False. Flood can infect the dead.

In CE, Cortana specifically said that the halo doesn’t kill the flood, it kills their food. So this means that the flood can’t infect the dead, and with nothing alive to infect, they starve. But in Halo 3, we see the flood infecting fully dead brutes, recently killed by you. This completely ruins the plot, since if they can infect the dead, then the halos are pointless, unless they have a method of carefully flicking every living thing very far away or actually disintegrated them. Cortana made it sound like putting a flood infection form in a room full of dead people would starve it, but it can in fact infect the dead. Can anyone agree with me that this is just wrong?

The Halo rings seem to eradicate any organic matter left behind after the death of the organism. I think the line itself was mostly just Bungie overlooking some possible inconsistencies in the first game.

> 2535449076192416;1:
> In CE, Cortana specifically said that the halo doesn’t kill the flood, it kills their food. So this means that the flood can’t infect the dead, and with nothing alive to infect, they starve. But in Halo 3, we see the flood infecting fully dead brutes, recently killed by you. This completely ruins the plot, since if they can infect the dead, then the halos are pointless, unless they have a method of carefully flicking every living thing very far away or actually disintegrated them. Cortana made it sound like putting a flood infection form in a room full of dead people would starve it, but it can in fact infect the dead. Can anyone agree with me that this is just wrong?

This piece of lore was changed later. The Halo rings kills all living organisms large enough that the flood can infect it, including the flood. Everything is okay with the lore, and you are far from the first person to discover this inconsistency.

~ Legacy

I thought the rings destroyed organic life on a molecular level, so there was nothing left to infect?

Can’t agree with you on this topic. I concur with emperor nova

Even if the Flood can infect corpses, wouldn’t they need to find a new host eventually? A body can’t last forever, and even if the Flood reproduce themselves, eventually they will run out of dead bodies to feed off of.

Images from the terminals show a Halo ring firing, and those hit by it disintegrate into what appears to be some sort of organic dust or particles. The Flood are also directly hit and destroyed by the blast. Only the Flood withing the protective confines of the Halos or Shield Worlds survive. So, no new revelations. The Flood are called “Inferi Redivivus”, which essentially means “the Dead remade/reborn”.

What I’m curious about is if it is true the Flood can actually starve. After first attacking Humans and fleeing, they vanished for a lengthy period of several centuries before returning… so how were they surviving in the meantime?

Because bungee didn’t think things out as well in CE as much as people think.

The Halo array apparently kills things by frying their neural networks. And I think neural networks are required in order to be infected by the Flood.

> 2535437652903765;2:
> The Halo rings seem to eradicate any organic matter left behind after the death of the organism. I think the line itself was mostly just Bungie overlooking some possible inconsistencies in the first game.

A possible left over from earlier writing as well perhaps, for in the same cutscene Cortana insults Spark by saying “sod off” (a remnant of her original character design, which was of British lent and slang)

> 2533274817408735;9:
> The Halo array apparently kills things by frying their neural networks. And I think neural networks are required in order to be infected by the Flood.

Lekgolo worms lack any sort of neural network (being a gesalt species, every individual worm providing their own peice of the whole mind so to speak) and they are confirmed immune to the Flood (Halo: Bloodline)
So yes, a neural network is required. Though I believe sufficient calcium mass is another necessity…but perhaps thats only during the feral stage.

> 2533274907200114;10:
> > 2535437652903765;2:
> > The Halo rings seem to eradicate any organic matter left behind after the death of the organism. I think the line itself was mostly just Bungie overlooking some possible inconsistencies in the first game.
>
>
> A possible left over from earlier writing as well perhaps, for in the same cutscene Cortana insults Spark by saying “sod off” (a remnant of her original character design, which was of British lent and slang)

There was also the “This cave is not a natural formation” line.

> 2533274907200114;11:
> > 2533274817408735;9:
> > The Halo array apparently kills things by frying their neural networks. And I think neural networks are required in order to be infected by the Flood.
>
>
> Lekgolo worms lack any sort of neural network (being a gesalt species, every individual worm providing their own peice of the whole mind so to speak) and they are confirmed immune to the Flood (Halo: Bloodline)
> So yes, a neural network is required. Though I believe sufficient calcium mass is another necessity…but perhaps thats only during the feral stage.

I thought the Mgalekgolo were immune to Flood infection due not having a central nervous system, but the individual Lekgolo worms could be used by the Flood as biomass.

You said the keywords “recently dead”. A body is only technically dead for a short period because their are no more electrical impulses firing. Until the body detiorates sufficiently to ruin the connections the flood could theoretically “hook up” to a recently dead body and stimulate the body to continue its normal puppetry. The Halo assemblies destroy the nervous systems rendering this impossible.
but I could be wrong and this is just for the more advance stages and it was retconned to just include all organic matter, which I would suppose includes plant life.

> 2535437652903765;13:
> > 2533274907200114;11:
> > > 2533274817408735;9:
> > > The Halo array apparently kills things by frying their neural networks. And I think neural networks are required in order to be infected by the Flood.
> >
> >
> > Lekgolo worms lack any sort of neural network (being a gesalt species, every individual worm providing their own peice of the whole mind so to speak) and they are confirmed immune to the Flood (Halo: Bloodline)
> > So yes, a neural network is required. Though I believe sufficient calcium mass is another necessity…but perhaps thats only during the feral stage.
>
>
> I thought the Mgalekgolo were immune to Flood infection due not having a central nervous system, but the individual Lekgolo worms could be used by the Flood as biomass.

I don’t believe they have enough calcium (having no bones really, or if any its made of like, silicone or something flexible, like a cuttlefish). They’re, basically, not worth the Floods time.

> 2533274888057089;7:
> Images from the terminals show a Halo ring firing, and those hit by it disintegrate into what appears to be some sort of organic dust or particles. The Flood are also directly hit and destroyed by the blast. Only the Flood withing the protective confines of the Halos or Shield Worlds survive. So, no new revelations. The Flood are called “Inferi Redivivus”, which essentially means “the Dead remade/reborn”.
>
> What I’m curious about is if it is true the Flood can actually starve. After first attacking Humans and fleeing, they vanished for a lengthy period of several centuries before returning… so how were they surviving in the meantime?

If I had to guess? Feasting on other galaxies.

You’re wrong. This is from Halopedia;

“The nervous systems of all beings are targeted by the Halos and destroyed, rendering them useless to the Flood; however, the Halo effect does not disintegrate biomass, leaving the victims’ bodies mostly intact. Left untreated, lifeforms killed by the pulse will decay in great masses, which could lead to ecological devastation spread by a miasma of rotten biomatter. Therefore, Lifeworkers sprayed target biospheres with a solute that would cause any animal killed by the Array to instantly decay into its component molecules, resulting in flash-desiccation. Due to the Forerunners’ use of solute, 21st century paleo-archeological studies gave no indication of the mass extinction caused by the Array’s firing. However, in 2332 Ross-Ziegler blip revealed a tiny aberration in Earth’s fossil records.”

Basically, the flood need a semi-functional nervous system to be able to convert a host. The Halo rings more or less removed that.

Okay, now I understand. According to what you all have told me, the halos specifically target the nervous systems of possible hosts, thus making them not ‘edible’. They can infect bodies that did not die due to the rings, since the bodies’ nervous systems are still intact. This makes sense now. Thanks, people!

> 2535449076192416;1:
> In CE, Cortana specifically said that the halo doesn’t kill the flood, it kills their food. So this means that the flood can’t infect the dead, and with nothing alive to infect, they starve. But in Halo 3, we see the flood infecting fully dead brutes, recently killed by you. This completely ruins the plot, since if they can infect the dead, then the halos are pointless, unless they have a method of carefully flicking every living thing very far away or actually disintegrated them. Cortana made it sound like putting a flood infection form in a room full of dead people would starve it, but it can in fact infect the dead. Can anyone agree with me that this is just wrong?

You are oh so very wrong, didn’t you see the flood gathering dead bodies in halo 1? Cortana said they are gathering them, and then infected them, and what she means by kill is vaporise everything, so there is nothing left, not just kill, the halo rings destroy everything cell there in the galaxy

> 2535449076192416;18:
> Okay, now I understand. According to what you all have told me, the halos specifically target the nervous systems of possible hosts, thus making them not ‘edible’. They can infect bodies that did not die due to the rings, since the bodies’ nervous systems are still intact. This makes sense now. Thanks, people!

Something like that. However the Rings also destroy Flood biomass itself. Two for one punch.