I'm pretty sure the Covenant wouldn't waste energy putting an atmosphere between their shields and the ships themselves. Covenant shields must locally disengage before their plasma or lasers can be shot--otherwise they'd hit the shield. Also, there are several instances where John-117 and Friends are in zero-gee on the surface of a Covenant warship below the shield, and Elites engage them on the surface of the ship in pressurized suits. If the area under the ship was pressurized, why would they need the pressure suits? It seems like a waste in several areas.failedparachute wrote: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.
343GS is so cryptic and vague in the Library that he could be talking about anyone. He says he is grateful that "they" survived to reproduce. At this point the context could mean the Forerunner just as easily as the Flood. Of course, that means Forerunner=Humans or Covenant or both, or whatever, but there just isn't enough proof to grammatically show who GS was talking about. I wish we knew, but 343 is a jerk who assumes humanity already knows everything.yakaman wrote: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.
Also, the Flood could potentially live in vacuum, it just needs food like you've said. That doesn't disprove the purpose of the Halos. Presumably the vast majority of our galaxy was Flood-controlled at the time of the first Halo array firing; yet the only specimens are in the Halos. So I agree with part of what you're saying, but I don't see how that disproves the whole idea.
As for the concept of Flood homeostasis in vacuum, I have no idea. All I know is that I quoted Halo canon, which said meanies went from ship-to-ship, most likely in vacuum.
EDIT: Supersassy Spank Drives? They sound like they're powered by masochists or something. Sorry, I don't mean to offend...but Supersassy Spank Drives? Dude.