Silentium Flood vs Tyranids

trexalfa

To increase replies I'm gonna write about the Flood during Halo: Silentium:

The novel shows us the true story about the last days of the Forerunner-Flood War, in which we see a Flood MUCH more powerful than the Flood in the games:

First of all, the true identity of the Flood is that of the Precursors, transsentient beings who created both Humanity and the Forerunners. Humanity was chosen as the successor of the Precursors and the Forerunners were to be annihilated. They did not like it, which lead to the Forerunner-Precursor War. The Forerunners used Precursor tech against them, and so the Precursors chose to let the Forerunners destroy them just for the lulz, to troll them to death. They turned themselves into powder to regenerate into another form. The Precursors have used this method to transform their species into something different altogether, from simple animals to incorporeal beings.

This time, however, the Precursor powder got corrupted and the regenerated forms of the Precursors became the Flood. They embraced their new form in order to troll the Forerunners. The Gravemind is the collective consciousness of the Precursors, plus the intelligences of assimilated individuals.

The Flood were what we see in the games until the last days of the War, but in those days they turned into something much more... eldritch. Until that point they only assimilated Forerunner soldiers and tech, and the Gravemind (under the incarnation known as the Primordial) had turned the Metarch Ancilla Mendicant Bias by the use of the Logic Plague. But this different aspect was brought out when the Gravemind assimilated the biomass of an entire planet, evolving into the Keymind, the last stage of the Flood:

-The Keymind possessed enough mental power to outsmart and outproccess Metarch class Forerunner Ancillas.

-The Keymind can be considered to bring out of the Flood the true extent of the Precursor intelligence, as it is able to manipulate Precursor tech and use it against the Forerunners. The tech manipulated by the Keymind are mostly Star Roads. This roads were made, as every bit of Precursor technology, using Neural Physics or, more simply, pure thought. The roads were gigantic philaments that connected entire star systems. The Forerunners always knew of them as Precursor relics, but they were just there, inmobile. When the Keymind became active, the Star Roads began moving, catching the Forerunners off guard and becoming the Precursors/Flood greatest weapons. The Flood Combat Forms rode the Star Roads to be transported to other planets. The Star Roads move at 1/3 the speed of light, and the Keymind usually rammed them into planets at that speed, obliterating those planets. The Star Roads, once they were under the Keymind's control, created a disruption field that made the Forerunners' Slipspace technology useless (Forerunners were complete masters of Slipspace). Even in this stage, the Keymind didn't show the ability to think more Star Roads into existence. As with every artifact made of Neural Physics, the Star Roads were completely indestructible to anything the Forerunners could use (so they can tank Supernovae and more), with the exception of a Halo. When the Halo Array was fired, the Star Roads were destroyed along with every Precursor artifact in the galaxy.

-The Logic Plague, a metaphysical aspect of the Flood, which the Gravemind used to turn any AI (Mendicant Bias, the most advanced Metarch (most advanced class of AI) Ancilla) in its presence to the Precursor/Flood cause, turned more deadly than ever. With the Gravemind having evolved into a Keymind, the Logic Plague was spread to any AI through any Flood Form, and from infected AI to another AI. The turning is instantaneous. I heard that Bear said that it can infect any AI, no matter how advanced it is, if it is intelligent it is turned, but I cannot back this up as nothing else than a no limits fallacy.

-The Keymind can create psychic aparitions of anything assimilated across the galaxy and use it as a means of psychological warfare. The Precursors are really nasty trolls.

-Once the Keymind is active, the mere presence of any Flood form warps space-time. Forerunner soldiers were sensing space-time turning hostile to them when they fought the Flood after the formation of the Keymind. Many people compare this to a psychic black hole.

And then there is the fact that they are trolls by nature. They decided to let the Forerunners destroy them in their previous form so they could return to kick their asses as the Flood (or rather, its uncorrupted form). Then the Primordial and the Gravemind (which is the same, the Precursor intelligence manifests and reincarnates in each Gravemind, it is a transsentient entity that can't be killed completely as long as a single Flood spore remains) mind rapes their best AI and steals a Halo from them, and then mind rapes the Didact and turns him into a mad soldier. Later, as the Keymind, trolls the hell out of everyone using their loved ones and then, laughs before the Halo Array destroys the Keymind body and much of the Flood along with every form of life in the galaxy, because the Precursors/Flood wouldn't really die, and the Halos would destroy the Star Roads and every Precursor technology. This means that the Domain (the Forerunner database and internet, existing metaphysically) would also be destroyed, as it was also Precursor tech. This would drown the Didact even deeper into insanity while he is imprissoned in his Cryptum, turning him into Halo 4's Didact.