The terrifying enemy type is owned by the flood. The normal canon fodder enemy type is the covenant-banished, so that leaves the Endless. The flood are STILL relevant in Halo Infinite. So that leaves the Endless. The only other enemy type I can imagine them being is the promethian type. Abnormal, special abilities, unique purpose. Compare it to what we know about the endless: abnormal: 
special abilities: unique purpose: .
I really don’t get why they were bragging about the Endless in-game like somehow the next big ‘Flood’ and honestly I find myself more confused and underwhelmed. I kind of feel like they were poorly explained and I ended up spending more time wondering where the heck the Flood were instead. Kind of felt like the only reason they existed because people complained about a lack of a boss fight with the Didact.
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Unfortunately, the “idea” of the Endless is probably more appealing than what the Endless are actually going to be. They could be a whole new threat never encountered before, or the Precursor’s new form after being replanted by the Librarian long ago. It all depends on the writing.
I think the Endless are gonna be like: “we are the big bads now!” then the Flood is gonna come out of no where in the future and say: “Oh yeah!? Take this!” then after ingesting some Endless DNA the Flood are gonna evolve into the “true” threat yet again.
It’s all speculation because 343 didn’t explain much of anything in Infinite, you have to listen to the audio logs to figure out what’s really going on and even then they leave a lot of things to speculation.
The Harbinger is a Xalanyn, the endless species. They are the only life forms that can survive the ring’s ability to destroy all sentient life. Expect every encounter with an endless to be similar to the final boss.
Skimmers are Endless as well, are they not?
They are.
But in reality, they are reskinned Drones reused from older Halo games.
Most likely. The Xalanyn species resembles aquatic primates, kind of like fish octopus monkeys. They can’t walk on land, so they use technology to move around
And there’s this excerpt:
" Ido not understand the infatuation with these skittering thrustbugs, brother. The Skimmers present more nuisance than aid to our efforts. I am convinced they - much like their leader have their own agenda.”
Well they are definitely of the same species or a variant. I’m pretty sure the Xalanyn and Harbinger wanted to make the Ring reoperational, because they are the only species that can survive the Ring’s blast, so if they were to destroy all known life, they would be the dominant species. The Banished are just too stupid to understand that they were being used.
I’d love to see a nicely fleshed out explanation of their conflict with the Forerunner, given Harbingers constant harping on the revisionist truth regarding the Forerunners superiority. Given everything the Forerunner were, there is a lot to mine there given her implications.
The problem is 343i have proven steadily incapable of delivering much by way of story in an actual game, relying heavily on the expanded works to flesh things out. Its something they’ve struggled with since they took over the franchise.
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I got the impression that the Skimmers were likely not of her own race, but some subservient species bent to their designs. The audio logs where the Brutes discuss them also mention then smelling horrid, almost as if they’re rotten, which screams “reanimated” or “engineered” to me.
I think it’s probably because they smell like nasty fish. Aquatic life tends to smell horrible when exposed to oxygen.
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Idk about getting a fleshed out explanation, but you can read this for more info.
https://www.halopedia.org/Xalanyn
Basically since the Forerunners tried to destroy all life with the Ring to kill the Flood, and the Xalanyn were undocumented at the time, they were surprised to find one species of life immune to the blast, and deemed them a threat, so they sealed them in the Ring instead. The Xalanyn want revenge. They were just living life when they realize the Forerunners just to destroy them and all life for no apparent reason. The Forerunners are their mortal enemy. Technically they aren’t the bad guys, they were just kind of forced into becoming them. The same way the Forerunners technically aren’t the bad guys, but they had no other option for destroying the Flood. That’s why the Harbinger said that she was not the enemy of Master Chief, and didn’t want to fight him. I’m pretty sure she was going to betray the Banished, after restoring the Xalanyn imprisoned on the Ring, but Master Chief just made enemies with the Endless. Then again she could betray Chief too, so it is what it is.
Oh you and me both my friend. The potential is here… but as we both know, 343 is notorious for wasting potential.
I like to let my mind wander on things like this, like for instance, maybe the Endless are what the Precursors evolved into after being reseeded on Bastion, and after Despondent Pyre>>Offensive Bias found them, the Grand Edict(a Warden like AI) imprisoned them on Zeta(which was known as a prison ring among many other things). OR maybe the Grand Edict could also be some of the last few remaining Forerunners, shielded inside the Zeta Ring when it fired, who dedicated the remainder their lives to maintaining Zeta for the future.
Once imprisoned, the Xalanyn learned of their true origins in the Domain(the Precursor’s galaxy wide internet), and then officially became the Endless. Unknown to the Forerunners, and even the Xalanyn themselves, the Xalanyn could still telepathically speak with one another similar to how the Precursors of old could. Inside the Domain, the newly formed Endless plotted and waited for an escape…
The Precursors re-evolution could be the culmination of all of Halo’s Lore. The old Gods are back… and they are pissed off…
The Precursors evolved and devolved countless times to FINALLY become the godlike beings they were in the infancy of the Halo universe, before they seeded planets or created the Forerunners or Humanity. Maybe this is part of their plan all along… if they can’t defeat an opponent like say: the Forerunners or Humanity or even The Flood… they allow themselves to be destroyed and assimilated because one day in the future, they will gain control no matter what… that is why they are “Endless.” Which might explain why the Xalanyn randomly changed their name to “The Endless.”
I think what the Endless will fail to see in time is that the Flood IS the Precursors in a different form, and once they combine it will corrupt everything, which will become the penultimate evil to destroy in Halo Infinite’s timeline. “The Endless Flood!”
Of course, this is a personal theory I came up with. So who knows what will really happen…
The Halo Array when fired, sends out specialized neutrino waves that specifically destroy brain and spinal tissue which are the most important ingredients needed by the Flood to keep evolving. The Forerunners didn’t want to end all life, because in their old beliefs, that essentially means the Universe itself will be killed too. They wanted to preserve life at all costs, even if it meant their own extinction. So the Ark was used to reseed the galaxy with sentient life after the Array was fired. Only plant life and tiny microorganisms could survive this pulse.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, the Precursors made their ships, architecture, machinery, everything out of a neural material they created from seemingly nothing. Imagine the grotesque Flood like membrane that envelopes everything it touches but being much more dense and sophisticated looking and less gory similar to how the Forerunner metallic alloy appears. The Precursor’s neural material was obliterated when the Halo Array was fired many years ago.
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