Curious, what do you consider "dumb" in Fall of Reach? That was the highlight of the series, if you ask me, and I find any of it stupid. It all fit together.Originally Posted by Arteen
Curious, what do you consider "dumb" in Fall of Reach? That was the highlight of the series, if you ask me, and I find any of it stupid. It all fit together.
Oh come on, Gravemind was an awesome villain in Halo 2. Halo 3 is where they totally ruined it.
I still don't fancy the idea of a higher intelligence in the Flood. It just makes them less scary, knowing that they have a mind that can think and rationalize. I prefer the image faceless, endless, mindless tides just rolling over the galaxy. An unfeeling swarm of flesh hellbent on eating everything. Very primal.
Like the Tyranids!
I don't see the Gravemind as a rationalizing intelligence though. The Flood still give me shivers with the Gravemind because now the tyrannical and mindless monstrosities can think. Instead of running straight at you, they now strafe, back-up, et cetera, and Gravemind's voice makes environments pretty eery. The Gravemind is essentially the Flood as a whole that can speak and deceive/corrupt anything its minion can't.
Halo 3 maintained the character of the Gravemind, but the massive gap between the events of Halo 2 and Halo 3 minimized how the Gravemind in Halo 3 came-off, in my opinion. There weren't enough moments that continued the inexorable force that the Gravemind was representing in Halo 3 and you never saw the Gravemind's face or residence in High Charity.
In short there wasn't enough scenes where you actually saw the Gravemind.
I enjoyed the scene where the Arbiter, John and the Gravemind were having the discussion on what exactly the Halo array was for.
The idea of a Virus having a hivemind where the knowledge and thought process was administered across the entire hive was alot more frightening than the idea of this one huge monster.
I can understand though why the flood would create such a creature as you would think if there was one entity purely for task management they would be a bit more efficient than having say a portion of the mind wiped when the combat forms are killed.
TL,DR, needs more Gravemind talking scenes where you actually see the gravemind for what and who it is.
Although you have to admit, the parts in Halo 3 during Cortana when the Gravemind was screaming in your phase was pretty crazy. But I agree, more Gravemind appearances would have been a good addition.
It's been a long time since I read the novel, but here are a few things I remember not liking. Stuff like Elites and Hunters not showing up until the last year of the war. Only a handful of Spartans ever died between the start of the Spartan program and the last year of the war. And after that, they start dropping like flies. Spartans only got Mk V armor and shields (based off of Jackal tech) right before the battle of Reach, and then they all get Mk VI armor a month later. Instead of distinguishable personalities, all the Spartans got were distinguishable names.
I got the general impression that the only interesting events during the entirety of the war are those that Nylund writes about. It's pretty good overall, but it just doesn't click with me. This guy made a nice post about it.
Many, many valid points in there. However, I don't think he understood what happened with Cortana when she jumped to 04. She didn't actively choose it, it was an impulse. Nobody else at that point had figured out that the rock had coordinates, and if the UNSC didn't, I doubt the Covenant did (we have better scientists and more open minds).
The covenant have engineers by the dozen though.
They're the ones who do the majority of the science in the covenant so it is possible the covenant would figure it out.
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