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This topic has moved here: Subject: Flood & the Precursors. (Question)
  • Subject: Flood & the Precursors. (Question)
Subject: Flood & the Precursors. (Question)

[As of October 2012]
2013 ADFA Officer Cadet of the RAAF (Aerospace Engineer Electronics Officer).

Sorry, the last novel I read was The Cole Protocol, but I was reading the Halo wiki entry on Halo: Cryptum and started to see some links:

What evidence is there that says the Precursors and the Flood are not the one and the same, or at least genetically similar?

1. The Forerunners fought the Precursors and the Flood, but there's no evidence that it was a 3 way fight. It's suggested that the Flood was a Precursor weapon against the Forerunner.

2. The Timeless One is the last living Precursor according to the book, but it was discovered by prehistoric humans (when we were a space-travelling civilisation with the San 'Shyuum) floating in a capsule - the same way the flood was found. They regarded it as an oracle of sorts, but didn't always understand it due to answers that were confused or unintelligible (similar to the Gravemind).

When humans found the Flood, they asked it about its origin and when they found out the answer, many of them committed suicide. Perhaps they had based their defences, etc on this 'oracle's' suggestions and now were met by a threat created and commanded by this same entity Perhaps it was because the Flood, which they had fought earlier, was only really after the Forerunner, who had been the ones that destroyed much of the Human empire. Perhaps the Flood had simply been the original species of the galaxy.

3. Earlier canon said that Merdicant Bias came under Flood control. The left over Forerunners in Cryptum at the end also believed that the prisoner / oracle / Timeless One had escaped on Merdicant Bias' Halo. Could this be the same on in Halo 1? (Which then spread the infection to the other Halos?) In Halo 3, on the reconstruction of the replacement Halo 1 (or whatever Halo it was - the one from Halo CE), we find the terminals, which has messages from Merdicant Bias.

Here's a little paragraph of supposed conjecture on The Timeless One's halopedia page:
Mendicant Bias conversed with the Gravemind for forty-three years before forcing itself into Rampancy and defecting to the Flood; after doing so, Mendicant Bias claimed to serve a "new master". As the test at Charum Hakkor - and thus the release of the prisoner - occurred the same year, it is possible that this "new master" was the prisoner rather than the Gravemind.
If I were to add to that, I'd suggest that perhaps the Prisoner and the Gravemind were one and the same.

I'm not saying I'm right - as I said, it's definitely possible, if not more likely that the Flood was a Precursor weapon / creation - but I still think it would tie up the story a bit better if the Precursors and Flood were sort of the same species - the Precursors being more akin to what the Gravemind is (perhaps just on a smaller, more 'contained' form), before finally making a last effort to defeat the Forerunner through dedicated biological warfare.

  • 06.07.2011 10:33 PM PDT