A theory about the true purpose of the flood

Community Halo Universe
1

I recently finished the Forerunner trilogy and have been thinking about the exchange between the Iso-Didact and the Primordial (at the end of Primordium). The section i am most interested in:

> “Deified! You were monsters set upon destroying all who would assume the Mantle.”
> “It was long ago decided. Forerunners will never bear the Mantle.”
> “Decided how?”
> “Through long study. The decision is final. Humans will replace you. Humans will be tested next.”
> Was the Primordial giving me a message of hope? Doom for our enemies… ascendency and triumph for humanity?
> “Is that to be our punishment?” the Didact asked, his tone subdued-dangerous.
> “It is the way of those who seek out the truth of the Mantle. Humans will rise again in arrogance and defiance. The Flood will return when they are ripe - and bring them unity.”
>
> …
> “Forerunners will fail as you have failed before. Humans will rise. Whether they will also fail has not been decided”

This dialogue got me thinking, but i don’t really like the conclusions i have drawn. I suppose the following theory is one that i hope will turn out to be false, at least i really don’t want to see the wider Halo universe head in this direction, even though i’m afraid that it will.

What if the flood and the conflicts humanity faces are all part of the Precursors’ plan? We already know that the flood deliberately did not destroy humanity so it could turn on the Forerunners. Here the Primordial is explicitly saying that humanity needs to be “tested” by the flood, and that the Forerunners failed that test. Was it part of the Precursors’ plan that the Forerunners be removed from the galaxy through the Halo rings? We know that when the Forerunners rose up against the Precursors, they didn’t react, or fight back at all. Perhaps they knew and accepted that it was a necessary part of the plan?

We have geas already established, and we have a species of unbelievable sophistication that takes whatever shape it wants, and can control the behavior of an immense biological super-weapon. Perhaps they also planted geas of their own in the forerunners and pushed them towards building the Halos, and pushed the librarian towards nurturing humanity to ‘reclaim’ the forerunner legacy. Kind of like Foundation meets the bible.

The biblicial connections are obvious - Ark, Flood, Covenant, supreme beings being disappointed with their creations and wanting to start over from a clean slate. We might see the librarian as being a kind of godly messenger - fulfilling the ultimate will of the Precursors. The Ur-Didact is the ultimate evil, because he wants the forerunners to return and not have the human beings ‘reclaim’ what belongs to his race.

The strongest evidence against this theory that i can think of is the later statements from the gravemind, about how the flood wants everything to suffer for eternity, but perhaps there is even a geas for the flood, and the graveminds are not fully conscious of the overall plan.

I don’t want this to be the direction they are taking Halo though - because it is fundamentally a religious story and it removes all agency from all of the characters. We already have the librarian saying that she ‘programmed’ the ultimate evolution of humanity, including John-117, and Cortana, and their relationship together - are they simply puppets then? Is every living thing in the galaxy a puppet? Everything would be pre-ordained by perfect beings, and regardless of what plot points the writers come up with, how non-sensical or illogical, it can be explained away as part of the “wisdom of the precursors”. Frankly i prefer tragedy, character flaws, and unpleasant consequences for bad decisions. I would much prefer to see a race of star-builders become victim to their weaknesses, and unleash horror upon the whole galaxy thanks to their rage and bitterness, driven by the shock of realizing they weren’t so perfect. Not just because ‘it’s a test’.

I think anyone who’s argued with a religious fundamentalist about the meaning of death and suffering in the world, only to be answered with “It’s just God’s plan” would agree that this would be a bad direction story-wise. Of course its a fairly extreme theory, and i welcome any proof against it

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I think any notion of a test is wiped away by Silentium revealing that the Precursors were just going to join ALL life together in pain and suffering.

3

> 2533274812652989;2:
> I think any notion of a test is wiped away by Silentium revealing that the Precursors were just going to join ALL life together in pain and suffering.

This. I don’t get why people are so hung up on the notion of the Flood being a continuation of the Precursor’s test. Maybe that was part of the Precursor’s goals when they weren’t extragalactic monsters, but now they’ve essentially become a terrifying force seeking to unify life in pain and suffering. They now seem to want to rob species of free-will by assimilating them together as an act of vengeance for the destruction the Precursors suffered at the hands of the Forerunners.

I very much doubt that they’re still concerned with testing the eligibility alien races in holding the mantle. Honestly, they probably just passingly mentioned that humans were originally supposed to inherit the mantle just to spite the Forerunners.

I personally find this to be a much more convincing theory.

4

Halo while it has plenty of religious themes, doesn’t make that the heart of its story. Don’t worry, those character flaws are all intact. The Flood, then, was used by the Precursors (Primordial) as revenge to the Forerunners. The Primordial might have gone about this “test” thing, but the Primordial died, and instead now we have the Gravemind. And the Gravemind doesn’t represent some higher cause, all it is is the Flood. What I would get from this is that the Flood is coming back in Halo 5

5

> 2533274812652989;2:
> I think any notion of a test is wiped away by Silentium revealing that the Precursors were just going to join ALL life together in pain and suffering.

For me it’s obvious that with Primordial’s death Flood lost last piece of Precursors’ consciousness. While Primordial was still on that gap between Precursors and Flood (it was acting like Gravemind, yet still was able to deliver Precursors’ original message), all Flood after him lost it’s connection with Precursors. It’s just… Flood - being (tool) that still has Precursors’ memories and by this still is able to use it’s technology, but has different consciousness and it’s own goals.

Considering that Precursors are gods (who are basically omnipotent - that includes shaping their own form) it’s very unlikely they would changed their goals just like that. Primordial was VERY accurate with it’s prophesy:

> In a hundred and one thousand centuries…unity again, and wisdom.

So, when humanity found Flood in 2552, we must assume it all happened acording to Precursors’ original plan. This “unity” is unity with Precursors, not with Flood (as it was later, in Silentium, when Flood decided to unite everything in pain and suffering).

Also considering Precursors can easly travel between galaxies it’s very unlikely that all of them, out of entire universe, came to one place just to let themselves being destroyed by Forerunners (and eventually turned into Flood).

For me it all looks like Precursors left us in our galaxy to test us. When (or if) we pass the test, we’ll be able to unite with Precursors - basically become Precursors in our part of universe. All these things going on (from war with Flood to war with Forerunners to another war with Flood 101k years later) are parts of our (strictly planned) maturity test.