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The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:11 pm
by VectorScalar
All the theories of the Flood can basically be boiled down into two basic varieties:

1. They are a naturally occurring and evolving species from somewhere in our own galaxy (or from somewhere outside of our galaxy).
2. They are artificial or at least artificially enhanced (either from within or without the galaxy).

If the Flood are naturally occurring, they must have a home planet/ecosystem and be subject to the same evolutionary pressures that any other organism would be-competition for food, etc. The Flood relies on asexual reproduction and are not self-sustaining. In other words, without hosts for the infection forms, the Flood cannot ‘grow’ as a community and will die. It might be wise to note at this point that I don’t think of humans as ‘food’ as much as ‘hosts’ for the parasitic Flood. They seem so friggin virulent that I cannot imagine them not running out of ‘hosts’ in short order. They can infect humans, the myriad of Covenant races (have they infested Hunters?), presumably the Forerunners (maybe redundant to point out)-what is their natural limit? They seem perfectly adapted to infect sentient species. Of course, one can conjecture that on the Flood homeworld that some other species exists that preys on the Flood, so there might be a sort of ‘ecological balance’ at work. If this is true, how come the Forerunners did not exploit this natural predator against the Flood? It seems ridiculous to assume that the Forerunners decided to hit the galactic reset button without trying this tactic first……unless there is no natural Flood predator. It really doesn’t matter whether the Flood are from this galaxy or not-the Forerunners had access to slipspace and FTL travel much in advance of the UNSC.

I can’t really conceive of a logical scenario in which the Flood come to their present state naturally. Your thoughts?

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:15 pm
by scapermoya
i would say that the word 'food' has a much less permanent connotation than 'host'. Host seems like something you'd have to keep around to survive, while food is gone when you are done with it. have we had any indication that infected forms eventually succumb and die?

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 9:24 pm
by uncle_trubble
You're right, it is more a case of "food" rather than "host." The bodies of infected forms are extremely unkempt-you can see that limbs, including the neck, break and succumb to extreme mutation. It is probable that infected bodies decay and eventually become carrier forms (which are made from decayed, useless tissue, see halopedia). As a result, the flood would need a steady supply of bodies. Perhaps a forerunner exploration party came upon the flood far from the area in which halo takes place (though we have only a rough idea of this size from 343-"3 radii of the galactic center" is the effective range of the halos), and were infected, allowing the flood to descend on the forerunners in a search for more food. The battle against the flood must have been a long one, though to give tiem for the construction of the halos and expenditure of alternate strategies.

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 9:31 pm
by VectorScalar
scapermoya wrote:i would say that the word 'food' has a much less permanent connotation than 'host'. Host seems like something you'd have to keep around to survive, while food is gone when you are done with it. have we had any indication that infected forms eventually succumb and die?
I see your point. I was trying to differentiate between food for eating and hosts to further procreation. In terms of survival, the Flood do have to keep the hosts around 'long enough'....when the combat forms are no longer effective, they mutate into carrier forms (and the process starts all over again).

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:04 pm
by scapermoya
there must be some kind of long-term form of the flood then. in the final scene of the e3 07 trailer, when the MC is in the dark room walking up to that control panel, people played around with contrast/brightness and found some "spore" looking things in the background. i'll try to find the screenshot.

edit: screenshot found

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 2:03 am
by uncle_trubble
There probably is a hibernation-state flood of some kind, as well as the Gravemind (we know he has been alive for a long time, though we know next to nothinbg about his anatomy). The crap in the background may be something liek that or it may be that stuff that you see all over during the flood part of High Charity in H2.

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 2:42 am
by scapermoya
uncle_trubble wrote:There probably is a hibernation-state flood of some kind, as well as the Gravemind (we know he has been alive for a long time, though we know next to nothinbg about his anatomy). The crap in the background may be something liek that or it may be that stuff that you see all over during the flood part of High Charity in H2.
there has been talk of 'genetic memory' on here in reference to gravemind, so i don't know if it is certain that he is literally very old.

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 1:13 pm
by uncle_trubble
I think that his consciousness is old if not his body (though it does seem old). I would say what he as is more than memory, but also experience (
I have listened, through rock and metal and time.
, but we don't, as I said, know enough about him to be sure.

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 1:11 am
by System Failure
I was looking at this, and was thinking, viruses behave mush in the way the Flood does. I know that viruses can evolve to become resistant to drugs, could the Flood be a result of hundreds of billions of years of mutation? Like it was said earlier otherwise the flood really can't fit into an ecosystem unless it started out as something that claimed the weak and let the strong survive, a natural sorting process, but something perverted it.

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 6:42 am
by Echelon Three
System, I find it interesting that in some ways a Flood infection form looks like a life-sized virus, with that space-capsule look, just rounded out a bit. I suppose to keep along Occam's Razor, if it ain't broke, don't fix it--I would theorize that the Flood are the result of a virus that has evolved over time, slowly advancing and adapting its ways while adhering to the time-old designs and methods that have worked so well for the...well, for the Flood.

Good point, I suppose it was obvious but good nonetheless to be reminded of the nature of the beast. The only being out of place is the Gravemind, who gives this otherwise reckless virus lethal focus. Was it Forerunner design? The inexorable flow of time?

Or something even more sinister...I'm recalled to remember somebody on here ventured that the "antithesis to life" is obviously death, and they went on to surmise that that could well be the Gravemind. I suppose that would make the Flood as natural to the universe as life, just as death is to life; There would be an ebb and flow to the timeline of life, as life and death moved back and forth in order to strike an overall balance. Seems pretty natural to me, and so simple, obvious, yet forehead-slapping in its design to be the style of the universe.

In any case, now I'm rambling, but to whoever came up with that little Skittle of theorizing, thumbs up to you.