Bungie Universe
This topic has moved here: Subject: A new stage of Gravemind has been implied by Frank O'Connor
  • Subject: A new stage of Gravemind has been implied by Frank O'Connor
  • Pages:
  • 1
  • 2
  • of 2
Subject: A new stage of Gravemind has been implied by Frank O'Connor

"This is NOT your profile...but you are welcome in it"

Moderator Notice: This user has been blacklisted from this forum. Until the user is removed from the blacklist, all posts this user has made have been hidden, and all topics created by this user have been censored.
  • 11.17.2011 9:00 AM PDT
  • gamertag: [none]
  • user homepage:

Deva Path


Posted by: DecepticonCobra

We are all going to get banned aren't we?

We were talking about this last night on a different site.


There was mention of an immobile gravemind which i feel was the Halowars one. A mobile gravemind which i feel is the current one.


Then a fusion of graveminds called a "supergravemind" which i think is the version the forerunners fought if it isn't the TO.

The TO in itself could be a gravemind created from older creatures.


The beasterium also implied that several graveminds could be active at once. we took it further in thinking that they wouldn't all have the same agenda.

  • 11.17.2011 9:17 AM PDT

Grey,

Wasn't the Gravemind from Wars also a Proto-Gravemind if I remember correctly? I think the step from PG to full fledged Gravemind comes with the ability to speak and move around. Clearly two key elements the Gravemind has, but the Protograveminds seem to lack.

So what's beyond that? Probably a Gravemind that seemingly defies all rules of life: incredibly big, capable of creating Flood combat forms (Pure forms perhaps?), capable of consuming anything, maybe even having the ability to travel from planet to planet on its own?
I think we've seen a Super Gravemind before I think: in Legends, Origins. Those were Gravemind looking forms that were even bigger than what "our" Gravemind looked like before, and the Terminals in H3 suggest whole Forerunner armies battling 1 Gravemind.
Just thinking out loud....

@ anish panchalin:
Perhaps....but maybe Graveminds aren't devout of "human" emotions and also battled each other in their apparent constant need for more knowledge and "possesions". It seems unlikely to me that Graveminds would just want to work together all of the time on different fronts. Maybe that's what makes a Super Gravemind? The one of the bunch that decided he would be better off if he consumed his "brothers" to create one massive Flood-hive mind/factory instead of different smaller ones with different motivations?

  • 11.17.2011 9:49 AM PDT
  • gamertag: [none]
  • user homepage:

Deva Path


Posted by: DecepticonCobra

We are all going to get banned aren't we?


Posted by: DonVinzone1
Grey,

Wasn't the Gravemind from Wars also a Proto-Gravemind if I remember correctly? I think the step from PG to full fledged Gravemind comes with the ability to speak and move around. Clearly two key elements the Gravemind has, but the Protograveminds seem to lack.

So what's beyond that? Probably a Gravemind that seemingly defies all rules of life: incredibly big, capable of creating Flood combat forms (Pure forms perhaps?), capable of consuming anything, maybe even having the ability to travel from planet to planet on its own?
I think we've seen a Super Gravemind before I think: in Legends, Origins. Those were Gravemind looking forms that were even bigger than what "our" Gravemind looked like before, and the Terminals in H3 suggest whole Forerunner armies battling 1 Gravemind.
Just thinking out loud....

@ anish panchalin:
Perhaps....but maybe Graveminds aren't devout of "human" emotions and also battled each other in their apparent constant need for more knowledge and "possesions". It seems unlikely to me that Graveminds would just want to work together all of the time on different fronts. Maybe that's what makes a Super Gravemind? The one of the bunch that decided he would be better off if he consumed his "brothers" to create one massive Flood-hive mind/factory instead of different smaller ones with different motivations?



Yes it was but how is it still a proto mind after being that damn big and having that much biomass for so long? Exactly what i was talking about; the GM we know is the mobile form the halowars one could have been the immobile form.


Yea those could have been.

  • 11.17.2011 10:06 AM PDT
  • gamertag: [none]
  • user homepage:

Deva Path


Posted by: DecepticonCobra

We are all going to get banned aren't we?


Posted by: anish panchalin

Posted by: grey101
The beasterium also implied that several graveminds could be active at once. we took it further in thinking that they wouldn't all have the same agenda.


Agenda in terms of what?
Territorial agendas? - Each wants to expand to cities/planets/systems/galaxies etc without other GM's taking their "food"

Or greater motives?


I don't know since its just an idea.


Don't you notice how the GMs all act differently including the proto-GMs? we just carried that over in this idea.

  • 11.17.2011 10:11 AM PDT
  • gamertag: [none]
  • user homepage:

Deva Path


Posted by: DecepticonCobra

We are all going to get banned aren't we?


Posted by: anish panchalin

Posted by: grey101

Posted by: anish panchalin

Posted by: grey101
The beasterium also implied that several graveminds could be active at once. we took it further in thinking that they wouldn't all have the same agenda.


Agenda in terms of what?
Territorial agendas? - Each wants to expand to cities/planets/systems/galaxies etc without other GM's taking their "food"

Or greater motives?


I don't know since its just an idea.


Don't you notice how the GMs all act differently including the proto-GMs? we just carried that over in this idea.


Yes, I see the underlying issue you're pointing out. The proto GM's are seemingly more primitive, just wanting biomass etc whereas 2552's GM wants mass expansion and (other motives we may not know about) and that they're not all like-minded.

I was just wondering if you have a personal opinion on what these agendas could be.



Personally i am confused beyond belief with the graveminds.

I think/thought that the one the forerunners fought was just the infected "thing".

It turns out that GM was killed by the array yet the current one speaks as if its the same yet doesn't remember everything nor does it act anything like the other one.


I use to think both GMs were one and the same and just an infected "think"; and that the proto-graveminds were the true flood leaders until an art book confirmed the forerunner GM was killed.


So now i am completely lost on the subject.

  • 11.17.2011 10:23 AM PDT


Posted by: grey101

Posted by: DonVinzone1
Grey,

Wasn't the Gravemind from Wars also a Proto-Gravemind if I remember correctly? I think the step from PG to full fledged Gravemind comes with the ability to speak and move around. Clearly two key elements the Gravemind has, but the Protograveminds seem to lack.

So what's beyond that? Probably a Gravemind that seemingly defies all rules of life: incredibly big, capable of creating Flood combat forms (Pure forms perhaps?), capable of consuming anything, maybe even having the ability to travel from planet to planet on its own?
I think we've seen a Super Gravemind before I think: in Legends, Origins. Those were Gravemind looking forms that were even bigger than what "our" Gravemind looked like before, and the Terminals in H3 suggest whole Forerunner armies battling 1 Gravemind.
Just thinking out loud....

@ anish panchalin:
Perhaps....but maybe Graveminds aren't devout of "human" emotions and also battled each other in their apparent constant need for more knowledge and "possesions". It seems unlikely to me that Graveminds would just want to work together all of the time on different fronts. Maybe that's what makes a Super Gravemind? The one of the bunch that decided he would be better off if he consumed his "brothers" to create one massive Flood-hive mind/factory instead of different smaller ones with different motivations?



Yes it was but how is it still a proto mind after being that damn big and having that much biomass for so long? Exactly what i was talking about; the GM we know is the mobile form the halowars one could have been the immobile form.


Yea those could have been.


My thought is that the Gravemind (the character one, not the type of Flood intelligence, I'll call him Alpha Gravemind in future to differentiate him from the others) is strictly one of a kind, there are no others like him. While the likes of the graveminds from CE, Halo Wars, and what we saw on the Mona Lisa are intelligent, they're nowhere near the same level as Alpha Gravemind, their intelligence to me seems to be more primal and relatively simplistic in comparison to his. The desires of the other ones seem to be rather simple to me too: feed, feed, feed. Their one goal is only the consumption of all life, nothing at all more than that. Whereas the Alpha Gravemind seems to actually desire something more than just absorbing everything, he has side goals and plots in addition to usual Flood modus operandi.

None of the other graveminds can evolve to the level of the Alpha Gravemind as he is one of a kind, for any number of reasons (such as being the Prisoner, a gravemind absorbing the Prisoner and the two merging and assimilating into one being significantly more advanced than any of the other Flood, the Prisoner bestowing an advanced evolution or power into a specific gravemind that led to it becoming Alpha Gravemind, or any number of other reasons). There can be multiple graveminds, but there can never be more than one Alpha Gravemind. That's my belief anyway.

  • 11.17.2011 10:33 AM PDT
  • gamertag: [none]
  • user homepage:

Deva Path


Posted by: DecepticonCobra

We are all going to get banned aren't we?

Hmmm....


But the thing about the gravemind is it's intelligence so this is still confusing.

I feel that for the flood to reach higher levels it needs to infect higher beings. That is the only way i could rationalize this.

  • 11.17.2011 10:38 AM PDT


Posted by: grey101

Posted by: anish panchalin

Posted by: grey101

Posted by: anish panchalin

Posted by: grey101
The beasterium also implied that several graveminds could be active at once. we took it further in thinking that they wouldn't all have the same agenda.


Agenda in terms of what?
Territorial agendas? - Each wants to expand to cities/planets/systems/galaxies etc without other GM's taking their "food"

Or greater motives?


I don't know since its just an idea.


Don't you notice how the GMs all act differently including the proto-GMs? we just carried that over in this idea.


Yes, I see the underlying issue you're pointing out. The proto GM's are seemingly more primitive, just wanting biomass etc whereas 2552's GM wants mass expansion and (other motives we may not know about) and that they're not all like-minded.

I was just wondering if you have a personal opinion on what these agendas could be.



Personally i am confused beyond belief with the graveminds.

I think/thought that the one the forerunners fought was just the infected "thing".

It turns out that GM was killed by the array yet the current one speaks as if its the same yet doesn't remember everything nor does it act anything like the other one.


I use to think both GMs were one and the same and just an infected "think"; and that the proto-graveminds were the true flood leaders until an art book confirmed the forerunner GM was killed.


So now i am completely lost on the subject.


My personal theory is that Graveminds act like the Geth in Mass Effect: their a shared "brain", however each with its own personality traits laid on top which are probably those of the most prominent first victims. IE: I believe the Gravemind that was growing from Keyes would mostly copy his personality, and an possible one based upon Timeless One would copy its personality.
Apart from the last part, I guess it's fair to say each Gravemind has all the knowledge of those before him, maybe even of those at the same time. That would also explain why the 2552 Gravemind is able to speak as if he's millions of years old, when in reality he might just be a few hundred thousand years old: he can speak about things in the past as if he's seen it himself, but in fact it's just knowledge extracted from a shared "database" of memories.

I really hope Primordium gives us more insight in the Gravemind and Flood....just not too much, I'd rather also have them keep a shroud of mistery over the Graveminds.

  • 11.17.2011 11:16 AM PDT
  • gamertag: [none]
  • user homepage:

Deva Path


Posted by: DecepticonCobra

We are all going to get banned aren't we?

I brought up an issue with flood memory on archive a few days ago.



The current gravemind remembers the forerunners yet doesn't remember where the ark was despite the flood fighting for it.

It didn't know where earth was despite infecting truth,troops that were at earth, and referencing past humanity.

It doesn't know about Earths defenses despite infecting crew from amber clad.


So the whole genetic memory/ infecting and remembering everything is sketchy

  • 11.17.2011 11:22 AM PDT

@accordingto343

Your one stop shop for all of 343's fabulous errors and ridiculous notions in the Halo lore.

I'm not too sure the GM really cared about Earth. If anything, he already knew where Earth was, Human Weakness said he was loading up a ship while he was working over Cortana. In fact, I think he only went after Cortana to get the Index stored in her system. He did go ape-blam!- when Cortana showed it to Chief.

It kinda makes sense really, have her focus on guarding something SHE thinks HE wants while he attacks that there and everywhere else in secret.

  • 11.17.2011 3:17 PM PDT
  •  | 
  • Fabled Legendary Member

I understand nothing because my life is a conspiracy.

This gave me a though on how they will bring back Johnson (you know they will).

Chief will be running away from the flood and stuff and he'll meet Gravemind again. Johnson will be a part of Gravemind or something like that prophet, but since he is immune he will be able to get saved.

He should stay dead in my opinion.

  • 11.17.2011 3:55 PM PDT

gamertag : firedune22

avid forger, love vehicle gameplay

Looking closely in the gravemind scene in Halo 2, you can tell that the gravemind's boy has been latched onto the bottom of the pit. Judging from how far the pit is, it can be concluded that we have no way of knowing how deep the gravemind's body really is. That gravemind to me, appears to be sessile, and capable of only limited movement. From the mona lisa we know that flood combat forms bring victims to the proto-gravemind. For that gravemind to have been crreated from a prote-gravemind, an increible amount of bodies must have been dropped down that pit. The proto gravemind in Wars might have been sobid due to the fact that lower life forms ware the only life forms available for assimilation. This might explain why Grunts and jackals could become infected, as the flood was taking anything available. Now, as odd as the Mobile gravemind was in Legends, it may exist in the timeframe of late Halo 2 to the last level of Halo 3. It didn't exist dunring Halo 2 per say, but it's origins start there. When In Amber Clad crashed into High Charity. a pretty sizeable controller was present on the ship, and was vastly intelligent proto-gravemind, as it pilotes in amber clad with more skill than any AI (even cortana) could have done, hence the slipspace jump into high charity. When High charity was finally taken over, a new gravemind had formed, this one strikingly like Delta Gravemind, crashed into the Ark and released it's pods.
When Chief activates, or rather deactivates the rings, massive tentacles appear, and then retract mysteriously. Perhaps this is because the mobile form had been released and was underneath Arby and the Chief. Perhaps it had not wished to be harmed in such a critical stage in it's development. Once High Charity was destroyed, wouldn't the pods have stopped landing on Intallation 04b? Perhaps this is because The new mobile gravemind had set up a base on the ark that fired the pods, like flood launchers in Wars, only much larger in scale. Perhaps There was a moblile gravemind on the Ark, controlling the invasion of installation 04b and the Ark, aiming to bring about a major flood presence on the Ark and 04b, which is presumed to be the gravemind's plan all along. To control the one thing that could wipe out the flood presence one and for all.
P.S
One interesting note is at the end of origins 2, The chief is teleported to what appears to be a burned-out or destroyed ring, with the ark in the backround, which looks very damaged (yet still keeps it's shape) and has a suspicious-looking charred inner section that fits the size of a halo's blast.

  • 11.17.2011 4:48 PM PDT


Posted by: grey101

Posted by: anish panchalin

Posted by: grey101

Posted by: anish panchalin

Posted by: grey101
The beasterium also implied that several graveminds could be active at once. we took it further in thinking that they wouldn't all have the same agenda.


Agenda in terms of what?
Territorial agendas? - Each wants to expand to cities/planets/systems/galaxies etc without other GM's taking their "food"

Or greater motives?


I don't know since its just an idea.


Don't you notice how the GMs all act differently including the proto-GMs? we just carried that over in this idea.


Yes, I see the underlying issue you're pointing out. The proto GM's are seemingly more primitive, just wanting biomass etc whereas 2552's GM wants mass expansion and (other motives we may not know about) and that they're not all like-minded.

I was just wondering if you have a personal opinion on what these agendas could be.



Personally i am confused beyond belief with the graveminds.

I think/thought that the one the forerunners fought was just the infected "thing".

It turns out that GM was killed by the array yet the current one speaks as if its the same yet doesn't remember everything nor does it act anything like the other one.


I use to think both GMs were one and the same and just an infected "think"; and that the proto-graveminds were the true flood leaders until an art book confirmed the forerunner GM was killed.


So now i am completely lost on the subject.


Each successive Gravemind has the memories of the last one, which lead to a theory stating that each Gravemind is in fact the same consciousness no different the one before it, but with different reources and knowledge (both of which is depndant on the Gravemind's enemies). This theory eventually lead to the Gravemind being the Timeless One.

  • 11.17.2011 4:56 PM PDT

@accordingto343

Your one stop shop for all of 343's fabulous errors and ridiculous notions in the Halo lore.

Is there really anything that can kill the Gravemind? I mean, actually end it's being once and for all, consciousness and all?

  • 11.17.2011 4:57 PM PDT
  •  | 
  • Exalted Mythic Member

I am...whimsical today.

Some thoughts that occured to me as I read through.

1) A larger Gravemind is not necessarily a more developed / more evolved / more capable Gravemind.

2) The continuation of the Gravemind's consciousness after the firing of the Array has a couple of answers.

- A form of consciousness exists in a 'different plane', possibly similar to the Domain of the Forerunner. For a Gravemind to 'rediscover itself', it would need to advance to a stage sufficient to access this knowledge. The gaps in the circa 2550 Gravemind's knowledge would indicate:
* The access to this knowledge is not equal. A more developed Gravemind will be able to access more of this store of knowledge than a less developed one. If there's any sort of ordering possible, the key information about the Forerunner would be accessed earlier than less relevant information such as the location of Earth.
Or
* The store of knowledge is subject to the same 'random fluctuations' that the Forerunner Domain is reported to have suffered, causing information loss. Subjects such as the Forerunner would have been more widespread, and so easier to piece together than less important and thus less common topics, such as the location of Earth.

- The knowledge of the Gravemind somehow survived in the samples kept on each(assumed) Array installation. The relatively few samples (when compared to the sprawl of biomass available before the firing of the Array) accounts for the fragmented memory.

- All the Gravemind of 2550 knows of his past comes from records he found on Installation 05, and his interrogation of 2401PT.

  • 11.17.2011 7:42 PM PDT

I was under the impression that, there is no such thing as "A" Gravemind, but rather, a more appropriate term is "The" Gravemind. The Gravemind isn't an individual, but rather, the Flood personified. The Gravemind isn't a stage of the Flood's lifecycle, but rather, it is THE FLOOD ITSELF. This is why the Halo's were needed, the Gravemind is omnipotent, like God, you can't simply kill the Gravemind, it transcends the physical plane, it is a being of higher existence and higher evolution at a point we cannot comprehend. The Gravemind is everything Flood, all biomass, everything. It can't be destroyed without destroying the host.

  • 11.18.2011 1:12 AM PDT


Posted by: DecepticonCobra
I'm not too sure the GM really cared about Earth. If anything, he already knew where Earth was, Human Weakness said he was loading up a ship while he was working over Cortana. In fact, I think he only went after Cortana to get the Index stored in her system. He did go ape-blam!- when Cortana showed it to Chief.

It kinda makes sense really, have her focus on guarding something SHE thinks HE wants while he attacks that there and everywhere else in secret.


Exactly.
I think by the time Gravemind was leaving Delta Halo he was not even that interested about Earth but about stopping the Covenant from reaching the Ark. For that he needed several things, including the Index. That would also explain why he sends a ship directly to the Ark portal trying to get hold of that location before the Covenant get through it (obviously failing at that plan) and then completely ignoring Earth and steaming right through the Portal with his entire army heading for the Ark. After all, if he could stop the Covenant at the Ark he would secure his existance and could consume life on Earth and other planets later on.

@ Predkiller:
The Gravemind is something in between what you say. It's both THE Flood as in being the brains and "general" behind it, but it's also one of the most advanced forms of Flood. So it's both the personification of those faceless warriors we call the Flood, and a sentient being on it's own.

@ Guscon:
But the canon so far shows the bigger Graveminds are indeed the "better" ones. The smallest one we saw was the work-in-process-Keyes Gravemind who's only focus was to grow bigger and get of the Ring.
The more advanced step we found was the bigger, immobile one in Wars which also still had the feed-feed-feed focus but is on the verge of becoming a real Gravemind.
And then you get the Gravemind itself which is fully self aware, can plot it's own path, and hasn't got the focus on growing bigger anymore. The reason for that is apparantly the Flood can become too big for 1 Gravemind to control so they move to other galaxies to form another Gravemind there (Halopedian). So the whole purpose of the Flood seems to boil down to 2 things:
1: Consume all sentient life.
2: Grow a Gravemind to succesfully achieve goal 1.

Also: I agree with your theories on how the knowledge of a Gravemind is "stored". Maybe a Gravemind even gives "birth" to spores that house parts of its knowledge before he gets destroyed, therefore making sure his knowledge is passed on. The fact that Forerunners kept Flood Spores on the Halos could indeed mean you basically got the fragments of a Gravemind's full memories stored accidentally. And the Gravemind we know might not have been build from all those pieces of the puzzle leading to holes in its "memory".

[Edited on 11.18.2011 1:44 AM PST]

  • 11.18.2011 1:30 AM PDT


Posted by: ThePredkiller2
I was under the impression that, there is no such thing as "A" Gravemind, but rather, a more appropriate term is "The" Gravemind. The Gravemind isn't an individual, but rather, the Flood personified. The Gravemind isn't a stage of the Flood's lifecycle, but rather, it is THE FLOOD ITSELF. This is why the Halo's were needed, the Gravemind is omnipotent, like God, you can't simply kill the Gravemind, it transcends the physical plane, it is a being of higher existence and higher evolution at a point we cannot comprehend. The Gravemind is everything Flood, all biomass, everything. It can't be destroyed without destroying the host.


This is actually confirmed to a degree. Forerunners classified the Flood as a singular macro-organism, not a race of individuals, because there is only one infdividual: Gravemind. He is the Flood, and the Flood is him. He consumes and assimilates others to further extend his power. Those he consumes and the creatures he controls are likened to limbs.

So yes, you are correct.

  • 11.18.2011 4:42 AM PDT

Whisper Game Studios - shhhh, it's a public secret.
Webcam MVP
Sarsion.net
Bnet PM Policy

[*Please note that anything in my posts is likely to be filled with sarcasm, and should be taken with a pinch of salt. I tend to help people, usually*]

I'm under the belief that the Gravemind's "brain" is entirely separate from its "bodies", let's just say.

I think that the Gravemind's real form is outside the galaxy, but it builds up bodies to telepathically control and speak through. Think of it a little bit like having remote-controlled bodies.

I don't like this whole idea of different agendas. You're all talking about the Flood as if they can be seen as factions and organizations. They're not. They're all the same beings, but just spread across different installations. To the Flood, the distance they are apart from eachother doesn't matter in the slightest.

  • 11.18.2011 6:47 AM PDT

Just being a pragmatic realist.

OMG Europe - Gaming for the fun of it.

Read The Vang by Christopher Rowley, which Bungie has said influenced Halo. Lot's of ideas/clues as to how the Flood may work/think.

Essential reading if you are a Halo fan.

[Edited on 11.18.2011 7:11 AM PST]

  • 11.18.2011 7:09 AM PDT

  • Pages:
  • 1
  • 2
  • of 2