and actually BE the flood. HALO: The Flood
says that another 'reclaimer' attempted to get the index and MC found his body. He was a heck of a marine... The reason why
343GS chose MC and another marine to be the reclaimer could have been because on the upper-class forerunner/flood could obtain
hosts. There are tons of possibilities from there. Maybe the flood/forerunner was symbiotic with a non sentient host the was
farmed on the surface of halo like cows. The flood could've been studied because they had developed some disease or genetic
defect. Forerunner using their own poor as test subjects for a cure(like lab rats). Not ethical to us, but like I said, they
aren't us.Theres plenty to go on thinking about from here but i'm leaving that up to whoever reads this, if anybody.
We know that there were ambient
life forms in earlier versions of Halo. Could one of these be the "non sentient hosts" mentioned here?
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Daniel "The Social Adept" Root (socialadept@comcast.net) writes:
Hullo there, just some thoughts on the nature of the Flood. Alright, here goes. Now, much speculation has been
made already about the "Keyes Blob" as it is called, on the second to last level of Halo. My own thoughts: I don't think the
Flood is quite as mindless as we may have thought previously, and the mysterious Keyes Blob is a key factor int his theory.
First, some background info:
1. In game, I have never observed Flood infectees or Flood spores attack each other, as
you would see in a truly mindless species. In fact, they work more in concert with each other than Marines or Covenant.
2.The
Keyes Blob. Now, the incredible size of this organism, not to mention the fact that it contains both Keyes AND a Covenant
Elite (as evidenced by the legs sticking out of it), indicates perhaps a relay mchanism contained within it, a sort of "Communications
Tower", or at least the biological equivalent.
3.More importantly than anything else, quoting Cortana in the level's
opening, "The Covenant are terrified that the Flood will repair this cruiser and use it to escape the ring." A mindless organism
would NOT have the organizational skill, much less the know-how or brains to repair something as advanced as a Covenant battlecruiser.
Conclusion:
The Flood is not mindless... In fact, I believe it to be more intelligent than anything ever encountered before by either
Humans or Covenant. I believe the Flood to be sort of 'Hive Mind', not unlike the Borg from Star Trek. They assimilate, and
adapt, to anything they come into contact with. I believe the TRUE purpose of the Keyes Blob is to act as a sort of focal
point, a nexus if you will, for the Flood's telepathic signals, or whatever it is that keeps them so well organized. If so,
then the purpose of Keyes and the Elite inside the blob is to gain access to as much knowledge as it can about both races
and their collective technology, thus allowing it to escape Halo and infect more worlds. As seemingly random as it may act,
I believe the Flood has a much more sinister purpose in mind...
Oh, there's no doubt that the
Flood are smarter than we give them credit for, especially since most of their actions with regards to us seem to be focused
on simply "overwhelming annihilation." And the 'Hive Mind' idea really makes me wonder what other environments we're going to see in Halo 2. ;-)
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Another well-written, considered
opinion on the nature of one our most relentless adversaries.
Tim Jones (tim.jones@branndc.com) writes:
Assume that, at the time of the Floods' first appearance in the galaxy, the Forerunner were the most advanced
and itelligent life around. They would have observed (with growing alarm) the nature of the Flood infection and quickly established
that if left unchecked, all sentient life in the galaxy (possibly including themselves) would be assimilated and ultimately
destroyed.
How would the Forerunner devise a plan to escape?
Simply using Halos power to destroy all sentient
life makes no sense whatsoever - if everything will die anyway, why go to all that trouble just to speed up the process? I
believe that the firing of the Halo was the final part of a much more elaborate plan to rid the galaxy of the Flood. Furthermore,
this plan would ensure the survival of sentient life.
Suppose the Forerunner built the Halo as a "Safe Haven" for samples
of sentient life from all over the galaxy. Perhaps the Forerunner themselves ventured into the galaxy to select samples and
create a "library" of all life safely hidden away on the Halos. Shortly after this process is complete, the Flood reach epidemic
proportions across the galaxy and the Forerunner "Final Solution" is prepared. This is when the Halos are fired thus wiping
out sentient life and the Flood along with it.
The life forms kept on the Halos are safe - this is a known fact, the
Floods continued existence can only be explained this way. Once the galaxy is cleansed (reclaimed?) from the Flood, the Forerunner
can go about sending all the sentient life back to its original habitat. This now makes perfect sense, the Forerunner actually
had a solution to the Flood epidemic which allowed sentient life to continue unhindered in the galaxy. This can also be backed
up by the potential timeline issue concerning the previous firing of the Halos. If they were fired to destroy the Flood 100,000
years ago, then that would mean that the Earth would have been affected at a time when it was supporting sentient life, the
only way humans could have survived beyond this point is if they were saved by the Forerunner along with everything else -
it would seem that Forerunner and Human have met before! (This could also explain GS343's excitment at finding a record of
all "our" lost time)
What I like most about this theory is that it coincides pefectly with the Noahs Ark story. Could
this Old Testament story be the only surviving record of the Forerunner saving Humans from the "Flood"?
Moving on...
The
Forerunner plan was a great success, everybody wins, sentient life is spared, the Flood are no more but...The Forerunner,
being a benign species, couldn't bring themselves to destroy the Flood completely, so samples of the Flood were saved along
with everything else, a huge mistake.
The Forerunner were not foolish enough to repatriate the Flood, but retaining
even a single living spore in high security is obviously dangerous enough. As GS343 says in The Library level:
"Of
course, samples were kept here after the last catastrophic outbreak...for study. It seems that that decision may have been
an error."
- no shit.
Anyway, my final piece of supporting evidence is simply this - if the whole point of building
and firing the Halos to kill all sentient life in the galaxy was a desperate attempt to destroy the Flood, ie. the very purpose
of this catastrophic action was to get rid of the Flood in one final massive holocaust, they how in Gods name could it be
the only species the Forerunner chose to preserve? Why are the Flood still alive?
QED
PS Of course this means
that the Covenant were also saved by the Forerunner- and that explains quite a lot too!
Ah, that most indecipherable
of enigmaticly parasitic species, the Flood. What would we do without them?
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As if by magic, here's one of
those Flood reports I was talking about! ;-)
craZy (Drow780@aol.com) writes:
Does it seem to you that the Flood are, and I dare say, evolving throughout the course of Halo? Well, maybe
not evolving, but getting more and more used to their new bodies?
Take the level 343 Guilty Spark for example. When
the flood are first released (or, rather, when you first fight them) you face only the ranger forms. After a few waves, some
combat forms burst in.
And even after you've been introduced to the combat forms, they don't use weapons. Not until
you've taken an elevator down. It's like they're still getting used to their new hosts, learning how to manipulate various
things, like a new born. You know, baby steps.
But it doesn't end there. After they get the basics of aiming a weapon
and shooting it, they go on to tactics. Things like rushing enemy positions, and... well that's about all they do, but its
still more then just standing in one spot.
They do get better at it, however. Like in Keyes, they seem to know the
advantages of being higher then one's opponent. Those pesky buggers always occupy the ledges in the canyon section of the
level.
Also, in the last two levels in general, them seem to be winning the fight against the Covenant. Even the strategy
guides tell you that whenever you come across a Flood and Covenant battle, to aim for the Flood first.
"It's parasitic nature belies the Flood's intelligence," eh? Now, where have I heard that before? ;-)
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Why do people assume that in the end we humans are gonna win? Because we are fighting the good fight, against
an amoral enemy? But have we not learnt, that those who fight the good fight dont always win? So all you who think that we
shall go to the edge of the abyss and back, remember, its just as likely we may fall in. However I like to think that if we
do fall in, we'll take alot of them with us. We shall not go out with a whimper but with spectacular BANG with a light show
to match.
Now, I've also been told that the Flood can throw grenades in the Maw, on Legendary, but I've never seen
this so I'm not sure if it's true. But if it is... well, it only helps to prove my point.
Well, I like a big noisy light
show as much as the next guy, and we've had other reports of Flood warriors throwing grenades, but we must win! Why? Because losing isn't as fun. And it's for losers.
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Wado SG (wyamauchi@msn.com) writes:
First, I believe that the term used by the Covenant for the ancient race that built Halo translates to the
Forerunners (as confirmed by Cortana when she first enters Halo's core). If the ancient race were the gods of the Covenant,
they would not be called forerunners but instead would be called "deities" and also if the ancient race were the enemies of
the Covenant, they also would not be called forerunners but instead would be called "devils" or something like that. My point
being that the Forerunners must have come before the Covenant and been friendly to the Covenant.
I speculate that the
Forerunners were the religious forerunners to the Covenant and the current Covenant religious beliefs and political structure
was developed as a result of Forerunner teachings. This would explain why the Covenant call the ancient race the Forerunners
because they are their forerunners.
Incidently, the Covenant call Spartans "devils" so perhaps they or all of humanity
represents the enemies of the Forerunners. However, humans couldn't just be the enemies of the Forerunners because there are
so many indications that the humans might be the decendants of the Forerunners (for example the fact that 343 GS only selects
humans to be potential reclaimers). Could this mean that humans were also of the same race as the Forerunners but they were
the ones that went bad (corrupted Forerunners).
Perhaps here is where the Flood come in. The Flood outbreak purged
the galaxy of the corrupt ancient ones and the Covenant races survived because they made a Covenant with the Forerunners (the
good ancient ones in the eyes of the Covenant) and with God (and God being the creator to whom the Forerunners were messengers
for). Unbeknownst to the Covenant, some humans (corrupt ancient ones) managed to survive as humans (or at least their DNA
survived).
What would be the purpose of DNA surviving but not the knowledge of the ancient ones? Who is to say the
knowledge was lost, all that needs to be done is the human race needs to discover fire and such and then tens of thousands
of years later they can discover how to travel interstellar distances. At that point humans could find signs or the ancient
race and assimulate that knowledge. Whoopie, the ancient ones are reborn.
Well the Covenant would want to stop the
genetic decendants of the corrupt ancient ones from ever assimulating their ancient knowledge; that very well could be the
motive for the Covenant attempt to wipe out humanity. At the same time, if their true Forerunners ever came back (assuming
they are gone, since Halo seems abandomed of all Forerunners), the Covenant would likely greet them on friendly terms.
So
how can the Covenant tell the good from the bad ancient ones. Perhaps humanity is the genetic decendants of the good ancient
ones (the Forerunners) but because we have not reassimulated the knowledge of the ancient ones we don't know we are. And the
Covenant look at humans (and human nature is not all that great, we certainly are not saints I'd add) then how could the Covenant
not think that humans are the bad ancient ones.
Well, not to be out done by some of the mega Halo Story Page posters,
I'm going to continue on with a bit about why the Forerunners might have been so popular to the Covenant. I'll start with
the statement that the Covenant has had a long history with the Flood.
Now let's imagine the Flood several hundred
thousand years ago, some ancient race may have stumbled upon the Flood. So pictures of the Alien movie come to mind where
this ancient race is infected by a parasitic being and four movies later, this ancient race is never even mentioned even though
in the second movie the humans set up a colony on the same darn planet that the ancient race crashed on. Oh nevermind. Forget
all of that and think that the Flood that the ancient race stumbled upon were not parasites but an advanced race that had
conquered much of this galaxy.
These Flood were intelligent and had enslaved many other races, such as the Grunts,
Jackals, and other races found in Halo. The enslaved races treated the Flood as masters and deities -- worshipping them and
providing offerings or else the Flood wrath be unleased upon them. The Flood were masters of organic and genetic technology
and actively altered their slave races to be better at their functions. Grunt ancestors may have been altered to be better
workers, Jackal ancestors were like police that could hunt down escaping Grunts, and Hunter ancestors were the task masters
used to control all the slaves. Elite ancestors may have been best suited as warriors.
Some pockets of resistance were
still holding out against the Flood, such as the Prophet ancestors. The Prophet ancestors could not win this war on their
own but like a godsend, the Forerunners came. The Forerunners allied with the Prophet ancestors and so the war against the
Flood began. It was a vicious war with Elites fighting Elites (some of the Elites joined the side of the Forerunners). All
that joined the Forerunners formed a Covenant.
Forerunners built many weapons to defeat the Flood and Flood responded
by creating more vicious versions of themselves. It finally came down to a point where both sides could annihilate each other
with various weapons (Halo's final weapon for example, and the most vicious infection forms of the Flood on the other hand).
No one was going to win this war. The Covenant (Forerunners and allies), realized this when the Flood unleashed the most vicious
form of themselves, a form that could not die from starvation because it could hibernate in a form of stasis deep underground.
No planet ever infected by them was ever going to be safe again. What is worse is that this new infectious form of the Flood
was designed specifically to be most effective verse humans and Elites (the primary fighting force of the Covenant at the
time).
Even Halo's final weapon would not stop the Flood if this new infection form got a foot hold in this galaxy.
Halo's weapon would have to be fired before the outbreak went too far. There were those Forerunners that said Halo's weapon
must be fired and those that said no, make peace with the Flood.
Of course this is just speculation above, but image
if it was mostly true. Some wanted to make peace or maybe even join up with the Flood to avoid total annihilation, others
had no choice in their minds but to kill all life in this galaxy to stop the Flood before it was too late. What if because
of this internal struggle that not all Halos fired? Certain portions of this galaxy would have been wiped of life, others
not.
Since not all the Halos fired, the war continued in areas still infected. The Flood made a horrible miscalculation
though. In making such a vicious parasitic form, they consumed too much too quickly and soon they ran out of food. Those of
the Covenant that survived just happened to be on planets the Flood never reached before their food ran out. Thinking they
were safe, but not knowing why they were still alive, they were careful to stay put and not explore because any planet other
then the ones already controlled by the surviving Covenant could be infected by the Flood.
So the long, slow, and careful
search for other survivors began.
What ever happened to the original Forerunners, the ancient ones? They honestly believed
that all the galaxy was going to get wiped out, so they fled the galaxy with their allies.
And why might the Covenant
not know the location of the Alpha Halo and everything that happened? My guess is because the Covenant that survived were
just politicians, civilians, workers, and military grunts... just everyday Covenant joes that were expendable. They had no
clue about the Halos back in the day that all this happened. The ones that knew fled the galaxy.
And so to tie up at
least one lose end. The human worlds may have been populated by the expendable ancient ones who were left behind. It's a strange
thought, but they may have picked some planets to go to in an area that was far away from the Flood outbreak in hopes it was
safe and then purposely destroyed their technology so that if they somehow got infected by the Flood, they would not risk
giving those Flood the ability to travel to other stars and thus infect the other survivors on other planets.
Oh and
before I forget, the Flood are back because some idiot space faring being got infected and started yet another outbreak somewhere.
Now the Covenant must find the Alpha Halo for some way to stop the Flood.
Without commenting too much
on this, let's see what readers of the HSP think. Can the Flood be such an advanced species as to have bio-engineered themselves
to be the creatures we met? Or worse? Send in your thoughts!
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Erica Carr (LvChk7@mail2erica.com) writes:
I've recently started to read all of the theories and speculations in the Halo Story vaults, and it's come
to my attention that the general Halo-crazed public has two views regarding the Flood: they are adaptive and continually gain
knowledge or they are simply parasitic and are controlled by one central figure. I am of the opinion that they are incredibly
adaptive at an almost alarming rate. 343 Guilty Spark, our favorite rampant AI bot, mentions in The Library that, "The Flood
are already hard at work repairing your vessel. Its parasitic nature belies the Flood's intelligence." The second sentence
is obvious to me, but the first is intriguing. By "your vessel", 343 GS apparently means the Pillar of Autumn. I asked myself
why the Flood would want to repair a human vessel, and they of course just want to find sentient life to overtake. Ok, in
the Truth and Reconciliation the "Keyes Blob" was there presumably to gather knowledge and, I believe, to find out how to
fly the craft out of there. If the Flood were also repairing the PoA in order to fly off of Halo, then how come there's not
another Blob there? I would assume that it's because the Flood didn't capture another important human, but they would find
someone wouldn't they?
P.S.-I think it's important to note that I'm one of the few devoted Halo female fans out there.
Cortana is my hero!
Who's to say that the Flood
weren't trying to repair both vessels, hmm? It seems to me that an intelligent race would use each and every resource at its
disposal in order to get off the Halo and out into the galaxy.
And, lest we forget, Cortana rules. :-)
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Kodos (Tyrant343@aol.com) writes:
There has been a little confusion over wether Flood infest living or dead specimens. For the most part, it
seems to be the Dead, but, if we listen to the crazed marine, we hear that they "took the live ones". Perhaps this Marine
just went unnoticed and got lucky? Or perhaps not.
Perhaps as time goes by in the game, the Flood are regenerting.
Think,
they have been stuck in Halo, with no Food for what? Centuries? Eons?
Starvation weakens life.
Perhaps when
they first came out they where weak, and only able to infect living things, but as time went on, and as they became more "alive"
they learned(remembered?) to infect dead bodies as well.
And, given a choice between fighting to infect a live body,
or simply waltzing over an infecting a dead one, well, I think the decision is obvious.
And as for evidence for them
being weak when they come out, keep in mind, it takes a while before they start using projectile weapons. Thankfully they
never learn(remember?) to use vehicles
Flood in Warthogs? Very scary ^_^
Scary? Terrifying! Also, that's
an interesting idea about "waking up" and remembering more sophisticated ways of spreading. Imagine if the Flood had more
time to organize themselves. ;-)
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CJ Russell (ceej123@hotmail.com) writes:
There's been a lot of speculation about the flood-like plants in GS, and I think I may have an idea as to the
nature of these plants (which are contained in one part of Halo that we see).
Assuming for a second that the Forerunners
preserved the Flood, despite the imminent danger to the rest of the sentient creatures in the galaxy (through both the flood
and the Halo that contained them), for the purpose of maintaining a balance of life, then how would they utilize the flood?
They could, presumably, keep them locked up on Halo forever (or until their release as in the game), or they could keep them
there until such a time came that they found a USE for them.
Enter the trees.
Now, while a swamp is not a place
I would personally choose to live, it IS a place where life could thrive. Many places we see on Halo connect the "natural"
portions to the constructed sections. Would it not be feasible to connect just the environmental components (specifically
atmosphere) to another section of Halo, just above it? Go with me here...GS talks about how the flood "alter the atmosphere"-it
doesnt matter how, or into what, but what IS important is that it's apparently not compatible with our physiology, and he
mentions how the suit will "protect" us. What if the trees in the swamp were genetically engineered by the Forerunner for
the purposes of converting Flood exhalations into breathable atmosphere? If that were true, then the Flood would have value
as an organism capable of terraforming planets relatively quickly, between the gas exchange of modified flora and the flood.
If the Jjaro are to Forerunner what the S'pht are to humanity, then haven't we already seen manipulation of a lifeform to
the greater will of a "supreme" alien race?
Also, it seems obvious to me that the flood come from a high-G planet.
Not only are the primary forms very short, but they can also jump quite far in what we consider to be "normal" gravity, and
even farther after they have gained a host, and altered their physiology. Connections to the race imprisoned by the Jjaro
in the gravity well abound as a result of this, but then, most people have already seen that parallel.
There's that "J" word again.
;-) Very nice work putting it together, though. That "balance of life" concept is so simple, but can lead to such a wealth
of fascinating situations, especially in conjunction with our (current) favorite inscrutable alien race. :-)
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Eryk B Nice (ebn2@hotmail.com) writes:
The Flood are named just that, Flood. Mention has been made of Bungie's fondness for biblical references. This
is nothing new. However, in the Bible, the flood is precipitated by "opening the floodgates of heaven." Granted, many people
have focused on the rapid reproduction and adaptation of the Flood, but perhaps this is not the whole story.
Perhaps
the Flood have their source and home in another place, be it another dimension or simply another part of this universe. Halo
was referred to as a fortress world. Where do you build a fortress? You build a fortress at strategically critical and most
easily defensible position, generally in your home territory. Think of, for example, a fortress built high on a cliff wall
overlooking a river that enters your territory from the sea. It is much easier to defend a small doorway than to fight off
an army when you are standing in the middle of a large room (any decent Halo player will agree). I envision, then, that Halo
was built at some point that the flood could invade from, be it a pathway to another dimension, or the exit of some space
transportation tunnel. This allows several nice points:
Why build a containment weapon that will kill all the food
instead of killing all of the Flood? Well, killing all of the Flood in the area would do nothing for all the rest streaming
through the Floodgates. Presumably a weapon of this power could only be fired once in a great while. Killing all of the food,
on the other hand, would prevent any flood who came through the portal from surviving long. Perhaps this portal existed naturally,
perhaps the Forerunners opened this portal once not knowing what was on the other side. Either way, the explanation works.
Destruction of Halo is not a solution - it would only contribute to the problem. Destruction of the Flood is not a solution,
more would follow. Starving them, as GS says, is the only way.
Presumably the presence of the Flood in their home is
too strong for any kind of invasion of destruction. The best option therefore seems to be to study the Flood, find a way to
perhaps turn their own strengths against them in the hope of eventually destroying them for good. I am reminded of the use
of a virus to kill a virus, as suggested in certain Card books. This helps explain why you would keep something so dangerous
around instead of simply killing them all and ending the threat permanently. I have to disagree with some of the arguments
for keeping the flood around that say things like 'we would not kill off all the sharks simply because they attack us." True,
but we can contain and control sharks. However, we WOULD wipe out AIDS or Ebola in a heartbeat were we able. This is because
these viruses pose an honest threat to the survival of humanity, rather than being a mere occasional tragedy.
This
explanation allows the Forerunners to be good. I say this not out of personal desire for their healthy sense of conscience,
but rather because it certainly seems that whoever activated Halo previously was reluctant to do it. Recall the question posed
GS. I cannot except the casual explanations of the Flood as part of an experiment, or human life not being worth much to the
Forerunners in light of what seems to me to be the struggle of conscience reflected in asking another if they would do the
same.
The blue plasma streams shot into space could serve the function of either destroying anything that tries to
pass through the gateway or sealing off the gateway. I imagine it as sort of a giant bug-zapper for spacecraft.
The
biggest advantage to this theory is that it explains quite effectively why you would design a weapon to kill the food, not
the creature, while still allowing the weapon designer to care about the food. The only thing I have NOT worked out is why
Cortana would advocate destruction of Halo knowing that it is a fortress against Flood invasion. Perhaps Halo is the portal
and the fortress wrapped into one? Perhaps it is the installation that drills a tiny hole in the Floodgates in order to let
a small drip of water through for study, but also is designed to contain the flow if that hole tears open? I don't know, I
will leave it to others to ponder.
We don't know exactly what Cortana
learned while in the core. It's also possible that she had prior information that, coupled with this, led her to the conclusion
that the destruction of Halo was necessary. Then again, she can be a bit impulsive
at times and may not always make the most considered of choices. At least, some of her behavior suggests this. ;-)
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[In regards to the post by Eryk
B Nice on the Flood]
Deimos Fawkes (3of9@subnova.com) writes:
I have to disagree with some of the arguments for keeping the flood around that
say things like 'we would not kill off all the sharks simply because the attack us." True, but we can contain and control
sharks. However, we WOULD wipe out AIDS or Ebola in a heartbeat were we able. This is because these viruses pose an honest
threat to the survival of humanity, rather than being a mere occasional tragedy.
This is untrue. The CDC in the USA maintains
a small amount of the smallpox virus (http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/index.asp). Smallpox was effectively "wiped out"
from the Earth. However, as history has shown us, even a single surviving strand can mutate into the next pandemic.
Completely
eliminating all contained samples of the Flood would be foolish. As, from my understanding, the Flood are actually a mutagenic
virus. Containment and study protocols would, in fact, mirror our own for normal viruses.
On another note, many viruses
that exist in reality are capable of surviving a hard vacuum. Destroying the Installation 04 may have simply released them
on the entire galaxy. Thus the beginning the process that destroys the forerunners (human) in the first place.
I love
a good old-fashioned predestination paradox.
Anyone else want a hit from my Bridge Commander Crack Pipe?
May have released them on the
galaxy, yes. But how will they get anywhere? It remains to be seen what happens in the immediate vicinity of the former Installation
04. Did any ships survive? Any method of transportation? Anyone besides us and the aptly named, "Dustin Ekoes?" ;-)
And
lets not forget that there must be more Covenant out there. Can we save humanity from both the Covenant and the Flood?
-mnemesis
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Wade Yamauchi (wyamauchi@msn.com) writes:
In the book Halo: The Flood, an Elite named Isna 'Nosolee, an "Ossoona," or Eye of the Prophet, was aboard
the POA on a stealth mission to capture the ship's AI. So what if he or another cloaked Elite like him got infected by the
Flood during the course of Halo?
First, let's look at Private Jenkins and how he was incompletely infected. In Halo:
The Flood, page 176, Private Jenkins is infected by a Flood parasite form. However, the mind that invaded his body had weakened
through time and so although it controlled his body, Jenkins still retained some awareness and control of some of his motor
functions.
Jenkins may not have been the only being to be infected and still retained some awareness. So perhaps there
is once again meaning to the "Warning: Hitchhikers may be escaping convicts" (one of the section titles in Halo's MAW level).
First,
it is clear from 343 GS in the book that the Flood were prisoners on Halo. Second, we know that a Longsword fighter escaped
Halo's destruction because the Master Chief piloted it to safety at the end of the game. And third, we know that cloaked Elites/Flood
are not detected easily so one or more could have been aboard the Longsword and not have been noticed. We also see evidence
of cloaked Flood warriors in the MAW level of Halo (the game) in the POA's armory.
So, what happened to the Elite named
Isna 'Nosolee, an "Ossoona," or Eye of the Prophet? What do you think of a speculation that 'Nosolee or some other "Ossoona"
is aboard that Longsword and the possiblity that he is infected by the Flood?
He could be infected enough that he has
no motor controls over his body, but still remains semi-aware of his self and surroundings (like Jenkins). The motive for
the Flood inside him to stay hidden on the Longsword could be simply survival. The Elite mind may not have known how to fly
the Longsword and thus the Flood infection within would also not know. By staying hidden, the Flood escapes the destruction
of Halo.
What's more, perhaps the UNSC captures this infected Elite after the Master Chief gets rescued and finds a
way to surgically remove the Flood parasite. Since the Elite retained some awareness, he could serve as a valuable source
of information in Halo 2. I even see the possibility of infected Prophets and the UNSC medical teams saving them from the
Flood parasites that are trying to control them.
The idea of an infected Elite
hiding on board the Longsword would be a little too similar to events in another popular cultural icon. However, it's also not hard to see that the Flood are so relentless, so
insidious, that you just know they're going to find some way to worm themselves into future plotlines. Hey, don't I remember a certain Master Chief getting tangled
up with the little tentacled buggers at one point? Hmmm...
-mnemesis
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Savant Suykerbuyk (savvy113@msn.com) writes:
I have heard lots of people discussing/debating on why 343GS supposedly has all this power over the flood and
the resposibility of their containment, yet he does not use it. Perhaps the Forerunners decided that extreme measures would
not need to be taken unless there was a Reclaimer. After all, the flood only remain as spores unless some outside input like
say, a downed human ship, which would in turn provide the danger of the flood escaping, AND providing a Reclaimer. Just a
thought.
Interesting hypothesis. As long
as no one shows up at Halo, there is no possibility of the Flood escaping. If someone shows up and lets them out, that person
(thing?) is responsible for assisting with the required "containment protocols." Pretty harsh justice, if you ask me.
-mnemesis
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Gamesradar.uk recently posted
a rather lengthy article (soon to appear in Edge magazine, for those who would like a hard copy) discussing the making of Halo and hinting at some
of the progressions to expect in Halo 2. Jaime Griesemer gets quite a few words in edgewise...
In a discussion of favourite
enemies, Jaime mentions the Flood Warrior with Active Camo found in The Maw's armoury. This, he says, "indicates that the Flood are intelligent, and know how to use equipment, and aren't just dumb alien monsters."
Given. However, he goes on to point out that while they did not intend for the Flood to retreat and throw grenades (thus imitating
Covenant tactics), the "AI was originally intended to be every bit as complicated
as the Covenant, but we ran out of time implementing behaviours and they ended up being a lot simpler and straight forward...
we didn't get a chance to develop all of the characteristics of the Flood that was going to make them not only different and
very interesting to fight." What can be expected from the Flood tactically that has not already been exhibited?
Ambushes? Further utilization of and adaptation to surrounding objects? The real-time infection of their foes? Hmmm...
Also
dropped to the proverbial cutting room floor were more omni-parasitic centered embellishments: "Flood-encrusted
objects" and heavily besieged Covenant forces. "We were able to do
some of that, but weren't able to implement nearly as much of the environmental changes as we wanted. We wanted it to look
drastically different." Now, just how different of a landscape, what is the exact nature of the Flood's atmospheric
change, and what would these Flood encrusted objects be exactly... ?
-Finn
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Trevor (less_than_trevor@yahoo.com) writes:
While playing through Halo I was often perplexed by the name given to the parasitic lifeforms known as the
Flood. Why would Bungie give these creatures such a seemingly random name? After reading through different little speculations
and how bungie enjoys bible references, it hit me. Maybe the Flood was not necessarily a part of the forerunners or even a
creature found and studied, but really a method of wiping out the wicked developed by the Forerunners.
The nature of the Flood and
the rapid growth of their population would indicate that their name is, indeed, apt. It would seem that Cortana got their
name from the Forerunner databanks, but ponder this: The Forerunner, an impressive galactic (universal? ;-)) power, felt sufficiently
awed by this parsitic species to name them as such. How about you? Think the Flood deserve such a title? ;-)
-mnemesis
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CJ (ceej123@hotmail.com) writes:
I've been thinking about how the Flood could be made to be less volatile or hazardous to the rest of sentient
life. Quite a few strings have touched upon the potential "good" of the Flood, and whether or not their survival is simply
the result of Foreruner sympathy (strange sympathy though, to imprison an intelligent species on a structure designed
to starve them to death). Taking into account all that has been said about MC and his Reclaimer status, plus what we know
about the Flood (and their all-consuming hunger) I came up with a theory, and maybe I'm off on a tangent here, but bear
with:
As a result of his augmentation, MC has "suppressed sexual desires", i.e., does not feel the need to reproduce.
(In addition, simply trying to do so while inside of MJOLNIR would be awkward at best.) So my question is this: if the Flood
were given robot bodies (or cyborg, if you will) to occupy, ones that not only quenched their hunger for knowledge (via
AI), but also contained them from reproducing so recklessly, would they still be a threat?
CJ, you've got spunk. A tantalizing
possibility. But could the Flood's hunger EVER be satiated? I doubt we would be willing to turn over a SPARTAN to find out...
-Finn
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A climactic battle 900 000 years
ago? "The flood as the forgotten peril that ended a galaxy-spanning empire is a pretty fundamental
tenet of good sci-fi"?
Let's see, 2+2=...
Joe Nowasaki (dark_shadowfox_2003@hotmail.com) writes:
One was (after watchin the xo3 video for halo 2) was that the one guy said: "we want the ruins to really look
like there was an epic battle that took place 900,000 years ago..." I think mabey the forerunners might have fought some other
ancient group, and may have created the Halo's in case they lost.
Like... the Flood? ;)
Speaking
of Starhammer by Christopher Rowley... we were, weren't we? No? Well, we should have been ;)
-Finn
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Then we have Halo 04. What kind of benevolent race would allow the construction of such a device? While it
could be used for the 'good' and 'worthy' purpose of preventing catastrophic Flood outbreaks, it seems more like a barbaric
tool of destruction. Halo seems more like a deterrent, much like nuclear weaponry during the Cold War. Think about it. You
are an alien race oppressed by the Forerunner. You form an uprising and plan to overthrow your malevolent masters. However,
the masters happen to have this weapon, capable of effortlessly slaughtering your entire force (and every allied race with
sufficient biomass). To me, Halo does not seem to be an effective method of containing the Flood (is it necessary to forceably
remove all food and water in a city because of a cockroach infestation at Joe's Steakhouse? Especially when the cockroaches
can survive without food for a considerable amount of time). Halo would likely have a different purpose to simply eliminating
high-biomass lifeforms to prevent the spread of a parasite. Granted, a highly dangerous parasite, but if it so dangerous,
why save the Flood from extinction? As has been stated before by Jonas, perhaps the Flood were a weapon, a deterrent in addition
to Halo? The threat of releasing the Flood would certainly keep the enemies of the Forerunner in line. So what is the fortress
world really *for*? And besides, doesn't 'fortress' entail a militaristic nature of its builders? The Forerunner seem to be
more of a galactic terror than the Flood...
As has been pointed out, the
Flood make a terrible deterrent. They are slow to start and virtually unstoppable once they get going. A race that had never
had any experience with them might not understand the threat until it was too late. But it's also been pointed out that the
Covenant have had a long history with the Flood, and they didn't seem to
have learned their lesson, did they? Could the Forerunners have simply been so benevolent that they couldn't bring themselves
to eradicate the Flood?
-mnemesis
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Tursas (tursas@shaw.ca) writes:
I was just perusing your page again, and something hit me: What if the Flood have already found their way off
Halo by the time 343 Guilty Spark introduces himself to the Master Chief?
The evidence:
"Greetings. I am the Monitor of installation 04. I am 343 Guilty Spark. Someone has released the Flood. My function
is to prevent it from leaving this installation. But I require your assistance. Come. This way." -- 343 Guilty
Spark, in the final moments of the level named after him.
Analysis:
If 343 GS' function is to prevent the Flood
from leaving installation 04, then it stands to reason that he would busy himself in doing so, correct? Yet during the library,
he is nearly always with us, and mentions where he is going and what he is doing when he is not present. As well, it is the
function of the Reclaimer, not 343 GS, to trigger mass sterilisation. The process of going through 343 GS (the level) and
the Library, is part of the secondary protocol, not the primary function.
It stands to reason that only after failing
in his attempts to contain the flood on the ring would 343 GS initiate the mass sterilisation protocol. Of course, reason
may fly out the window as we realise that 343 GS is a few slats short of a train track.
Hence, I believe that at one
point 343 GS was busy with preventing the Flood from leaving Halo, but that point was far in advance of where things stand
when the Master Chief is brought into the Library. The entrance of Mobutu in the equation only makes matters worse: if 343
GS had initiated the sterilisation protocol with a completely different person (perhaps) hours before, it stands to reason
that the Flood are already that much further away from the ring.
Of course, we must question the meaning of "leaving
this installation". Does it mean that the Flood had gained access to the Truth and Reconcilliation or Pillar of Autumn, which
had not really 'left' the ring, or did the Flood manage to board another ship and get away?
Good point. We blew up and (supposedly)
destroyed whatever was on Halo, but, since the primary weapon never fired,
anything that was already off of the ring is out there somewhere... waiting...
-mnemesis
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Flood as... well, you name it.
In this case, as an Information gathering tool, etc.
Milkshake (DarthMule88@aol.com) writes:
I have read 'The Flood' and a thought that I had was that, as the flood 'mind-rape' keyes, that they are simply
doing what they do because they are in origin, a form of intelligence gathering, created by the Forerunner, in use against
their foes and wars. Of course there is no question that they went rampant (in both senses of the word). That makes a little
sense, right?
The thought of the Flood being
used as an information gathering tool, scraping together records of the fallen's DNA, has been touched on before, but as they also seem to possess some of the most wicked, brutal, and efficient interrogation techniques imaginable, the
idea deserves revisiting. However, considering that Captain Keyes can hide his thoughts within his neural lace (and the Flood
seem incapable of touching him there), would the Flood be able to interface with any sort of cybernetic or mechanical alterations?
To them directly, or in a host? The Flood can wield technology, but can they also integrate it?
Flood as a potential medicine or biological upgrade, Flood as a DNA sampling tool, Flood as a superfluous weapon, Flood as organic armour, Flood as food (bleh), Flood as a terra-forming tool, Flood as mutated Forerunner...
Whether or not the Flood were encountered and preserved for study, or created for a particular purpose, the list
of possibilities is growing rather long...
-Finn
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Lamin "darklight" Ball (lb2024@hotmail.com) writes:
How long does the flood live? If halo was supposedly vacant for over 100 thousand years plus activated once,
what ?biomass? did the flood live off of for 100 thousand years after activation? And if it did some way find a way to live
off something, who?s to say that it never evolved to a new type of flood that the forerunners never even seen. If you were
to think of humans in a 100 thousand year period, you will see that is how long it took for modern man to evolve.
Who knows how long the Flood
have existed? They may have evolved into their present state eons ago, perfecting whatever arcane mechanisms their biology
employs long, long ago. As far as Flood cannibalism goes though, chew on this: The Military Form af the Vang (Isn't that familiar?
As if from an old dream?) had slowly consumed itself as it floated in space through the millenia. If our Flood are modeled
after that species, a hundred thousand years or so would be a piece of cake.
-mnemesis
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Ellimist (Ellimist117@aol.com) writes:
i was reading the post "On Slipstream Space and Really Big Explosions" and Toby Dillman said that Humans, the
Covenent, and other alien races were carbon based life forms. I beleive this to be true,because we all seem to breath oxygen,
which is vital to carbon based life forms. But could the flood be non carbon based?
There is only one other element,
stable and abundant enough, that a life form can be based on...silicon.
343 GS says that the flood was changing the
atmosphere, this is probably to hurt the other races on Halo 04, not because they need to breath something other than oxygen.
They cont seem to mind what they breath.
This is because a silicon based lifeform does not require oxygen and hydrogen.
This would mean that they can survive in open vacume, this could have lead to some getting off Halo 04
Interesting. If the Flood were
solely a silicon-based lifeform, would they have some difficulty in the pre-atmosphere-adjusted,
oxygen-rich environment of Halo as we knew it?
-mnemesis
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Stargate and Halo
Deep
in the recesses of the subconscious, an update has been forming based solely on the mail we receive comparing Halo to other
contemporary titles. Stargate, however, has produced enough input, and good input at that, to merit its own private mention.
Oray
Griever (oray8@hotmail.com) and Justin Hornsby (inventor@peoplepc.com) write:
Why have the Forerunners decided to study alive floods in installation 04 ? You certainly knows Stargate SG-1.
Humans are in war against Goa'ulds, who is a parasitic specie wich take integral control of his host. The symbiot immunises
his host against all deseases, makes it more stronger, more powerful, his wounds heal speeder, and they both can live a long
long time. We know that Flood spores have an exceptionnal longevity (100 000 years, as we learn in "The Flood"), that other
forms (Elites and Marines) are very strong, not easy to kill (some must be shooted two times), and they can live in extreme
conditions. As the Goa'Ulds, the Floods take control of their host. In an episode of SG-1, humans from an other planet managed
to extract from the symbiot its superhuman properties. By that way, they can have all the advantages of the symbiot without
beign infested by it. Here I come : What if the Forerunners decided to study the flood to extract their strenght and stamina without
having to be infected? It will be like a kind of eternal-life elixir, mixed with creatine and EPO. :p
-
They were around, and very advanced, in acient times of our planet. Perhaps, like in SG1, the Forerunner
were part of ancient history. This could explain the ancient myths and legends, not to mention the pryamids and there corrilation
to the stars.
Just a thought, but who knows, maybe someone at Bungie is a SG1 junky on the side.
Hmmm... who could that have
been... Brannon? ;)
-Finn
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The trees of the field will
clap their hands...
Will (wsalc@rcn.com) writes:
I just noticed this the other day, a little detail that may bring some validity to the suggestion that perhaps
the trees in the level 343 Guilty Spark have been infected or being used by the Flood. On page 24 of the March 2004 issue
of OXM there is an interview with Frank O'Connor, the new Content Manager at Bungie, in which he replies to a letter asking
about the Prophets. Anyways, in his response he says "...since every single part of
Halo, from the way THE TREES LOOK to the map layouts is designed TO TELL A STORY, we're very protective of plot."
They're not creepy looking for
nothing I suppose.
Hmmm, map layouts, eh? Might add a little poignancy to this idea perhaps...
-Finn
