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This topic has moved here: Subject: The Flood vs. Rampant AI
  • Subject: The Flood vs. Rampant AI
Subject: The Flood vs. Rampant AI
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In ex finestris de caelis coram deo veniat ut maximus damnum discipulae discessit.

I was just reading through the Cortana Letters when it occurred to me that Cortana's seemingly Rampant ravings have the same poetic quality that the Gravemind seems to have displayed. Because Gravemind is obviously organic I hadn't thought of this possibility until now, but now I wonder if Gravemind is in fact some organic manifestation of an ancient, rampant AI.

Organic manifestation of an AI? Let me explain.
We know that the flood can take many forms, based on need and willpower. Lumps of Flood biomatter are all over the place, hacking into minds and resistant computer systems. On High Charity, we saw that the Flood would deposit lumps of Biomass to hack into the computer systems just as they grew to hack into Keyes' mind. Obviously the Flood can provide an organic link between the technological hardware and organic wetware.

An average AI might be unable to cope with the problems faced in combating the Flood in a computer system. By the way, what do the Flood 'feel' like inside a computer network? Perhaps something like the odd 'Covenant AI' Cortana sensed within the Covenant Battlenet.

So... if Rampant AI was to face being hacked by the Flood... could it reverse the process and hack the Flood, even to the extent of control over the Flood's physical configuration and appearance? Halo 3's trailer gives hints that Gravemind and Cortana are beginning to mesh or communicate far beyond simply speaking in riddles.

So, what if it already had happened, and Gravemind was the result? This would explain a great deal of the backstory about the Forerunners and the Halo rings. The Flood might not even normally look or act anything like we see-- they could simply be under the control of Gravemind, who himself might just be a Rampant AI who had gained control of the Flood.

Any comments from the prominent theorists?

  • 05.18.2006 7:59 PM PDT
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You could be right. I was thinking along these lines but you pulled most of it together for me. Nice work.

  • 05.18.2006 8:01 PM PDT
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In ex finestris de caelis coram deo veniat ut maximus damnum discipulae discessit.

I think this calls the natures of the Forerunners themselves into question. If we don't know the exact nature of the Flood without the influence of Gravemind, it could be that the Flood are the degenerate descendants of the Forerunners themselves, a hive minded race who would rather commit suicide than allow themselves to become rotting, mindless puppets controlled by a Rampant AI. Their food, then, would be bodies of a certain biomass-- who themselves might not have been intelligent until the Forerunners engineered them to be. Reclaimers who would wipe out all other life in the galaxy, leaving only the cut-off, individualized Reclaimers who sought refuge in the Ark. The Forerunners died as they starved without new bodies, the Flood starved, Gravemind himself went dormant and lay in wait on a Halo for... well, whatever Rampant AI waits for.

  • 05.18.2006 8:43 PM PDT
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Only the dead have seen the end of War...Plato

I came up across rampant AI aswell but you point of many key facts that I had mentioed before.

But what if a forerunner was infected by the flood but in the form as like Keyes. Being used for information but with the amount of information a forerunner holds. He can be used to control the flood or coordinate it.

I can go on but I don't feel like repeating myself.

  • 05.18.2006 8:47 PM PDT
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In ex finestris de caelis coram deo veniat ut maximus damnum discipulae discessit.

It would just help to explain how 'Reclaimers' are so obviously different from the Forerunners. It's not a class, it's a species. Since the Flood are a hive mind, AI can hack them-- Gravemind gained control of them. Reclaimers are insulated-- immune to the AI until infected by the Flood. And in level 12 power armor, I don't think anything would really stand in the way of the Reclaimers.

Also, the non-humanoid appearance of Gravemind makes sense in that Rampant AI trying to find its own identity might try NOT to appear human. Gravemind's control over the teleportation grid proves that he is wired into the computers-- but it could indicate that the computers are really what spawned him, that AI manifested itself physically in Gravemind. Gravemind could 'listen' through flood forms and computer hacking-- even remote AI fingers, the recursive 'Covenant AI.'
I have listend through stone and metal and time...

  • 05.19.2006 12:06 AM PDT
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It could be.

The 4 verses she says mean:

"I have defied gods and demons" this is the forerunners, possibly demons mean another race.

"I am your sword and your shield, I am the source" SWORD-means he is the attacking force capable of preventing the arks activation. SHIELD-means he could attempt to save life from the HALOS altogether. SOURCE-could life have evolved from the flood????

"I know your past and future" means he refers to controlling cortana, but the future may mean the ark's activation.

"This is how the world ends" a bit obvious really.

  • 05.19.2006 12:58 AM PDT