If cold storage was hosting a gravemind or even a proto-gravemind, isn't it possible that the FLOOD hacked the teleportation grid? We see the gravemind use it in Halo 2, so we know it's possible.
My theory is that the other two Monitors had quirks/hobbies, Guilty Spark went to nearby planets, and Exuberant Witness made herself a zoo of species and things, my theory is that Pagent Tangent purposly did an outbreak to try and contain it but got out of hand. Though that doesnt really connect with the Meddlers theory or why Cold Storage wasent aware of the monitors presence there when initiating the outbreak
@@Deadput at the end of the day, the way you put it, is what really matters, it's fiction and entertainment, if you have a head canon, as long as it's just yours, it should be fine. Who cares about what the company says, what you experience matters more.
@@tausiftaha12 Late reply to a comment of mine that probably replied to something that was deleted it seems. I mean good for anybody for a head canon I have those too but that doesn't mean that it tops what the official word is if they say otherwise but again I don't remember the context of something I said 2 years ago.
@@Nephalem2002 It isn't a single host, Graveminds are amalgamations of biomass, usually combat forms too damaged to keep fighting, or bodies too mangled to infect.
My theory is that they could be a surviving population of ancient humans who who fled to a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way after the war watching and waiting until the storm had passed. This is the only possible way that I could see an entirely different civilization access a Halo (or any forerunner tech for that matter) so easily and so soon after the firing of the array. I’d bet on the Small Magellanic Cloud being the origin as the Large Magellanic Cloud (also known as Path Kethona in universe) was cleansed after the firing of Omega Halo at the Battle of the Greater Ark.
Here 3 years later and it’s sounding like that unauthorized access was The Endless. What happened to them, their ship or what their goal was since Zeta Halo is where they were contained remains a mystery. Love your videos dude, when it comes to Halo, you’re my go to for information I can’t find answers to! Keep it up!
I can disprove this not trying to be mean though. The banished had released the Endless Via the weird thing containing the Harbinger and they were imprisoned on Zeta Halo years before the suicide of the forerunners and they were imprisoned there by the forerunners themselves so yeah they did not intend to release the flood at all, in fact, they are worse than the flood quoting this line from Cortana “you and I know there are thing worse than the Flood on this ring!”
The theory of crippling loneliness causing rampancy does actually have precedence. If you read Hunters of the Dark, a joint Human/Sangheili team return to the Ark to investigate and stop a mysterious countdown that would've reactivated all remaining Halos. During the course of their mission, they encounter a monitor that had hitherto remained unknown, likely due to what happened on the Halos in 1 and 2. It had gone so rampant, it changed its own name and sent miner sentinels and other attack units to Earth via the portal that links the Lesser Ark to the Greater Ark. Its intent was to mine the Sol system for metals required to repair the Greater Ark after it was severely damaged when Chief fired the incomplete Halo. So while I'm not saying that this is definitive proof for the rampancy caused by loneliness theory, it does certainly lend credence to it.
Didn’t Guilty Spark also run into a possible advance life form thousands of years before combat evolved? I remember something about a ship crashing into Alpha Halo and Guilty Spark hailing the ship to see if anyone would respond. It was in those Guilty Spark stories from either the Combat Evolve or Halo 2 remaster. Could they be related to these Meddlers?
My theory is that on the rings itself, there are those few amounts of flood locked inside those research facilities. Maybe not on all Halo rings, but on these ones particular for now. When the locked flood on Halo 04 at the beginning of Combat Evolved was released and assimilated some humans, it learned how to use weapons, spaceships and how to speak, basically everything that a human knows. Having not enough biomass to control a spaceship, the flood part locked on Delta Halo wasn't able to escape by a portal and could physically not escape because of the tons amount of water that got put artificially above it. When the covenant tried to kill Chief on Delta Halo after he killed one Prophet, they opened the way for the gravemind to be free and spread across the whole Delta ring. Assimilating more and more biomass, then even infected that UNSC frigate above the library, giving it the ability to teleport chief + the frigate itself inside high charity. The flood assimilated the biomass to whenever any flood is contained, it goes fury and assimilated that biomass. So if that form of a gravemind, that is able to know everything the past graveminds know, shares its knowledge with another gravemind (example the one on Delta Halo), then this gravemind works as a connector or transmitter of knowledge so the assimilated biomass and its knowledge can be passed no matter how large the distance. Time doesn't matter, its basically a click effect and a chain reaction. Well, the flood is really dangerous xD
meddlers = endless they would be the ones who are un affected by the flood and would like to take over the world. may have released it to try and make it uninhabitable or dangerous for non endless species, just a thought
@@HiddenXperia yeah, also are all monitors created from composed beings or is it just Chakas to Guilty Spark and that Forerunner who became 000 Tragic Solitude? If all of them are then the Forerunner who became Tangent could have been one of those who was mentioned by the Librarian in Halo 4 (how they tried to use composers to prevent flood infection but the results were abominations) and could have had his infection go from physical to logic plague
To me, I had always thought that the events prior to Halo 2 was that 2401 Penitent Tangent was fully caught up in the beginning stages of a Flood outbreak. Since most Forerunner Installations had contained the Flood for research purposes, it seems likely that an mechanical failure would eventually happen, somewhere down the line. And the Flood had spread at an alarming rate due to this accident; but was successfully contained to a Quarantine Zone, to prevent any further contamination of the Installation. Although by this point, the Flood had already gathered enough organic material to form a Gravemind. Which stopped the Monitor from doing any of its routines and keeping it prisoner, until a breach was made in quarantine. Keep in mind that for this outbreak, with no matter how bad it may look, it was still kept pretty well until the events of Halo 2. So I like to think the Monitor wasn't lazy just naive about protocol procedures (maybe due to some form of rampancy?), which in turn almost resulted in a full-scale outbreak. Delta Halo did the best it could, until Human and Covenant forces broke into the Quarantine Zone, and I say that right there is pretty darn good containment! Also it kinda adds up to 2401 Penitent Tangent dialogue too; when the Master Chief is being held by the Gravemind. TL;DR Remember people 2401 Penitent Tangent may have dropped the ball, but at least he ain't no 343 Guilty Spark.
SirMaliceCallus Keep in mind, Tangent didn't have to deal with highly religious idiots opening EVERY single fucking door they come across on his Installation. Tangent meanwhile had a containment breach on his hands since about 200 years after firing the rings, seemingly ignored MULTIPLE requests for maintenance and security responses to said breach, and only had to deal with Covenant forces after several Millennia.
This is crazy. Just yesterday i was watching a bunch of halo lore videos. At some point i typed in the search ''how did the delta halo outbreak happenen'', and there was NO video on it anywhere on youtube. And boom, here it is, today on your channel, just uploaded. Amazing. Thanks
All I know is that the marines were let into the wall by the sentinels and after the Arbiter lowered the shield, the covenant landed a massive amount of troops who were all infected before Arbiter even got out of the sentinel wall. I think that goes to show just how strong that flood force really was.
Hands down some of my favorite videos to watch. The “meddlers” sounds like flood sent by a grave mind from another galaxy. Which would explain their familiarity with the tech
2 years later but that’s honestly what I was thinking. The gravemind consumes intelligence as well as bio mass. So that potentially means the gravemind now has extragalactic information from whatever extragalactic species the flood potentially infected. Or, another flood outbreak assisted in the release of this flood.
@@TVNDRA that means it would be a key mind in that other galaxy, but the key mind would have brought alot more flood though so I don't think it was the flood.
Penitent tangent is that coworker at work that doesn't realize the back storage room is on fire and is the first one out of the establishment without telling anyone anything
Hey my dude, I just wanted to say how much I appreciate the work you and your team do. I’ve been playing Halo since I was a young teen (getting old. Whoops) and while I don’t really have time to play video games as much, your story telling has rekindled the part of me which truly loved the series. I appreciate the enthusiasm you put into the narration a whole lot as well as the content, and you’ve answered a lot of daydreaming curiosities I had when I first played Halo Combat Evolved! And, like any good story teller, you’ve only lead me to wonder more about the rich Halo universe. I was the kind of kid who would reread the players Manuel’s just to get more info about the universe because the lore just didn’t really exist yet! That version of me is thoroughly impressed, and enthusiastic with your teams fantastic work! Thanks very much!! P.s. If you ever need/want theme music I’m a professional musician/studio artist/ composer - Wort wort wort
Ayyy thanks man, that comment means a lot, I’m glad I could help expand your love of the franchise! Funnily enough it’s just me haha, I do the research, writing, recording, editing and everything aside from the thumbnail, sometimes 😉 More to come very soon! :D
HiddenXperia all the cooler! I suppose in my mind, when you give your thanks to people in your videos I think of them as your team. Actually, it’s similar with my band. I book the shows, write the songs, pay for recording ect. but my mates support me and that’s what gives me the Umph to keep on going! Seriously, your work is fantastic in all regards. From pacing to cinematography. I consume a lot of media, and there’s a reason I look forward to all of your content releases. Also, thanks for taking the time to respond to me. I understand what it’s like to get a lot of feedback and dialogue surrounding work. It takes a truly dedicated person to stay active and involved in those dialogues. There’s a reason you’re killing it, and Im happy to communicate my respect, and appreciation for you I look forward to chatting with you in the future! Until next time, cheers
@@theirishweasel what I'm saying it most likely what they will do is either have a situation where we got to go into a flood containment facility to get something or that they will treat the flood like they did in halo 1 a big threat but because they are lacking their hive mind they can be dealt with by a containment team later.
How about a video on all sections of ONI. Also I think that "The Meddlers" were the species that crashed on Installation 04, and I wonder if they're from a galaxy that the Precursors ran to after their war with the Forerunners
What if the meddlers are precursor themselves? That is another thought (they must have technology close to if not better than the forerunners themselves/ sure not all the precursors turned themselves into dust).
Keep up the good work, hopefully with Halo accounts like you we will be able to maintain the halo community long enough until 343 and Microsoft fix Halo and reach Halo 3 tier halo fame
HiddenXperia You should do your usual videos but maybe down the road you should do ONE video about yourself and why you post halo content, kinda like what The Act Man did, your videos are really addictive and i think your audience wants AT LEAST one video about yourself or at least an update but yeah keep up the Halo Lore stuff that shit gets me to the day m8 😎👍
Thats what i was thinking. As in the prophets themselves before the culmination of the covanent. Since they probably were outside the rings area of destruction. Also they had pretty advanced tech before acquiring forerunner tech.
@@lofiseeker1790 well they were actually in range of the halos' collective blast. all species were. And the forerunners isolated them after kicking their asses in a war. given their intelligence they re-learned much of their capability quickly and had a civil war over the forerunner artifacts that they found, primarily the keyship. in fact, the ship was used by the pro-use faction to escape. Due to low population they had to strictly control who could have kids and who couldn't via a lottery system to stave off inbreeding.
@@sinofren8406 Thats what i thought. As much as I'd love for a new species to be introduced, this theory may be looking too deep into an inconsistency with the lore.
I quite like the mystery surrounding the outbreak on Delta Halo tbh. And I really love how you really delved into some pretty rare lore for it, Xperia! :)
I'm just getting started with Halo lore but what if the meddlers are the Endless. Then it wouldn't have to be an extragalactic species since they survived the firing of the ring.
i dont think Penitent Tangent has the logic plague. If he did, he wouldnt feel relieved seeing a reclaimer and advocate for activating the ring and "controlling the outbreak" He wouldnt be a captive if he'd fallen- and defected- to the flood.
Awesome video dude. Definitely like looking into these types of stories that aren't really explored much in-game, especially when it comes to the Flood.
Watching this now after the release of Infinite and it’s legendary ending it kinda sounds like “the meddlers” could be “the endless”. Since the endless are apparently immune to the firing of the rings it provides a possible explanation for the containment breach.
I just came to this video while watching Halo lore, and after finishing Infinite, I'm convinced that the Meddlers are the Endless and I will die on this hill
The only issue with that theory is the harbinger said the forerunners captured them all shortly after the firing of the halo rings so it couldn’t have been them
Me: casually playing halo while listening to this Haloxperia: “but what caused the outbreak Random ad: joe Biden says trump is responsible for COVID-19 outbreak Me: WAIT WHAT 😳
I’m studying these videos so I can learn how to survive when the flood invade earth. I’m already working on my own DIY Sentinel beam and Spartan suit ! Edit : also here before Justin Y ! Edit 2 : notice me lore master / senpai
My theory is that on the rings itself, there are those few amounts of flood locked inside those research facilities. Maybe not on all Halo rings, but on these ones particular for now. When the locked flood on Halo 04 at the beginning of Combat Evolved was released and assimilated some humans, it learned how to use weapons, spaceships and how to speak, basically everything that a human knows. Having not enough biomass to control a spaceship, the flood part locked on Delta Halo wasn't able to escape by a portal and could physically not escape because of the tons amount of water that got put artificially above it. When the covenant tried to kill Chief on Delta Halo after he killed one Prophet, they opened the way for the gravemind to be free and spread across the whole Delta ring. Assimilating more and more biomass, then even infected that UNSC frigate above the library, giving it the ability to teleport chief + the frigate itself inside high charity. The flood assimilated the biomass to whenever any flood is contained, it goes fury and assimilated that biomass. So if that form of a gravemind, that is able to know everything the past graveminds know, shares its knowledge with another gravemind (example the one on Delta Halo), then this gravemind works as a connector or transmitter of knowledge so the assimilated biomass and its knowledge can be passed no matter how large the distance. Time doesn't matter, its basically a click effect and a chain reaction. Well, the flood is really dangerous xD
After playing halo infinite I had to come rewatch this one. It makes me curious if it was the new species that we are introduced to that started out break. Or at least somebody else was looking for them just like the Banished were in infinite
Halo 2 had a lot of intriguing ideas, such as the massive Flood outbreak, but never really explained how it happened or what happened afterwards, which has always left me a bit confused. So I'm really glad that you've explained what was going on! It's interesting to learn more about the Halo lore, and it helps me enjoy the games better. Thanks a lot - these are my favourite types of your videos! Keep it up :)
Mayor of Big Daddy’s Pizza but imagine this not one flood was left behind that could be the size of an entire galaxy a galaxy made of no stars no planets just flood
Looking back after learning about the endless being able to survive a halo firing. Maybe the meddlers are some of the endless that weren't put into the slabs. Maybe they were looking for the rest of there kind and stumbled across this ring?
If this species were intergalactic in their traveling capabilities, it makes one wonder if they might have been close enough to the ark or some other forerunner construct, or perhaps even precursor or an extragalactic equivalent to the forerunners. Could see it being a good setup for a new villain, if this species were close to the ark in halo 3. Especially if the firing of the replacement halo wiped out a few population centers. This all spurring them to seek out the perpetrators of such an (in their eyes) causeless atrocity and blatant attack on their kind. Could even be that they indiscriminately attack all species suspected of playing a role in the new I-04 firing. It would be the covenant all over again as far as humanity was concerned. Or could have them encounter humanity during another expedition, establishing a sort of impromptu alliance with us...... ...until it was discovered that we caused the death of presumably billions of their people lol
Something to note. When we see Penitent Tangent in Halo 2, he immediately talks to Chief about getting to business containing the Flood, by activating the Ring because it had gotten so bad. He also yells at the Prophet for failing to address simple quarantine and letting the infection spread. However, he also mentions how the Ring only had a trillion in one odds of failing, and given the Monitor's obsession with their Rings, he might have let the Flood escape, but hope to contain it in a manner that would prevent a Gravemind from forming until he could find a Reclaimer to activate it. Just a thought.
My head cannon is that Tangent was using the domain as a comfort blanket when the Halos fired, not realising it would be destroyed. As it crumbled, that then scrambled his mind.
I love these types of videos (and all of your videos)! Please keep doing these investigative videos! This “Meddlers” theory was always something I had thought about once I learned about the backstory of the firing of the rings, the forerunners, etc. I need this type of stuff to get me through the content drought! Lol. Keep up the good work mate
Xalayan started probing Forerunner tech after life suddenly died across the galaxy. They messed with Delta Halo and released the Flood. The remaining Forerunners and Monitors discover the meddling Xalayan, and have to deal with them to prevent then releasing the Flood.
I would like to know more about the meddlers. I think they may have seen the Halo Array firing and sent ships to investigate what happened and why. Makes sense to me, considering that they've been appearing around Halo rings and accessing forbidden areas. Their ship design looks kinda familiar as well. Do you think they influenced the Covenant at some point?
The unauthorized party that accessed the teleportation network may have likely been whatever teleported out to begin with. It came back for whatever reason-maybe with tangent under tow
I just happened to stumble on this video in my latest return to Halo lore and gotta say this is a really interesting topic. One thing that caught my attention was the timeline implied by those logs. It seems really strange. And I can't help but notice that the name given to this story is "The Smuggler". It made me want to speculate a little on the events myself. Hope you enjoy the quarantine shield wall of text if you choose to read it lol. So to recap the timeline, first we have the initial catastrophic containment failure. Within 8 minutes delta site was completely locked down, the atmosphere had been vented, the temperature had been reduced, and the local AI had requested a maintenance and security detail. After 32 minutes the AI reports that it's still waiting for the maintenance and security detail. Then after 24 hours it reports again that its still waiting. But then we don't hear anything else for 286 years. Maybe nothing notable happened in that time. It's possible the AI believed that the flood outbreak had been fully contained. But it is interesting. That next report we get after 286 years tells of a security breach in delta site via the emergency teleportation system. The video suggests that this security breach was the flood getting out. But I'm not so sure. One of the later logs notes that after 99 thousand years the pressure and temperature at delta site were holding at 0.01 atmospheres and 184K (about -128°F or -89°C). So after 286 years its entirely possible that those numbers were even lower. I'd hope to the prophets that would be enough to freeze the flood solid and halt any and all activity. I mean, that's what these security measures were intended to do after all. What's interesting about this log is that it says the teleportation systems were put into recursive mode not to contain the outbreak or the infection, but to contain "unauthorized hostile lifeforms." To me that sounds like it wasn't the flood that got out. That sounds like something else got in. That would be pretty extraordinary considering that this was SO much earlier in the timeline. After that we don't get another log for 99 thousand years aside from some speculation about 2401's dereliction of duty. In this log the AI speculates about the original cause of the containment failure. It says that multiple other facilities have all reported systems normal. It also says that no "outside agent" has accessed delta site in 99 thousand years. Because of this it believes that the original containment failure was incidental and not intentional. Interestingly at this stage the AI notes that there's about a 7 year margin of error in that 99 thousand year estimate. Now here's the strange thing. It's only after this point that we hear about the maintenance and security requests being escalated. It's possible that the logs are in the wrong order. But the way that they are ordered suggests that the AI didn't escalate its requests up to quadrant oversight or 2401 for more than 99 thousand years. That hardly seems like a reasonable time frame to wait. It seems like the AI only ever reacted to changes in the situation and didn't take any proactive steps. This makes it seem like the AI is more like an alarm system rather than what we would expect from a forerunner intelligence. The last couple logs detail some more complaints about 2401 and a security event in which "unauthorized parties" accessed the facility's emergency teleportation systems. (I'd guess that this access was originally only meant to be the players entering the facility to blow each other up. But assuming it wasn't...) We're not told exactly when this event happens. We can only presume that it was sometime after the previous log entries. So it could very well have been during the events of Halo 2. It could have been the Gravemind accessing those systems since we know it did eventually gain access to the entire teleportation grid for the ring. So now I want to talk a bit about the Gravemind itself. It's a peculiar creature in Halo. We first encounter it on Delta Halo and we presume that's where it was created. But throughout our encounters with it in Halo 2 and 3 it speaks as though it has knowledge from before the construction of the rings, knowledge from the forerunner flood war. Another thing I want to mention is that the Arbiter didn't release it when he lowered the shield around the quarantine zone. We know it must have found a way out before this happens because tendrils from the Gravemind rescue the Master Chief right after he kills the Prophet of Regret. The sacred icon level takes place after Regret is already dead since it starts with the elites being replaced by the brutes. So with all of this in mind here's what I think happened. I think the Gravemind was alive during the forerunner flood war and somehow managed to survive the firing of the halo rings. The rings managed to kill nearly all sentient life in the galaxy. But maybe there was just a tiny little corner somewhere in which an infinitesimally small fragment of the flood somehow survived. That fragment of the flood, maybe not even a true Gravemind at that point, eventually ended up at Delta Halo. Maybe an AI found it and brought it to the facility for containment. But along the way the Gravemind managed to infect that AI with the logic plague. At this stage it would think that there was no longer any sentient life in the galaxy. So it's best option was to try and gather the flood biomass stored on the ring. So the two orchestrated the containment failure in an attempt to do just that. I think at this point they must have captured or damaged 2401 as well. The local AI at delta site didn't register this as a security breach from the outside because it only detected flood and forerunner constructs. But it still responded quickly and locked down the entire facility. The Gravemind was frozen and entombed within. But its corrupted AI was not. This AI then spent the next 286 years looking for a way to free its master. And eventually it managed to gather a band of aliens from a recently repopulated world. It equipped and helped them to break into the facility by accessing the emergency teleporters. They attempted to smuggle the Gravemind out but were all soon trapped within the facility when the teleporters were set to recursive mode. The aliens soon died off. The corrupted AI was likely eventually destroyed or rendered dormant by the harsh conditions. Nothing much else happened for the next 99 thousand years. The facility AI's requests for help went unanswered since 2401 had been captured or damaged to the point of not functioning properly. Maybe it had been corrupter just enough to not respond to requests for help from delta site. And over time the facility very slowly began to fall into disrepair. Until eventually after more than 99 thousand years the atmospheric seals began to show signs of stress. The atmospheric pressure and temperature were raised, the Gravemind began to thaw, and the events leading up to Halo 2 started to take shape.
The halos should have had a contingency for a massive outbreak. Like being able to fire the halo in a small burst that only encompassed the halo itself.
The infection will take a while to spread throughout their system, maybe if it happens in their lifetime. Maybe the Flood infection will manifest in a few generations, like the effect the Precursor powder had on the Pheru.
I believe their original lore was along the lines of: creating a suitable atmosphere to propagate flood and create a hive. Is also successful at clogging ventilation systems to suffocate survivors. Flood spores didnt have the capability to infect back then, if I remember right.
I always assumed the teleporter use was just the flood figuring out how to access it, to expand their power. What makes you think it's some new species with that much technology basically right after the rings went off? It's much more believable that it's just the flood gaining intelligence.
Hidden Xperia ever since I've discovered ur channel I've learned alot about the flood and the eiltes and my most favorite of all the brutes ever since I was a kid and I first played halo 2 and I immediately loved everything about the flood and the brutes and u helped me learn more about the brutes I'm so thankful hidden i cannot wait for more videos about the flood and the brutes and yes my favorite halo factions is the flood and the banished but honestly from the bottom of my heart I'm really really thankful for the videos u make I can't be more thankful
Are there any Halo mysteries you'd like me to do a video about? LET ME HEAR IT FELLAS! Hope y'all enjoy, don't forget to peep the merch for Christmas! 😊
Speaking of primordial. It would be pretty cool (I may not have seen it yet on your channel if you have it) if you would do a video on just the lore surrounding the primordial.
HiddenXperia probably dumb question seeing as how in halo 2 the arbiter can use human weapons in the campaign, similar to humans training with covenant weapons would the covenant train with human weapons just in case
I know videos have been done on this, and we might never hear anything, but that one random crashed ship on 04 you find in a terminal. what the heck? such a mystery.
there may have been a few escapees as at the end of Halo 2, the Gravemind himself(itself?) chants "And now the grave lies empty, who shall fill its emptiness now?" so we might see the gravemind again.
In the Halo 2: Anniversary Credits scene, Gravemind says something like "Silence fills the empty grave now that i am gone..." I believe this to mean that the outbreak on Delta Halo wasn't actually controlled, Gravemind just shifted the infection over to High Charity. So Gravemind didn't actually have influence over the infection on Delta Halo anymore, which is perhaps why it was so easily contained by the Elites.
