- 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: Terian1414
Posted by: Lord Snakie
Posted by: Agustus
Instinct can only be controlled and over come by sentient thought. Once the gravemind falls apart there flood is almost purely animal like. Thus making it give in to instincts, like consuming all biological matter, alive or dead. But when the gravemind forms it can over come this if needed, such is the case in Halo 2. When the gravemind saves the chief and arbiter, knowing they could be of use.
For example: Just because a human over comes some kind of urge, doesn't mean his kid will be naturally immune to it. If it was written into flood DNA, not to attack living things, then they would follow this "programming" in early stages of release, when there is no consciousness. This is obviously not the case in Halo: CE.
You're still thinking in traditional means. You yourself said that the Flood have the ability to "evolve" themselves and regulate their evolution, to an extent, and I agree with you. If the Gravemind became sentient, he could harness that power to overwrite that portion of their DNA entirely.
Or, failing that, the Gravemind on Installation 05 is a possible answer to the conundrum, as well. The time that that Gravemind has existed is questionable, but it's a possibility that it existed during the events on Installation 04, and its sentience allowed it to overrule the Flood's natural habits.
Another way to look at it in terms of sentient thought is much like the Geth of Mass Effect. The more of them in a given area, the more processing power they have and the "smarter" they become. This would work in a similar fashion with the Flood in that the more organic life they consume, the more "processing power" they attain. When they reach a certain level, a "critical mass" a gravemind is formed.
How this ties into your theory is that they Precursors would have created the Gravemind(G1) to store information as you stated. Logically, they would have needed to created some type of interface, more likely than not it would need to be organic in nature (as to what extent is unknown). These could have been simple spores that store information much like DNA stores information. If this is the case than a single spore could contain vasts amount of knowledge. Eventually, with the transfer of this data to the Gravemind from spores across the galaxy/universe, he would attain sentient status as you say.
Now, this is where it changes some. I seem to recall an old "Beachhead" theory a few years and this is a bit of an adaptation of it. With the vast amount of data that these spores can hold, it would be very plausible that a large number of spores were sent to the Milky Way at which point they began their collection again until this critical mass was reached yet again, resulting in the creation of another Gravemind(G2) in this galaxy. Now, at first glance you might assume that G2 has the exact same information as G1, however with an organic life form serving as a storage device, degredation of information is going to naturally occur as the organic form begins to slowly break down. These spores didn't need to last long as the Gravemind was the primary storage device, like the hard drive of a computer compared to a CD (spore).
The implications of this would be that upon encountering the Forerunner, the Flood would still have retained some knowledge of advanced tactics, technology, etc. This would give them an immediate advantage over the Forerunner and this coupled with the tactical information they would gain from consuming Forerunners would be enough to allow them to, fairly easily, defeat the Forerunner in a short amount of time. With the firing of the Halos and the dieing out of most flood forms of life, most of this original information from G1 would be lost except for a few spores that were kept in statis for testing.
The oldest data would most likely die out first seeing as how it is the oldest and being organic based life forms, the older something is the more decay it experiences. This is the same with Forerunner technology which eventually gets to the point where little remains of G2. This would explain why in combating Humans and Covenant, the new Gravemind (G3) met with success though not on the scale that G2 did with the Forerunner. G3 had almost no data the technology of the original and had to learn most everything from Humanity and the Covenant, resulting in a somewhat balanced war (again, relative to the Forerunner conflict).
I belive an application like this gives more plausibility and applicability to your theory. Evidence is good, however the test comes when you apply a theory to cases where we know the outcome to see if a similiar outcome can be obtained or if the outcome can be explained with the model which yours appears to fulfill quiet well.
That was logical. But I would like to point out a few things. A spore would not hold memories, the individual cells would. Now we know the flood can enter hibernation and remain "alive" for large amounts of time. Now the G1 gravemind would die lets say. A precursor ship travels to this galaxy and is burned to a crisp from entry into an atmosphere. Only spores and cells survive. Now because of the large amount of data a cell can hold (we cannot even begin to comprehend this today) all the memories of the gravemind can be held in just 1 cell or a few at least.
These cells would multiply and the DNA survive, completely intact. Once it reaches that "critical mass", it is my belief that flood colonies start develop neurons. Before those memories where practically dormant, like Cortana inside her chip. It holds all her data but she cannot "run" unless plugged into a source with sufficient processing power and energy. These neurons would tap into the memories, in little bits at a time. They would communicate with each other, and through unknown means, "order" the countless flood forms. These neurons would continue to grow in all flood forms, creating a hive mind connected through what appears to be telepathic communication. These neurons also explain how the flood can interface with electronics. The nerve endings could grow on circuits and use electronic pulses to activate the machine. This is being done today with rat neurons and basic circuitry.
I remember bring up the point of the Flood overwriting its own DNA, which you rejected in favor of "over coming there urge". We don't know how far flood can communicate with each other, but I doubt a gravemind can do so from another ring. Even if it could send signals that far the halo flood would have been more organized. It was clearly the early stages of growth, uncoordinated local attacks and swarms. In "343 guilty spark" The flood reacts in small groups, not as a complete whole. As compared to Halo 3 when they all seem to converge on your position and almost "sense" when your near (probably because your stepping all over there flood gloop). The Halo: CE flood only start becoming organized when a pregravemind forms. They start focusing on the ship, and collect bodies.