Hello. Just a summary but for my theory scroll down to the 3rd paragraph
I was just thinking about the endless (xalanyn), the harbinger, flood and precursors. It’s quite obvious with 343 quoting the gravemind and the cadense of the harbingers voice that she’s somehow related to the flood. The silent auditorium related to the palace of pain just by what the weapon, harbinger and dispondent pyre say. The song playing during mission is palace arrival too.
I know people are saying how could the endless be precursor and not die from the array. So many things point to this. They are the endless and the primordial is the “timeless one”
Hear me out on my theory. The flood are pretty much precursor and we know the precursors have gone from existence to flourishing in the galaxy. They change shale and form but essentially are precursor. The flood was sent out to test humanity and forerunners of the mantle. The primordial has secrets that make everyone mad.
I truly believe the flood are a “reset” for the galaxy…essentially combining all sentient beings into one intelligent network which is the flood. The flood become the precursors. The precursors created forerunners and humans “in their image”. Maybe this flood consuming everything then evolves and becomes the diverse galaxy after. Resetting it. Species evolve and when one becomes dominant, the flood returns. Repeat this cycle
So now the xalynyn. Maybe they are created from the flood. Their biomass was so large the precursors returned before the halo array fired. Given the flood was exponentially growing in intelligence, the flood/precursors mutated just like a virus that made them immune to the array making the xalanyn. We all know how the pandemic is changing, evading out containemt protocols and our defense with vaccination etc as it evolves and mutates. Why can’t the flood or precursors do the same against the array?
Just a theory. Let me know what you think
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Rings within rings and all that. That recurring metaphor is mentioned a lot in the game and did have me wondering.
It would be a little too Mass Effect to have the Precursors play this game for millions of years even before the Forerunners. A cycle of galactic cleansing but with the Flood instead of the Reapers.
Also it would undercut the idea the Forerunners were bad trying to kill the Precursors. Because, that would be evil, letting the Galaxy evolve before wiping the Petri dish clean.
Like in Mass Effect they talk about the paramaters of the pattern repeating like Cerberus and you could say for Halo the whole Offensive/Mendicant analogy with Weapon/Cortana. I don’t know. With the butterfly effect I don’t see how things could be that deterministic without the Precursors controlling the board.
As an aside, they seem to state that Zeta Halo is older than the Forerunners? So they can’t have built it? Are the Halo like the Crucible from Mass Effect? There’s also a variant of the Eld symbol in some of the Forerunner buildings that isn’t explained. That sort of stuff would suggest a species older than the Forerunners existed.
It would be too much like Mass Effect. 
The Endless were unjustly punished for a crime they didn’t commit. The Forerunners noted that they couldn’t kill the Endless, so they were instead contained indefinitely, never intended to be released. That much we know.
I’m reasonably well convinced that the Endless are the Precursors’ biological avatars… at least the ones that weren’t turned into Flood. The Precursors exist in many forms, advancing and dying out, then emerging again elsewhere at a different technological level. The Precursors are beyond the Forerunners’ ability to harm, because the Precursors’ physical forms aren’t tied to their existence. The result of this being the Forerunners attempting to prevent the Precursors from re-emerging by putting them into stasis instead of killing them.
The Flood under this interpretation are a bioweapon designed to enforce the Mantle, driving the development of the other races by giving them an enemy, and punishing any race/culture with the hubris to prevent other races from advancing (like what the Forerunners and Covenant did). The Flood isn’t actually seeking to consume everything. If it desired to, it would have succeeded.
I think that’s much more consistent with Halo’s lore than infinite cycles of creating life just to destroy it.
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Are the Flood immune to the Halo array? I am not sure how significant the Endless being immune is and whether that means they are like the Flood/Precursors or an evolved version or something different.
If they are Precursors or a variant of them, is the Flood going to view them as allies or food? The Gravemind is not sanest of room mates. I mean, if you want to rule the galaxy and the Flood (you think) aren’t going to kill you; that’s incentive to set them free.
I am probably clutching at straws here. But the Skimmers having lots of tentacles hanging from that bulbous head is kind of like an infection form. Plus, the Harbingers mandible things are a little bit like how the Gravemind has those elongated bits on the side of its face as well. I know, Lovecraftian elements don’t necessarily prove much.
Is the Harbinger even dead then? If the Forerunners can’t just kill them is there some sort of space magic way of them cheating death or reincarnating. It was very odd how the Harbinger seemed to float up like that at the end.
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The Flood are purged by the Halo Array like everything else. I believe the Endless can’t be eliminated by the Halo Array, because they’re avatars for the Precursors, so if they’re killed, the Precursors just create a new race of Avatars, which is why the Forerunners decided to contain the Endless instead of killing them.
I believe the Flood and the Endless are under the direct command of the Precursors, and neither is truly expressing its actual goals to the mortals they’re manipulating.
Very good read from all the comments. My theory is likely incorrect and I am convinced the endless cycles thing is likely not what is happening; however others are also seeing similiarities between the endless, flood and precursors. Are the endless variants of the flood that have adopted mutations against the halo array? Have the flood created a new species and adopted knowledge from infected sentient beings such as forerunners and humans cashing a new intelligent and adaptable species?
So if the Flood absorbed the Endless would they gain immunity to the Halo?
Might be the reason they got contained
No. I think the Halo Array would destroy the physical forms of the Endless, but that the Endless themselves would re-emerge in new bodies. If the Flood consumed an Endless’ body, it wouldn’t gain anything because the Flood was created from dust taken from the Endless to begin with (If I’m right about the connection between the Endless and the Precursors)