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Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 5:04 pm
by Lurono
Echelon Three wrote:
Lurono wrote:Good points made. Kinda reminds me of a little book called Starhammer that people used to LOVE to reference ;) So, do we know if the Flood can survive in vacuum?
I still need to read that book. As for the Flood in vacuum...

P. 197, GoO:

"The Rapturous Arc moved, wheeled toward the stars, and continued to turn toward the other three destroyers abeam of Halo. it touched one of its brother ships, energy shields shimmered, frequencies matched, and the Flood-infected ship released a swarm of bulbous carrier forms."

I suppose so, though I'm under the impression in this passage that in their swarming behavior this is only for a limited time. Considering the Flood need food to "live", they would need to be in stasis for extended trips. That, or have plenty of hosts to feed off of during the journey. :) :shock:
Ah, thanks for clearing that one up :D I probably should have known that after all of the time I've sunk into the Halo story :P Okay, so it appears the most likely senario is that the Flood took a ship from some race they infected, and (most likely, imo, after they cleared their home galaxy of hosts) decided to jump to another galaxy... Lucky us. It is possible, however, that they targeted MULTIPLE galaxies, meaning that there could be other Flood everywhere. If the natives of those galaxies won or lost their fight is still in the air.

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 5:16 pm
by failedparachute
Echelon Three wrote:
Lurono wrote:Good points made. Kinda reminds me of a little book called Starhammer that people used to LOVE to reference ;) So, do we know if the Flood can survive in vacuum?
I still need to read that book. As for the Flood in vacuum...

P. 197, GoO:

"The Rapturous Arc moved, wheeled toward the stars, and continued to turn toward the other three destroyers abeam of Halo. it touched one of its brother ships, energy shields shimmered, frequencies matched, and the Flood-infected ship released a swarm of bulbous carrier forms."

I suppose so, though I'm under the impression in this passage that in their swarming behavior this is only for a limited time. Considering the Flood need food to "live", they would need to be in stasis for extended trips. That, or have plenty of hosts to feed off of during the journey. :) :shock:
I disagree that this excerpt clarifies whether or not the Flood can survive in a vacuum. If anything it leans towards the Flood not being able to survive in a vacuum. Why do I think that? The bit "...energy shields shimmered, frequencies matched...". To me that seems like by matching the shield frequencies the Flood used the two shields to form a zero-gee bridge between the two ships. Under the shield there was quite obviously atmosphere. To me that shows that the Flood cannot survive in the vacuum of space. If someone can find a different quote or passage to refute me go ahead, but this passage doesn't appear to support their surviving in a vacuum.

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:14 pm
by Twigge
From a biological standpoint, I do not see how the Flood could survive in vacuum. If the infection forms are easy enough for the Master Chief to pop with his hand, there's no way they wouldn't explode in vacuum. Same thing goes for the carrier forms. Now, the combat forms are a little hardier than the infection and carrier forms. They can take a bit of damage. I think it would be presumptuous to say that they could not survive in vacuum at all, but I am sure they would lose a lot of their body to the effect of rapid decompression. I think a few would survive out of luck, as long as the central nervous system of the host isn't damaged by the decompression.

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:16 pm
by Omega Hunter 9
Twigge wrote:From a biological standpoint, I do not see how the Flood could survive in vacuum. If the infection forms are easy enough for the Master Chief to pop with his hand, there's no way they wouldn't explode in vacuum. Same thing goes for the carrier forms. Now, the combat forms are a little hardier than the infection and carrier forms. They can take a bit of damage. I think it would be presumptuous to say that they could not survive in vacuum at all, but I am sure they would lose a lot of their body to the effect of rapid decompression. I think a few would survive out of luck, as long as the central nervous system of the host isn't damaged by the decompression.
Remember that the Flood could have infected a species that could survive in space.

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:39 pm
by gspawn
Omega Hunter 9 wrote: Remember that the Flood could have infected a species that could survive in space.
Or, since they can obviously alter the host to suit their needs, maybe they can perform further alterations.
And the Flood itself is just a virus- and we know that some bacteria and viruses can survive in space.

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:44 pm
by Omega Hunter 9
gspawn wrote:
Omega Hunter 9 wrote: Remember that the Flood could have infected a species that could survive in space.
Or, since they can obviously alter the host to suit their needs, maybe they can perform further alterations.
And the Flood itself is just a virus- and we know that some bacteria and viruses can survive in space.
Well, not bacteria. They'd instantly freeze. All viruses, since they're just a piece of complex protein and DNA, can survive in space.

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 9:10 pm
by Twigge
gspawn wrote:
Omega Hunter 9 wrote: Remember that the Flood could have infected a species that could survive in space.
Or, since they can obviously alter the host to suit their needs, maybe they can perform further alterations.
And the Flood itself is just a virus- and we know that some bacteria and viruses can survive in space.
The Flood are much more complex than any virus or bacteria biologically, so you can't really assume they inherit the properties of any we know of.

I remember reading something, probably on HBO, that made a very good argument that the Flood are a fungus.

EDIT: Here it is: http://nikon.bungie.org/misc/jman571_flood_taxonomy/

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 9:17 pm
by yakaman
Consider this: the only reason there was Flood left on the Halos is because they were specially "preserved" by the Forerunner. In fact 343GS says he is happy to see that some survived to reproduce, which suggests to me that this was in doubt, even with the preservation.

Flood must die in vacuum, and without food, or else why the hell fire the Halos at all? If the infection forms are going to be hanging around waiting to infect the first new life that arises, then why do it at all?

Think in larger terms. We think it's great to break the sound barrier. Earthlings of 2552 think it's great to break the light barrier. What would we think is great in a million years? In the realm of SciFi, you only need imagination. If the Flood infected an Uber-Advanced species in another galaxy that had Supersassy Spank Drives that provided galaxy-to-galaxy travel, you'd have your answer.

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 10:14 pm
by Twigge
Obviously the Flood took control of Atlantis and dialed the gate to our galaxy.

Re: The Flood: Natural or Artificial?

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 10:30 pm
by Lurono
The problem is we don't know what the specifics of Forerunner containment are. Did they really feed the Flood? Did more of the Flood survive by hiding on the ring? Anything's possible.

We dont know how long the Flood live, and it appears that the Forerunner didn't have a clue either. So, if the Halos were the last plan, something made them decide that it was now or never to fire... I think it's either foul play, or that the Forerunner were trying to just slow the Flood down since, for whatever reason, they couldn't beat them. There are still too many variables for us to come up with a definitive theory. Server four gave us a good push in the right direction, but it will probably take a bit more for us to shape a very accurate picture of what happened.

Personally, after server four, this is my timeline of events...
  • The flood arrive in our galaxy (under the leadership of one or more graveminds) after an unknown ammount of time in a ship/group of ships taken from an assimilated race in their home galaxy
  • They find a planet with suitable hosts, and begin their infection process
  • They move from planet to planet until they have their inevitable first contact with the Forunner on Threshold
  • The results are disastrous, resulting in the destruction of whatever facilities the Forerunner had built and the infection of most of the Forerunner that were in said facilities
  • Some Forerunner manage to escape and tell their story
  • Teams are sent back to Threshold to investigate, only to find that the majority of the Flood are gone
  • Samples are found, and a new research facility is established to study the Flood
  • Studies of the aforementioned samples alert the Forerunner to a hive-mind like connection among the Flood
  • Meanwhile, the Flood continues to spread more quickly every day, consuming more and more planets
  • Forerunner studies alert them to the presence of a higher intelligence, and a method for them to defeat the Flood
  • During these events, the Flood manage to consume planets inhabited by the Forerunner
  • During one of these battles, a Gravemind contacts the Forerunner
  • The Halos are eventually built, with an ark built on Earth, as well the planet Onyx and the Dyson Sphere (it's possible that the Dyson Sphere is not located *in* Onyx, but rather at another point in Slipspace, and that there are six other shield worlds that lead to the same location)
  • While constructing all of these structures, the Forerunner do everything they can to protect humanity, as well as the various Covenant species and any number of still-unknown species
  • The Forerunner take various DNA samples from all of these species and seal them in safe areas on their respective homeworlds
  • The Forerunner choose humanity to be the race that will continue on their legacy and include human DNA into the fireing sequence of the Halos
  • They take a human/group of humans to an unknown facility to perform various enhancement procedures similar to those that the Spartans went through
  • The Flood finally arrive on the Forerunner homeworld, destroying the entire planet as well as the majority of Forerunner leadership
  • The Reclaimer(s) is/are sent to Halo 04 to activate it, with the assistance of a then-sane 343GS
  • The Halos are activated and all life in the galaxy capable of supporting the Flood are killed
  • Once the Halos death wave has run its course, and there is evidence that the Flood will be unable to resurface for a long period of time, the monitors of all of the planetary facilities begin to repopulate the chosen planets
I personally think that the Forerunner chose to die as a way to atone for killing the majority of sentients in the galaxy. I also agree with people who say that Adjutant Reflex is an AI, not a living being.

Wow..... :geek:

Edit: Feel free to offer corrections or additions to this... Sorry if I rambled at all, I was typing with a large ammount of distractions around me :D