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"We're just going to keep them around and do experiments for a while."
"But, what if someone stops by, or they get outside to frolic? How will we get them back downstairs?"
"No problem. We'll just wipe out all life within a radius of 25 000 light years. And once the others follow suit..."
"Seems at little bit... drastic, don't you think?"
Tursas (tursas@shaw.ca) writes:
During the library, 343 Guilty Spark comments that, "The Flood must not escape the installation. They would consume all."
At the end of 343 Guilty Spark (the level), he states, "Greetings. I am the Monitor of installation 04. I am 343 Guilty Spark. Someone has released the Flood. My function is to prevent it from leaving this installation. But I require your assistance. Come. This way."
Now I don't know what you think about this comment, but it seems to me that if we are assuming that Halo is installation 04, then the measures taken to prevent the flood from leaving it do not exist. The Monitor leads us all the way through the Library to do what other than destroy all Flood-sufficient life in the galaxy. Never did I hear mention of containing the Flood on Halo itself. Certainly, the Monitor may have been working in the shadows to prevent the Flood from leaving Halo, but he was with us so consistently throughout the levels that I have a hard time believing it, especially after Cortana's assertion that Halo's primary weapon was galaxy-sterilization.
This is where I see an error. Is 343 GS's function to prevent the Flood from leaving the installation, or to help us destroy all life in the galaxy? Could it possibly be both?
In light of recent remarks, specifically one regarding the idea that the Forerunner inhabit other galaxies as well (Thomas Cranor, April 30), perhaps it would be more suitable to expand the definition of 'installation' to include the whole Milky Way, as opposed to only Halo. In this way, 343 Guilty Spark's assertion that his function is to prevent the Flood from leaving the 'installation' stand.
However, at the beginning of Two Betrayals, 343 Guilty Spark states, "More or less. Technically, this installation's pulse has a maximum effective radius of twenty-five thousand light years. But, once the others follow suit, this galaxy will be quite devoid of life, or at least any life with sufficient biomass to sustain the flood. (pause) But you already knew that. I mean, how couldn't you?" The whole theory gets sticky here.
Can you see my point? How can 343 Guilty Spark prevent the flood from leaving the 'installation' while the only way to do that is to cleanse the entire galaxy?
The Sentinels, who at least mean well, appear to be the only real attempt to contain the Flood on the surface, though even they can only be used for a short time. And as was also brought up recently, besides 'containment', what other protocols are we not privy to?
permalink | Halo Installations
-Finn
