I think one of the largest, if not the largest, questions from Halo 2’s campaign is how, just how, a Gravemind managed to from on Installation 05.
Most of us seem to assume that it was a result of Flood infection forms breaking containment and spreadin like wildfire until a Gravemind could be formed. However, not only is there not enough biomass on the ring capable creating a Gravemind, but there remains the point that with or without rampant loneliness, Penitenent Tangent and the Sentinels that operate normally regardless of PT’s condition would be more than capable of stopping a breakout that lacks Combat Forms.
That said, I believe that the Gravemind was a result of a few Protograveminds already existing in containment escaping containment and then merging.
Its one of the things that makes me really sad the H2A terminals are focused on the arbiter.
Beyond the mystery ship that they added, not a whole lot interesting happened to I04. On the other hand, something terribly wrong clearly happened to I05, but we might get no details on that.
Idk, that installation has been sitting there for a VERY long time afterall. Maybe it had other visitors at some point we don’t know about. Or your theory.
> That said, I believe that the Gravemind was a result of a few Protograveminds already existing in containment escaping containment and then merging.
The only problem I have with this is that I can’t imagine the Forerunners preserving proto-graveminds. Yes, we had the slew of them on Installation 07, but those were already there. For storage on 05, the Forerunners would have had to capture one and move it to the ring for containment. Storing combat forms is dangerous enough (and we know they did), but a proto-gravemind seems like too big of a risk.
In the early days when Halo: CEA released I assumed the ship crashing on Alpha Halo was part of a plan to leave consumable material on the ring for the Flood to consume and form Graveminds. Spark was lucky he contained it, but Tangent? Less so.
> In the early days when Halo: CEA released I assumed the ship crashing on Alpha Halo was part of a plan to leave consumable material on the ring for the Flood to consume and form Graveminds. Spark was lucky he contained it, but Tangent? Less so.
Possible, but there were apparently only seven beings inside of Installation 04’s visitor and seven beings would only be enough for a (small) Protogravemind.
Things must have gone horribly wrong with 2401 for seven corpses to become a Gravemind capable of imprisoning him.
> > In the early days when Halo: CEA released I assumed the ship crashing on Alpha Halo was part of a plan to leave consumable material on the ring for the Flood to consume and form Graveminds. Spark was lucky he contained it, but Tangent? Less so.
>
> Possible, but there were apparently only seven beings inside of Installation 04’s visitor and seven beings would only be enough for a (small) Protogravemind.
>
> Things must have gone horribly wrong with 2401 for seven corpses to become a Gravemind capable of imprisoning him.
> What if the Gravemind on 05 is ancient, and managed to somehow survive the Halo event and then crashed on the ring?
>
> I really can’t think of anything better.
Yet if it did crash, I suspect Tangent would have jumped on it far quicker, leading me to believe it was formed on the ring, as Tangent let the issue fester for a long time.
> Yet if it did crash, I suspect Tangent would have jumped on it far quicker, leading me to believe it was formed on the ring, as Tangent let the issue fester for a long time.
Might be a stretch, but what if Tanget neglected the crash, opened it, or was on a vacation like Spark while it happened?
That’s an interesting theory about the craft being a sort of seed for a Gravemind. 343 noted that nothing tried crawling out. It only had a crew of 7, so they were either giant organisms crammed in there or there were other residents/visitors on the ring that could have provided biomass. Maybe there was multiple crash landings on I05? Maybe the Gravemind came from his own ship from another galaxy and commanded a seperate ship to go to Alpha Halo.
> In the early days when Halo: CEA released I assumed the ship crashing on Alpha Halo was part of a plan to leave consumable material on the ring for the Flood to consume and form Graveminds. Spark was lucky he contained it, but Tangent? Less so.
Like when the Precursors sent ships filled with powder to inhabited worlds so that the Flood would come about?
If so, that’s an interesting theory, and perhaps the ships distress beacon was a ploy to gather more organic material for the Flood. Though that’s just a game theory!
> > Yet if it did crash, I suspect Tangent would have jumped on it far quicker, leading me to believe it was formed on the ring, as Tangent let the issue fester for a long time.
>
> Might be a stretch, but what if Tanget neglected the crash, opened it, or was on a vacation like Spark while it happened?
It’s possible, I grant you that. But even then, the sentinels would be doing scans, correct? Because if protocol states that only an installation monitor can scan an alien craft of unknown species, that would suck.
> > In the early days when Halo: CEA released I assumed the ship crashing on Alpha Halo was part of a plan to leave consumable material on the ring for the Flood to consume and form Graveminds. Spark was lucky he contained it, but Tangent? Less so.
>
> Like when the Precursors sent ships filled with powder to inhabited worlds so that the Flood would come about?
>
> If so, that’s an interesting theory, and perhaps the ships distress beacon was a ploy to gather more organic material for the Flood. Though that’s just a game theory!
I find myself aligning more with this train of thought. Seems the most likely, and would fit with the recent theme of an apparent upcoming Precursor return.
The lab in Cold Storage is ground zero for the outbreak. A pure form breaks containment. The logs released to add backstory to the map explain the incident.
No ship, no precursors, just weird biomass generation abilities.
> The lab in Cold Storage is ground zero for the outbreak. A pure form breaks containment. The logs released to add backstory to the map explain the incident.
>
> No ship, no precursors, just weird biomass generation abilities.
Yep, Tangent was just lax in maintaining protocol and he paid the price for it.
Also, an interesting bit of info: the Flood forms, until the formation of the Gravemind, fought off I05’s defences in near absolute zero temperatures and no atmosphere. Afterwards, when a Gravemind was formed and took over Tangent and the majority of I05’s systems, the Flood, with their very limited biomass managed to hold sentinels and enforcers at bay for just under 100 000 years. So, unless the Flood generated biomass from thin air, they were stupidly efficient at killing I05’s defences.
Originally I believed that the idea of the Gravemind forming on the Ring really didn’t make any sense. While there is plenty of livestock on the Ring to feed the Flood and give it biomatter to grow, it would require intelligent life in order to feed the Gravemind’s own intelligence. We see this happen when people like Jacob Keyes and Marine Pilot Burgundy had been captured alive and brought directly to a Proto-Gravemind for consumption. So how exactly could the Gravemind become so intelligent from eating lower life-forms?
There are two possible theories I’ve spent some time thinking about. One involves the crashed Alien ship from the Halo: CEA terminals. 343 Guilty Spark had noted that he was losing contact with the other Monitors and never could figure out why. The last Monitor he spoke to was 2401 Penitent Tangent and we know for a fact he was battling a Flood outbreak on his Ring. Did the same thing happen to the other Rings? So far we have no evidence which suggests there was, however we do know something mysterious has happened. 049 Abject Testament is also missing from Installation 03 which has caught the attention of other Monitors.
From the link above, I have theorized that what ever race the crashed ship belongs to may have been responsible for the disruption in communications. Why they would have done this is unknown, but I believe one of their ship’s approached Installation 04 with the purpose of landing on the Ring. The crew weren’t expecting large chunks of the Ring to be jettisoned however and as a result they died in the crash. It’s possible that a similar incident may have happened at other Rings. Perhaps these people were responsible for 049 Abject Testament’s disappearance? And if they landed on Installation 05, they may have been responsible for an accidental Flood release and they were consumed by the Flood which formed the Gravemind? It’s an interesting thought and I wonder what possible motive this species might have.
Another theory I have considered is that it’s possible the Gravemind actually doesn’t require intelligent individuals to feed on and perhaps livestock is actually enough. You see, there had to have been individual Precursors who chose to turn themselves into a powder which would regenerate at a later date. I always wondered if that meant that when they returned they would be the same individuals as before? So let’s say 10 Precursors turn into powder, they eventually turn into what became the Flood and then 10 Graveminds are eventually formed. Are they all one central intelligence with a single voice? Or is each Gravemind one of the 10 individual Precursors from before?
During the events of Silentium when the Gravemind fought the Forerunner he only spoke in the plural. This could be because the Flood speak with one mind and he only represents all the voices in the hive mind, or it’s because he was simply talking about himself and the other Gravemind leadership. This could be semi-confirmed in Halo 2 and 3 when there is only one Gravemind formed. Even though it had consumed so much and was becoming fully formed, he always talked in the singular. I believe this is because he is an individual and maybe even one of the original Precursors who had turned themselves into the powder.
This would explain how the Gravemind formed without intelligent life on the Ring. As long as a group of Flood can get a hold of biomass in order to grow, the mind of an individual Precursor could already be present and ready to use it in order to begin forming more of its brethren.
I don’t remember why, but I always thought that when a Gravemind formed, it would “link up”, so to speak, to the rest of the Graveminds, and thus, add their intelligence to their own.
Hmm. Given how the architecture of I05 is somewhat different than I04, and that the control room design is notably different from I04 and I03’s… perhaps 343i should retcon I05 into being one of the old models of Array Installations?
Here’s my theory. We know from Primordium that I07 was originally one of the first generation 30,000km Halo installations before it was forced to shed two-thirds of it’s superstructure. Perhaps sometime after that happened, Forerunner naval forces came back to that particular system and salvaged what they could of the discarded sections of I07? Perhaps they pulled a few parts together and built a new installation from the leftover pieces? It would explain why I05 has so many [unknown- possibly ancient human?] structures on it…