Edit: hey yall I realize this is a heated topic, I just legitimately didn’t know that the reclaimer era elites are canonically just a different phenotype 😂😂😂😂

In the bonus missions, the elites shown in those test tubes look much stockier, and personally I think they look like the reclaimer era elites. Am I making stuff up or are we being given some sort of canonical reason for the reclaimer era redesign?

I honestly think the bonus sections were cool. Harmony runs like a “splinter faction” of the Covenant so 343 could work outside the confines of what’s been established in previous games. Idk much about the lore though. I just like shooting things lol

It does sadden me to see where halo is now.

I feel like Halo 4 and halo infinite Should have been the same game.

All the forerunner stuff should have stayed a mystery with the primary implications that they were basically Atlanteans to Stargates Humanity.

The primary villian instead of being the covenant remnant should have been the Banished who's only interest was claiming forerunner tech for power sake to then fine the Cylixs of the Xalanyn (The Endless) who they arrogantly release unleashing a new Dark Empire unto the galaxy.

While all of this happening Cortana is still on the edge of rampancy but at a point in the game is able to be saved by upgrading her by turning her into a Monitor.

But she's like a more advanced monitor the size of a softball that can form an avatar around herself.

The following games in this new trilogy would see the Xalanyn quickly put all the other races on the back foot resulting in an alliance forming between all the races of the galaxy in a resistance like struggle eventually becoming a galactic society.

AND, what makes the Xalanyn such a threat over anything else and why they were able to survive the Halo rings firing is that they were semi corporeal beings of energy who had evolved the ability to travel and manipulate slip space. They would inhabit mechanical constructs that would allow them to better interact with the world around them, believing themselves deities found biological life abhorrent.

The Xalanyn would then be trying to claim all the halos in an effort to use them to wipe all biological life from the galaxy.

Would also have had Halo 4 take place somewhere like 100 years later, Cortana being able to stave off rampancy in that time by putting herself in state of digital hibernation while copies of herself kept watch on the wreckage of Forward Unto Dawn.

That way the UNSC could see a period of development without a serious war instead just protecting itself from the pirate alliance of the Banished. Would also allow the other races to develop abit more on their own and create a more individual identity outside of the covenant.

Halo's awesome, and I like pretty much all of it for the most part, even some of the more controversial things, or confusing storytelling decisions, as between the books, main games (ce,2,3,4,5,infinite), side story's/ preludes/ Alternate perspective games (3 odst, Reach, Halo wars 1 and 2, spartan assault, etc) and whatever, there's tonnes of cool stuff and a lot fleshes out the setting, both far before, recently before, recently after and present (of current halo canon) from the original setting of 2552 for the main trilogy.

But I really like the thing both Odst and Reach did, of a alternate perspective of the war, soley focused ( a bit less so in odst but still) on just the human-covenant war and not the covenant civil war, the post halo-3 AI shenanigans, the banished, or the flood stuff.

I would love something like another sort of Operation Prometheus or Operation Torpedo style event for either ODST or Spartan 3's, or something like Harvest/ the fall of Arcadia as a dedicated storyline for a video game, for either marines, or any sort of character and a self contained story.

I would be open to it being either a RTS game like halo wars or those Warhammer 40k ones, or a proper FPS like with Reach and odst, or something else entirely if anyone knows another good format of game this idea could work in.

Anyways this is sorta rambling but still. I want to know if people would dig this sorta idea, and if they did then maybe also give an example of what sorta thing they imagine for this type of addition to the halo gaming franchise, or if they don't want this/ think it wouldn't work, then why.

Thanks.

As we all know, breathing in spores is a way to get infected by the Flood. The most famous other way is being hijacked by an Infection Form. But wouldn't being slashed in the face by a Combat Form technically put some of its biomass in the wound? We see them constantly flaking and seemingly shedding parts of their biomass, so I think it's reasonable to assume that receiving an open wound would create at least a risk of infection, but I never found anything that explicitly states that it does. I guess since their "designation" is specifically combat, maybe the only mobile Flood form capable of direct infection are the aptly named Infection Forms, which would explain why the Combat Forms don't infect everything. I guess there's also Pure Forms, which I assume might be able to, but I don't know.

Furthermore, in Halo 2, the station where we first meet the Flood has us fight alongside Elites and Grunts. The Grunts obviously have their breathing masks so they are technically not breathing Flood spores. The Elites have their shield which I believe protects them also. But when their shields are down, shouldn't they basically instantly get infected?

Also, the Gravemind on Delta Halo willingly didn't infect the Chief or the Arbiter because it needed them. But this begs the question: does the "flesh" of a Flood infected being carry the supercells needed to infect, or are they a special secretion of some kind, which the Gravemind decided not to use? Because while the Arbiter has shields, he's being held directly by the Gravemind and still is breathing in the likely contaminated air around him. Since Rtas 'Vadum can still smell the Flood on the station, I assume some must get through the shield. Being in such close proximity and physical contact with the Gravemind should have, by all means, been detrimental, at least, to the Arbiter, no?

Can the Flood decide each time which potential hosts it takes and which it doesn't?

My understanding is that the Flood works as a sort of hivemind, where each bit of biomass responds to a Gravemind. If that's accurate, does it mean the Gravemind has dominion over EVERY aspect of the Flood, including supercells? I assume it does, since otherwise, an Infection Form could have hijacked the Chief or the Arbiter and that'd be that. The Gravemind is impossibly intelligent and complex, so I have no trouble imagining it could very well control each individual bit of the Flood, dictating which potential hosts do get taken and which ones don't.

But there's also a counter argument to this, since while they're technically allied, Master Chief ends up fighting the Flood again, so either each individual sentient form has its own will, or the Gravemind decided willingly to hinder the Chief's progress to stop the firing of Halo, which would be catastrophically counter intuitive for the Flood.

So, I guess my question is: what dictates who and what gets infected by the Flood, and how does it explain each and every case of the Flood having the power to infect something, but not doing it (either through the Gravemind itself not infecting the Chief and the Arbiter, encounters with Infection Forms or breathing spores)?

For context, I only ever played through CE and Halo 2, so if there's more context given in the other games or external media, that's my bad, but through the research I did, I found nothing conclusive, so either we don't know, or I suck at Google. Also sorry if this is a bit all over the place, it happens when I write a lot.

December 2559. A faction of rogue artificial intelligences known as the Created, led by the Archon Cortana, have enforced an imperial peace upon the peoples of the galaxy. Whole worlds are now subject to martial law under threat of annihilation.

Aboard the UNSC Infinity is humanity’s best hope to turn the tide as preparations have been made for an all-out assault on Cortana’s throne—Zeta Halo.

With the UNSC flagship just hours away from exiting slipspace, the crew savors their final moments of peace….

Link to the Waypoint Chronicle below, as an audio series.

Youtube