unforum

[Naota753]

Gravemind

[DreamOfTheRood]

We've seen some pre-rendered footage so far, mostly from the E3 videos and the Superbowl ad. I think that those give a good indication that at least the first or, more likely, second chapter of the game will deal with the Chief making his way from a crashed Covenant ship to the Ark outside of New Mombasa.

After that, everything's basically up in the air. While the Elites have sustained heavy losses from both the humans and the Brutes, the Brute leadership is also wiped out. Tartarus is quite dead, while the Arbiter - the leader of the Elites now - lives on.

Both he and the Chief are after the same goal, and both possess the same knowledge of the Flood - Gravemind seeks total dominion of the galaxy, and it has manipulated all events to his favor.

As to how it survived, there was some speculation based on events in Halo: CE that the Forerunners kept the Flood around to experiment upon. They couldn't wipe the Flood out, though, so they tried the approach with which we are all familiar. Galaxy-wide genocide, saving only the best of the species within the Ark and using it to seed known planets with lifeforms after the halos fired, until the Ark found its resting place on earth.

The Flood starved out and died, with the only remnants of the virus surviving in some kind of timeless stasis within the halos.

And then, somehow, the Flood in those labs unlocked - either through human or Covenant recklessness. The Flood found a new host, and the Gravemind reformed itself with the bodies of its new hosts.

... Halo:CE and Halo 2 ...

The Brutes are not the true enemy, but their only pragmatic belief in the Great Journey will engender them to the Gravemind as useful pawns. I think we'll be seeing a lot of the Brutes in the early stages of the game ... which gives me pause.

A whole level of fighting only the Brutes will be very difficult. They're not an easy enemy, more difficult by powers of ten when paired or grouped. I don't want to think of what would happen if we had to deal with so many of those things. It would be a little much.

I can only hope my fears will be allayed.

But the real threat would remain, even after we deal with the Brutes. The Gravemind ... and how do we deal with it?

[Dariagan]

Well with my theroy the only way to win this war is to make everyone lose. Kill everything that sustains flood, starve the flood, start over. It seems that the gravemind thing to where he made a special resereve is another great idea onto how he lived...

[Arkanor]

[Dariagan]

He could have had a special reserve of things infect and survive long enough until more food was avalible.

[Naota753]

Does anyone know how exactly the halo's kill everything? I would think it'd be of importance.

Also, I dont see why it has the revert to Halo1 specifically. Why not the beginning of time or maybe 2007 or something?

[Dariagan]

In halo1 on the cinematic of entering the Control room he seems to have be looking around the place like hes been there already.

Halos pulse and kill everything that the flood can live off of...

Halo 3 will show what happens to every fight you've started and awnser almost every question they made us ask. I keep thinking the world will end and nothing will live...The brutes will die in the fight, Humans, covanant die by the halos and flood starves.

[Naota753]

Well, the restarting theory is not whats wrong, just the fact that you say that it restarts to Chief exiting his pod on the POA. Is there a reason to this, maybe I missed it.

I know what the Halo's do, just not how. Look at my above post.

[Dariagan]

Well im not 100% but the pulse just acts as a screech of some sort that would kill certain biomasses with a certain reading and it somehow kills them not sure if its exploding or just stops their heart or what happens excatly...

And I see why it starts back in Halo? Because its what bungie would do...Go full circle...and let the player feel like he achieved nothing so he would play it again....A lot of halo things happen to go full circle and i dont see why halo 3 wouldnt deny that....

[Zatara_]

I'm probably totally off here, but what if the only way to kill the flood, is for the Master Chief, to go so far back in time that he has to kill the Forerunners? Kinda like the original ending to the Butterfly Effect, he tried every single scenario to make everyones life better but in the end it was his existence that was the catalyst to everyones pain, and the only solution was to sacrifice himself.

Maybe if the Forerunners never existed the Flood wouldn't either; the one option they weren't willing to follow.

This would also explain the 'blank' section in the Marathon timeline, because without the Forerunners, there would be no Halos and without the Halos there would no Flood and with no Forerunners they wouldn't have been around to 'guide' our evolution and maybe the Master Chief would have grown up differently and ended up as the main character of the Marathon series.

http://marathon.bungie.org/Story/maratime.html

All of this is less then likely to happen, because it would essentially wrap up the franchise and Microsoft, would never let Bungie write a storyline that would kill their 'golden goose'.

What you may end up having to do is go back in time and erase 'patient zero' from existence and warn the Forerunners of the Flood and have them blow-up it's planet of origin.

[CalamusGary]

Any of you contemplated Johnson's involvment in Halo 3? I think he may have a hand in the final fate of the flood, he is immune after all.

[Dariagan]

Well maybe he can help repopulate with cortana in the sexy time scene of halo 3...Perhaps the halo 3 legendary ending...I dont know if they will take his blood and make a weapon to combat it or a vaccine or what but it is a good idea.

[Vossk]

Johnson's immune? I didnt know that, how did that happen? Is it because his cells are just so naturally bad@$$?

[Dariagan]

Either that or hes superman...Im betting its the first one...

[Zatara_]

http://halosm.bungie.org/story/sgtjohnson.html

This should explain why Johnson, can't be infected.