If the Forerunners can mold and shape planets, why did they apparently build a weapon that only has one setting: Kill everything in a huge radius.
Why didn’t Guilty Spark look at the situation, see that since it was only a local infection, that they only needed a localized pulse to purge the ring and nearby system.
Instead the only option is to use a sledgehammer to kill a fly?
The Halo installations do have a ‘tactical pulse’ feature, it’s used at the end of Halo 3.
As to why Spark did not use it, the Array was set up for the galaxy-killer pulse, and no-one was around to change it. Also, the Reclaimer did not specify which setting to use, and Spark is a little bit short on the screw department after 100,000 years alone.
> no-one was around to change it.
Spark was around.
> Spark is a little bit short on the screw department after 100,000 years alone.
You’d think that he would want to preserve the first bit of contact he’s had with an intelligent species in over 100,000 years alone.
> Why didn’t Guilty Spark look at the situation, see that since it was only a local infection, that they only needed a localized pulse to purge the ring and nearby system.
uhm, AFAIK that’s what’s happening in H:CE and H:3? (not 100% sure on CE, but in H3 343GS is talking about this exactly)
You have to remember one thing, Spark is insane, his main purpose is to maintain and protect the Halo Installation, the firing would destroy it, so he lost it.
> You have to remember one thing, Spark is insane, his main purpose is to maintain and protect the Halo Installation, the firing would destroy it, so he lost it.
the firing would destroy what?
If you’re referring to Halo 3, than the Installation would be destroyed because it was incomplete.
(If you’re not referring to Halo 3, please disregard this and my previous post.)
> If you’re referring to Halo 3, than the Installation would be destroyed because it was incomplete.
>
> (If you’re not referring to Halo 3, please disregard this and my previous post.)
disregarding 
no seriously: the new 04 at the ark would’ve fired alone, BUT i thought that would have been the case too in H:CE?
in H2 there’s talks about how all remaining halos are now on standby - i thought that was the key to “fire one, fire all”. without standby only the ark could activate the whole array, otherwise every halo would fire for itself = localized, even when not located outside the galaxy.
please correct me if i got that wrong.
EDIT: anyways: the test-firing at charum hakkor (cryptum) proves that there’s a “tactical mode”.
> If you’re referring to Halo 3, than the Installation would be destroyed because it was incomplete.
>
> (If you’re not referring to Halo 3, please disregard this and my previous post.)
I’m referring to CE.
> Spark was around.
I doubt he had the clearance, he wasn’t allowed to retrieve the index alone after all, even if he was suposed to carry it.
I doubt hecould affect anything outside of his own installation, the Array settings included.
> You’d think that he would want to preserve the first bit of contact he’s had with an intelligent species in over 100,000 years alone.
He is insane, irrational, he isn’t thinking clearly, just doggedly folowing protocol.
Halo CE firing would have set off the entire Array, Spark say so in two betrayals: “Once the other installations follow suit, this galaxy will be quite devoid of life”.
From what I read, the Forerunners attempted every viable “solution” to rid the flood but it was inconclusive. They finally fell on the notion that the only way to destroy something so bent on consuming whatever it came into contact with, was to destroy the food supply. Not to mention, the only way to guarantee it didn’t spread was to starve it. However, even I wasn’t pro on the notion of the Forerunners keeping samples.
My impression was that the hard-light spokes were necessary to shape and guide the energy. Since they all evidently broke (or ran out of power?) by the year 2552, the Halos act as a glorified bomb.
Spark was going rampant at the time. He is also a strict follower of protocol, which is the main reason that he considered the ring’s main weapon first. He kind of jumped the gun a bit. But he seems to have realized this in Halo 3.
Spark’s growing rampancy and all the excitement going on around the ring (Covenant, Humans, eventually Flood) most likely contributed to his lack of clear understanding of the situation. He wasn’t sure why the Humans and Covenant were fighting, he didn’t know why the Covenant were so insistent on getting anything Forerunner-related, he couldn’t possibly think of why anyone would release the Flood, and he couldn’t figure out why everyone seemed to have no knowledge of the past like he does (Forerunner-Flood War). It was kind of messing with his mind, the mind already being messed up by rampancy.
Watch the CEA terminals, his variation is rampant-like and he adheres too protocol.
Blind adherence to protocole. Yes the installation had the tools needed to counter it all.
I do not believe that Halo’s firing destroys life on the ring itself (both the clear abundance of life on the ring with no mention of it being repopulated and the Librarian’s original plan to use the Halos to store additional species that they couldn’t fit on the Ark support this), which would leave the Flood on the ring unchecked. There were also several slipspace capable ships in the vicinity of the ring(the Covenant fleet) as well as one on the ring itself (TandR) which was already boarded by the Flood and almost ready to launch when GS made that comment. It is very likely that, with or without a firing, that the Flood would somehow gain slipspace capabilities via the TandR or by one of the several orbiting ships. Once they get that, a local pulse would hardly impair them, and even at maximum range, I bet the Flood could survive long enough to travel past that threshold(pun not intended). Better to activate the entire array to prevent possible failures to the plan due to the inevitable conclusion of a complete infestation, and not employ half measures such as partial activation that won’t stop the Flood and may piss off some new civilization that’s wondering why half of them were wiped out for seemingly no reason.
Additionally, I believe the reason that GS didn’t fully use the installation’s own tools to deal w/ a local threat (for example, terrain excavation, as seen in the terminals) was due to the presence of the Covenant ships around and on the ring, which uncontrollably increases the Flood’s ability to spread. A single Flood spore making it on one of those ships is all the Flood needs to spread. It could take centuries ,long after the Flood has been dissmissed as a threat, for that spore to activate. To ensure total containment, the ring must be fired for the reasons stated above. W/out slipspace capable shpis in the vicinity, he probably would’ve used localized methods instead.
> > If you’re referring to Halo 3, than the Installation would be destroyed because it was incomplete.
> >
> > (If you’re not referring to Halo 3, please disregard this and my previous post.)
>
> disregarding
>
> no seriously: the new 04 at the ark would’ve fired alone, BUT i thought that would have been the case too in H:CE?
> in H2 there’s talks about how all remaining halos are now on standby - i thought that was the key to “fire one, fire all”. without standby only the ark could activate the whole array, otherwise every halo would fire for itself = localized, even when not located outside the galaxy.
>
> please correct me if i got that wrong.
>
> EDIT: anyways: the test-firing at charum hakkor (cryptum) proves that there’s a “tactical mode”.
Ok, yes firing them at the Ark is the only way for the Halos to fire all at once, firing from just one, all life in 25,000 light years would be wiped out, while we know the system 04 is in, we don’t know where it is in the galaxy, if there were any planets with life on them, say Earth or one of the UNSC colonies, the entire population would be gone.