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Daniel "The Social Adept" Root (socialadept@comcast.net) writes:
Hullo there, just some thoughts on the nature of the Flood. Alright, here goes. Now, much speculation has been made already about the "Keyes Blob" as it is called, on the second to last level of Halo. My own thoughts: I don't think the Flood is quite as mindless as we may have thought previously, and the mysterious Keyes Blob is a key factor int his theory. First, some background info:
1. In game, I have never observed Flood infectees or Flood spores attack each other, as you would see in a truly mindless species. In fact, they work more in concert with each other than Marines or Covenant.
2.The Keyes Blob. Now, the incredible size of this organism, not to mention the fact that it contains both Keyes AND a Covenant Elite (as evidenced by the legs sticking out of it), indicates perhaps a relay mchanism contained within it, a sort of "Communications Tower", or at least the biological equivalent.
3.More importantly than anything else, quoting Cortana in the level's opening, "The Covenant are terrified that the Flood will repair this cruiser and use it to escape the ring." A mindless organism would NOT have the organizational skill, much less the know-how or brains to repair something as advanced as a Covenant battlecruiser.
Conclusion: The Flood is not mindless... In fact, I believe it to be more intelligent than anything ever encountered before by either Humans or Covenant. I believe the Flood to be sort of 'Hive Mind', not unlike the Borg from Star Trek. They assimilate, and adapt, to anything they come into contact with. I believe the TRUE purpose of the Keyes Blob is to act as a sort of focal point, a nexus if you will, for the Flood's telepathic signals, or whatever it is that keeps them so well organized. If so, then the purpose of Keyes and the Elite inside the blob is to gain access to as much knowledge as it can about both races and their collective technology, thus allowing it to escape Halo and infect more worlds. As seemingly random as it may act, I believe the Flood has a much more sinister purpose in mind...
Oh, there's no doubt that the Flood are smarter than we give them credit for, especially since most of their actions with regards to us seem to be focused on simply "overwhelming annihilation." And the 'Hive Mind' idea really makes me wonder what other environments we're going to see in Halo 2. ;-)
-mnemesis
