unforum

[thebruce]

[SPEC] The Interferon connection

[MariusDarkwolf]

This seems to tie into my competing entities theory.
FCC mentioned deleting a document, maybe they are trying to delete the doc showing how well the interferon fights off flood infection, and SotA is trying to bring it to the world.

"not for public comsumption" would indicate that they think they'll need the data for themselves as they are fighting the flood, but they don't think John Q out on the streets will need it.

[rush]

Also good to note that E coli (or was it ebola?) was found in Voi, Mombassa, and Sgt. Johnson was originally going to be used to genetically find a vaccine for the Flood.

[thebruce]

[Nuketheplace]

I'm going to call this one out. Cloning and especially cloning with E. Coli is a very common practice in biology. Any lab that does anything associated with genetics is going to clone DNA. Reading the original article it look real to he point where they used the proper term "programming" to refer to modifying the bacteria's DNA. Unless you can find a glyph associated with one of those web pages I think this is a dead end.

[thebruce]

nono, I didn't say any of those pages were 'in-game', but that this is a reference that lays the foundation for the story... thought I made that point above.

All that stuff really happened, but the extension of that (as with most any other sci-fi - based in reality) is what's applicable to Halo.

Out of curiosity, which page did you think I was saying was 'in-game'? They're all on other reputable news/science/faq websites...

[Phoenix1337]

Ok, here's a question: Does interferon fight bacterial or viral infections? Because it seems pretty clear that the flood are bacterial (from the references to flood spores in Halo).
So in order for there to be a connection, we need to show one of the following things.
1) The flood has a viral component.
2) Interferon has an anti-bacterial property
3) The PM's don't know the difference between bacterial and viral infections.

[rush]

I'll bet the farm on #1.

[MariusDarkwolf]

[Nuketheplace]

Sorry about that, I got a little high and mighty. I've got a little bit of experience with biology and because of that I think people don't know what they are talking about. Anyhow after looking into it a little bit more you might be on to something.

I'm going to take a step back here and start rambling. First lets look at what we know about the flood. We know that is a parasite of of some sort, but at a microscopic level it appears that we don't know much. Halopedia just says that the smallest level of the flood is infection form (http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Flood#Infection_Form). As far as I know the only other information we have about the flood comes from the slideref 070507 which is actually from another bacteria. Now bacteria can be treated fairly easily except when they become resistant to our general drugs (penicillin ampiciliin and others). The forerunners being a highly advanced civilization should have been able to quickly come up with an antibiotic for the flood if it was just a bacteria. The only reason it might not be possible to come up with an antibiotic is if the flood were the bacterial equivalent of HIV, being able to quickly adapt at anything we throw at it.

Before going any further we have to look at the floods intelligence. The flood are to organized to merely be an emergent phenomena which some fungi have been documented to display. They must have a higher intelligence guiding them. This discounts the theory that they might be viruses because viruses are DNA or RNA surrounded by a protein shell.

At a low level we really have no idea how the flood work. The information we get is confusing at best and its hard to draw conclusion at the microscopic level.

However at a higher level its a littler easier to pick a appart. I looked a little deeper and didn't understand exactly how interferon worked. If anyone wanted to expand of that please do. My current understanding is that it slows or stops replication of protein in the cell giving time for the bodies immune system to mobilize and kill the cell. Interferon is useful against any infection because of this trait. However it appears to be mainly used against tumors. Given that the favored method of infection of the flood is latching onto a host (dead or otherwise) and then taking control of the host through an unknown process. I'm going to guess that the original parasite grows very quickly inside the host once attached. The infection would eventually make its way up to the brain and interface with it to take control of the host. An interferon injection at the site of infection would be an ideal way to slow or stop the infection of a host. This is made all the more plausible seeing that interferon works regardless of species.

Anyhow I'm not sure if any of that is useful to you guys. In order to develop a proper theory that connects the game to interferon we should develop a working theory on how the flood spreads and infects hosts.

[Hammer]

Two things, I thoguht the Flood was a parasite of some form, and two the Flood take control of the nervous system thats how they use their host. That was the reason they were not able to use Sgt. Johnson, he had used that crate of plasma grenades and got that rare disease that wrecked his nueral pattern.

[thebruce]

I read somewhere though that Bungie debunked that claim (from a novel I believe) and said that Johnson wasn't actually effectively attacked. I'll have to try to find the reference somewhere... unless someone else already has it

[MariusDarkwolf]

Possible spoiler for Halo novel first strike

[Nuketheplace]

Ah thanks, I thought there was more information about the flood, but I've only been able to play though the first game completely so I don't have all the information about how they are able to take control. I think the interferon I think the interferon theory is still valid because it if interferon is introduced into the system it would keep the flood from mutating the host as much.

There is still the question of why did the PM's choose to post a picture of bacteria up instead of another organism. I know there are many other pictures of tissue samples at that magnification. If its a parasite we would want to look at those samples, not slides taken from bacteria. This leads me to believe that although the flood are indeed a parasite they have some links to bacteria. Maybe the emigrant phomina theory that I discounted so quickly before.

[thebruce]

here it is: Joe Staten interview, Oct 2004...