Halo: Reach Discussion

[Ki11a_FTW]

http://www.youtube.com/user/SnaxyVideos#p/u

if anyone is curious, theres about 1 hour of footage of bungie's development on halo 2 from start to end.

[Delta4907]

Then Halo 3 has to come in and confuse everyone by demonstrating that Halo does indeed kill the Flood.

Now it's a convoluted mess, with retcon on top of retcon being used to explain things that didn't need to be explained if only they had their shit straight all along.

The firing replacement ring for Installation 04 wasn't what killed the Flood. It was the resulting explosion from the huge amount of energy that ripped it apart, completely destroying itself and as Cortana states, "did a number on the ark". In a way, it was the same way the Flood on the original Installation 04 perished, from the rings destruction.

[teh lag]

The firing replacement ring for Installation 04 wasn't what killed the Flood. It was the resulting explosion from the huge amount of energy that ripped it apart, completely destroying itself and as Cortana states, "did a number on the ark". In a way, it was the same way the Flood on the original Installation 04 perished, from the rings destruction.

Guilty Spark thought activating the ring to counter the local infestation was a good idea.

Guilty Spark thought DESTROYING the ring and the Ark was a BAD idea.

There you go.

Intent.

Somehow 343 thought that activating Halo would stop the Flood there, even though it's been pretty much hammered into us that Halo only kills the Flood's food and makes them burn themselves out when they run out of hosts.

[ejburke]

It's possible the Gravemind came from somewhere else after finding out about the flood forerunner war, the flood were afterall extragalactic.

"I am a monument to all your sins."

Sure doesn't sound extra-galactic. Sounds like the Forerunner were in some way responsible for his existence. Like there was a lesson to be learned from the past. But no such revelations of divine retribution were to be had. What we got had far less resonance.

There were so many memorable lines throughout the series that hinted at one thing, but turned out to be dead-ends or hanging threads. That's just another in a long line of examples.

The flood infect hosts, the halo's would kill the host's but not the infection spores themselves leaving the infection stuck in a dead host, much like Ebola, that virus kills its host so fast it cannot spread itself and yet it is possibly the most deadly virus on earth.

As far as I know, the Flood is characterized by an undifferentiated "supercell" that can be arranged to perform various biological tasks. So, the infection forms are just blobs of Flood supercells and the hosts have their DNA rewritten to convert them into larger blobs of Flood supercells. "No human life signs detected; he's one of them."

A Flood is a Flood is a Flood. Or at least there's no reasonable explanation that they shouldn't be. All or nothing is a much more elegant solution than this crappy, convoluted mess of an explanation that has been retconned into oblivion.

Either the Halo activation spares Flood supercells or it destroys them. There's no logical way it can spare infection forms, while taking out the larger ones.

By the way, does anyone know what the rings actually do to their victims? Does the signal vaporize them or does it just drop them dead, in which case the Flood would have no problem ravaging their corpses.

[Delta4907]

Hmm, just realized that, I didn't really think about what he said until now. My only thought about it is that a Halo's pulse kills off infected flood forms, but not the infection or pure forms (or Gravemind, if there is one). This would've at least slowed the Flood's advances, but not completely destroy them.

[=sw=warlord]

"I am a monument to all your sins."

Sure doesn't sound extra-galactic. Sounds like the Forerunner were in some way responsible for his existence. Like there was a lesson to be learned from the past. But no such revelations of divine retribution were to be had. What we got had far less resonance.

There were so many memorable lines throughout the series that hinted at one thing, but turned out to be dead-ends or hanging threads. That's just another in a long line of examples.

As far as I know, the Flood is characterized by an undifferentiated "supercell" that can be arranged to perform various biological tasks. So, the infection forms are just blobs of Flood supercells and the hosts have their DNA rewritten to convert them into larger blobs of Flood supercells. "No human life signs detected; he's one of them."

A Flood is a Flood is a Flood. Or at least there's no reasonable explanation that they shouldn't be. All or nothing is a much more elegant solution than this crappy, convoluted mess of an explanation that has been retconned into oblivion.

Either the Halo activation spares Flood supercells or it destroys them. There's no logical way it can spare infection forms, while taking out the larger ones.

By the way, does anyone know what the rings actually do to their victims? Does the signal vaporize them or does it just drop them dead, in which case the Flood would have no problem ravaging their corpses.

I wouldn't be too suprised if the halo's sent out some kind of gamma ray like a quasar from a white drawf but on a smaller level, it would be enough to fry anyone in contact but some life forms which are more delicate to radiation could possibly survive.
We may never know what the halo's really did for all we know it could have sent out some sort of EM pulse that messed up the signals in your brain which would affect animal life but not plant or micro bacterial life.
Like i said, i think the flood could be closer resembled to Ebola.
"i am a monument to all your sins" could be to do with how in the flood there are no casts, no creed, no race and that everyone is working towards a common goal unlike humans and the covenant.

[ejburke]

Given that simultaneity is relative, especially over larger than solar distances, there's really no way to zap everything in the galaxy at once. Each Halo installation is far enough away from the others that, depending on your intertial frame, one might fire weeks or months before or after the other, giving you plenty of opportunity to avoid each individual pulse, provided that you had a fast enough space ship and the math skills to chart a course that takes advantage of the principles of special relativity. Not to mention, if your ship was capable of faster-than-light travel, you essentially have a time machine and REALLY don't have to worry about the Halo pulse.

But I'll let that slide.

[Dwood]

Somehow 343 thought that activating Halo would stop the Flood there, even though it's been pretty much hammered into us that Halo only kills the Flood's food and makes them burn themselves out when they run out of hosts.

Yeah... That's probably because someone at bungie probably realized that the Halo killing only the flood's food was either a bad plot device or too annoying to work with so they ignored it all together..?

[Terry]

Is everybody starting to realize that the Halo fiction is swiss cheese and attempts to resolve this information with the previous "canon" will only end tragically, with a brain hemorrhage or stroke? You might as well devote your time to figuring out the Zelda timeline or grow a tail and chase it.

I mean, shit. In Halo 1, the ring activations doesn't kill the Flood and in Halo 3 it does. If you can't keep something that simple straight, then what hope is there?

Better luck with the next IP, Bungie.

Great comprehension skills.

[=sw=warlord]

Given that simultaneity is relative, especially over larger than solar distances, there's really no way to zap everything in the galaxy at once. Each Halo installation is far enough away from the others that, depending on your intertial frame, one might fire weeks or months before or after the other, giving you plenty of opportunity to avoid each individual pulse, provided that you had a fast enough space ship and the math skills to chart a course that takes advantage of the principles of special relativity. Not to mention, if your ship was capable of faster-than-light travel, you essentially have a time machine and REALLY don't have to worry about the Halo pulse.

But I'll let that slide.

Two words.
Slip Space.