unforum

[Arkanor]

I never saw anything about the Halo installations being designed initially for containment and study of the Flood. Obviously they're not optimized to get a grip on the Flood long-term since 343 Guilty Spark notes in Halo 1 something to the effect of "We must hurry, Reclaimer. The Sentinels can use their weapons to manage the Flood for a short time."

I've been wondering about that Terminal 6 text myself. The only possible explanation I can think of is that the Halo effect frags all life of sufficient biomass to sustain the Flood, including current Flood combat, carrier, and [whatever the new Flood enemy is] forms. This would leave only infection forms behind (presumably), which would be unable to control ships and (without stasis) would probably starve to death wherever they were.

That or Bungie is retconning the Halo effect so that it kills all life including Flood.

[thebruce]

Whether the rings were built specifically to study the flood, or they were converted to installations to study the flood, I don't think has been made clear. But the rings are, as per Halo 1, installations intended for study of the Flood, which soon became weapons when the flood began spreading over the galaxy. The rings themselves don't have to annihilate the local residing flood - which is why the sentinels can only do so much. With their intent to wipe out all food for the flood, it doesn't matter if there's still flood on the ring after its firing or not - the plan was that the remaining flood, whether infection form or infected, would starve and die out in time. The rings were never said to kill any flood... since primarily, the infected flood are already dead, just taken over by infection forms. So without killing the flood themselves, all flood forms would still be around after the firing - on the Halos and off.

The point of the rings: kill the food, then wait. Eventually the flood would dissipate, and repopulation of the galaxy could commence. AFAIK, that's the entire gist of the Halos' purpose and actions. 'Index'es of all life forms in the galaxy were stored so that the post-flood galaxy could be repopulated. Gateways were created (eg the one on earth, not resistant to the ring effect) for transporting and escaping to the Ark, where the rings were created, and possibly where non-infected forms (forerunner?) could escape the ring effect. As per the legendary ending, who knows what could happen in future Halo-universe games.

So...
* Halos do not kill flood, in any way.
* Halos were intended for researching the flood, and became weapons to eradicate the flood's food.
this is Bungie canon.

[Awhite2490]

But thebruce, (spoilers incoming)

[Cloaked Hunter]

But, how did the Flood "samples" survive on Installation 04 without food? And, is the Gravemind an exception to the array's inability to kill the Flood?

[Yodel]

[Awhite2490]

Guys, you should use spoiler tags...anyway.

[Yodel]

[Cloaked Hunter]

[thebruce]

spoilered
fyi, the game's been out a couple weeks now, and spoilers are everywhere... spoilering the ending is a little annoying given we're all really into the story already... finish the game!

[Locohoco]

[Cloaked Hunter]

Okay, to be more clear, my point was that it's clearly not possible for the Flood to be confined to a single area and be destroyed so easily. Therefore, even with the Gravemind destroyed, the Flood threat is not over and can repopulate just as it did before. We seem to agree on this.

Is there any confirmation as to whether or not the Gravemind was ever destroyed after the first activation of the array?

[Vossk]

Wow, I missed quite a lot, but im just going to add my tidbit and be along.
Halo 3 didnt answer all our questions, of course. Why? Because we still want answers, and you know what were willing to do for the conclusions. Why, of course, buy more Halo related games! I definitely think were left with holes in the script, because simply, theres more money left to get and more questions to be answered.
Did we Finish The Fight? Yeah, were our questions answered? Nope.
Im sure the next Halo-Slogan will be something like "Finish the Fight... On Knowledge!"

[Arkanor]

[chrisc69]

the terminals suggest that the previous gravemind was tricked by the forerunners, and that they escaped through the portal to the ark which is out of the halos range and past the rim of the galaxy then activated the rings. any potential flood hosts would have been eliminated,the gravemind would have had no way to reach the arc and the flood would die off without food. however this time around the gravemind and its 'flood army' are thought to be going to earth but in fact is heading for the portal to the ark as it will not be fooled again. knowing that it would be out of the range of the halos this would be the most likely place for the flood to head.

[avengedsamurai7]

Food for thought...