Bungie Universe
This topic has moved here: Subject: Mgalekgolo - How Stuff Works
  • Subject: Mgalekgolo - How Stuff Works
Subject: Mgalekgolo - How Stuff Works

Oly Oly Oxen Free

Okay, now i understand that Mgalekgolo, or Hunters to any Reach-generation fans, are comprised of a colony of eel/worm creatures (Lekgolo) that work together to move the armour and weapons systems.

My question is, how is it that a relatively concentrated attack on up to 10 of said eels can result in the death of the whole colony? Even if they are simply going into shock, why?

It's always been easy enough to close-up, duck left under the sweeping 'arm' and put a hole in the beasts' backs. I would imagine, then, that canonically the hunters could either continue minus KIA eels, or at least split off and operate as smaller combinations (Mgalekgolo being the 'combat form')

Thus, a HE Pistol would incapacitate between 1 & 4 eels with a well-placed back shot, what stops this possible hive mind still functioning?

I can only hypothesize that the lekgolo are somewhat like the geth in that they work better and more effectively the more individuals there are, and have a collective intelligence. When they have a certain amount dead, they stop functioning and... await pickup? Burrow underground? WHAT DO THEY DO?!

TL;DR
Why are hunters - themselves built from versatile components - so easily defeated?

inb4gamelimitations, i know bungie made CE a while back and couldn't have them transforming and switching forms on the go, flood style. However, there have been plenty of years since, and the only other Lekgolo form we get is the spherical abomination driving Scarabs.

  • 02.24.2012 7:12 PM PDT

Have A Nice Day!

Commander, CammCam's Queensguard; Sapphire Mod; 34th Seat, Table of Avalon(Exiled);Captain, HAND

yolo? -blam!- that! YOLTOSS!! You Only Live Twice or Some -blam!-

I may be mistaken, but I think something similar to what you're suggesting does occur in one of the novels. Unfortunately, it's been so long since I've read them that I can't say which one or how accurate my memory is.

Staying more to your point though, I agree that it would be a bit silly for a handful to die and shut down the whole colony. This does open up more questions, such as why not make bigger combat colonies, or why not have more limbs?

Also, I would like to bring up "The Taming of the Hunters" age in Covenant history. How do you tame hiveminded beings?

  • 02.24.2012 7:40 PM PDT


Posted by: The Kangol Kid
I may be mistaken, but I think something similar to what you're suggesting does occur in one of the novels. Unfortunately, it's been so long since I've read them that I can't say which one or how accurate my memory is.

Staying more to your point though, I agree that it would be a bit silly for a handful to die and shut down the whole colony. This does open up more questions, such as why not make bigger combat colonies, or why not have more limbs?

Also, I would like to bring up "The Taming of the Hunters" age in Covenant history. How do you tame hiveminded beings?


I'm pretty sure the answer to the OP's question is in your post: hivemind. The Lekgolo worms are interconnected and sharing neural links with each other, creating an exponentially more intelligent, single consciousness. If you destroy enough of those connections, perhaps it kills the others sharing the network.

  • 02.24.2012 7:44 PM PDT

Posted by:ScubaToaster
Posted by: HipiO7
This man, this man right here put it so eloquently that I actually cancelled my own 2000+ word long post.
/slow clap for respect


:)
The person who said participating is important, not winning, obviously never won anything.

Posted by: The Kangol Kid
Also, I would like to bring up "The Taming of the Hunters" age in Covenant history. How do you tame hiveminded beings?


Elites couldn't beat them on the ground, so they said, either you surrender or we melt your asses. The lekgolo surrendered because they could not fight in orbit. And they pretty much only have respect for the Elite's because of this. Weird, but it's stated like that.

Anyways, when the Lekgolo combine to form a Mgalekgolo, they combine their neural pathways to achieve a collective consciousness. I imagine that killing a good number of them would be as cutting the link to the rest of them, so they effectively die. It would be like breaking someones spine basically.

At least that's how I think it works.

  • 02.24.2012 7:47 PM PDT
  • gamertag: [none]
  • user homepage:

SC = Supreme Commander/Supreme Canadian.

De Facto leader of the military of the APE (Allied Planets Empire).

Coup = Admiral Asskicker, ZPM hive ship

Gameplay reason: because if it worked that way, every time you fight a Hunter would take over ten minutes just squashing every single worm, or would eat up all your ammo killing a single Mgalekgolo, while it's bond brudda would ruin your day in short order. Also would have to require lots of gore, which Bungie has shown that they don't want to include.

Storyline reason: asked the same question, but the above reasons have merit.

  • 02.25.2012 12:05 AM PDT
  •  | 
  • Honorable Heroic Member

http://www.bungie.net/fanclub/halohaven/Group/GroupHome.aspx

Join Halo Haven! (Group Leader: A 3 Legged Goat)

(To discuss Halo 4.)

The same reason why if you put a bullet through only a small portion of the brain, the mind stops functioning.

  • 02.25.2012 12:21 AM PDT

You know our motto, We deliver!

Posted by: Quantam
The same reason why if you put a bullet through only a small portion of the brain, the mind stops functioning.

I guess this makes sense. Maybe they take a while to form a single form and so if you take out a significant amount they can't continue or just adapt to form a new form.

[Edited on 02.25.2012 2:43 AM PST]

  • 02.25.2012 2:43 AM PDT
  • gamertag: Fin
  • user homepage:

"but you already knew that, I mean, how couldn't you?

Only when no Human brick is left atop another, shall we be satisfied with your destruction.

They must be very heavily interconnected to have the strength they do, and the speed of movement. I'd consider that the MgaLekgolo form is closer to a single organism that a collection really, they have to be too interconnected. It is possible some members of a colony survive, but would take time to extract themselves from the rest of the colony. Perhaps it's better to assume Hunter 'kills' are only mission-killed or incapaitated in a canonical setting. Unless you hit their exposed flesh with a rocket, or something, at that point hydrostatic shock should kill them all stone dead.

EDIT:
Alternatively, as the colony is connected at a neurological level the shock of losing so much of it's 'mind' so suddenly might send the survivours catatonic.

[Edited on 02.25.2012 5:42 AM PST]

  • 02.25.2012 5:40 AM PDT

Oly Oly Oxen Free

^ I think the 'closeness of the interconnection' theory is probably spot on, and the undamaged lekgolo are thus fairly useless.


Posted by: The Kangol Kid

Also, I would like to bring up "The Taming of the Hunters" age in Covenant history. How do you tame hiveminded beings?


IIRC, possibly in contact: harvest, the prophet of truth is reminiscing about the covenant as a whole and the races that are a part of it. During this he recalls the story of an arbiter who tamed the hunters (as mentioned in Halo 2), but that they actually made a deal with them to provide space travel/FTL as the lekgolo didn't have the technology, and in return the lekgolo joined the covenant.

Also, there was something about the lekgolo living on an asteroid belt surrounded by relics, and so the elites would have had to destroy forerunner treasures to get to them.

On a further point of note, when the covenant first discovered the lekgolo, it was a colony that actually ingested forerunner artifacts, but there were also different colonies with different purposes (such as the ones used onboard the keyship, that ingested everything but).

One can only assume Mgalekgolo are the fighting colonies.

[Edited on 02.25.2012 6:05 AM PST]

  • 02.25.2012 6:03 AM PDT

Vengeance only leads to an ongoing cycle of hatred.

They need to make a short story surrounding the Hunters.

  • 02.25.2012 7:34 AM PDT

Well slap my balls and call me Santa, I've got lizard tits!

I beleive "taming of the hunters" refers to how a faction of hunters fed off forerunner artifacts whereas another faction (the one that joined the covenant) didn't.
The Elites never really tamed the hunters. Only recruited the non-forerunner munching ones which were in turn used to exterminate the heretics...

  • 02.25.2012 7:43 AM PDT

8/5/08 Bungie Favorites- NoEnd
7/1/09 Bungie Favorites- RECON Devil
9/9/09 Bungie Favorites- Champion
5/22/10 HaloCharts Favs- Prey

The reason the pistol in the back was so effictive is due to the fact the bullet didn't have enough power to exit the front of the Hunter. So it would just ricochet inside the Hunter.

  • 02.25.2012 5:39 PM PDT


Posted by: About 9 Grunts
The reason the pistol in the back was so effictive is due to the fact the bullet didn't have enough power to exit the front of the Hunter. So it would just ricochet inside the Hunter.


M6D pistol rounds explode a split second after impact. It was like a minature bomb going off inside the Hunter, scrambling everything.

  • 02.25.2012 5:42 PM PDT

1 P17Y 7H3 F00L

KOTOR

Maybe because the worms form a collective consciousness, killing a couple of them will send a cripplingly painful shock through the synapse connections to the rest of the worms in the armor. So I suppose the worms not directly attacked would die from shock.

  • 02.25.2012 6:01 PM PDT

If you're passionate about the thing you're talking about, I'll always lend an ear.

Posted by: ROBERTO jh

Posted by: About 9 Grunts
The reason the pistol in the back was so effictive is due to the fact the bullet didn't have enough power to exit the front of the Hunter. So it would just ricochet inside the Hunter.


M6D pistol rounds explode a split second after impact. It was like a minature bomb going off inside the Hunter, scrambling everything.

^This.

  • 02.25.2012 6:09 PM PDT


Posted by: ninjakenzen
Posted by: ROBERTO jh

Posted by: About 9 Grunts
The reason the pistol in the back was so effictive is due to the fact the bullet didn't have enough power to exit the front of the Hunter. So it would just ricochet inside the Hunter.


M6D pistol rounds explode a split second after impact. It was like a minature bomb going off inside the Hunter, scrambling everything.

^This.


Makes you wonder why the UNSC doesn't stick those rounds on almost all of their guns. The only other Halo gun I know of that uses explosive rounds (that isn't a vehicle) is the Reach human turret, and that was after a minor retcon 343 did.

  • 02.25.2012 7:16 PM PDT

Old school Bungie, born and raised,
In the Septagon is where I spend most of my days.
Relaxin', maxin', posting all cool,
Talking about Halo, life and some school.
Got in one little argument, and the mods got scared,
they said "You're gonna get banned and your member title'll be bare!"

I would guess that a Lekgolo colony is very "emotional." A colony pair do mate for life, and they also are known to produce and recite poetry, so perhaps the death of a few individuals within a single colony can have devastating, depressing results on the masses.

Just my theory.

|
`->Prometheus2508

  • 02.25.2012 7:27 PM PDT

-uncagedblue

What if the connections between the worms forms one big brain similar to the connections between electrons or whatever in our brain, and it forms one big self aware intelligence, and when they are separate they are more like instinctively driven to eat and gather together or something. If my theory is correct, they would be one big walking headshot.

  • 02.25.2012 7:42 PM PDT