The Flood versus EVERYTHING

[tase]

Femtotech?

What is it made out of then? Atoms are on the order of thousands of femtometers.

http://www.orionsarm.com/tech/femtotech.html

Femtotech works at the scale of elementary particles - leptons, hadrons, and quarks.

but hey, there's better!

http://www.orionsarm.com/tech/plancktech.html

Technology on the planck scale - the smallest unit of quantum measurement. Manipulation of spacetime foam and other clarketech effects.

more detail: http://www.orionsarm.com/tech/scale.html

i like these guys. they really try to make some sense.

[GoC]

i like these guys. they really try to make some sense.

Sarcasm?

[Refused]

Sorry, but the flood don't need to feed, they just have the urge to feed. So they can't be starved, they infect everything, and can be brought back to life. And to rape grammar and sentance structure here. Graveminds+Flood=Unfucking stoppable. The flood can fly huge fleets of ships, hell they took over the Coveneants world ship, so flying planets would be fucked.

Flood win in the end. Even if we all an hero, they will wait and wait and wait and wait and wait for the new seeds of life to be planted, and they shall reign.

I thought that the Flood needed some form of sentient life in order to sustain their existance? Don't the Halo rings destroy all life in the galaxy so that the flood eventually starve? Or was this just the Forerunner's hope and infact the flood continue living without purpose. I wasn't really sure about it all so I had a look at this and at the bottom I found that the gravemind at the least was destroyed after the forerunners wiped themselves out. Maybe the Flood don't die and you're right, but the gravemind needs other lifeforms to continue living and so the cycle has to restart once the gravemind is destroyed.

I do agree with you though, in the end the Flood are pretty unstoppable.

[SummerGlauFan]

I thought that the Flood needed some form of sentient life in order to sustain their existance? Don't the Halo rings destroy all life in the galaxy so that the flood eventually starve? Or was this just the Forerunner's hope and infact the flood continue living without purpose. I wasn't really sure about it all so I had a look at this and at the bottom I found that the gravemind at the least was destroyed after the forerunners wiped themselves out. Maybe the Flood don't die and you're right, but the gravemind needs other lifeforms to continue living and so the cycle has to restart once the gravemind is destroyed.

I do agree with you though, in the end the Flood are pretty unstoppable.

Correct. The flood only exist on the Halos in some form of stasis (until the Covenant unleashed them, those idiots), they had died out everywhere else. Although, I don't understand why the Forerunners would have gone to such lengths to keep the flood alive on the Halos after the only way to kill them in the first place was the drastic action of KILLING ALL LIFE IN THE GALAXY! That always bugged the crap out of me.

[insom]

I would think that the 1:4:9 black boxes from 2001 a space odyssey would be able to stop the flood if they/it wanted to, based on them not being biological, indestructable and having the ability to convert planets into suns.

[Xilias]

The Flood vs everything would be tricky to deal with. Since all of the plants and organisms that can't be infected would just be converted into biomass, it would be pretty difficult to overcome. I'm guessing that the best bets to beat the Flood would be;
A) Destruction of all sentient / infection-capable biomass. (What the Forerunner did)
B) Temporary containment, followed by complete destruction of all infected systems.
C) Sangheili-style orbital bombardment, following any sign of infection.

Otherwise, you're pretty much open to total Flood domination.

[Xilias]

I thought that the Flood needed some form of sentient life in order to sustain their existance? Don't the Halo rings destroy all life in the galaxy so that the flood eventually starve? Or was this just the Forerunner's hope and infact the flood continue living without purpose. I wasn't really sure about it all so I had a look at this and at the bottom I found that the gravemind at the least was destroyed after the forerunners wiped themselves out. Maybe the Flood don't die and you're right, but the gravemind needs other lifeforms to continue living and so the cycle has to restart once the gravemind is destroyed.

I do agree with you though, in the end the Flood are pretty unstoppable.

Correct. The flood only exist on the Halos in some form of stasis (until the Covenant unleashed them, those idiots), they had died out everywhere else. Although, I don't understand why the Forerunners would have gone to such lengths to keep the flood alive on the Halos after the only way to kill them in the first place was the drastic action of KILLING ALL LIFE IN THE GALAXY! That always bugged the crap out of me.

Not true. On instillation 5, the flood had escaped on their own, due to a lack of proper security (because of 2401 Penitent Tangent). They even managed to infect a nearby Covenant gas mine (once the Covenant showed up).

[GoC]

The Flood vs everything would be tricky to deal with. Since all of the plants and organisms that can't be infected would just be converted into biomass, it would be pretty difficult to overcome. I'm guessing that the best bets to beat the Flood would be;
A) Destruction of all sentient / infection-capable biomass. (What the Forerunner did)
B) Temporary containment, followed by complete destruction of all infected systems.
C) Sangheili-style orbital bombardment, following any sign of infection.

Otherwise, you're pretty much open to total Flood domination.

I'm willing to bet the flood isn't the ultimate conversion creature. Quite a few things would convert the flood into themselves.
I believe a certain enterprising D&D PC came up with a way to use an epic spell to create a race of self-replicating creatures, turning any matter into themselves and dividing once per 6 seconds.

[Sp00n]

The Time Lords prevent the Flood from ever having existed.

Before people start spouting paradoxes at me, remember this:

Time Lords control time. They make it happen. And they've erased people from history before. It was their punishment for the War Lord.

[Davide]

Roboraptors?

[Jos]

Hell a sentinent shotgun with an unimited amount of ammo and the ability not to need to pause to chamber a shot would beat the flood, organic or not

[MHD]

Flood is pretty powerful...

Battle where Flood would not come out on top:

Flood vs. Replicators
Flood can't beat itself made of metal
Flood vs. Tyranid
Flood spores got nothing on Tyranids
Flood vs. The Culture
Say hello to sentient ships capeable of super light speed travel and with weapons that can wipe out, not solar systems, stellar neighbourhoods!

[GoC]

I shall quote myself:

I said that it had been argued as far as possible really, I should of worded that to read "The flood will win/fuck your shit up/be a major pain in the ass UNLESS.
You see what I'm getting at?

Then I disagree for the reasons I've already given.
And I especially disagree with your three conditions for winning. A few trivial counterpoints:
Petey from Schlock Mercenary. Not omnipotent, necron or a relative of Saladin.
The Culture. Ditto.
Star Trek utilizing all their McGuffin's to their fullest potential. As above (barely).
Solar Exalted. Are not omnipotant (though extremely close).
I was going to say D&D epic mages but then I realized those ARE omnipotent.
Marvel+DC combo without their gods but with it's inhabitants having some sense with regards to using their abilities effectively. Not omnipotent by definition.
Star Wars. Death stars. Just keep everyone from going to the planet so they don't get infected, then blow up the planet.

These are all trivial examples. There are many other cases where I still think the other side wins by a large margin but it requires more than a single line of description.

[Babam]

Why is this thread alive still? I'm pretty sure GoC and I setteled this arguement. There is stuff that can stop the flood, stuff the flood can handle, and stuff that if the flood merged with we'd all be fucked.

[SpazzyMcGee]

Sentient Grey Goo
/thread

[Kulantan]

My "List of Things that Could Beat the Flood":
Raptors on hoverboards
A Carebear stare
Cthulhu
Case Nightmare Green
Bobblers
The Eschaton
The Blight
Pham Nuwen's Godshatter (or his plain old self)
Ender Wiggin
Richard
Seriously Richard
Richard with one arm and a hole in his chest
An ACU
The Fork of Truth

The Flood are easy to beat.

[ACU-LP]

An ACU

....You rang?
Also, not quite; ACU's have vulnerabilities that could be harnessed by the flood.

[Lrn2Warhammer40k]

Jesus...Lrn2Warhammer 40000. WALL-O-TEXT.
40k is a horribly overpowered universe, Not as overpowered as Culture Or Xeelee but it is right behind them.
The Flood do not stand a chance against any faction in 40k what-so-ever. If you think that they do you are just bat-shit insane. Space marines Have their complete set of armour, that is air tight. They have organs to prevent spores of any types infecting them, They are Superhumans. Necrons Are metal that is alive. No Circuitry, nothing to take over. Necrons would end the Halo univese in a matter of SECONDS. Im not joking either. Inertialess drives = Limitless speed. Flood require hosts with human like nervous systems. Orks are a fungus. So Orks are just really ugly flowers that chop you in half. Tyranids are a type of insect. Not to mention that there are unfanthamable numbers of them. If the Hive mind detects any kind of infection in the tyranids it will cut off the connection and the tyranid dies. Not that that would happen, Tyranids would just Om nom nom nom the Flood until there was no more usefull biomass and excreet the infective genes of the flood while doing so. Eldar, Dark Eldar Tau and Chaos are not stupid enough to allow flood infect them. Even if they did somehow manage, Flood are retarded and cannot bring themselves to use any kind of precise motor skills, leaving them easy pickings for the overpowered everything. And Gravemind gets Mind-fucked by any type of psyker in the 40k universe.

So none of this Halo has a chance against 40k because it doesn't. Go to other forums, it is common knowledge that Warhammer 40000 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Halo.

And if anyone continues to try and attempt to give Halo a chance, I will smight you off the face of this thread with my uber 40k knowledge.
-Insert rightful justice here-

[Cahojama]

Was a post that was was well... Stupid.

Deleted by self

[ACU-LP]

Right, just a few flaws:
Space marines have airtight suits and are superhuman? Master chief and in fact any Spartan is superhuman through genetic and physical augmentation and are in spaceworthy suits.
The flood have been known to overcome any anti-infection device or defense. What makes you think a couple of squishy organs is going to help?
Necrons still have minds, and the gravemind can overtake these, sure not to the extent of other psychic being in 40k, but nonetheless possible.
Who said the flood needed humanlike nervous systems. What evidence is there that the elites, grunts, brutes, prophets etc have this type of system? Also iirc, the flood can take over / infect Hunters. Now hunters are a large mass of worms. All they need to infect is sufficient biomass.
Orcs are fungi eh? Well here's the thing, the flood kind of are too, they'll just absorb them into their genetic code. Though gravemind would allow a temporary allegiance with them because of the similarities. At least until which point it is sure it can infect a substantial enough portion of the orc hordes.
Insects? See above point about biomass. THEY INFECT EVERYTHING OF SUFFICIENT BIOMASS. If they can't at the time, they adapt and evolve.
Each flood is relatively unintelligent, but as a whole they are exceptionally smart and have capabilities on the level of mind control, teleportation, etc. Motor skills are an issue, but some of the more natural flood forms are very agile and don't even need external weaponry to attack (I'm speaking about the form that fire needles like a turret, but can also run around anywhere with great speed).
Graveminds are stronger than you think, and there are also many of them. After taking over orcs or tyranids there would be enough biomass to reveal much higher psionic powers in the graveminds.

And lastly there is a difference between too stupid and complete inability to stop: everyone would be too stupid to allow themselves to be taken over by the flood. The thing is, its damned near impossible to stop.

[Robstickle]

Right, just a few flaws:
Space marines have airtight suits and are superhuman? Master chief and in fact any Spartan is superhuman through genetic and physical augmentation and are in spaceworthy suits.

The flood have been known to overcome any anti-infection device or defense. What makes you think a couple of squishy organs is going to help?

Let's be honest here. The flood struggle with one of these.

Spoiler:

What are they going to do against a full chapter of these?

Spoiler:

[ACU-LP]

I see many flaws in the space marine armor: it can be pierced easily with high velocity masses (generally bullets), whereas the spartan II and subsequent models have shields preventing such penetration. Also, they had no trouble dealing with other spartans iirc, only the master chief.

[bigglesworth]

The amount of bullets it takes to reliably penetrate Space Marine Power Armour is similar to the amount it takes to wear down the shield, allowing the bullets to penetrate Spartan armour. The Space Marines also similarly have several Player Characters, in the same way that the Master Chief is one.

[Welsh Mullet]

The Flood? Didn't Noah beat that with just a big wooden ark?

I'll get me coat.

lol, wrong flood.

Actually, it's the correct flood. The story of the Ark and to flood is just what's left of the story of the forerunners defeating the flood (with the Ark!) passed down over the generations.

[You, sir, name?]

Sorry, but the Daleks would exterminate the flood. they are completely sealed, so no chance of the spores getting to them, technologicaly advanced (time travel, moving planets etc) and the most hateful and evil creatures ever to exist. Personaly, i would say they are the best villians ever.

I don't watch Doctor Who, but I challenge this claim. Wiki doesn't say anything about Daleks being completely indestructible, and if it breaks, the flood will eventually find a way to break it. Also, Palpatine was the most hateful and evil creature ever to exist.

What speaks for the Daleks is that they don't go "Hmm, who are these people? Let's get closer and find out!", but "EX-TER-MI-NATE!". Furthermore, they don't go "Hey, my pal has gotten infected, maybe I can get closer and heal him", but "EX-TER-MI-NATE!" which is a healthy attitude when it comes to infectious hive-mind types of people, and has a reasonable chance of preventing/controlling infection.

As they are hermetically sealed and can evaporate groups of people from a safe distance (not to mention having no objections towards using chemical warfare to get their way), they would at least put up quite a serious fight.

[Welsh Mullet]

Aren't all Darleks clones?
So all it would take is for some flood DNA to get into the cloning samples and BOOM! Instant flood Darleks.

[Robstickle]

Aren't all Darleks clones?

No they're mutated Kaleds.

[Welsh Mullet]

yes, but aren't all the recent Darleks clone kaleds?

[MisterCheif]

Also, I think that we have a new contender for taking down the flood; The CORE from Total Annihilation; they are consciousness transferred from flesh to machines, so they are capable of full conscious thought, but also unable to be infected. And they have the D-gun.

Flood can infect machines, see image
High Charity (The Covenant Capital ship world city)
Before Flood

After Flood
*Crap my google fu is failing me, can some one find it? The infected version of High Charity in H3*

The did not infect the machine, per say. The gravemind itself, or a proto-gravemind/command form (eg, what Keyes was turned into in Halo: CE) was established on High Charity. They then somehow established an interface with the controls, and the flood biomass aboard high charity spread.

[CorruptUser]

Species 8472 would win. The Flood spores would simply be digested by Species 8472's immune system.

[CorruptUser]

My "List of Things that Could Beat the Flood":
Raptors on hoverboards
A Carebear stare
Cthulhu
Case Nightmare Green
Bobblers
The Eschaton
The Blight
Pham Nuwen's Godshatter (or his plain old self)
Ender Wiggin
Richard
Seriously Richard
Richard with one arm and a hole in his chest
An ACU
The Fork of Truth

The Flood are easy to beat.

Is "The Blight" from Outpost 2? Just wondering.

[Robstickle]

yes, but aren't all the recent Darleks clone kaleds?

Not that I recall. Although I suppose it would make sense for them to start cloning when they needed more Daleks and the Kaleds were gone.

[CorruptUser]

Also, I don't think I've seen an infected Hunter in the Halo games; those things just bashed all the flood to goo. So it doesn't seem that the flood is unstoppable.

[Vyn]

How about the Phalanx, the techno-organic virus that corrupted both all machines and all organics and assimilated them into itself? By converting the Flood to machines or techno-organic machines, would it be considered a defeat or a merge?

EDIT: In response to an earlier post on the first page I have to say that Palpatine isn't the most evil and hateful creature, I mean look at Thanos, he killed half of all living beings in his universe just to impress someone.

[Welsh Mullet]

Hunters aren't infected, because they are a bunch of worms, thus no central nerve system to take over. They are, however, broken down into biomass to make pure forms.
Jackals and grunts are too small to be infected, but they too are broken down to feed the gravemind.

[ZeroSkulleton]

Galactic Rangers from Ratchet and Clank 3.

"Sarge, take out that enemy hovership! We'll cover you, from over there!"

Seriously, if you infect a Flood creature with an R&C Infector gun it will turn against its masters until the infection overcomes and kills it, just like with the Tyrrhanoids. But in the Flood's case, it will spread itself on to fallen foes (therefore spreading the infection), and the infection will be infused into the flood's life cycle.

Just shoot one infector blast on the High Charity and bada bing!



EDIT: Thanks Vyn, for reminding me of Dr. Nefarious' Biobliterator (from R&C3). It turns all organic life forms (such as Skid McMarx of Q-Force and the Tyrrhanoids) into Machines.

[MisterCheif]

Galactic Rangers from Ratchet and Clank 3.

"Sarge, take out that enemy hovership! We'll cover you, from over there!"

Seriously, if you infect a Flood creature with an R&C Infector gun it will turn against its masters until the infection overcomes and kills it, just like with the Tyrrhanoids. But in the Flood's case, it will spread itself on to fallen foes (therefore spreading the infection), and the infection will be infused into the flood's life cycle.

Just shoot one infector blast on the High Charity and bada bing!

Not necessarily. If a combat form is infected, it will keep fighting until it is destroyed by the other flood. An infection form shot by the gun would at most infect on body. That body would most likely be overcome by the infection and killed before it becomes a full carrier form if it was initially unsuitable as a combat form, or it will be killed by other flood or die from the infection if it becomes a combat form. If a carrier form is shot, that is just a handful of flood, that will succumb to death in the ways above. Infact, the gun may be less effective on High Charity, due to the presence of non-infected flood that would overwhelm it.

[Welsh Mullet]

What if you shot the Gravemind, or the proto-mind in Halo 1's case?

[ONI.084]

The Culture of Ian M. Banks novels could probably take on the Flood. Heck, they could probably take on any fictional faction (see what I did there?) who have yet to reach a level of technology that would be completely indistingushable from magic (to us I mean). In any case, here is a link to their wikipedia page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture#Science_and_technology

[GoC]

*snip*

Flood can violate the laws of physics in numerous ways. For instance they can turn metal into biomass.