You did get a bit wrong though specifically about the Primordials. Specifically for the reason that the Gravemind is the corrupted version of them, as against what you said their consciousness wasn’t woven into the fabric of existence. The Primordials literally just went insane from the betrayal, a couple of them turned themselves into dust to be revived in the future to get revenge. Sadly time corrupts and the dust got moldy and stuff. So the results of that happening is how the Flood came into existence. Nothing to do with “the Primordials and their consciousness being woven into the fabric of reality”. (All this was specifically mentioned in the forerunner trilogy books and the terminals or whatever) So for lack of a better word the Flood is moldy precursors lmao. And well when you take all you know about mold…. Well actually it’s pretty terrifying.
Flood firefight on MCC demonstrates the floods power perfectly. On heroic or legendary, every corpse must be destroyed to prevent a future enemy, every vehicle not being used can become a problem in the future. Even dying you are not safe, respawning only makes you have to encounter your infected corpse
In addition to that, at least for me, the flood becomes more and more resistant to projectile weapons as you progress through the waves. Sometimes, I had to use 30 seconds of concentrated machine gun fire to take out a single combat form.
Also, I'd be especially honored if you managed to read my novel, someday... On ten.noitcifnaf (spell backward) known as 'Begging after Knowledge'. Which stars many familiar, Halo faces... (and AI) (author CaptChris42)@@HiddenXperia
@air_water well if it's a mix of all biomass consumed then it's predominantly gonna be plant based so it's gonna be more plant like than flesh like but it will be good mix of both
@@morgannull4685 not exactly, they were used and discovered as powder in this galaxy, by ancient humans. The reason some lived past the halo array firing is because they were also kept on rings for research
@@morgannull4685 No, the primordials came from an outside galaxy and seeded life in this galaxy. then originally chose the forerunner as inheriters of the mantle of responsibility. later they revoced this, and decided human were a better fit. the forerunners seen this as disrespect and betrayal and started a war against the primordials, pushing the primordials far enough that they decided to turn themselves into microscopic dust, to later be reformed. however the dust got curropted and changed into the flood over billions of years, and resurfaced.
@@morgannull4685with that being said. I wonder how many other galaxies it has conquered… Or, though highly unlikely, the Milky Way is the last galaxy 🫢
@@asianmanfromasia the Milky Way probably isn't the last galaxy but rather ONE of the last galaxies that is to be tested whether or not they would get the right to bear the Mantle of Responsibility or be consumed
To me, it seems like the most terrifying thing about The Flood or Gravemind is that it seems that it can truly never die. A infection and spread and can be stopped or slowed but there is always at least one spore or entity with Flood dna that can just start up another infection like it’s nothing.
Even if possible, it's highly likely that this would be technosorcery or truly advanced tech. Considering what Gravemind is, it would likely counter them.
The most terrifying thing about the flood to me is something I think you alluded to in your video about the Primordial. This is the theory that the flood is not actually a distinct phenomenon from the precursors themselves, but it's just the other side of it. What if the precursors are meant to create life in the universe to collect memories and experiences and then devour it with the flood in an endless cycle, like sowing and harvesting? It would imply that the universe has probably been completely devoured by the flood multiple times, but then the flood always turns worlds barren again, reverts to becoming benevolent, life-sowing precursors, and then starts over. It would also mean that the flood's victory over the universe is inevitable, even if very slow.
That would truly bring new meaning to what the Primordial refers to as "sweetness", by which I think it meant the sum total of experiences of conscious beings including all the negative ones. In this case those experiences would be literal sweetness in the sense that they are being devoured and taste good. Also, the Primordial at one point refers to the Precursors having been around for over 100 billion years or something (been years since I've read the books so can't remember the exact quote), which would seem to imply that they predate even this universe itself and may not be merely harvesting this universe, but may have seeded both this universe and many others before it for the purpose of harvesting.
What you said. I don’t know if maybe I misunderstood something, but i thought it was pretty clear that the flood is basically god. The primordial is an amalgam of different species… just like a protogravemind. What if the precursors are what protograveminds evolve into after millions of years? Then they just went back to their spores form to snap back at the forerunners. The librarian discovered other galaxies or universes iirc that were already basically one with the flood but it was not aggresive or deathly over there, just everywhere as dust. The flood and the precursors were always one and the same. Our literal creators and the poison of existance. I think that’s the eldritch truth halo was always about. And then 343 dropped the ball *sigh*
I LOVE the idea that the Halo rings are more of a shield than a weapon, they're not only keeping there to stop the flood within our Galaxy, but they're actually the thing keeping the flood from invading from other infected Galaxies. Heck the Milky Way could be one of the only uninfected galaxies out there left and it could be due to the Halo rings
And here we are destroying them Willie nilly not only that but the one Anders made on the ark has its firing mechanism shut off. Meaning it’d be cool if the flood could detect that from outside the galaxy
I want to bet that, despite all of a graveminds abilities, it's going to be stumped forever by how it was defeated by a overgrown gecko and a man that has an ai that calls him stud muffin. Whenever a gravemind pops up, it's gonna try and figure that out, making little hypotheses, theories, and whatever else to explain what happened before it ever realizes that it's because the chief has all the luck in the world. Like how neural physics is beyond mortal comprehension, I feel like the gravemind, along with the primordial and the precursors, would struggle to comprehend the concept of luck.
Possibility 1 is that it will figure it out like Durandal did in the Marathon universe. It took billions of years and incredible power for it to figure out why the protagonist could win, it was because he was Destiny, and Chief is Destiny too, which is us. Possibility 2, which i think is more likely, is that the gravemind, once advanced enough, knows already who he is, because it might be one of the 3 entities that survive between universes. The fact that the gravemind says "i am peace, i am salvation" and the Darkness in Destiny 2 says "don't you recognize us?... We are salvation", i think it might hint that it knows who we are through the screen.
Considering the Gravemind is a ginormous supercomputer with the ability to infect anything. Yeah, it's very terrifying. What's not terrifying, but very welcome, are these Flood lore videos. Keep them up man!
The Flood is beyond overpowering and terrifying, the fact too that enough of the flood can distort time and space should be enough to make anyone scared
@@Tamara-tg3ho in the Greg Bear novel Halo SILENTIUM when the flood had consumed most of the galaxy before the firing of the Halos, Forerunners were detecting weird anomalies that affected time and space near heavily concentrated flood centres. So yes… they can do that if the Flood grows large enough
@@Tamara-tg3homuch like how large Celestial objects can distort time and space, some of the flood concentration centers got so vast during the hight of their power that they were exhibiting similar traits. Knowing how intelligent the flood is, it's likely that the flood knew how to manipulate this to it's advantage, either slowing or accelerating the creation of new forms and disrupting solar systems
the scariest thing about the grave mind is that, it seems to be smart enough to be able to convince someone reading about it in another reality to retcon it's lore to hide the keyminds to make the infection less horrifying.
The gravemind intelligence is comparable to Cortana AI, even the Forerunner AI. Their knowledge is the depth of eons and their foresight is almost godlike. Humans, even AIs think on the scale of years, the gravemind can think on the scale of centuries.
You know is I always wondered what the gravemind was pumping into Keys’s head. Is it just flood supercells or is it something he needs to do to keep keys alive, like nutrients, water, and oxygen?
Best guess: his body was flooded (no pun intended) with spores which actively infected him. He was allowed to retain bits of his physical form while he complied; the infection was selectively slowed, but inevitable. The end result was always going to be total consumption but so long as he did as he was told/told what the gravemind wanted, he was allowed to die a slower, less total death.
@@Your-Least-Favorite-Stranger I don't remember the specifics, but in the books it was actually the opposite. Do you think Keys wanted to stay alive for longer in that horrible, painful way? No, the flood were killing him slowly so they could get the information out of his brain. It was pure hell for him, he wanted to die every second of his existence in that state.
@@Your-Least-Favorite-StrangerIn the book, Keyes doesn't comply at any point. Similar to Cortana, the Gravemind is basically ripping into and apart all of Keyes' memories, digging for secrets and usable information, while Keyes is desperately trying to keep that information secluded, and trying to keep his identity/sanity intact. Cortana is dealing with something similar. I suspect this is why she is repeating her designation details in Halo 3. Keyes talks about trying to just hold onto his own name in the book; Cortana has lots more info to feed the Gravemind and keep it off her back longer, but by the end even she was struggling to remember who she was.
And just like the Gravemind, they have been sowing fear and loathing for time immemorial, or at least since 1994. Seriously, no one could have fix them in the last 30 years.
The thing with the logic plague has sparked a horrifying idea in my mind. What if the Gravemind turned Cortana into a sort of sleeper agent while she was imprisoned? She could have possibly done something on Zeta Halo to further the plans of the Flood.
A long-running theory that I 100% believe, at the very least, to have been true at one point in time is that Cortana was infected with the Logic Plague after entering the Domain, as it is Precursor in Origin, therefore the Flood likely have access to it. Her actions in Halo 5 make no sense otherwise, and this would have been a very intelligent plan on the Flood’s part. Use the Guardians to EMP everything, leaving the Galaxy completely defenseless and extremely vulnerable to a Flood invasion.
Possible. Current lore points to a repetition of history. Cortana is the new Mendicant Bias. Her sister-duplicate is the new Offensive Bias. I'm still joping her name is either Joyeuese or Durindana.
It's the most reasonable explanation and the explanation that I believe. Cortana must have the logic plague. She was imprisoned on High Charity for a month, more than enough time to be broken. I also suspect that Cortana isn't dead. Atriox was supposed to be dead, and he isn't. Johnson should've died twice in CE. Stacker and Chips also should be dead as well. Cortana herself should've died at the end of H4 but she miraculously survived. Until we see a body... Its also too good of a story line to let it slip by.
@@AnonTDegenerate It wasn`t ruined, it just hasn`t been developed in Infinite as much as some people hoped it would be, the game had a diferent focus. But if anything, it hasn`t debunked the logic plague theory and actualy gave some aditional hints to it. The Endless are strongly implied to have a conection to the Flood/Precusors and are immune to the effect of halo, literaly the only known weapon that can stop an outbreak once it developed far enough, and "Saturn devouring his son" novel reveals that an outbreak IS ongoing somewhere in the distant corners of the galaxy, with Flood likely acumulating the biomass without making it`s presence known to the main powers of the galaxy who have the ability to theoreticaly stop it at an early stage, just like it did before atacking Foreruners. Cortana`s actions weakened the galactic powers sugnificantly, and she also wanted to release the Endless, who were instead released by Atriox in an epilog. Should the Flood just attack and merge with them, making haloes inefective, they will be almost unstopable.
@@shanegrimes3455Nah. Tyranids, in my opinion, are better (and I dislike them as an enemy). The Tyranids at the very least only have numbers and physical force at their command. The Hivemind isn't some galactic brain cosmic entity crammed into a shell; As far as we know, it is just the collective gestalt consciousness of the Tyranids themselves. The Tyranids can, and have been beaten back in physical conflicts (it's just difficult) and their horror comes from the fact that they just keep coming. The Gravemind is something that by all accounts should never lose. It's an enemy that is far smarter than any of writers that created it; but it can't actually be as powerful as it is supposed to be, because it's written by normal people. It's basically a badly written SCP that had the benefit of being part of one of the best designed FPS franchises and so it's held up on a pedestal.
The gravemind in Halo 2 essentially orchestrated the latter half of the game so it could prevent its own destruction and consume high charity at the same time. While below the library, it knew about the prophet of regret, and consumed him before the area was glassed to gain knowledge about the covenant and the great schism. It then sent the Arbiter to stop Delta Halos activation, and sent MC to cause a distraction on high charity. During all of this, it consumed the entire frigate In Amber clad within an hour, and then teleported the entire ship into High Charity. Then it leveraged the chaos of the great Schism and Master Chiefs chase to consume the entire city within a Day. That's not just coordination, the gravemind was using genius tactics with surgical precision, and it essentially hamstrung one of the most powerful alien alliances in the galaxy in a matter of hours.
Also i know your a halo lore RUclipsr and such but is there a way to make a comparison video of the knowledge strength and other capabilities for the Flood, the alien Xenomorphs, the dead space Necromorphs and the Warhammer 40k tyranids like which one of those is the most terrifyingly smart and deadly in their views of annihilation, purpose, desire and conquest over their respective universes? I haven't found anyone whose done that kind of video if you were able I'd love to see it to understand the very magnitude that they impose
Pretty sure I saw Eckharts ladder working with someone else do a Flood Vs Tyranids breakdown. Tyranids ended up coming out on top in an all-out slugging competition because of the seemingly bottomless well of genetic information the Tyranid hive mind can draw from to create resistances to infection forms, the psychic ability of many tyranid forms, and the general over-the-top nature inherent to all factions in 40K.
@@TgamerBio5529 ... Dude I feel like talking to you about this is gonna be like beating my head in a wall l, so at the end of the day it's all you, brother. None of it's real anyways.
To me the most terrifying part of the gravemind is that now matter how many times you kill it it always seems to come back with little to no effort like there was a gravemind on a halo ring and no one knew until it was far too late
I’ve always wanted to make a game where you are a forerunner warrior fighting the flood during that war. Unfortunately I have no knowledge of coding. But damn, I’d love to see this happen. And since there’s so much variety in the flood, it won’t just feel like another constant play through of the mission Cortana
@@hitarthpadaliya2621 to get around the copyright, you could make it as a DLC sized mod which many have already been working on I can draw but I’m with you I don’t know how to do 3D art. But honestly that might not be so hard since we have access to all these alternate and cut flood forms Anyway, I love to hear that others have a similar idea. Hell, I even made entire story drafts for this and the lore reasons as to why foot soldiers are sent in the middle of this when orbital bombardment would be better. I love fighting the flood and all zombies really. I’m never satisfied with the flood levels because I feel like it’s not enough. I crave more Btw one of my ideas was plugging your forerunner ancilla into a console and being able to control an enforcer sentinel. How cool would it be to hover around and bombard with one of those? That’s just one little thing though. There’s so much more that wouldn’t fit into a RUclips comment
@@paytonallen1027 Sounds amazing. I'll do more research on the mods. I am basically a game dev and know Unity and Unreal. So, I think I'll have to learn the Halo engines as well. I think it'll be an exciting journey.
Imagine how cool a gravemind boss fight would be, dodging it’s giant tentacles and it summoning flood hordes would be sick. Is a shame we never got to see the gravemind outside of cutscenes
@@groovecrusader2715 I mean there would obviously be more to it than that it was just a basic idea, i really wanted some form of player interaction with it
They had that planned for halo 2,where you would fight your way to it's lair in a forerunner tank, taking out tentacles along the way. Alas, they couldnt implement it due to halo 2 rushed and troublesome development
Hey hidden xperia. Do you think the precursors seeded other galaxies? Could there be entirely other intelligent beings made by the precursors outside the milky way? Each with their own battles with the precursors
Yk what this makes me think of, would it be possible for the flood to find a way to infect something that is metaphyical or spiritual? Could the flood at a later stage be able to fight and/or infect souls? Or even further, angels and demons? That would require them to encounter said entities and I'm not sure if they really exist in Halo's universe, but it's a terrifying yet cool idea to think about.
Yes, very likely, that's in the lore i believe, the flood is capable of warping the concepts of the universe itself, very likely tying to the darkness in the Destiny franchise, which is something that interacts with souls all the time
I've always wondered how the Gravemind had enough biomass on Delta Halo to come to existence. I mean it was even locked inside the Quarantine Zone so how the hell did the flood gather enough biomass there?
Apparently the Halos have wild-life on it. So its possible they were just consuming wildlife for thousands of years. (The actually escaped containment like 10,000 years before the events of Halo 2 its just with no viable combat forms nothing that could break past the sentinels anyway) they were just stuck in a stalemate until these silly Human and Covenant brought them fresh bodies and weapons.
A planetary sized Gravemind is called a Keymind. A Keymind is the final stage of Flood evolution. Its existence means the planet is fully converted to a Flood entity.
the scariest thing is when the Gravemind stage is realized, its the same mind/consciousness of the Primordial, a literal god like being aka a Precursor
I've seen a terrifying theory about the Gravemind before. It went that due to Halo's religious themes, the flood and Gravemind are essentially... Heaven. Only, of course, the spite of The Primordial twisted it into a hellish state of eternal suffering. The theory supported itself with the Forerunner's attempts to digitise and reconstruct infected people into uninfected bodies but the bodies just turned into flood upon being reunited, the notion that being infected by the flood, with the whole living universe Neural Physics, being infected by the flood essentially infects your very soul and since they all become merged with 'The Timeless Chorus' that is the Gravemind, it's basically the afterlife but it's evil and hates you, yes you specifically. I thought that's a pretty damningly horrifying part of the flood!
The Flood follows a lot of Eldritch Horror tropes and the Neural Physics aspect is essentially the Sublime. If we were to see an entity like that in real life, many might willingly give themselves over to it simply because the allure of the Sublime is overwhelming
Ehm, AKCHUALLY… The forerunner book trilogy implies that the flood is already present in many more galaxies than the milky way. Probably everywhere and that’s the “horrible truth” that the primordial had to share
@@MrRoyVega because the forerunners beat the precursors in a war and they fled turning themselves into powder which became corrupted and they left again after the human flood war as a trick and they possibly could have left after the forerunner flood war again the flood started because of what happened in the milky way
You brought me back to my first ever encounter of the Flood in the first game. You somehow managed to catch that feeling of the ever hungry, unknown cosmic entity that’s just now Noticing You. Great video!
The flood and the zombies from Call Of Duty are my 2 favorite parasite like creatures in Sci fi but the flood are way scarier than zombies from Call Of Duty.
My question would be if the flood accomplished it's goal of total unification what would it do? Restart life creating new species etc? Surely the primordial/gravemind wouldn't just exist in a grotesque form ad infinitum I think it would grow tired of solidarity and would want to restart as no artist is ever truly is satisfied with a single work (speaking to the primordials whom created life in the halo universe). Now I wouldn't want to be consumed but I understand the logic of the flood ultimately it's goal is perfect order, but it simply can't exist without chaos. And the gravemind has to know that so what's the real goal, or rather what's the gravemind afraid of?
I do wonder if there is a race the flood fear . A race that is not only immune to the flood but can wipe them out with out firing the Halo array. I have not heard of anything like that but truthfully as massive as this universe is, I can honestly say it is not too far fetched of an idea.😎
@Your-Least-Favorite-Stranger Technically no its just Hunters are a combination of many worms (Hunters are a bunch of Lekgello worms that shape themselves into that) the Flood therefore can't make Hunter Combat forms but in theory they could infect each individual worm but that just isn't worth the trouble
I think I know how to beat the gravemind permanently, it would be super complicated but could technically work. So we know the gravemind wants the domain. But what if we just give it the domain and trap it there? Wipe out every bit of the flood in the universe away wile the gravemind enters the domain then trap it there, so the gravemind is still woven into existence but can’t access our plane of existence. Obviously that would also mean the all access into the domain would have to be destroyed. But that could work right?
I have another idea like this. If you haven't read the forerunner trilogy by Greg Bear, starting with Cryptum, and then the subsequent Renegades trilogy by Kelly Gay, starting with Smoke and Shadow, this idea will have spoilers.
Some cool video ideas could be something like “In Defense for the Flood: What if the Gravemind is in the right? Was the Gravemind’s rampage across the galaxy retribution for what the Forerunners did to the Precursors? Should we empathize with the parasite?” I would love to see a deep dive into the philosophy of the Flood.
To a degree the Gravemind is right and the forerunners are at fault for most things that happened in the halo universe. The forerunners turning against the precursors proved exactly why they weren't chosen to inherit the mantle of responsibility and the Gravemind being the last precursor fueled purely by revenge for what the forerunners had done to his race. Really, the halo universe is an incredible Greek tragedy with the precursors being a cosmic horror that could have been avoided and are a shell of their former selves. This is why I'm hoping the endless are revealed to be precursors as it would open the door for this type of topic to come up in the games or books and how the endless would react to seeing what became of the old precursors.
Personally I suspect the Endless are a last creation(?) of the Precursors, perhaps partly made out of their own dna, or patterns... as either a test, or a loophole, for the Mantle...@@AxisChurchDevotee
@@chrissonofpear1384 The harbringer does things that really sound like the precursors. She drove a marine insane which sounds like the logic plague and her constant teleporting and time travel stuff sounds like neural physics which only the gravemind and precursors had.
@@AxisChurchDevotee No, the Gravemind isn't right. Their motivations can be sympathetic, but they are not right. You can understand something without thinking it's correct in its actions.
My theory for why some species (such as the sharkoi) are resistant to the flood is that they came about independent from the precursors so the flood would have no knowledge of their physiology which I theorise to be the reason why they can infect most life instantly
If this is true, wouldn't it mean if the flood were thrown in another universe like say the mass effect universe the humans there would be as resilient to infection?
@@AxisChurchDevoteeFlood infect hosts through their nervous system last I knew; it's why Sgt. Johnson couldnt be infected (his nervous system was out of whack due to past exposure to covenant tech. Specifically, he captured and used so many sticky grenades that the radiation caused lasting damage to his body. When flood tried to infect him they broke off some dna, which his body repurposed to promote his healing ability, but he was left completely safe). The Sharkoi not being able to be infected means they're like Sgt. Johnson in some way (out of whack) or like Hunters: they lack a central nervous system and are incompatible with infection.
The Gravemind is the greatest threat to the Halo universe. It's influence is so great its directly responsible for the conflicts in Halo 4 and 5, demonstrating that even when the Flood don't physically appear, they are still responsible for every conflict thus far in the franchise. The Ur-Didact's attack in Halo 4 was the result of the Gravemind corrupting his mind and purposely letting him go so that he would sow pain and misery. He also corrupted Cortana between Halo 2 and 3, and her entire attempted conquest of the galaxy in Halo 5 was the result of that corruption. The Flood need to return. They are THE enemy of the Halo franchise.
The Flood has the ability to assess the genetic code of any given species and use that information to create the perfect predator for them, even psychologically, using motifs of fear hidden deep in our psyche, leftovers of the evolutionary process, genetic memory, genetic fear.
If you found a way to destroy the Primordial's consciousness, would that render the Gravemind a brainless mass of flesh and forever trap the Flood in the Feral Stage?
Most likely since the primordial is the mind controlling the flood and deleting what is essentially a magic version of cloud storage would do the job tho it's likely impossible given it would mean someone would have to master neural physics which even the forerunners couldn't do.
It was close though. In Halo 3 as you're making your way to her she begins falling to the Logic Plague. Had Chief been even a few minutes later than he was, Cortana would have been done for and Halo would've ended in a very different way
So does the flood remember that it was once the primordial and also if just 1 spore or flood form of any kind was all that was left does that mean all the memories knowledge and all from everything that was consumed still valid stored inside it's DNA or brain of sorts if the flood is and once was the primordial as we know it??
Best guess: the spore contains DNA markers from all assimilated biomass and each of these ancient markers, in some capacity, passed on to younger races. The spore is dormant until infection, at which point it clicks a certain marker and wakes up a bit. Ancient knowledge might be stored in a measure or medium smaller or less well understood than atoms in Flood biology. As they consume, more markers light up and they remember more of their history; depending on lineage, one host might yield 15 ancient extinct DNA markers (humans being forerunners/reclaimers for example).
It's not DNA, it's that the whole universe bends under the flood. The power of the flood is similar to the darkness in the Destiny franchise, it can collect the memories from the universe itself, speak to itself from the past or the future, basically bending logic itself. It knows who it is because it is quite literally the same entity across time, a force of nature, a logic, an ontological concept with free will.
@@WaveOfDestinyIf that's the case then there's really no point in fighting it. Omnipotence isn't a fun plot device to fight because it negates user input. (Im not sure when this concept came into play but then I haven't touched Halos 4, 5, etc. Same goes for Destiny - never touched it).
This right here? This is why I will maintain that in almost any other universe outside of Halo, the flood would body nearly every sci-fi faction ever written. Warhammer, Star Wars, B5, even with their most powerful entities and super weapons would all be flood food against a full grave mind. I think that the rollicking roller coaster of playing as master chief makes us all forget how close humanity came to extinction in Halo 3. Were it so easy.
@obwolf The Nids, Nurgle, and Necrons would probably be very apprised to the fload and exterminate it at all costs. Thr flood would have alot of enemy's actually as they would disrupted the natraul order or come to rival other consuming factions.
@@bullbuster944Definitely not something that I had thought of! You’ve made me remember how easy it is to forget too that Warhammer is practically FULL of gravemind level threats, whereas the flood have practically free reign and no competition in that regard in their home universe. On a side note, I would still love to see a tyranid vs flood smack down. I’ve always wondered whether or not each other could more or less “out-assimilate” each other. 🤔
@noahhiner5888 Flood wants all existences to perish where's everything else relies on existence to continue. The Floods goal is to end all life that every other faction needs for food or to be impowerd like chsos. The flood is comple twist of nature that even chaos would vomit at.
Come to think about it? Is a gravemind a somewhat like a worm? also if there's no or barely anything with a sentient mind, and the rest are just plants. does that mean that when or if that scenario ever happens, does that make the gravemind somewhat vegan? Also if you can cover if Tartarus is a genetic rarity of Jiralhanae because I think he's albino? Also what is the canon design of Halo 2's brutes now?! SO MANY QUESTIONS UNANSWERED!!!! You got to man. Also Merry Christmas or whatever.
Ok, now you HAVE to do a flood/gravemind vs Tyrannids from Warhammer. They’re scary similar and I honestly think it’s the only thing Warhammer armies might have trouble with, minus Necrons for the same reason Tyrannids don’t mess with Necrons. No biomass, and their weapons disintegrate all biomass they contact
Another way to look at it is that a Gravemind is a fallen angel. In the fiction, it is depicted as having the knowledge and power of extra-dimensional realms combined with the knowledge and power of our physical realm, but rather than using extra-dimensional properties to create its kingdom it steals biomass from lifeforms and makes a giant landscape of play dough. In reality, fallen angels have the knowledge and power of our physical realm and the knowledge of extra-dimensional realms but they lack the power thereof, and lacking that power will allow God to quarantine them in the Lake of Fire.
Imagine being up against one of the creators of all life in this galaxy, backed up by houndrets of billions of years of fighting experience, intricate understanding of all kinds of technology up to a point where even the creators of that technology can't keep up, uploaded into an amalgam of millions of brains and, just for good measure, packed into the body of a kaiju, which consists of powered-up stem cells, that can replace any lost biomass, or reform into any shape, at will. I think that sums it up. Oh, don't forget that it has like ... trillions of bodies, in all kind of shapes, all controlled by it in the same time.
the gravemind and flood is sort of like the Borg in star trek. The scary thing about these entities is the ability to potentially assimilate a sentient individuals waking consciousness into the hive mind. It seem with the borg this can undone to an extent. It appears that with the flood; if your walking consciousness were assimilated, it would be irreversible. You would be permanently aware and one with hive mind in a way that is profoundly horrifying. Remnants of your consciousness could theoretically exist for inconceivable numbers of years. The forcible perpetuation of someone else’s consciousness against their consent in any way is one of the single most terrifying concepts in fiction. I pray this fiction never becomes reality. See : black mirror. Thanks for de video fren
So here's just a minor lore idea, WHAT IF there were such a thing as Flood-inspired Super Soldiers/Spartans created by Oni? What I mean by this is something akin to Sergeant Johnson's flood immunity, but utilizing some tampered or reverse-engineered flood DNA in a way to regenerate or heal lost body tissue or organs. I imagine that'd be extremely foolhardy and risky, but the idea of it does seem interesting, think something like Resident Evil's Nemesis as an example or even Mr X.
I like the idea, but also, Sgt. Johnson doesn't have an "flood immunity" it's just harder to infect the nerves of a Spartan and we all know Sgt. Johnson was basically a Spartan-1. Edit: I also remembered that the flood infection resilience doesn't mean Spartans are safe, as we know from the most recent flood lore of a spartan team infection.
So this is a cool video and all, but repeating the Flood Lore over and over and over again and again does not seem like good content anymore. And since 343 and Microsoft seem to have abandoned Halo, i don't see how this can go further on. Sorry that i lost hope in Halo, but it is what it is.
Imagine believing in God only to discover the closet being to God is... *this* There are no other beings in the universe beyond them. They are beings perhaps one with the Cosmos itself. What hope do we truly have to destroy them any other way?
The gravemind is trying to rebuild it's self after all life in the universe is taken from the flood he's going to destroy all mass and planets pretty much everything to get it body back to the primordial state. But that's my theory how it might go too.
The most terrifying thing for me has to be how the Gravemind comes into being in the first place! The amount of biomass needed to make one of those things, let alone something THAT big...
1:29 @HiddenXperia think you could do the conversions to SI in the future perhaps ? I like just being meditative and droning when listening to your lore videos, which I love, and the sudden necessity to compute a little bith of math kinda draws me out of the flow. I hope that's not too much to ask Cheers for the content, awesome storytelling
The blight stalker is a really cool idea. The only problem I have with it it's two symmetrical. I'm used to the flood being unsymmetrical abominations of flesh and bone
The idea of the Flood being transgalactic in the Forerunner-Flood war: I find that possible. The way that the Gravemind called suffering sweetness, it all just seemed like the universe itself was alive and it was malevolent. What if, hypothetically, there are no galaxies in the Halo universe with life? The Milky Way is the last one with life, and the only one to have survived The Flood? It's an interesting idea and I would love to see a game or story series where we go beyond the Milky Way and start to find that everything is gone and just The Milky Way is left
I don’t remember what you called them, but I love that those planet sized graveminds look like High Charity. Almost as if High Charity was doomed to be overrun with flood at some point
I think it would be cool if you did a video on why the Gravemind didn't kill Chief and Arbiter in Halo 3 after the Ark was deactivated. I find it kind of weird that such a powerful being didn't kill likely the two most dangerous enemies of the flood when he had the chance. Now, it's obviously poetic license but I was wondering if there is any lore regarding that.
The ark was still in existence at that point, maybe it realized only those two could actually destroy the ark. Of course, it doesn't want them to know that so it fought them.
Loved the section on the Logic Plague! Something that most people neglect to think of when discussing the logic plague: AIs control a LOT of systems in the UNSC, so.. imagine the gravemind pulling a system shock across an entire fleet. That’s not even counting AIs in use for public infrastructure on habitable locations, too. Freaky shit.. 😬
Ya can't beat festive Flood lore... Hope you guys enjoy, and don't forget to sUbScRiBe FoR mOrE!
You did get a bit wrong though specifically about the Primordials. Specifically for the reason that the Gravemind is the corrupted version of them, as against what you said their consciousness wasn’t woven into the fabric of existence. The Primordials literally just went insane from the betrayal, a couple of them turned themselves into dust to be revived in the future to get revenge. Sadly time corrupts and the dust got moldy and stuff.
So the results of that happening is how the Flood came into existence. Nothing to do with “the Primordials and their consciousness being woven into the fabric of reality”. (All this was specifically mentioned in the forerunner trilogy books and the terminals or whatever)
So for lack of a better word the Flood is moldy precursors lmao. And well when you take all you know about mold…. Well actually it’s pretty terrifying.
I'd like to see the flood fight the necromorphes from dead space. I wonder witch one is worse
Imagine... Santa Gravemind! With a giftbox full of infection spores and forms for the whole family. Let us enjoy our holidays now as one!
"I will ask, and you will answer"
And so you did, yay
I'll say it once I'll say it again Klyntar Vs The Flood
Flood firefight on MCC demonstrates the floods power perfectly. On heroic or legendary, every corpse must be destroyed to prevent a future enemy, every vehicle not being used can become a problem in the future. Even dying you are not safe, respawning only makes you have to encounter your infected corpse
In addition to that, at least for me, the flood becomes more and more resistant to projectile weapons as you progress through the waves. Sometimes, I had to use 30 seconds of concentrated machine gun fire to take out a single combat form.
What is the most terrifying thing about the Gravemind? Yes.
@@gundam2jimmyexactly
Did you aim at the rooted infection form? Usually that does the trick.
Instantly clicked
Same I didn't even read the title
Saw gravemind and clicked RUclips thank you
Same
Same
I didn't even hesitate!
We need you to squeeze every flood lore out of your brain in more videos! This is peak entertainment.
that's the plan!
Now I'm thinking of how Flood juice would taste... how Flood biomass (cooked and uncooked) would taste... mmmmm...
@@CommissarChaotic Probably like raw animal fat put into a blender
Also, I'd be especially honored if you managed to read my novel, someday...
On ten.noitcifnaf (spell backward) known as 'Begging after Knowledge'.
Which stars many familiar, Halo faces... (and AI)
(author CaptChris42)@@HiddenXperia
@air_water well if it's a mix of all biomass consumed then it's predominantly gonna be plant based so it's gonna be more plant like than flesh like but it will be good mix of both
The fact that they've been starved from the firing of the rings and survived all the way to CE by themselves is a testament to their resiliency
Halo warfleet has indicated that there are still really dangerous forerunner sites.. possibly flood?
@@morgannull4685 not exactly, they were used and discovered as powder in this galaxy, by ancient humans.
The reason some lived past the halo array firing is because they were also kept on rings for research
@@morgannull4685 No, the primordials came from an outside galaxy and seeded life in this galaxy. then originally chose the forerunner as inheriters of the mantle of responsibility. later they revoced this, and decided human were a better fit. the forerunners seen this as disrespect and betrayal and started a war against the primordials, pushing the primordials far enough that they decided to turn themselves into microscopic dust, to later be reformed. however the dust got curropted and changed into the flood over billions of years, and resurfaced.
@@morgannull4685with that being said. I wonder how many other galaxies it has conquered… Or, though highly unlikely, the Milky Way is the last galaxy 🫢
@@asianmanfromasia the Milky Way probably isn't the last galaxy but rather ONE of the last galaxies that is to be tested whether or not they would get the right to bear the Mantle of Responsibility or be consumed
To me, it seems like the most terrifying thing about The Flood or Gravemind is that it seems that it can truly never die. A infection and spread and can be stopped or slowed but there is always at least one spore or entity with Flood dna that can just start up another infection like it’s nothing.
Even if possible, it's highly likely that this would be technosorcery or truly advanced tech. Considering what Gravemind is, it would likely counter them.
Don’t forget it can literally talk!
*One single flood spore can destroy a species.* -Rtas 'Vadum
The most terrifying thing about the flood to me is something I think you alluded to in your video about the Primordial. This is the theory that the flood is not actually a distinct phenomenon from the precursors themselves, but it's just the other side of it. What if the precursors are meant to create life in the universe to collect memories and experiences and then devour it with the flood in an endless cycle, like sowing and harvesting? It would imply that the universe has probably been completely devoured by the flood multiple times, but then the flood always turns worlds barren again, reverts to becoming benevolent, life-sowing precursors, and then starts over. It would also mean that the flood's victory over the universe is inevitable, even if very slow.
That not what terrifies me, it is the ability of accessing all the previous all hiveminds which makes it over power.
That would truly bring new meaning to what the Primordial refers to as "sweetness", by which I think it meant the sum total of experiences of conscious beings including all the negative ones. In this case those experiences would be literal sweetness in the sense that they are being devoured and taste good.
Also, the Primordial at one point refers to the Precursors having been around for over 100 billion years or something (been years since I've read the books so can't remember the exact quote), which would seem to imply that they predate even this universe itself and may not be merely harvesting this universe, but may have seeded both this universe and many others before it for the purpose of harvesting.
I like that it would explain why the gravemind said the halo rings are they're salvation. It makes galaxy wide genocide easier.
What you said.
I don’t know if maybe I misunderstood something, but i thought it was pretty clear that the flood is basically god.
The primordial is an amalgam of different species… just like a protogravemind. What if the precursors are what protograveminds evolve into after millions of years?
Then they just went back to their spores form to snap back at the forerunners.
The librarian discovered other galaxies or universes iirc that were already basically one with the flood but it was not aggresive or deathly over there, just everywhere as dust.
The flood and the precursors were always one and the same. Our literal creators and the poison of existance.
I think that’s the eldritch truth halo was always about. And then 343 dropped the ball *sigh*
I LOVE the idea that the Halo rings are more of a shield than a weapon, they're not only keeping there to stop the flood within our Galaxy, but they're actually the thing keeping the flood from invading from other infected Galaxies. Heck the Milky Way could be one of the only uninfected galaxies out there left and it could be due to the Halo rings
And here we are destroying them Willie nilly not only that but the one Anders made on the ark has its firing mechanism shut off. Meaning it’d be cool if the flood could detect that from outside the galaxy
I want to bet that, despite all of a graveminds abilities, it's going to be stumped forever by how it was defeated by a overgrown gecko and a man that has an ai that calls him stud muffin. Whenever a gravemind pops up, it's gonna try and figure that out, making little hypotheses, theories, and whatever else to explain what happened before it ever realizes that it's because the chief has all the luck in the world. Like how neural physics is beyond mortal comprehension, I feel like the gravemind, along with the primordial and the precursors, would struggle to comprehend the concept of luck.
Possibility 1 is that it will figure it out like Durandal did in the Marathon universe. It took billions of years and incredible power for it to figure out why the protagonist could win, it was because he was Destiny, and Chief is Destiny too, which is us.
Possibility 2, which i think is more likely, is that the gravemind, once advanced enough, knows already who he is, because it might be one of the 3 entities that survive between universes. The fact that the gravemind says "i am peace, i am salvation" and the Darkness in Destiny 2 says "don't you recognize us?... We are salvation", i think it might hint that it knows who we are through the screen.
Considering the Gravemind is a ginormous supercomputer with the ability to infect anything. Yeah, it's very terrifying.
What's not terrifying, but very welcome, are these Flood lore videos. Keep them up man!
The Flood is beyond overpowering and terrifying, the fact too that enough of the flood can distort time and space should be enough to make anyone scared
IT can ...Do that??
@@Tamara-tg3ho in the Greg Bear novel Halo SILENTIUM when the flood had consumed most of the galaxy before the firing of the Halos, Forerunners were detecting weird anomalies that affected time and space near heavily concentrated flood centres. So yes… they can do that if the Flood grows large enough
@@Tamara-tg3homuch like how large Celestial objects can distort time and space, some of the flood concentration centers got so vast during the hight of their power that they were exhibiting similar traits. Knowing how intelligent the flood is, it's likely that the flood knew how to manipulate this to it's advantage, either slowing or accelerating the creation of new forms and disrupting solar systems
the scariest thing about the grave mind is that, it seems to be smart enough to be able to convince someone reading about it in another reality to retcon it's lore to hide the keyminds to make the infection less horrifying.
The gravemind intelligence is comparable to Cortana AI, even the Forerunner AI. Their knowledge is the depth of eons and their foresight is almost godlike. Humans, even AIs think on the scale of years, the gravemind can think on the scale of centuries.
You know is I always wondered what the gravemind was pumping into Keys’s head. Is it just flood supercells or is it something he needs to do to keep keys alive, like nutrients, water, and oxygen?
Best guess: his body was flooded (no pun intended) with spores which actively infected him.
He was allowed to retain bits of his physical form while he complied; the infection was selectively slowed, but inevitable. The end result was always going to be total consumption but so long as he did as he was told/told what the gravemind wanted, he was allowed to die a slower, less total death.
With G fuel.
He was being pumped full of Pepsi Maxx
@@Your-Least-Favorite-Stranger I don't remember the specifics, but in the books it was actually the opposite. Do you think Keys wanted to stay alive for longer in that horrible, painful way? No, the flood were killing him slowly so they could get the information out of his brain. It was pure hell for him, he wanted to die every second of his existence in that state.
@@Your-Least-Favorite-StrangerIn the book, Keyes doesn't comply at any point. Similar to Cortana, the Gravemind is basically ripping into and apart all of Keyes' memories, digging for secrets and usable information, while Keyes is desperately trying to keep that information secluded, and trying to keep his identity/sanity intact.
Cortana is dealing with something similar. I suspect this is why she is repeating her designation details in Halo 3. Keyes talks about trying to just hold onto his own name in the book; Cortana has lots more info to feed the Gravemind and keep it off her back longer, but by the end even she was struggling to remember who she was.
Neural physics does make sense. Printers are proof that supposedly inanimate objects are alive. No inanimate object could be so malevolently evil.
HOW TF DOES BEING LOW IN PINK INK EFFECT PRINTING IN BLACK AND WHIIITTTTEEEEE
No other inanimate object can smell your fear and desperation when you need it to work and suddenly stop working then and there.
And just like the Gravemind, they have been sowing fear and loathing for time immemorial, or at least since 1994. Seriously, no one could have fix them in the last 30 years.
The thing with the logic plague has sparked a horrifying idea in my mind. What if the Gravemind turned Cortana into a sort of sleeper agent while she was imprisoned? She could have possibly done something on Zeta Halo to further the plans of the Flood.
A long-running theory that I 100% believe, at the very least, to have been true at one point in time is that Cortana was infected with the Logic Plague after entering the Domain, as it is Precursor in Origin, therefore the Flood likely have access to it. Her actions in Halo 5 make no sense otherwise, and this would have been a very intelligent plan on the Flood’s part. Use the Guardians to EMP everything, leaving the Galaxy completely defenseless and extremely vulnerable to a Flood invasion.
Possible. Current lore points to a repetition of history.
Cortana is the new Mendicant Bias.
Her sister-duplicate is the new Offensive Bias.
I'm still joping her name is either Joyeuese or Durindana.
this was actually the leading theory on halo 6 basically up until Infinite came out. 343 ruined another good idea though.
It's the most reasonable explanation and the explanation that I believe. Cortana must have the logic plague. She was imprisoned on High Charity for a month, more than enough time to be broken.
I also suspect that Cortana isn't dead. Atriox was supposed to be dead, and he isn't. Johnson should've died twice in CE. Stacker and Chips also should be dead as well. Cortana herself should've died at the end of H4 but she miraculously survived. Until we see a body...
Its also too good of a story line to let it slip by.
@@AnonTDegenerate It wasn`t ruined, it just hasn`t been developed in Infinite as much as some people hoped it would be, the game had a diferent focus. But if anything, it hasn`t debunked the logic plague theory and actualy gave some aditional hints to it. The Endless are strongly implied to have a conection to the Flood/Precusors and are immune to the effect of halo, literaly the only known weapon that can stop an outbreak once it developed far enough, and "Saturn devouring his son" novel reveals that an outbreak IS ongoing somewhere in the distant corners of the galaxy, with Flood likely acumulating the biomass without making it`s presence known to the main powers of the galaxy who have the ability to theoreticaly stop it at an early stage, just like it did before atacking Foreruners. Cortana`s actions weakened the galactic powers sugnificantly, and she also wanted to release the Endless, who were instead released by Atriox in an epilog. Should the Flood just attack and merge with them, making haloes inefective, they will be almost unstopable.
The Flood and the Necromorphs are my favorite sci-fi horror themes, shame both of them are somewhat dormant these days.
They are like tyranids
@@shanegrimes3455Nah. Tyranids, in my opinion, are better (and I dislike them as an enemy). The Tyranids at the very least only have numbers and physical force at their command. The Hivemind isn't some galactic brain cosmic entity crammed into a shell; As far as we know, it is just the collective gestalt consciousness of the Tyranids themselves. The Tyranids can, and have been beaten back in physical conflicts (it's just difficult) and their horror comes from the fact that they just keep coming.
The Gravemind is something that by all accounts should never lose. It's an enemy that is far smarter than any of writers that created it; but it can't actually be as powerful as it is supposed to be, because it's written by normal people.
It's basically a badly written SCP that had the benefit of being part of one of the best designed FPS franchises and so it's held up on a pedestal.
The gravemind in Halo 2 essentially orchestrated the latter half of the game so it could prevent its own destruction and consume high charity at the same time.
While below the library, it knew about the prophet of regret, and consumed him before the area was glassed to gain knowledge about the covenant and the great schism. It then sent the Arbiter to stop Delta Halos activation, and sent MC to cause a distraction on high charity. During all of this, it consumed the entire frigate In Amber clad within an hour, and then teleported the entire ship into High Charity. Then it leveraged the chaos of the great Schism and Master Chiefs chase to consume the entire city within a Day.
That's not just coordination, the gravemind was using genius tactics with surgical precision, and it essentially hamstrung one of the most powerful alien alliances in the galaxy in a matter of hours.
Also i know your a halo lore RUclipsr and such but is there a way to make a comparison video of the knowledge strength and other capabilities for the Flood, the alien Xenomorphs, the dead space Necromorphs and the Warhammer 40k tyranids like which one of those is the most terrifyingly smart and deadly in their views of annihilation, purpose, desire and conquest over their respective universes? I haven't found anyone whose done that kind of video if you were able I'd love to see it to understand the very magnitude that they impose
Ask eckharts ladder
Pretty sure I saw Eckharts ladder working with someone else do a Flood Vs Tyranids breakdown. Tyranids ended up coming out on top in an all-out slugging competition because of the seemingly bottomless well of genetic information the Tyranid hive mind can draw from to create resistances to infection forms, the psychic ability of many tyranid forms, and the general over-the-top nature inherent to all factions in 40K.
@@kadewiedeman3127 Trynids will still be eaten and are not immuned while the flood can just make more effective combat units.
@@TgamerBio5529 ... Dude I feel like talking to you about this is gonna be like beating my head in a wall l, so at the end of the day it's all you, brother. None of it's real anyways.
Leave warhammer out of it.. doesnt even deserve to be in the same breath as the others.
Flood horror game needs to happen, I’m imagining like sneaking through blight lands or something crazy like that would be so fun
I've seen mods for combat evolved that somewhat resemble that
That's called Halo Combat Evolved
To me the most terrifying part of the gravemind is that now matter how many times you kill it it always seems to come back with little to no effort like there was a gravemind on a halo ring and no one knew until it was far too late
I’ve always wanted to make a game where you are a forerunner warrior fighting the flood during that war. Unfortunately I have no knowledge of coding. But damn, I’d love to see this happen. And since there’s so much variety in the flood, it won’t just feel like another constant play through of the mission Cortana
Would've been cool if there was a studio set up that could've made games like this.... 😂
I am a programmer and I had this idea for quite a while now. The only thing stopping me are the 3d models (i'm no artist) and rights to the franchise.
@@hitarthpadaliya2621 to get around the copyright, you could make it as a DLC sized mod which many have already been working on
I can draw but I’m with you I don’t know how to do 3D art. But honestly that might not be so hard since we have access to all these alternate and cut flood forms
Anyway, I love to hear that others have a similar idea. Hell, I even made entire story drafts for this and the lore reasons as to why foot soldiers are sent in the middle of this when orbital bombardment would be better. I love fighting the flood and all zombies really. I’m never satisfied with the flood levels because I feel like it’s not enough. I crave more
Btw one of my ideas was plugging your forerunner ancilla into a console and being able to control an enforcer sentinel. How cool would it be to hover around and bombard with one of those? That’s just one little thing though. There’s so much more that wouldn’t fit into a RUclips comment
@@paytonallen1027 Sounds amazing. I'll do more research on the mods. I am basically a game dev and know Unity and Unreal. So, I think I'll have to learn the Halo engines as well. I think it'll be an exciting journey.
@@hitarthpadaliya2621 hope you strive for success with great games. And hope to share more ideas sometime too
We need to see the flood return again in a new halo campaign or DLC
Imagine how cool a gravemind boss fight would be, dodging it’s giant tentacles and it summoning flood hordes would be sick. Is a shame we never got to see the gravemind outside of cutscenes
Isn’t the gravemind like the smartest being alive, dodging some tentacles sounds too easy lol
@@groovecrusader2715 I mean there would obviously be more to it than that it was just a basic idea, i really wanted some form of player interaction with it
Iirc there was supposed to be a fight against him in Halo 3 where you'd break through high charity with a scarab.
They had that planned for halo 2,where you would fight your way to it's lair in a forerunner tank, taking out tentacles along the way.
Alas, they couldnt implement it due to halo 2 rushed and troublesome development
sounds like that original re4 boss fight with the short noble guy
Hey hidden xperia. Do you think the precursors seeded other galaxies? Could there be entirely other intelligent beings made by the precursors outside the milky way? Each with their own battles with the precursors
Yk what this makes me think of, would it be possible for the flood to find a way to infect something that is metaphyical or spiritual? Could the flood at a later stage be able to fight and/or infect souls? Or even further, angels and demons?
That would require them to encounter said entities and I'm not sure if they really exist in Halo's universe, but it's a terrifying yet cool idea to think about.
Yes, very likely, that's in the lore i believe, the flood is capable of warping the concepts of the universe itself, very likely tying to the darkness in the Destiny franchise, which is something that interacts with souls all the time
It did get transferred with the sould of a human when the forerunner tried that.
Yet we never get to fight a grave mind. Which would of been awesome
Babe wake up, HiddenXperia flood video just dropped
I've always wondered how the Gravemind had enough biomass on Delta Halo to come to existence. I mean it was even locked inside the Quarantine Zone so how the hell did the flood gather enough biomass there?
Apparently the Halos have wild-life on it. So its possible they were just consuming wildlife for thousands of years. (The actually escaped containment like 10,000 years before the events of Halo 2 its just with no viable combat forms nothing that could break past the sentinels anyway) they were just stuck in a stalemate until these silly Human and Covenant brought them fresh bodies and weapons.
Long story short: God is a zombie and he's into vore.
Luc what type of campaign do you most want to see next?
literally anything at this point bro i am STARVING
A planetary sized Gravemind is called a Keymind.
A Keymind is the final stage of Flood evolution. Its existence means the planet is fully converted to a Flood entity.
the scariest thing is when the Gravemind stage is realized, its the same mind/consciousness of the Primordial, a literal god like being aka a Precursor
Maybe that is what they actually are, the Precursors.
Gravemind = best strategist
I've seen a terrifying theory about the Gravemind before. It went that due to Halo's religious themes, the flood and Gravemind are essentially... Heaven. Only, of course, the spite of The Primordial twisted it into a hellish state of eternal suffering.
The theory supported itself with the Forerunner's attempts to digitise and reconstruct infected people into uninfected bodies but the bodies just turned into flood upon being reunited, the notion that being infected by the flood, with the whole living universe Neural Physics, being infected by the flood essentially infects your very soul and since they all become merged with 'The Timeless Chorus' that is the Gravemind, it's basically the afterlife but it's evil and hates you, yes you specifically.
I thought that's a pretty damningly horrifying part of the flood!
The Flood follows a lot of Eldritch Horror tropes and the Neural Physics aspect is essentially the Sublime. If we were to see an entity like that in real life, many might willingly give themselves over to it simply because the allure of the Sublime is overwhelming
I think the scariest thing is that if it wasn't for the hubris of the forerunners, the flood would never have existed in the first place.
Or wouldn't be as malevolent.
Ehm, AKCHUALLY…
The forerunner book trilogy implies that the flood is already present in many more galaxies than the milky way.
Probably everywhere and that’s the “horrible truth” that the primordial had to share
@@MrRoyVega because the forerunners beat the precursors in a war and they fled turning themselves into powder which became corrupted and they left again after the human flood war as a trick and they possibly could have left after the forerunner flood war again the flood started because of what happened in the milky way
You brought me back to my first ever encounter of the Flood in the first game. You somehow managed to catch that feeling of the ever hungry, unknown cosmic entity that’s just now Noticing You. Great video!
The flood and the zombies from Call Of Duty are my 2 favorite parasite like creatures in Sci fi but the flood are way scarier than zombies from Call Of Duty.
My question would be if the flood accomplished it's goal of total unification what would it do? Restart life creating new species etc? Surely the primordial/gravemind wouldn't just exist in a grotesque form ad infinitum I think it would grow tired of solidarity and would want to restart as no artist is ever truly is satisfied with a single work (speaking to the primordials whom created life in the halo universe). Now I wouldn't want to be consumed but I understand the logic of the flood ultimately it's goal is perfect order, but it simply can't exist without chaos. And the gravemind has to know that so what's the real goal, or rather what's the gravemind afraid of?
I do wonder if there is a race the flood fear . A race that is not only immune to the flood but can wipe them out with out firing the Halo array. I have not heard of anything like that but truthfully as massive as this universe is, I can honestly say it is not too far fetched of an idea.😎
Hunters are immune due to lacking a central nervous system.
@Your-Least-Favorite-Stranger Technically no its just Hunters are a combination of many worms (Hunters are a bunch of Lekgello worms that shape themselves into that) the Flood therefore can't make Hunter Combat forms but in theory they could infect each individual worm but that just isn't worth the trouble
I think I know how to beat the gravemind permanently, it would be super complicated but could technically work. So we know the gravemind wants the domain. But what if we just give it the domain and trap it there? Wipe out every bit of the flood in the universe away wile the gravemind enters the domain then trap it there, so the gravemind is still woven into existence but can’t access our plane of existence. Obviously that would also mean the all access into the domain would have to be destroyed. But that could work right?
I have another idea like this. If you haven't read the forerunner trilogy by Greg Bear, starting with Cryptum, and then the subsequent Renegades trilogy by Kelly Gay, starting with Smoke and Shadow, this idea will have spoilers.
I’m a simple man. I see HX posting a Halo Flood video, and I click.
Some cool video ideas could be something like “In Defense for the Flood: What if the Gravemind is in the right? Was the Gravemind’s rampage across the galaxy retribution for what the Forerunners did to the Precursors? Should we empathize with the parasite?”
I would love to see a deep dive into the philosophy of the Flood.
To a degree the Gravemind is right and the forerunners are at fault for most things that happened in the halo universe. The forerunners turning against the precursors proved exactly why they weren't chosen to inherit the mantle of responsibility and the Gravemind being the last precursor fueled purely by revenge for what the forerunners had done to his race. Really, the halo universe is an incredible Greek tragedy with the precursors being a cosmic horror that could have been avoided and are a shell of their former selves.
This is why I'm hoping the endless are revealed to be precursors as it would open the door for this type of topic to come up in the games or books and how the endless would react to seeing what became of the old precursors.
bro fucking gravemind psyop
Real Installation 04 Patriots know to always trust the didact!
Personally I suspect the Endless are a last creation(?) of the Precursors, perhaps partly made out of their own dna, or patterns... as either a test, or a loophole, for the Mantle...@@AxisChurchDevotee
@@chrissonofpear1384 The harbringer does things that really sound like the precursors. She drove a marine insane which sounds like the logic plague and her constant teleporting and time travel stuff sounds like neural physics which only the gravemind and precursors had.
@@AxisChurchDevotee No, the Gravemind isn't right. Their motivations can be sympathetic, but they are not right.
You can understand something without thinking it's correct in its actions.
My theory for why some species (such as the sharkoi) are resistant to the flood is that they came about independent from the precursors so the flood would have no knowledge of their physiology which I theorise to be the reason why they can infect most life instantly
If this is true, wouldn't it mean if the flood were thrown in another universe like say the mass effect universe the humans there would be as resilient to infection?
@@AxisChurchDevoteeFlood infect hosts through their nervous system last I knew; it's why Sgt. Johnson couldnt be infected (his nervous system was out of whack due to past exposure to covenant tech. Specifically, he captured and used so many sticky grenades that the radiation caused lasting damage to his body. When flood tried to infect him they broke off some dna, which his body repurposed to promote his healing ability, but he was left completely safe).
The Sharkoi not being able to be infected means they're like Sgt. Johnson in some way (out of whack) or like Hunters: they lack a central nervous system and are incompatible with infection.
@@AxisChurchDevoteeMaybe not, since humans from Halo and Mass Effect have the same biology, but other species on the other hand.
As soon as one is infected, they'd know everything they need to efficiently infect it further.
We need more flood lore! Oh and a zombie apocalypse game based on the flood
"and that make's absolutely no sense"
people that knows hermetism and the principle of mentalism knowing that make a lot of sense
The Gravemind is the greatest threat to the Halo universe. It's influence is so great its directly responsible for the conflicts in Halo 4 and 5, demonstrating that even when the Flood don't physically appear, they are still responsible for every conflict thus far in the franchise. The Ur-Didact's attack in Halo 4 was the result of the Gravemind corrupting his mind and purposely letting him go so that he would sow pain and misery. He also corrupted Cortana between Halo 2 and 3, and her entire attempted conquest of the galaxy in Halo 5 was the result of that corruption.
The Flood need to return. They are THE enemy of the Halo franchise.
The Flood has the ability to assess the genetic code of any given species and use that information to create the perfect predator for them, even psychologically, using motifs of fear hidden deep in our psyche, leftovers of the evolutionary process, genetic memory, genetic fear.
If you found a way to destroy the Primordial's consciousness, would that render the Gravemind a brainless mass of flesh and forever trap the Flood in the Feral Stage?
Most likely since the primordial is the mind controlling the flood and deleting what is essentially a magic version of cloud storage would do the job tho it's likely impossible given it would mean someone would have to master neural physics which even the forerunners couldn't do.
The next halo game should be involving the flood. They are basically unstoppable and it would be a shame if they never completed the flood story.
Halo is a T-rated franchise now.
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You’re first
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@@HiddenXperia 🗿
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Considering that Cortana didn't get infected by the gravemind means that Cortana must be one hell of a strong ai
I wonder how long it would have taken for Cortana to sucumb to the logic plague? It took 43 years for Mendicant Bias to be infected
It was close though. In Halo 3 as you're making your way to her she begins falling to the Logic Plague. Had Chief been even a few minutes later than he was, Cortana would have been done for and Halo would've ended in a very different way
So does the flood remember that it was once the primordial and also if just 1 spore or flood form of any kind was all that was left does that mean all the memories knowledge and all from everything that was consumed still valid stored inside it's DNA or brain of sorts if the flood is and once was the primordial as we know it??
I hope that question makes some kind of sense
Best guess: the spore contains DNA markers from all assimilated biomass and each of these ancient markers, in some capacity, passed on to younger races. The spore is dormant until infection, at which point it clicks a certain marker and wakes up a bit.
Ancient knowledge might be stored in a measure or medium smaller or less well understood than atoms in Flood biology.
As they consume, more markers light up and they remember more of their history; depending on lineage, one host might yield 15 ancient extinct DNA markers (humans being forerunners/reclaimers for example).
Okay yeah I can see that definitely thank you for that
It's not DNA, it's that the whole universe bends under the flood. The power of the flood is similar to the darkness in the Destiny franchise, it can collect the memories from the universe itself, speak to itself from the past or the future, basically bending logic itself. It knows who it is because it is quite literally the same entity across time, a force of nature, a logic, an ontological concept with free will.
@@WaveOfDestinyIf that's the case then there's really no point in fighting it.
Omnipotence isn't a fun plot device to fight because it negates user input.
(Im not sure when this concept came into play but then I haven't touched Halos 4, 5, etc. Same goes for Destiny - never touched it).
This right here? This is why I will maintain that in almost any other universe outside of Halo, the flood would body nearly every sci-fi faction ever written. Warhammer, Star Wars, B5, even with their most powerful entities and super weapons would all be flood food against a full grave mind. I think that the rollicking roller coaster of playing as master chief makes us all forget how close humanity came to extinction in Halo 3. Were it so easy.
Nah not Warhammer 40k the flood could probably compete in 40k but they wouldn’t dominate. Everything else you said though sure.
@obwolf The Nids, Nurgle, and Necrons would probably be very apprised to the fload and exterminate it at all costs. Thr flood would have alot of enemy's actually as they would disrupted the natraul order or come to rival other consuming factions.
@@bullbuster944Definitely not something that I had thought of! You’ve made me remember how easy it is to forget too that Warhammer is practically FULL of gravemind level threats, whereas the flood have practically free reign and no competition in that regard in their home universe.
On a side note, I would still love to see a tyranid vs flood smack down. I’ve always wondered whether or not each other could more or less “out-assimilate” each other. 🤔
@noahhiner5888 Flood wants all existences to perish where's everything else relies on existence to continue. The Floods goal is to end all life that every other faction needs for food or to be impowerd like chsos. The flood is comple twist of nature that even chaos would vomit at.
The terrifying lore behind the gravemind is that after infecting a host he forces said host to subscribe to HiddenXperia
I'm a simple man.
I see HiddenXperia, I watch HiddenXperia.
If I see HiddenXperia Flood lore video? I watch it even harder!
Come to think about it? Is a gravemind a somewhat like a worm? also if there's no or barely anything with a sentient mind, and the rest are just plants. does that mean that when or if that scenario ever happens, does that make the gravemind somewhat vegan?
Also if you can cover if Tartarus is a genetic rarity of Jiralhanae because I think he's albino?
Also what is the canon design of Halo 2's brutes now?!
SO MANY QUESTIONS UNANSWERED!!!!
You got to man.
Also Merry Christmas or whatever.
WOOO! This is an early floodmas gift
I love the gravemind, spookiest boi in all of gaming
Ok, now you HAVE to do a flood/gravemind vs Tyrannids from Warhammer. They’re scary similar and I honestly think it’s the only thing Warhammer armies might have trouble with, minus Necrons for the same reason Tyrannids don’t mess with Necrons. No biomass, and their weapons disintegrate all biomass they contact
Oh yeah, been waiting for this one! 👏
Another way to look at it is that a Gravemind is a fallen angel. In the fiction, it is depicted as having the knowledge and power of extra-dimensional realms combined with the knowledge and power of our physical realm, but rather than using extra-dimensional properties to create its kingdom it steals biomass from lifeforms and makes a giant landscape of play dough.
In reality, fallen angels have the knowledge and power of our physical realm and the knowledge of extra-dimensional realms but they lack the power thereof, and lacking that power will allow God to quarantine them in the Lake of Fire.
Imagine being up against one of the creators of all life in this galaxy, backed up by houndrets of billions of years of fighting experience, intricate understanding of all kinds of technology up to a point where even the creators of that technology can't keep up, uploaded into an amalgam of millions of brains and, just for good measure, packed into the body of a kaiju, which consists of powered-up stem cells, that can replace any lost biomass, or reform into any shape, at will.
I think that sums it up.
Oh, don't forget that it has like ... trillions of bodies, in all kind of shapes, all controlled by it in the same time.
the gravemind and flood is sort of like the Borg in star trek.
The scary thing about these entities is the ability to potentially assimilate a sentient individuals waking consciousness into the hive mind.
It seem with the borg this can undone to an extent.
It appears that with the flood; if your walking consciousness were assimilated, it would be irreversible. You would be permanently aware and one with hive mind in a way that is profoundly horrifying. Remnants of your consciousness could theoretically exist for inconceivable numbers of years.
The forcible perpetuation of someone else’s consciousness against their consent in any way is one of the single most terrifying concepts in fiction.
I pray this fiction never becomes reality. See : black mirror.
Thanks for de video fren
Nuh uh
-The Grave Mind
So here's just a minor lore idea, WHAT IF there were such a thing as Flood-inspired Super Soldiers/Spartans created by Oni? What I mean by this is something akin to Sergeant Johnson's flood immunity, but utilizing some tampered or reverse-engineered flood DNA in a way to regenerate or heal lost body tissue or organs. I imagine that'd be extremely foolhardy and risky, but the idea of it does seem interesting, think something like Resident Evil's Nemesis as an example or even Mr X.
I like the idea, but also, Sgt. Johnson doesn't have an "flood immunity" it's just harder to infect the nerves of a Spartan and we all know Sgt. Johnson was basically a Spartan-1.
Edit: I also remembered that the flood infection resilience doesn't mean Spartans are safe, as we know from the most recent flood lore of a spartan team infection.
I've always loved the ability/ concept of the Logic Plague that's what has always made me give the gravemind the one up!
I really wished h4 used the logic plague as the reason for cortanas rampancy or at least part of it
I forget that infected High Charity was that close to Earth before the Gravemind redirected it to the Ark... scary
So this is a cool video and all, but repeating the Flood Lore over and over and over again and again does not seem like good content anymore. And since 343 and Microsoft seem to have abandoned Halo, i don't see how this can go further on.
Sorry that i lost hope in Halo, but it is what it is.
"I am a monument to all your sins." Is not the gravemind trying to terrify you, it's telling you the truth about it's existence.
This is some good shit, but im still wishing you'd go back to Tarkov stuff, lore and so on
Imagine believing in God only to discover the closet being to God is... *this*
There are no other beings in the universe beyond them. They are beings perhaps one with the Cosmos itself. What hope do we truly have to destroy them any other way?
Sigh. After Halo 3. I lose all interested in Halo Universe because Flood is not there anymore. Such a boring game after.
The gravemind is trying to rebuild it's self after all life in the universe is taken from the flood he's going to destroy all mass and planets pretty much everything to get it body back to the primordial state. But that's my theory how it might go too.
The Forerunners ARE the Ancient Humanity. Stop with the stupid 343 lore.
Been watching forever give me a heart to show you care 🙏
The most terrifying thing for me has to be how the Gravemind comes into being in the first place! The amount of biomass needed to make one of those things, let alone something THAT big...
What's good everybody?
Don’t know if any halo books or lore covered this, but was there any left over flood on earth after the shipmaster glassed half the continent?
I never skip a video about Old Gravy
Petition to make Master Chief an official unit of measurement
the StarCraft Zergs technically function similarly to the floods
Hey, yo, I love the FLOOD bring him back please man please.
1:29 @HiddenXperia think you could do the conversions to SI in the future perhaps ? I like just being meditative and droning when listening to your lore videos, which I love, and the sudden necessity to compute a little bith of math kinda draws me out of the flow. I hope that's not too much to ask
Cheers for the content, awesome storytelling
The blight stalker is a really cool idea. The only problem I have with it it's two symmetrical. I'm used to the flood being unsymmetrical abominations of flesh and bone
I just like the rhyming kaiju worm
The idea of the Flood being transgalactic in the Forerunner-Flood war: I find that possible. The way that the Gravemind called suffering sweetness, it all just seemed like the universe itself was alive and it was malevolent. What if, hypothetically, there are no galaxies in the Halo universe with life? The Milky Way is the last one with life, and the only one to have survived The Flood? It's an interesting idea and I would love to see a game or story series where we go beyond the Milky Way and start to find that everything is gone and just The Milky Way is left
Does a Gravemind need atmosphere to breathe?
Can it survive in the cold of space?
I don’t remember what you called them, but I love that those planet sized graveminds look like High Charity. Almost as if High Charity was doomed to be overrun with flood at some point
I think it would be cool if you did a video on why the Gravemind didn't kill Chief and Arbiter in Halo 3 after the Ark was deactivated. I find it kind of weird that such a powerful being didn't kill likely the two most dangerous enemies of the flood when he had the chance. Now, it's obviously poetic license but I was wondering if there is any lore regarding that.
It thinks theyre cool
The ark was still in existence at that point, maybe it realized only those two could actually destroy the ark.
Of course, it doesn't want them to know that so it fought them.
its power to teleport would have been interesting to hear about
Gravemind the size of a planet! Time to bring out the Nova bomb.
Y’all think the gravemind would be a toxic gamer?🧐
Yet they couldn't stop the covenant from firing the rings soo they needed chief lol
Your lore videos are my favorite. Ever think of doing more lore for other games?
Loved the section on the Logic Plague! Something that most people neglect to think of when discussing the logic plague: AIs control a LOT of systems in the UNSC, so.. imagine the gravemind pulling a system shock across an entire fleet. That’s not even counting AIs in use for public infrastructure on habitable locations, too. Freaky shit.. 😬
I’m not a big fan of the blight stalker it looks more Zerg then flood like
I ain't been this scared of the flood since the first time I played halo which was when I was 6
They should make odst horror game with the flood