birthday tomorrow, figured we'd celebrate that and halloween with some spooky iconic flood lore ^_^ P.S. Go to www.audible.com/hiddenxperia or text hiddenxperia to 500500 to get a free Audiobook, 2 free Audible Originals, and a 30-day free trial!
Nacho Friend Halo logic. Just like the Forerunners Forerunner Builders: “Huh, there’s an extra-galactic parasite that’s going to kill all sentient species in the galaxy? Let’s kill them to save them!” Another Random Forerunner: “But that’s what the flood are doing...” Forerunner Builders: *”HeReSY!!!!!”*
I wonder if when the flood came to earth how many people would worship them vs how many would deny their existence, and also how long till all the toilet paper ran out...
Neither xenomorph nor flood seem preferrable in any way. How can barely sentient feral monsters with acid blood be better than smrt humnz??????????????????????? flood get a SLIGHT pass from thier smrt assimilation of other intelligence, but the flood forms end up repurposed or made into combat forms. So, not actually betta then humn
shiann taylor I think it’s more that they are both perfect in natural selection terms, like how the flood is insanely adaptable and the xenomorph is just really good at surviving.
Tano was the ship master of the “incorruptible” He ordered his ship to go to the surface of the ring so his crew can “embrace” the flood aka getting corrupted by the flood. IRONIC
Humanity: "I'm sure this Flood thing isn't that bad" Flood: "We shall begin by taking their dogs." Humans: "We will eradicate this disease from the universe. It shall never be allowed to exist. No matter the costs, nobody messes with the doge."
Excellent video my man. Really makes me want to see a Halo Flood Horror Game! Would be awesome. I personally don't believe the flood are the test for the Mantle to be fair.
Making it worse is how the Flood weren't hindered by it whatsoever in truth. Though even the Gravemind of the time seemed surprised and perhaps even "moved" (maybe that isn't the right word; possibly just, confused) at the lengths the humans would go to, it was all part of a wider strategy against the Forerunners prior to any direct engagement between them occurring - in a time when the Didact still just viewed the humans as rivals turned enemies. All those billions (the 1/3) perishing, did so practically speaking, for literally nothing. All it did was allow the Flood to get stronger, faster. What was intended as a sort of appalling, ''firebreak" to stop the Flood, was basically the Flood pretending it worked when it didn't (all as a massive strategy to misdirect the Forerunners, whom the Primordial/original Gravemind knew would attempt to study and combat intellectually through scientific means first not just military) The humans obviously tried that too but the Flood clearly understood that the Forerunners were the most advanced civilisation in the galaxy by far, far grander than the humans in territorial extent, technological means and intelligence overall. By showing some pretended, feigned setback - achieved by ''mere humans'', precisely as the Flood knew the Forerunners would perceive them (for the most part at least, though there was some mutual respect) - the Flood wanted the Forerunners by extension to see the Flood as curable and not necessarily as dangerous as it was. This achieved the desired effect of costing the Forerunners precious time (far more precious than they initially realised) and moreover, outright *wasting* their time. Time was on the Flood's side; with every moment wasted in seeing the Flood for what they were, being a further nail in the coffin of the Forerunner Ecumene. 1/3 of the ancient humans were lost on a failed strategy that took centuries to be seen as one, with the rest being either killed or captured in the Human-Forerunner War - the survivors, themselves, eventually largely cruelly composed by the Didact, for his private army of elite Prometheans. Only a few natural humans, preserved, survived for humanity to continue, thanks to the Librarian and her Lifeworker's efforts. However, 99.999999% of the Forerunners would be dead by the end of the Forerunner-Flood War; 3 million planets, immense space megastructures, hundreds of shield worlds, the Greater Ark and the majority of the HALOs ever built, lost. It was a 300 year long nightmare they lost control of decades prior to the end. It was the end of life as they knew it (and mostly had guarded and cherished it; albeit with imperialistic loftiness) They would have numbered in the trillions if not quadrillions; whittled down to a few survivors responsible for firing the last HALO arrays, and only then after several last stands bought them time. The Didact preserved in the Crpyt on Requiem 001, by his wife the Librarian (not with his blessing) Hard to fathom such a nightmare scenario. It is a scale of loss *orders of magnitudes worse than even the worst Mass Extinction Event on Earth* in real geological and evolutionary history (the end-Permian Mass Extinction Event, circa. 251 million years ago/otherwise known as the "Great Dying" or the Permo-Triassic boundary Mass Extinction in Palaeontology) Only two or three fictional universes/franchises come to mind as being able to top the scale of this nightmare: 1. the Last Great Time War in Doctor Who. 400 year long linear timeline war, across virtually all of time and space, "for the sake of all creation", which technically wasn't just 400 years whatsoever in non-linear time, but more like infinite/eternal in non-linear time. Fought over the entire "n-Universe" in Doctor Who lore, primarily between the Daleks and the Time Lords. Countless others being dragged in on either side, with entire interstellar empires being like toys in the wider war; broken and discarded over and over. A war so appallingly incomprehensible after a while, with timelines and paradoxes being created repeatedly, and with millions dying and being resurrected to die all over again in countless ways, at the heart of the Last Great Time War. It's what it looks like when two Type V K-civilisations fight with time travel tech on both sides. Entire advanced species were wiped out as mere collateral damage in their colossal, universe-and-time-continuum-wide-cluster-fuck of a war. Everyone lost (and even the mighty Time Lords, a civilisation older and prouder than the Precursors in HALO, lost their minds) 2. the time-travelling Photino Birds devouring the stars and all before them in the long-running fight between the Xeelee (and others) and the Photino Bird monsters (think living black holes whose diet consists of star matter and anything that gets in their way) This is in Stephen Baxter's Xeeleeverse series of hard science, science fiction books. Very little can stop a Photino Bird short of literally firing a black hole at it in which case you've already probably lost your own star system anyway. Nightmare beyond words to deal with. Though the Xeelee had time travel, the Photino Birds - basically living entities more akin to animals - innately have the ability to time travel; always somehow anticipating the moves of the Xeelee (whom had a universe wide Empire which would make the Forerunners look like babies), arriving their first to ambush fleets etc. It took all the might of the remaining Xeelee to delay the Photino Birds while they put the last and greatest of their science to work, by opening a portal to a new universe to escape to with other species they were helping evacuate (including humans; in their own right, extremely advanced, but nothing compared to the Xeelee) Countless Xeelee sacrificed themselves to keep the portal open as long as possible before it closed, with relatively few of their own escaping the devouring of the universe. 3. and maybe the Tyranids in Warhammer 40K, if they are indeed galaxy killers and have indeed such numbers as to simultaneously deal with the Imperium of Man, Orks, Necron, Eldar/+Dark Eldar, Tau, Chaos and others all at once) If their Hive Fleets truly are just the ''scouting tendrils'' of the supposed main host, then basically yeah, W40K's Milky Way inhabitants are so badly in the deep shit. The Tyranids are so numerous that I'd imagine even the Flood would struggle to cope with them (even the Flood, at galaxy wide epidemic/pandemic levels e.g. like they were at the end of the Forerunner-Flood War) A fight between the Flood at their peak (at the end of the FFW) and the Nids in full force, would be a nightmare to behold. Pure insanity. Would have to say though if the Flood go transcendental with star roads and go to multiple galaxies then I don't know what would stop them short of the Daleks, Time Lords, Xeelee or Photino Birds) P.S - I still love the Forerunners and they are always a favourite. They'd crush the Star Wars Galaxy and all comers from whichever faction, in a matter of weeks. They'd make short work of practically any Star Wars fleet. Galactic Empire VS Forerunner Ecumene would be interesting to watch but grotesquely one sided. Different leagues.
@@ThePalaeontologist The origin story and the nature of the Flood is fascinating in so many ways. The pointlessness of ancient humanity's sacrifice transforms "unfathomable heartbreak" into...shit, overwhelming nihilism? The more I think about it, the easier it is to understand why those who conversed with the Primordial killed themselves. I've never seen Doctor Who but I've heard its praises sung almost universally, and wow, that Last Great Time War sounds incredible. I've never heard of a war waged across the multiverse. Your description of it gave me chills. Never even heard of Xeleeverse and I've barely heard anything about Warhammer, but godDAMN these cosmic-level war stories sound right up my alley. MIght have to add those to my reading list. Thanks for sharing! :)
@@ShadnicK826 You are most welcome, thank you. To discuss what you said: 1. Yes, the pointlessness of humanity's sacrifice is so brutal, but what the Primordial said to the humans is still not known. I'm sure Forerunners holding him captive later (after they took over that job after they won the Siege of Charum Hakkor against the ancient humans, after over 50 years of fighting there), were also prone to suicide because of the Primordial. He/it was a very dangerous prisoner and this is why the monstrosity wasn't supervised properly while Mendicant Bias was speaking with it for like 43 years literally non-stop. I'd like some exploration of that but guess they want to leave it up to our imaginations (as that usually scares us more than some defined thing which won't impress/move everyone) Basically, I'd like to think he told them the true goals of the Flood and their true purpose. The Flood were a horrible accident, yes; though they happened to continue the rage of the Precursors against their Forerunner creations whom had turned upon them and hunted them down, over 10,000,000 years prior to the emergence of the Flood proper. The Primordial certainly bore a big old grudge against the Forerunners and was in the camp among the Precursors, of ''kill them all''. The scared and militant Forerunners 10 million years before, had virtually wiped the Precursors out in a shock and awe campaign that turned into a genocidal campaign. All of the Forerunners who chased what was thought to be the very last Precursors into the satellite galaxy of Path Kethona/Large Magellanic Cloud, committed suicide in shame of their actions, or so we are told (if any survived there is irrelevant because they'd be dead anyway after the HALO's purged Path Kethona during the war with the Flood) 2. Doctor Who used to be very good in my opinion but it went down hill drastically in the last few seasons and especially the direct previous one. It's been widely panned and caused a rift in the fans. I'm not the biggest DW fan there is, by any means whatsoever; I just appreciate good sci-fi and space fantasy. It is the oldest sci-fi TV show running in the world dating back to something like 1963 I believe. Yeah, think it celebrated a 50th anniversary back in 2013. Older than Star Trek and often on a much lower budget lol Classic Who, followed by the new era Doctor Who after 2004/2005, being separated by a period of hiatus where there was no Doctor Who after the Sylvester McCoy's Doctor in the 1980's for a while (returning for a special in the 90's but failing to be reborn as a TV show until 2004/2005) My favourite three Doctors are, hands down; 1st - David Tennant. 2nd - Peter Capaldi. 3rd - Christopher Eccleston. Again, I'm hardly some major ''Whovian'' i.e. mega fan of Doctor Who. No, just appreciate it for what it is. Classic British sci-fi. The older ones can seem pretty laughable due to atrocious special effects on a shoestring budget but if you overlook that it still has a big role and historical importance in sci-fi (not that I've seen all of those) Even new Doctor Who is often made fun of for dodgy special effects, hit and miss writing and cheesy dialogue. But it's primarily a kids show with a fast and loose approach to the laws of physics with some seriously scary villains (mainly scary to young people but I think we'd all be scared of a few of the big baddies in Doctor Who) Daleks are basically Nazi Space Pepperpots with time travel and the means to literally kill all life in the universe and they are extremely xenophobic (not in the overused social justice warrior bullshit way, but *actually* genocidal monsters determined to destroy all that is not Dalek) Utterly unstoppable for most civilisations if they mean business. 1 Last Great Time War Dalek combat drone/basically a bog standard grunt unit, is still all of the following: - encased in thermal and energy shields which can basically melt all calibres of bullets and even tank rounds. - encased in Dalekanium (yes, this is a thing in Doctor Who lol) which can tank almost anything. - Dalek shields and armour is adaptive and within a matter of minutes of being hit by new forms of specialised projectiles, Dalek computational power and intelligent analysis of the form of attack, can upgrade their own shields in short order. e.g. if you work out a way to stop them flying for instance, they will identity the problem and adapt within minutes, negating perhaps months or at least weeks/days of effort to come up with a solution. They are notoriously difficult to combat. - technological and tactical geniuses with the ability to download the entire internet in a few seconds and break through sealed blast-door security panels in a matter of seconds as they are computer geniuses and can carry out billions of calculations in seconds. - can literally tank direct nuclear hits if their shields are fully powered. - can survive reentry in a planet's orbit if they crash land (even into solid rock) accidentally. - are totally immune to pathogens, bioweapons, viruses and diseases. They are already fucked up alien mutants looking like squid or something sneezed, inside an armoured shell. - in spite of being physically debilitated by their mutations into hideous creatures, are still surprisingly dangerous and can easily kill a grown man with physical violence. - also known to be able to possess sapient sentient (i.e. human intelligence level) beings, by overpowering them and controlling their movements. - are brainwashed into not being able to even say certain words like love. They are only capable of destruction 99.9999999% of the time bar some rare cases of ''defective'' units. - are deliberately bioengineered to be constantly angry and aggressive and seek the most brutal means of destroying their enemies. - are obsessed with war to an extent that no other species, even the militant Sontarans, could ever hope to match; they are absolute war fanatics. - are armed with a simple looking gun stick which can kill practically anything depending on the power supply of the Dalek. - Daleks deliberately chose to use the lowest possible setting for a target e.g. human running away from them, to cause the most agony in death (if they wanted to a full blast of their primary weapon can atomise targets) - 1 Last Great Time War Dalek era let loose in 21st century Earth, was considered an extinction level threat by the Doctor. It was that dangerous. Nothing humanity had could stop it short of firing every nuclear weapon we have at it simultaneously (and hoping it doesn't just move out of the way) - speaking of which: all Daleks of this kind or later, can ''emergency temporal shift''. They can randomly just jump and teleport somewhere else in time and space if they have no other choice to escape capture. They are nightmares. - also; they can fly. They tend to fly in vast legions of pure overkill because that is how Daleks operate. When Arcadia, the 2nd city of Gallifrey, near the end of the war, what could have been done with just one or two Daleks, was done by several thousand (massacre of the city) - one Dalek Empire unit was just one of over 10 billion brought to end the Time Lords of Gallifrey on their homeworld. Remember, 1 of them is a disaster for the entire human race to bump into the 21st century. It's like a mobile technological marvel (and horror) that little can stop. Not kidding a Dalek could whizz around knocking out full on capital ships like SW Star Destroyers with minimal effort (or it could board it and slowly murder its way through all 47,000 or so on board) Blasters would do basically nothing to it. Even if they did initially scorch his armour, he'd adapt in 3 seconds and that'd be the end of that. - utterly merciless with absolutely no concern for the sanctity of life. It's a psychopath from a psychopathic Empire at Type V K-civilisation level of universal reach and scope. Even the Time Lords - whom desperately tried to erase them from the Time Continuum - constantly failed to do so. The Daleks were just too relentless, even for the ancient Time Lords (however, millions of Daleks were dying against the Time Lords, to their credit) But in conventional warfare the Daleks were hands down the deadliest. It was in esoteric and near magical military methods, that the Time Lords could be far more deadly. Time Lords feared their own greatest superweapon, from the Omega Vaults under their Capitol, the capital city of Gallifrey - the Moment. The Moment is: - a sentient superweapon with a female personality which holds it's own users in judgement (think nuke, that can talk and appear in your visions, speaking directly to the user once opened) - called the Moment because it can atomise and erase a galaxy or even several galaxies simultaneously. Only used once, and always feared afterwards. It is a nightmare device. But one which has it's own conscience and can't be used lightly. It is just as liable to erase the user if it deems them evil instead. And the mad Time Lords had done bad shit by the time people started recommending it's use - so they still feared to use it. The war had made them just as evil as the Daleks in many ways. [1/2]
@@ThePalaeontologist Is it a comment? Is it a massive explanation? No! It's a short story! (Really though, this is the longest comment I have ever seen!) (Edit) WAIT IS THAT ONLY HALF OF IT?!
@@leobracken2316 Well it was over a month ago, wasn't intended to cater to a randomer's reading preferences weeks and weeks after made, wasn't in reply to you and was liked by a few people. I type fast and that is not a lot of writing in my opinion. If you have a problem with it, well, good for you? No need to comment on it.
Man, imagine a flood horror game set during the ancient human outbreak, where you face insane cannibal cult humans as much as horrifying flood monsters. Reminds me of dead space
In HALO history, the humans not only fought the Flood first (and lost) but ran right into the Forerunner Ecumene triggering a new war between them while the Flood sat and watched it weaken both.
You know I have to wonder how the elite shipmaster would have reacted if he had ever discovered the flood's actual origins. Would he be disillusioned by the fact they're not creations of the forerunners or would his infatuation rise to even higher levels since they're the creations/ descendants of a race that were practically gods?
I always wondered how the infection made the transition from manipulating its host to completely taking over with the whole Cannibal Cult ordeal. It seems like there's some disconnect in between. Like, one moment they're just going nuts. Then the next they're combat forms. There has to be some coherent change or process the infection went through to change its entire dynamic like that. I have yet to find or hear about that lore.
Another thing to mention is that once that shipmaster was killed, the hunters on the bridge stated that what he did was 'a mercy killing'. That notes one of the few times Hunters EVER speak in Halo.
Just hearing about the cults makes me think to myself: "If they were in any halo game, that would make it the true horror halo game that we need!" Anyways, happy birthday Xperia!
@@Trinidad_D3MN Unitologitst: oh, my fellow humans have been turned into flesh puppets to this army of space-zombies bent on consuming all life in the Galaxy. Let's worship them!
When you said “Not yet ready to be tested by the Flood”, it makes me think that the precursors planned this and are testing humanity to see if we are the true inheritors of protecting galactic life.
Bruh when you mentioned which books this vid is getting its info from, i was just like "those are literally the two books i have that i havent read yet"
These guys would make a great antagonist. Imagine a game where you have to deal with these maniacs and a level where you watch them run towards flood forms arms open wide.
Friend : Hey wanna join my religion ? Me : Yeah sure, what is it ? Friend : Oh nothing special we just kinda worship an intergalactic alien parasite, and we take prisoners and feed them so we could eat them later . Me : *Ight imma gonna head out*
I am currently running a halo campaign which takes place after Halo wars 2. And so far a lot is happening with stories on different points of view. Your videos helped me a lot to find ideas and plot points. I love the lore of it all and my friends love the story so far on our 4th story arc. You have my thanks, and I really like your videos. I do love the lore videos keep up this great channel. :3
Ancient Humans: *Finds a ghost ship with strange powder* Also Ancient Humans: "Let's feed this to our plant-eating dogs, and release any sick ones back into the wild." Me: *"HOW ARE YOU A SPACEFARING SPECIES!?!"*
The fact that the flood originally left the mind intact and didn't produce its own pure forms makes me wonder if there are different strains of the flood. The original infection is very different than its current state. It would be cool to see a primitive form if the flood in the games or books.
I would love to see an Anthology Halo series where you play as various characters in different scenarios and eras, Spartans and Elites playing similar to each other as usual, but Marines, and ODST would work well too like in Halo ODST.
