58 replies to this topic

[vtancredi]

And as true as that is, the Gravemind's intelligence doesn't, at all, appear inadequate to do so.

Regardless, if the Flood are intergalactic somewhere in the Halo universe, it's frankly shocking to me that there would be an invasion force so easily wiped out. Any nearby supernova event or a more measured, conservative approach towards analyzing the Flood's homeworld in this galaxy would have resulted in no infestation. If it were as easy as not landing anything FTL capable on the planet, then there would be no Halo Array, no Conservation Measure.

It simply boggles my mind that this can be considered an invasion. They were trapped on that world from what information we have.

Why does it have to be an invasion? The Flood doesn't require tactics. Once they acquire intelligence they might use it, but until then they are a pandemic. Wherever it touches turns to Flood, case closed. So they didn't have an invasion fleet. They didn't need an invasion fleet. All they needed was for one spore, just one, to run into a lifeform anywhere in our galaxy. Once it has that foothold, the Flood will acquire more forms until it gets the compound mind going.
Why do they need FTL? What stops them from shotgunning out spores towards the galaxy? So what if it takes hundreds or thousands of years? They don't care. Throw spore infected meteors at the galaxy. One of them will hit something sooner or later.

If you look at it, it makes a lot more sense for the Flood not to have been on the planet before. Think about it, in our time, the Flood was locked down in the best security the Forerunners could come up with. The second they got out, it was madness. In their time, if they were on a planet previously, in anything LESS than forerunner security, they would never have been dormant in the first place, they would have infected something as soon as life was on the planet. Obviously there wasn't any forerunner security, so they must not have been on the planet or it would have been overrun. The Forerunner scouts would have run into a planet full of Flood, not an anomaly.

[Anpheus]

I'm sorry, this is ridiculous.

There is no hundreds or thousands of years. Millions to billions of years. And if they "shotgunned" spores, you've failed to explain why there's only one world. We know for certain that they are capable of producing trillions, quadrillions of spores, and easily capable of coordinating fleets of hundreds of thousands of ships.

There shouldn't just be one planet, there should be thousands of Flood infested planets.


And I'm sorry, your knowledge of the scope of intergalactic distances is... wow. It's completely absent. Think about it for a second, it takes four years for light to travel from the nearest star to us. It takes two and a half million years for light to travel from the nearest galaxy to us.


And lastly, to put the nail in the coffin that extragalactic involvement is unlikely: the demigod-like Forerunner are so arrogant as to build dyson spheres within slipspace ruptures within artificial planetoids layered in a delicious frosting of laser-wielding flying robots covered by a veneer of sod, and even they couldn't, or chose not to escape to another galaxy.


Anyway, Halo is full of plot holes like that. Such as, "Why are there no Forerunner?" Well, before you say they initiated the firing of the halo array, the Halos themselves contained halo-array-proof containers for studying the Flood. Several outposts existed that could shield their contents from the effects of the Halo array. The Ark itself was out of range of the Halo array, why the heck aren't there any Forerunner? It seems everything they built was out of Halo-Array-Proof-Armor, yet for some reason it wiped all of them out.

Edited by Anpheus, 04 June 2008 - 11:42 PM.

[Cocopjojo]

I'm sorry, this is ridiculous.

There is no hundreds or thousands of years. Millions to billions of years. And if they "shotgunned" spores, you've failed to explain why there's only one world. We know for certain that they are capable of producing trillions, quadrillions of spores, and easily capable of coordinating fleets of hundreds of thousands of ships.

There shouldn't just be one planet, there should be thousands of Flood infested planets.


And I'm sorry, your knowledge of the scope of intergalactic distances is... wow. It's completely absent. Think about it for a second, it takes four years for light to travel from the nearest star to us. It takes two and a half million years for light to travel from the nearest galaxy to us.


And lastly, to put the nail in the coffin that extragalactic involvement is unlikely: the demigod-like Forerunner are so arrogant as to build dyson spheres within slipspace ruptures within artificial planetoids layered in a delicious frosting of laser-wielding flying robots covered by a veneer of sod, and even they couldn't, or chose not to escape to another galaxy.


Anyway, Halo is full of plot holes like that. Such as, "Why are there no Forerunner?" Well, before you say they initiated the firing of the halo array, the Halos themselves contained halo-array-proof containers for studying the Flood. Several outposts existed that could shield their contents from the effects of the Halo array. The Ark itself was out of range of the Halo array, why the heck aren't there any Forerunner? It seems everything they built was out of Halo-Array-Proof-Armor, yet for some reason it wiped all of them out.

You assume so very much in your statements. How much do you know about the Flood's evolutionary path? How do you know that they started out on a single planet? How do you know that they even started on a planet? Or that they escaped that planet by infesting a FTL ship? How do you know that, in regards to the Forerruners, the Halo Array "wiped all of them out?" You're arguing against things that we don't even know.

I also think that it's funny that you're still trying to argue that the Flood might not be extra-galactic when Bungie has said that they are. Like the Flood are real and Bungie has inaccurate information about them or something. lol.

[Anpheus]

Then this is another plot hole Bungie has failed to cover up. Look, the game isn't flawless, I enjoy it very much and the story is certainly interesting, but Bungie has left a lot to be desired.

First: the Forerunner ARE GONE in the Halo universe. Why? They fired the Halos, which wiped out everything but the Flood apparently. Why wouldn't they come back? Why wouldn't they reside in Shield worlds and repopulate? Why were absolutely zero Forerunner on the Ark when they fired the Array? It makes no sense whatsoever.

Second: The Flood cannot be extragalactic without assuming they used technology superior to the Forerunner, which then leads to the conclusion: Ok, so why one world? I mean, really, they came from another galaxy, the closest of which is over two million light years away, and then populate a single world and just wait? And apparently inadvertently destroy their lovely FTL vessel along the way?


This is epic lulz as far as I'm concerned. These plot points are so weak they're made out of wet tissue paper. And not the kind your grandma buys with the lotion and made eighty-three ply from hand-picked cotton, I'm talking crappy, worse-than-walmart-brand kleenex with a thread count that you can see.

This is awful story telling. The Forerunner built these awesome weapons that do everything but kill the Flood, and manage to wipe their own sorry asses out on the way, and then the Flood are supposedly from another galaxy, except we don't need to worry about that because the compound intelligence over there is too stupid to send more than one ship.

[Cocopjojo]

Second: The Flood cannot be extragalactic without assuming they used technology superior to the Forerunner, which then leads to the conclusion: Ok, so why one world? I mean, really, they came from another galaxy, the closest of which is over two million light years away, and then populate a single world and just wait? And apparently inadvertently destroy their lovely FTL vessel along the way?

How do we know that the Forerunners discovered them on one planet?

[Anpheus]

The Terminals, I believe describe that?

[urk]

How do we know that the Forerunners discovered them on one planet?

Bestiarum.

[urk]

Excuse the double post, but I found this interesting as well. Perhaps it doesn't belong here.

The planet where the Forerunner first come into contact with the Flood is labeled G617g. There have been many Biblical cross references made to the numerology contained in the Halo fiction, some with a certain degree of plausibility. I think this may be one of those probables.

Genesis 6 is titled "The Flood." Genesis Chapter 6, Verse 17 is as follows:

I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.

[Anpheus]

Perhaps the Flood isn't extra-galactic, or even evolutionary, but a weapon created by a radical sect of Forerunner or other species?

Maybe the original sentient species on planet G617g created the Flood as a biological weapon to use against their opponents and greatly underestimated their creation?


There's no reason the Flood had to be brought about through evolution.

[urk]

Well, we could maybe this and maybe that all day long. The fiction supplies us with a less than clear origin, but even so, it's the only concrete narrative we have to go on at the moment. Unless we get a more fleshed out examination of the origins, I don't see where this conversation leads us other than towards more rampant speculation. And it doesn't really matter, does it? It may interest us, but it's not crucial for us to know these details in order to understand the fiction we are presented with. I think much of the time we make these little sticking points unnecessarily complex.

[vtancredi]

I'm sorry, this is ridiculous.

There is no hundreds or thousands of years. Millions to billions of years. And if they "shotgunned" spores, you've failed to explain why there's only one world. We know for certain that they are capable of producing trillions, quadrillions of spores, and easily capable of coordinating fleets of hundreds of thousands of ships.

There shouldn't just be one planet, there should be thousands of Flood infested planets.


And I'm sorry, your knowledge of the scope of intergalactic distances is... wow. It's completely absent. Think about it for a second, it takes four years for light to travel from the nearest star to us. It takes two and a half million years for light to travel from the nearest galaxy to us.


And lastly, to put the nail in the coffin that extragalactic involvement is unlikely: the demigod-like Forerunner are so arrogant as to build dyson spheres within slipspace ruptures within artificial planetoids layered in a delicious frosting of laser-wielding flying robots covered by a veneer of sod, and even they couldn't, or chose not to escape to another galaxy.


Anyway, Halo is full of plot holes like that. Such as, "Why are there no Forerunner?" Well, before you say they initiated the firing of the halo array, the Halos themselves contained halo-array-proof containers for studying the Flood. Several outposts existed that could shield their contents from the effects of the Halo array. The Ark itself was out of range of the Halo array, why the heck aren't there any Forerunner? It seems everything they built was out of Halo-Array-Proof-Armor, yet for some reason it wiped all of them out.

You seem to be getting rather abrasive about this, so I'm going to let your statements rest as they are.

[Anpheus]

Because the scale is all wrong. There is no comparison I can give you to make this easy for you to understand.

Your average city block is like 600 feet. If that were the distance between here and Alpha Centauri (a walk down the street) then the distance between here and the closest galaxy is like traveling to the moon. (600 feet * 2.5 million = 450,000 kilometers.)

The average house storey is about 10 feet, if all it took were going up a flight of stairs to go to the nearest star system, then you'd be in medium earth orbit before you reached the nearest galaxy.

If when you die you're buried 6 feet under and that were the distance to Alpha Centauri, to get to the Andromeda Galaxy you'd have to bury yourself all the way in the middle of the Earth.


Douglas Adams put it best: "The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination"

You can't imagine how mindbogglingly large the universe is or how far apart everything is, nor can I. All I have, all of my faculties to do so are based on the numbers. I simply can't imagine the void between galaxies as a realistic distance. I can't even imagine how mindbogglingly small the Earth or our solar system is relative to the rest of the universe. It's a dustmote in a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the visible universe.

[Self Induced]

You can't imagine how mindbogglingly large the universe is or how far apart everything is, nor can I.

I like the ending shot of Men in Black, when it zooms out of the Earth, then the solar system, then the galaxy, then the universe... and we are in a tiny marble being used by aliens.

[vtancredi]

Well, we could maybe this and maybe that all day long. The fiction supplies us with a less than clear origin, but even so, it's the only concrete narrative we have to go on at the moment. Unless we get a more fleshed out examination of the origins, I don't see where this conversation leads us other than towards more rampant speculation.

And it doesn't really matter, does it? It may interest us, but it's not crucial for us to know these details in order to understand the fiction we are presented with. I think much of the time we make these little sticking points unnecessarily complex.

Yeah, you're right urk. I originally just wanted to see if people had had the same realization as I did, that the damn Floodies are still alive and kicking. Or biting. Or sticking. Whatever they do

[Anpheus]

Well of course they are. As I said, the Forerunner built everything that they used to analyze the Flood out of Halo-Array-Proof-Metal. Everything but their own cities, their own ships, etc. The Terminals say they commit species wide suicide but gives a rather weak reason for it, and I can't imagine there wouldn't be a single stray Forerunner society.

[vtancredi]

Excuse the double post, but I found this interesting as well. Perhaps it doesn't belong here.

The planet where the Forerunner first come into contact with the Flood is labeled G617g. There have been many Biblical cross references made to the numerology contained in the Halo fiction, some with a certain degree of plausibility. I think this may be one of those probables.

Genesis 6 is titled "The Flood." Genesis Chapter 6, Verse 17 is as follows:

Totally missed this earlier, Urk. Quite a find! Is there a Flood mythology section anywhere?

[Merguson]

Totally missed this earlier, Urk. Quite a find! Is there a Flood mythology section anywhere?

Flood mythology?

[Anpheus]

The Flood is real, no mythology here. You better be scurred.

[vtancredi]

Flood mythology?

Well, I guess a section under the categories in the blog, on the main page. That would be up to the admins to decide if they want to make an article? I don't know how it works, or if this there is enough content.