- Agustus
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- Exalted Legendary Member
Some can come away from reading "War and Peace" thinking it a simple adventure story, while others can read the ingredients on a gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe.
Posted by: Lord Snakie
Posted by: General Khazard
It's also possible that the Flood had infected a lot of Precursor ships that did not have such failsafes as the "precursors-only" protocols. In the Forerunner-Flood war the Flood would infect commercial and recreational vessels as well as military ones. Why would recreational ships have the kind of technology to identify who was using them?
It's possible that once the Flood had "consumed a galaxy of flesh and mind and bone" it sent its millions of vessels out on random or pseudo-random trajectories to spread to other galaxies, since it had successfully "evolved" all life within its home galaxy and fulfilled its purpose there. I mean, if the Flood needs to absorb to avoid hibernation, and they had absorbed the entire galaxy, then obviously they need to move on to other galaxies to continue to survive.
I've thought about this before. Kinda like an ant or termite colony, the new queens and kings fly away and find territory away from the parent colony to call their own.
It makes sense, in a way, but it's also not the entire answer. What happened to the ship or ships that made their way to the Milky Way? Why did the Flood never display the ability to create technology that their roots as Precursor must have inevitably made possible? Why only a ship or two, rather than the entire collective moving in one direction, cutting an unstoppable path from galaxy to galaxy?
If I were a super-sentient or trans-sentient being and I wanted food, I would travel as a group, using the full knowledge and might of the collective to ensure that new hosts were taken and more galaxies were made devoid of life, ensuring that no one splinter group could be stopped. Because, once a group is stopped, the race that stopped them inevitably gains a heightened ability to combat them. The Forerunner, for example; if they had survived the war and beaten the Flood, they would have had an increased ability to combat new colonies that headed for the Milky Way in the future. Spreading the colonies thin makes it possible for counter-races to spring up.
But then again, on the flip side, you must wonder what would happen to the Flood that survived, that rampaged from galaxy to galaxy. What have they become? What new Pure forms can they harness? What are their numbers, and their intelligence?
I suppose it's true that spreading out and colonizing widely has its advantages as well as disadvantages, but I wonder if it would have made sense for the Gravemind to take such a risk. If a race rose up, like the Forerunner did, and learned to fight them, it could mean a loss of everything.
I don't know. Pieces, to me, still don't fit.
A single flood spore can destroy a species. If it was not for the arbiters consul, I would have Glassed your entire planet!
You have to think in this way. There are more galaxys than there are grains of sand on the Earth. The Flood would have spread to all of them, or at least as many as it could. Splitting up to conquer faster. D
Divide and Conquer.
You barley survived a small infestation
That one planet was enough to bring the Forerunner to there knees. And still remnant's survived to be unleashed latter. It would be more logical to simply spread out than focus on one galaxy at a time.
You must also remember that the Precursors themselves resided in multiple galaxy's. How many? Who knows. But I think the flood simply died out and entered hibernation before encountering new life. Sure theres billions of Galaxy's but the odds of every one having advance galactic civilizations is very limited. They may have a quite a few planets with life but finding just one would take millennium. By which time the flood would fall into hibernation and the ship would either drift forever or crash land. destroying all tech with it.
Now are you asking why the flood doesn't gather resources, build factories, and recreate the technology? Well the floods goal is to consume everything as quickly as possible. They have a constant hunger. Sitting tight and making stuff wouldn't be high on the list. They would want to get right to it. Besides, its not very zombie like.
:D