So how was the "killing" done....visualize

[Aiken Drum]

343 GS says at the end of Halo2 something about the Halos firing a pulse at Superluminal speeds.

Superluminal means greater than the speed of light.

Its quite possible the pulse hits the whole galaxy in less than a second, or that it takes thousands of years. Any calculations as to how long the pulse takes to reach anywhere are impossible, unless we know the actual speed of the pulse.

[Avateur]

Not the Halos firing at those speeds. A beacon communicating at them.

COMMANDER KEYES (referring to hologram):

What's that?

343 GUILTY SPARK:

A beacon.

COMMANDER KEYES:

What's it doing?

343 GUILTY SPARK:

Communicating at superluminal speeds with a frequency of-

[Pak]

Not the Halos firing at those speeds. A beacon communicating at them.

COMMANDER KEYES (referring to hologram):

What's that?

343 GUILTY SPARK:

A beacon.

COMMANDER KEYES:

What's it doing?

343 GUILTY SPARK:

Communicating at superluminal speeds with a frequency of-

Regardless, it is reasonable to assume the forerunner may have been able to send energy at FTL speeds for purposes other than communication as well.

[System Failure]

Well if you look at the end of Halo 2. (I know this is a spoiler but if you dont know this about a game that is 3 years old then, you pretty much suck.)



Anywho when the ring is deactivated you see a pulse from the control room hit a growing mass of energy in the middle. I agree with the fact that halo could be a massive superconducting magnet. On the collapse of Installation 04 making it look weak. The heat in the blast was like Cortana said over 1.00 x 10^9 degrees, or about a billion degrees. This would vaporize much of what was in the
blast radius, and assuming the inside of Halo is as filled with tunnels as it look, the resulting cloud of superheated gas could spread throughout the Halo ring compromising its stability. Also keep in mind Halo has an oxygen rich atmosphere meaning that there has to be oxygen reserves some where on the rings. So the way the ring was destroyed in Halo seemed wrong to me, as it would make more sense for the blast to force the ring apart, and the elasticity of the metal would bring the ends together creating a much more dramatic ending.
Now back on topic, the ring cloud be a massive electromagnet powered from fusion the Fusion H3 atoms found in the gas planets that the Halo rings seem to require. because of the left hand rule magnetic forces would be centered dead in the middle of the ring.In the middle could be of this field could be ionized radium gas (plasma), which is controllable by magnetism. Then the plasma could be accumulated in the center (sent up by towers similar to what we saw on 04), and uberly compressed. Once the mass needed to reach its desired ranged it needed, the plasma could release the radiation in a single blast.

[A Lazy Llama]

I'm not totally sure how the "killing" is done, but I'm pretty sure it uses Radium (Wiki Article)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium . I say this because in the Array Log it says: "Confrm: Array burn radium {check} 3.0" Basicly, it's a million times more radioactive than Uranium. From the article: "This is because radium is treated as calcium by the body, and deposited in the bones, where radioactivity degrades marrow, and can mutate bone cells." So it will probably kill or vaporize all life, and destroy the remains (like bones) for that reason.

[Pak]

I'm not totally sure how the "killing" is done, but I'm pretty sure it uses Radium (Wiki Article)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium . I say this because in the Array Log it says: "Confrm: Array burn radium {check} 3.0" Basicly, it's a million times more radioactive than Uranium. From the article: "This is because radium is treated as calcium by the body, and deposited in the bones, where radioactivity degrades marrow, and can mutate bone cells." So it will probably kill or vaporize all life, and destroy the remains (like bones) for that reason.

Nice find.

[Chainz]

Any remains would be long barred, this is due to things like weathering. Its tens of thousands of years since the firing of the halos- much like the dinosaurs there bodies would have decomposed. This does leave an interesting question. It is my belief that the Forerunners were form Earth- and are in fact humans. (( The Ark is on Earth. ))

It is also my belief that after the use of the Halos the remaining Forerunners left Onyx and returned to Earth, and the Spartans (( which in and of them selves have odd genetic markers (( Halo the Fall of Reach )) Example:(( taken for Halo Wiki to support my point. )) "In the novels it appear to offer hints about the link between humans and Forerunners. Several Spartans recognize Forerunner symbols, but they can't quite place them, which suggests that they are most likely deep in the subconscious. ((Much like Genetic memory.))

In Halo: The Flood, the Master Chief just 'knows' how to activate the light bridge, for some strange reason; the same appears true when he activates the Silent Cartographer. In Halo: First Strike, the Spartans just "know" how to operate the Wraith tanks. If the Covenant did indeed salvage technology from the Forerunners, then that might explain it.

In Halo: Ghosts of Onyx at one point one of the spartan-IIIs is challenged by one of the sentinels in Latin. This could lead to more speculation that humans are in fact the forerunners or servants of them.


More can be found here

[Spartan 062]

i figure they must have been completely vaporised, as we have seen that the flood are capable of reanimating and using dead bodies, so straight out killing them and leaving the corpses behind would achieve nothing

Actually "Played dead, that's what I did, played dead." and "They only took the live ones"

The "dead" we see reanimated were already flood controlled corpses, you don't see dead grunts and elites becoming combat forms.

On what Kurk said, killing everything and leaving corpses behind (assuming, for the moment, that the Flood can reanimate the dead) would accomplish everything. Think about it. No matter how many corpses are infected, there isn't any new food for them, so once they finish all the Calcium in the bodies killed by the array, the Flood would eventually starve. It would probably take a while, but it would most certainly finish off the Flood.

And regarding MulletedOne's post, I'm not sure exactly how true that is. I remember those quotes, but something in the guide to Halo 2 intrigues me about this point:

The Infection Form is not exclusively concerned with ending the life of player-controlled characters: they will also hone in on dead or unconscious Marine and Covenant bodies to corrupt them. Unless you like fighting the aggressive Combat Form, you might want to forestall this eventuality whenever you can.

I'm assuming this means they cal reanimate bodies. Someone care to explain this to me, because it seems ridiculously conflicting with other facts.

[c2h6o]

I'm assuming this means they cal reanimate bodies. Someone care to explain this to me, because it seems ridiculously conflicting with other facts.

The Flood can probable reanimate the bodies up to a point, but after the cells start dieing it is probably useless to them. After only a few minutes without oxygen, nervous tissue starts to die, thus rendering them uncontrollable to their will.

They can feed off of the calcium, if that IS what they feed off of, dead or alive. They would have to break down Hydroxyapatite, a mineral in our bones, into Calcium and other atoms, along with energy, which they would use to stay alive.

Which got me to thinking, Radium has the same chemical properties as Calcium (they're both Group II alkaline metals). Maybe the Halos exploit this property...

I dunno, just a thought.

[c2h6o]

I'm not totally sure how the "killing" is done, but I'm pretty sure it uses Radium (Wiki Article)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium . I say this because in the Array Log it says: "Confrm: Array burn radium {check} 3.0" Basicly, it's a million times more radioactive than Uranium. From the article: "This is because radium is treated as calcium by the body, and deposited in the bones, where radioactivity degrades marrow, and can mutate bone cells." So it will probably kill or vaporize all life, and destroy the remains (like bones) for that reason.

Never mind, you beat me to it. It won't vaporize remains or organisms (Uranium isn't that radioactive anyways), but it would definitely kill anything near it.