MoonieJohnson (mooniejohnson@gmail.com) writes:
The Flood are actually a parasite based around a central intelligence. On Halo 04, the Covenant had just released the Flood, and it had no time to gather sufficient biomass to form the command, or "Gravemind" stage. I believe that the Keyes Blob would have eventually gathered enough bodies and knowledge into it and mutate into a Gravemind, the controlling intelligence behind the Flood in an area of unknown size.
On Halo 05, the Flood had been released uncountable eons before and had had time to ravage the Halo, enought time at least to form a Gravemind. If you think about it, the first stage is the "Ranger" stage, which are defenseless parasites that form the other stages. Then there are the Combat and Incubator stages, the logical step would be for these stages forming together into a Command intelligence, that would eventually achieve sentience, as evidenced by the Gravemind.
If continued to its logical extreme, multiple Command intelligences would form together to create an even greater form, a "God" form.
For the sake of the galaxy's literacy, perhaps we should let the Flood roam free.