Who is gravemind

A short story in the Halo: Evolutions anthology details the conversations that follow. John found this form in the control center of the Truth and Reconciliation. Cortana chose Noble 6 to carry her to the evacuation shuttle because she felt Noble 6 was best qualified to do so… the same way she felt Master Chief was her best personality match.

It was during one of the Reach cut scenes when Dr. Halsey mentions that Cortana specifically requested Noble 6 for her evacuation. Collectible card games. What happened to the Gravemind in Halo 3? Is the Gravemind in Halo 2 the same as Halo 3? Is Gravemind a bad guy? What does the Gravemind say in Halo 3? This powder was dispersed among the human and San'Shyuum worlds, eventually creating and unleashing the first known Flood outbreak in this galaxy.

During the course of their onslaught against the humans and San'Shyuum, the Flood would frequently capture, infect, and merge host organisms into unified masses with an encompassing intelligence; Graveminds. Soon after, the Flood collective made the decision to recede from the galaxy, halting the parasite's spread across human-controlled space.

The Flood were driven out and retreated from the Milky Way, not be seen again for another thousand years. While these early Flood were destroyed, and their Graveminds with them, the Flood would return in newer, more capable forms.

During the Forerunner-Flood war , the Flood created many Gravemind forms, which collectively coordinated the Flood's efforts against the Forerunners.

Eventually, Forerunner naval tactics began to fail, and the Forerunners developed the Halo Array as a desperate countermeasure, which would destroy all sentient life in the galaxy, thus denying the Flood "food" for growth.

This was only to be used as a last resort, and the Forerunners refused to use the system. While the Flood would gain and lose individual Graveminds during the war, their numbers were still nevertheless sufficient to form and maintain a collective array to coordinate the parasite across the galaxy.

The Flood would continue to be an unstoppable and persistent threat to the Forerunners, who, despite their best efforts, were unable to stop the parasite's spread across the galaxy, despite many lengthy naval engagements that lasted for nearly years. As they continued to lose the war to the Flood, the Forerunners would reluctantly turn to other, more risky endeavors. In accordance with their existing plan, multiple installations, including the Ark and numerous Shield Worlds were constructed by the Forerunners as shelters for themselves and the sentient species of the galaxy, indexed as part of the Conservation Measure , when the Halos fired.

Around 43 years before the Array's activation, the Forerunners, specifically the Master Builder , deployed the first active Contender-class artificial intelligence , Mendicant Bias who would be in command of one of the original twelve Halo rings, Installation This installation's first assignment was a test firing at the former Precursor world of Charum Hakkor.

The purpose of this assignment was to determine the effects of the Array against the Flood before it was deployed in earnest against the Flood's stronghold in the core. This low-powered test firing destroyed every Precursor structure on the planet, and purged the Charum Hakkor system of all neurologically complex life, including the planet Faun Hakkor.

An unexpected development of this test was the emancipation of the Primordial , a surviving Precursor imprisoned on Charum Hakkor's surface. When the ancient entity was brought to Installation 07 for study, at the Master Builder's orders, it entered into an extended conversation with the AI. During the course of the conversation, which ran for 43 years, the being explained the truth about the Mantle and the fullness of the Precursors' plan of unity and peace through the galaxy-wide infection by the Flood.

The Primordial told Mendicant that the Forerunners were never meant to inherit the Mantle and that they had defied the Precursors. It also told the AI that if the sentient life in the Milky Way could not defy the Flood, especially the humans, then all life would be brought together and unified into the logical, advanced form of life; a collective, conglomerated entity without conflict and pain.

It claimed that the Forerunners had forced the galaxy towards perpetual stagnation by stifling growth, conflict, and progress in their misuse and illegitimate claim to the Mantle. Eventually, Mendicant Bias became convinced by these arguments, and turned rampant, seeking to "correct" the flawed, misguided ways of the Forerunners.

To this end, Mendicant Bias began to cooperate with the Primordial on Installation 07, where they continued to infect humans and Forerunners alike in a series of brutal experiments.

Eventually, the return of the Forerunners to the rogue installation and the shutdown of the facility and its custodian led to the recapture of the rogue Halo, resulting in a temporary setback for the Flood and Mendicant Bias. The IsoDidact interrogated the Primordial and eventually forced it to undergo a billion years of entropy in a reverse timelock , disintegrating its physical form; however, the being had managed to transfer its consciousness into the Flood's neural network.

Now effectively synonymous with the Gravemind, the Primordial assumed control of the Flood's efforts with a renewed purpose. The Forerunner military continued to delay the use of the Halos for a time, instead continuing to deploy more conventional strategies against the Flood in the following years. Entire worlds were engulfed by the Flood and converted to key minds , enabling the Flood to control the Precursors' neural physics constructs and dominate the Forerunners in naval engagements by using star roads as weapons.

During the last years of the war, the Gravemind captured the Ur-Didact , who recognized it as the same intelligence as the Primordial, who he had interrogated ten thousand years earlier.

The Gravemind tortured and corrupted the Didact's mind by informing him of not only the truth about the Precursors and the Flood, but also the Flood's true intentions: To bring eternal suffering to all life in the galaxy as punishment for the Forerunners' crimes against the Precursors. The Gravemind explained that like the Precursors, the Flood desired to create life. But this time, their creations would be made without free will or individuality, and would never be able to challenge their creators as the Forerunners had.

The Gravemind then released the Ur-Didact, knowing his damaged psyche would bring further ruin to the Forerunners. Although Mendicant Bias' disparate parts had been scattered across the ecumene for study, these facilities were overrun by the Flood in the coming years and eventually, a Gravemind successfully reactivated the AI.

Later, the reconstituted Mendicant Bias assisted the Flood and the Graveminds in their assault on the greater Ark and Omega Halo , resulting in the destruction of both installations. The Flood, led by Mendicant Bias, faced off against the remains of the Forerunner fleet coordinated by Mendicant Bias' replacement, Offensive Bias in a final, brutal battle.

Just before the Halo Array 's activation, the primary Gravemind imprinted the archived essences of Forthencho and three of his warriors on human bodies and sent them down to Earth to deliver a message to the Librarian. Forthencho informed her that the Domain —which was a Precursor creation—would be destroyed when the Halos were activated.

Telepathy is a strange power that no other creature in the Halo universe seems to have, and that includes the so-called Prophets of the Covenant. This power, however, isn't unique to the Flood, as it was a power that was widely-used by the Precursors as part of a system they created called "neural physics. Watching a Flood creature overtake a living being never gets less horrifying. Nor should it. When the Flood infects a new host, it overwhelms and conquers the host's mind.

Once inside, it essentially downloads the complete knowledge of that host, then obliterates the rest——individuality, memories, etc. The knowledge that was captured from the host is then transferred to the Gravemind, adding to its vast reservoir of knowledge from other hosts, allowing it to grow smarter, bigger, and stronger.

This is what happens every time a new host is taken by the Flood. Knowing this, watching the Flood decimate hundreds of soldiers only becomes a more frightening prospect, because somewhere the Gravemind is growing stronger with each moment. While it may seem as if living beings are the only ones susceptible to the corrupting and devouring powers of the Flood, this simply isn't true. Fans will recall the Gravemind managing to torture Cortana for information , including a particular piece of info that'll be discussed later.

This isn't even the half of it, though. During the Forerunner-Flood War, the Forerunners were determined to test the Halo Ring array's effectiveness, and so they sent a special AI system called Mendicant Bias to conduct the test and operate Installation What occurred instead was a conversation that Mendicant Bias had with an entity known as the Primordial a Precursor Gravemind , which convinced the AI that the Flood was inevitable.

The AI was convinced and switched sides. Even in the face of non-living intelligence, the Flood can be infectious. Early on , he is shown to have a calm and collected personality, but once the activation of the Ark is prevented , the Gravemind bursts into a victorious, maniacal laugh, briefly boasting in iambic heptameter.

In the following level, Cortana , a broader spectrum of his personality is asserted. He begins with his calm and collected voice, as well as a slightly confident tone. As John finds his way deeper into High Charity , however, the Gravemind becomes more irritated by his progress, and begins to shout at him. Once Cortana is rescued, the Gravemind begins to emit a series of mangled, animal-like roars, and speaks in an infuriated tone.

In the final level of Halo 3 , Flood Dispersal Pods crash onto Installation 08, and the Gravemind begins to speak again, this time in an angry yet confident tone. The mostly collected and impassive tone that is frequently heard from it can be justified by his implied near omniscience; his knowledge of the present and ability to accurately predict the future means that he has little reason to worry about anything.

He only becomes truly irritated or angry when an unforeseen event happens, or when there is something he doesn't know. Triggers for his anger include Cortana's secrets and John's ability to rescue her.

When defeated, he shows sadness, not anger; it may be that he has become used to omniscience, and is only truly angered when he is wrong. This is supported by the fact that in the level Cortana, his tone quickly changed to confidence and almost amusement when he realized parts of John's objective with phrases such as " Of course, you came for her!

We exist together now. Two corpses in one grave ". He is also known to be quite manipulative: in Halo 2 , Gravemind tricks John into being a decoy to distract the High Prophets as he attempts to take over High Charity , and in Halo 3 , he helps John and the Arbiter to kill the Prophet of Truth , only to betray them when they have outlived their usefulness. It is also notable that the original Gravemind was able to convince the Forerunner AI Mendicant Bias to join his cause and turn his fleet upon the Forerunners by telling him that the Flood are the next step of evolution and that the Forerunners are denying it.

The Gravemind is not violent when it doesn't benefit him; this is what makes a Gravemind a key stage in Flood evolution. Unlike the savage and single-mindedly bloodthirsty Combat and Pure Forms that precede and obey him, the Gravemind is able to analyze situations and avoid confrontation when it is necessary for the Flood's continued survival. By the end of the game, the Gravemind gives a short monologue in a disheartened tone, cryptically admitting that he knows he can do nothing to stop his fate, which he believes was unjustly forced upon him.

He says that the activation of Installation 08 will only add time "to a sentence [he] never deserve[d]". Considering it's original origin as the Precursors, this may indicate resentment that their creations would once again harm it, and a failure to understand why. Halo Alpha Explore. Getting Started. Administrators Guidelines Online Chat. Halo Recruit , Windows Halo: Fireteam Raven , Arcade cabinet. Cryptum Primordium Silentium The Cole Protocol Envoy New Blood Bad Blood