@@alexo2303 It can make machines and organics question there purpose to the point of doing what it says and even corrupt the the most diehard beliefs. Its not mind control its literally getting you to think in away with just it WORDS.
@@alexo2303 The fact that flood has a mind and is doing thing strategecially rather than being dumb small parasites is scary. End goal of all civilisation is to reproduce and eat, so considering how fast flood reproduces and eats, they'd cover the entire galaxy in some decades. Now, if they were brainless creatures, we'd have done with destroying 1-2 planets that have them and tada, no more flood. But that thing being smart concludes that its not easy to simply destroy the flood. Thats the main reason the forerunners had to make the halo rings.
@@killerracoon8471 As far as I know, all Graveminds share the same knowledge, so even wiping out almost all flood isnt enough because it only takes one flood spore to eventually form a new Gravemind.
I really like the fact, that the Gravemind talks in rhyme, just because it thinks much faster than it talks, so It just can't help but overdue such tedious act as vocal communication. It's beyond need to tell someone anything. It knows all the Flood, and all Flood knows what he knows. That's why the Flood is so terrifying, yet so awesome
@@Raghetiel in that case your english is very good. I really only wrote that because I thought the excessive use of commas was funny, it doesn’t hinder the understanding at all.
You can see the grave mind holds the chief with just one tendril and holds the arbiter with 3. The arbiter is struggling and is combative while master chief is cool and calm.
I think they did it on purpose to make the arbiter as a symbol of religion just as Christianity has Jesus on a cross as their symbol, because you notice how the gravemind says "this one is but flesh and faith and is the more deluded"
Chief knows he is dead if the gravemind wants him dead and escape is also impossible unless the gravemind helps. Big eldritch horror holding you and is dozens of times your mass I'd just sit there and listen too.
The monitor has been running simulations for thousands of years. The firing of the Halo array is so important that they are anticipating even one in a trillion circumstances.
he's saying that the halo array has a record of 1.2 trillion practice, simulated firings. And the "one actual" is the one time it was actually physically used to wipe out all life in the galaxy
Trillions of simulations and it did its job for identifying major vulnerabilities of halo. But the endless was outside the scope or known from forerunners forcing their capture.
@@chadthunderkawk1650 I dont believe forerunners were ever supposed to be human ancestors. Originally they were just the keepers of the universe before us. Honestly, the new canon additions make the line even more impactful. The forerunners destroyed the primordials for saying humans should hold the mantle, fearing they would be destroyed. The remnants of the primordials mutated into the flood to save themselves. The floods hunger, its sole purpose is to destroy all sentient life and wipe out the mantle which caused its children to destroy them once and for all. And the forerunners, more specifically the librarian, left the mantle to the humans, passing that sin onto them. The flood, the gravemind, are a monument to all that has happened in the universe and the evil the forerunners brought on all life.
For anyone wondering what the gravemind meant by “I am a monument to all your sin” he wasn’t talking about specifically chiefs sins, he was referring to the sins of the forerunners, the flood was originally a species called the precursors, they created all life in the universe and originally gave the mantle of responsibility to the forerunners, however the forerunners have proven to be unworthy of it and the precursors intended on giving it to the ancient humans instead, the forerunners couldn’t accept this and went to war with the precursors and nearly wiped them all out, the surviving precursors broke themselves down and turned themselves into a fine dust in order to hide from the forerunners, this dust however got corrupted over time and eventually became the flood, the flood had the same goal as the precursors but they believed that they were worthy of the mantle and believed that true unity could be achieved if they turned everything into flood, in short the flood was created because of the sins of the forerunners.
My understanding is that the lore was changed so that keymind means literally any flood form capable of sentience and organizing other flood forms. Meaning that even the proto-gravemind from Halo CE was a keymind. I'm no lore expert though, lol. But yes, planet sized flood forms are terrifying.
@@LonewolfProd_ I think that's pretty spot on. Abominations, proto graveminds, actual graveminds. All are under the category. Then again the lore has changed a bit so can never be too sure
I would imagine that a Keymind is just a step away from being a reincarnated precursor. Perhaps it was the ultimate plan of the precursors to one day reform as keyminds. Recent Lore even suggests that the Precursors memories could still be present within the genes of the flood.
The Flood makes space zombies sound like a bunch of little bitches. The Flood were originally more or less just a sort of powder that the Precursors turned themselves into.
So honey, this is gravemind, we served in that thing were stopped the galaxy from ending, he's a great thing, but don't get him going on existentialism.
@@toohdamaybe because hes so powerful and a reclaimer, so he fears the chief as he is essentially his worst enemy as he can fire the ring like the forerunners did
@@JesseBullard-m6ihe also strokes chiefs helmet almost in an admiring way. I read that as it being impressed with chief and his mind/will. I think the shuttering is just part of the way it talks, I don't think it means fear or anything. It's just one of its mannerisms.
@@slayking2378 He would have been deemed heretic anyway, as most of his succesful predecessors. The destruction of the first Halo just made it easier for the prophets to trick him into becoming the Arbiter.
@@slayking2378then in the next Game Chief and Arbiter have been an effective duo stopping Truth and destroying the Flood forgetting the 2s animosity towards each other
2:24 the Prophet of Regret’s yell here is terrifying. He is already part of the Gravemind but has his individuality mostly intact. What a horrific existence. What could the Gravemind be doing to him that would make him yell like even though he is already in extreme agony.
I think here that the Gravemind is literally just letting regret be himself to prove his point about halos true purpose. I’m pretty sure after this scene that regret was fully integrated into the flood.
Or a potentially even worse idea: the prophet was never there to begin with. Everything you saw was just his body and brain being piloted to behave like him. Once the prophets part was done the gravemind kinda just went "OK, torture and memory extraction can continue."
@@novavortex7763 fun fact: the reason Cortana disappeared before halo infinite was because she still had the logic plague. Something convinced her to leave John.
Unfortunately, the writing in Halo 3 is pretty fucking bad in comparison, but that’s because they lost Staten as a result. And Marty pretty much took over.
@@mkultra2456 long story short, after Halo 2’s infamous crunch and messy development cycle, it really demotivated Bungie as a result. Staten took a vacation and basically left the studio with no story direction, and Jason Jones (I believe) took a hiatus as well. Marty was basically left in charge of putting together a story, which is already questionable since while he always did have input on H:CE and H2, it wouldn’t be the main idea taken into account as he’s the audio director. I can only really thank Marty for keeping legacy characters in the story (Miranda, Johnson, Arbiter etc.) as they planned to scrap all of them in favor of something different. Either way, Halo 3’s story took a major nosedive in writing since Joe Staten wasn’t with them for majority of H3. I’ll link a video to it when I find it for you.
@@ThePilleroflightningmarty’s wrotimg decisions were really questionable. The way miranda died and johnson’s death being there mainly for the shock and drama. The fact that the story doesn’t even start until after tsavo highway too
I still can't get over the fact that the Gravemind is voiced by the same man who voiced Appa, a giant, fluffy, six legged flying bison cuddly bear, and Momo, a goofy winged lemur, in Avatar the last airbender, and the Clones in star wars the clone wars. That's some serious "Same voice actor" level stuff right there.
That cutscene was the most interesting thing I watched in my entire time playing Halo especially what the gravemind said "I am the monument to your sins", "I have listened through rock and metal and time now you will listen and I will talk", "This ones containment (growls) and this ones Great Journey are the same", "There is time to stop the key from turning, you will search a likely place and you will search another", idk how I remembered the last one XD but nearly all those lines stuck out to me, its such a fantastic cutscene
Well just remember that he is quite literally the descendant of the Precursors. the Precursors created the Forunners and Humans and where then destroyed by the didact. the only reason the didact was successful is because they allowed him. The Precursors turned to dust, which in turn became the flood. The flood are the reckoning of the sins of the forunner.
@@lohengrin5082 The flood were created because humans were curious as to what that dust was and fed it to their alien dogs thats the only thing you missed but I didn't know the didact destroyed the flood, I knew that somebody had to have destroyed the flood then, then you have low iq forerunners who decided "Why not imprison the flood on a giant ring? We could run tests to discover a cure for the flood." (Room agrees), *sometime later* (Forerunners activate the rings causing their own demise) (flood stuck on the ring for 10,000 years) "F***!"
@@jacen1178 I haven't read any of the novels in the last decade so all of my current knowledge stems from youtubers. Anyway, ''Installation 00'' had a video where he claimed that the precursors had planned on giving the mantle to humanity, As you can imagine, this enraged the Didact who set out to destroy them. Though the precursors were in essence demi-gods, they had a unique belief that the Universe was a living organism and that Pain and suffering where as important to the identity of the universe as was peace. Therefor the Precursors allowed themselves to be defeated, because this was essentially ''good'' for the universe. It was upon defeat that they broke themselves down into dust which wood later turn into the flood.
My theory is that the Precursors knew that the Forunners could not defeat the Flood. But Humanity could. When the didact defeated Humanity he wiped them out rather than accept their defeat. Without humanity, the forunners failed to contain the flood. The flood have suppressed the forunners, the question now is whether or not humanity can defeat the parasite, like a test to see if they be worthy of the mantle. Therefor the Floods true purpose could be to ensure that Humanity one day inherits the mantle. I really hope we see the gravemind again!
I love the detail that the Gravemind rubs the Chief’s visor when he mentions that his mind is concluded, in a sense caressing his “face”. But then it flips the Arbiter upside-down when mentioning his faith, quite literally turning his world on its head and breaking the news to Thel that he is delusional.
It never ceases to amaze me how people can read so deeply into a scene like this. To me, it merely looked as though it were studying its new pawn (somewhat disdainfully).
It holds Chief in an iron grip, not letting him move a finger let alone any limb, while it has the Arbiter in a much looser hold, letting him attempt to struggle. Shows who he considers an actual threat.
I still can't believe fans cried about Halo 2 being more story focused and the addition of the Arbiter, so they had to dumb Halo 3 down. I can only imagine what Halo 3 could have been if they kept this energy.
The way the Gravemind shutters when he says "containment" is such a nice little detail. Even back then, Bungie established the Flood's hatred for the Forerunners
It becomes even more sinister to think that Bungie's Forerunners are humans. So, in this scene, Chief is directly speaking with his corrupted creator, and he's not suffering for the mistakes of others (in this case, 343i's Forerunners are a different species). It's eerie.
@@turututu2113 Idk, I prefer the different species angle myself amd in fact, is what I always thought when I was a kid too. Even when Spark said "you are Forerunner", I always figured he meant "in a way" because of the "Inheritors of all the left behind" line before.
I find it interesting Keith David played the Arbiter in Halo fighting against the flood. While he also played Childs in "The Thing", a movie about a parasitic alien that takes over bodies much like the flood. Clearly Keith cant escape parasites that well.
@@newtybot My assumption is it was using them as examples of the different views of the halo, or just the game developers reminding the player that the flood is a nasty piece of work.
And this level of writing. Halo deserves a movie trilogy, not a streaming show. Sadly I don't think Hollywood is capable of giving halo what it deserves anymore. It needs the type of love those Lord Of The Rings movies got.
@@Mr_Wholegrain nah the whole thing with Ony going after chief is so dumb and doesn’t make sense. So ur telling me ony cooked this plan while chief was missing in combat and Unhatched the two weeks he was on earth between 4 & 5. The covenant civil war was 10x interesting and the only thing cool and halo related to the story is the continued reclaimer story,
@@Youthinkyoudobutyoudont Spartan IIs are practically Oni property, so it'd make sense for them to try to track down one of their soldiers that had a huge part in ending the Human-Covie war. Where that plot line would've gone beats me cause they dropped it and a large part of the Forerunner stuff in 5.
I’m so mad at 343’s retcon. This and “I offer no forgiveness a father’s sin, passed to his son” had so much more meaning when humans were the remnants of the Forerunners.
Technically, in 343's retcon, that might still be true in some way. We're still related to the forerunners, just that it's possible that at some point, we may have split off from them.
fun fact- when a Gravemind is made, it's not just the collective knowledge of the biomass taken from its victims. It also gains all the knowledge and memories ever gained from every Gravemind formed before it all the way back to the first. They also have mastery of quantum mechanics, hence Chief and Arbiter getting teleported at the end there. So yeah, Lovecraft meets John Carpenter's The Thing basically.
@@Eva-uw6uo they got teleported because the gravemind had control over the installation's local teleporter device through the oracle, not because they can magically do it. Though, they can control star roads, which are ancient and extinct transdimensional paths turned into weapons by the last precursors turned graveminds
It always fucked me up that they just left him there. I know the covenant don’t know everything about the Flood but man they are taking one of your main people maybe interfere with that???
@duckman9467 Truth wanted sole control over the Covenant and if I recall he withdrew Regrets reinforcements which we hear from the changing of the guards cutscene.
@@salavantias1948 Correct. From the beginning, Truth wanted to be the sole leader, but the Covenants structure made it require three. He purposely sabotaged Regrets assault on Earth, and then again his backup at Installation 05, and was glad when Mercy was killed.
Taken on its own, without any regard toward the expanded lore and only focusing on Halo 1 & 2, this cutscene has really cool tidbits. The first is Gravemind *hearing* Cortana, and his "I? I am a monument to all your sins." Could be taken as a jab towards Masterchief and Cortana as "reclaimers" - at this point (again just counting Halo 1 & 2, no other sources) it wasn't clear whether Forerunners were humans or not - The Flood is the sole remnants of the past galaxy; a monument akin to Shelley's "Ozymandias". The second tidbit are the snarls Gravemind does to indicate anger/frustration - especially when talking about Masterchief, Containment and the Forerunners. They really got something against machines. Which makes sense since the Monitors have served as their collective jailers. The third is how Gravemind cruely plays sock puppets with the Prophet and Monitor - they are using the mental remnants of both to prove their point, but neither is truly alive; both are truly taken over by the Flood. It hints towards their manipulations; using both Masterchief and the Arbiter.
Honestly they should've just stuck with the Forerunners being Humans plotline they had going in the first two games rather than let the spin-off novels take control of the narrative. Gee, I wonder why all this ancient alien technology only responds to human touch? Sure, people had guess where it was going but that doesn't make it a bad story.
@GARGANTUANMASKEDFISH I honestly rather like that the current humans are basically genetically the children of forerunners and ancient humanity. idk, it just feels like it fits more to me.
I love how Gravemind seems like it is difficult for him to talk like he trys mimiking it and that's why he pauses so much and rather spits out sentences then speak in flow.
I love how the Gravemind responds to Cortana asking Chief "What is that?" in his head despite the fact only Chief should've been able to hear her in that moment. Such a cool little detail. I wonder if the Gravemind can telepathically communicate with others and not just the flood? Been a few years since I've properly really gotten into the Halo lore.
@@KingPabby Many rumors and articles have popping out that the series is coming back. So hopefully when a trailer does appear then it's a remake of the first Blood Omen game. Would you hope that it's a 3d third person game with Witcher and Breath of the Wild type of gameplay.
What? That would be amazing i play the shit out of Soul Reaver as a kid. I have it on steam and all right now but its super wonky on windows 10 and doesnt wanna play sometimes. I would love to play an updated version of those games
Gravemind: *playing with its Halo Toys like Andy from Toy Story "I am the monument to all your sins." Mom: "Gravemiiiind, come downstairs. It's dinner tiiiime. Gravemind: ok mom! *excitedly slap walks tentacles downstairs
A nice detail is when you’re playing as chief when Cortana talks to you it sounds clear because she’s actually able to relay the thoughts to Chief’s mind, but when she’s talking to others even those nearby she uses a speaker and it sounds a little staticky In this scene she speaks to Chief directly yet the gravemind answers her question, showing the gravemind even at this stage has the ability to enter one’s mind
It's going to cost way too much $ for the live action Paramount series to come close to the animated cutscenes ... Certainly money they didn't even have enough to make season 2 live up to what it should have been
He is physically turning into the flood and the Gravemind is in his head taking his memories painfully this conversation was his respite from that torture
The prophet says that they can’t fire the ring until after his ceremony and the machine takes him literally statinf that they have fired it billions of times in simulations and that it’s ready to go. Fascinating how far removed the covenant are from the forerunners they worship.
Considering that all of the bacteria in that room has been consumed by the Flood, and thus nothing in it has rotted, it probably just smells faintly of dust
@@newtybot Can living creatures not smell pretty bad? I almost garentee you the Gravemind doesn’t brush his teeth. The Gravemind’s breath alone would be gut churning. Not to mention the body odor such a writhing mass would produce. We don’t even know what flood “waste” products are like- yet somehow I doubt he cares to make use of any sort of waste disposal system. This room should be vomit inducing, and it speaks to the mental fortitude of the Arbiter and the Master Chief that they haven’t reacted at all. Of course, this is not to say that there couldn’t be other scents like your dust. I find it likely that with this being an alien species, there may be scents we would have never thought of here.
I can't tell which is more Frightened to hear we have no begging and we have no end from a reaper or Gianr plant form that isn't in it final stage saying I am to all of your sin
All these comments regarding how scary this being actually is. But I think the point you should all fear the most, is that this form of life (One that consumes to grow more of itself) more than definitely exists, somewhere in the universe. Whether or not it is even REMOTELY as dangerous as the Flood is beyond our comprehensive nature. One day, perhaps humanity will encounter such a thing. I just hope it is not within my lifetime.
The collective intelligence of probably trillions or quadrillions of sentient lifeforms condensed into one entity. Believe it or not this isn’t even its final form. This is a gravemind. The next step would be a keymind, basically a brother moon from Dead Space
