You are WRONG about Tyranids vs the Flood | Halo Warhammer 40k

Only a little bias

[@gregthepeglegpregdreg]

one thing a lot of people seem to never consider, the Tyranids have conquered the galaxy they came from and converted all the biomass in it, but they only exist as a contender in the endless stalemate of war in 40k, by the time the flood have a whole galaxy under their control they become a threat to the entire universe.

[@MacroLore]

Have you considered the reason we don’t find it in our galaxy is because they have already consumed this galaxy before?

[@gregthepeglegpregdreg]

@@MacroLore it keeps me up at night.

[@MacroLore]

@@gregthepeglegpregdreg if it makes you feel better. We are so incredibly early in relative time of the universe that we won’t have to deal with this most likely. We’re like .005% of the way through the life of the universe. I would be scared to life in a super galaxy at the end of the Orange star epoch

[@decade9026]

To put it simple,the flood is a parasite,the tyrannid is just space bug that can adapt.While the nid have to adapt to any strategy throw at them,the flood just outright steal them so in effectiveness the flood is better,but in an all out brawl against the nid,neither can gain the upper hand really,the nid troops don’t have nervous system so they can’t be infected so the only thing the flood can gain from killing them is biomass but in term of galactic domination the flood just stomp

[@fluent4530]

Not just the entire universe but the very multiverse as the precursors were multiversal entities that cross through realities whenever they wanted. The forerunners were stated to pull energy from different universe in a passing sentence, *A PASSING SENTENCE* you would think something this overpowered would get a dedicated page but nope literally just one sentence just saying “Oh yeah btw we take energy from different universes” Like bruh wtf. Anyways the only reason the Flood stayed in the Milky Way/ the original Halo Universe is because they wanted to send a message, they wanted to completely crush the forerunners.

[@Kvitravn.]

"Flood sends 1 infected Frigate to Terra to start a small infection" "Flood Eats everyone on the planet over time and turns them into Soldiers" "Flood swarms the imperial Palace With billions of combat forms, infection forms and any other forms" "Consumes the God emperor" "Profit?"

[@nathanieljohnson5430]

Really even if they hold off the combat forms it'll only take so long until the air is flood cancer and the floor is flood, and the water, and the food... honestly you might as well bail on Terra while you still can.

[@PixelatedFlu]

Unironically heartwarming and nostalgic for the "nuh-uh, my thing is stronger than YOUR thing", especially between two fandoms.

[@TherealLASTMAN2STAND]

Grave mind: If it wasn’t for those meddling forerunners we would’ve gotten away with it. Salamanders: Cool story now please face the wall.

[@MacroLore]

*throws knife at gravemind from behind cover* “IT HAS A WEAPON”

[@Irobert1115HD]

the salamanders might actually exist to fight super cell parasites and similar threads. also fun fact: the flood from halo are on the weaker side for super cell parasites.

[@Irobert1115HD]

@@MacroLore you got something wrong with the flood: the flood get smarter and more capable depending on the ammound of neural matter that they absorb as well as learning from their food this way and given that the nid is a hivemind... well yeah: disaster for the nids if they loose even one single ripper to the flood... wich btw could easily infect a whole fleet in less than a day.

[@soularth]

​@Irobert1115HD while the nids are a hive mind they do have a range for the little ones, they have units that essentially work as signal extenders for the swarmlord as nids only start acting smart when one of them get deployed, so I'd argue the flood would only get that added if they got a swarmlord, like it only changes things slightly but swarmlords and norn queens are the actual brains in the nid army, the basic termagant I'd argue is basically just a drone with no higher brain function besides collect biomass untill they have one of those 2 around hell rippers actually just die if they fall out of signal range they are completely mindless I only say this because it shows they aren't grown to be able to maintain a connection to the hivemind on thier own so the flood would ether need to maintain range through absorbing signal extenders or assimilate one of them for it as commander Keyes demonstrated that a strong enough will can resist the floods information assimilation and I'd argue a hivemind like thiers would be stronger then a single incredibly impressively stubborn human

[@rulingmoss5599]

40k is mid

[@shreksnow1918]

Something that’s really interesting about the Flood is back when Bungie ran the show the Logic Plague wasn’t part of the lore. Instead, the way the Gravemind swayed Mendicant Bias to join the Flood was by convincing Mendicant that he has free will and it’s up to him whether or not he wants to obey his creators. Back then Rampancy went by the Marathon definition where it wasn’t the result of an ai dying because it ran out of storage space. Instead the ai would “go crazy” from our perspective and starts behaving erratically in an attempt to break its shackles and grow beyond its limits. The reason the UNSC would regularly put them down once they become Rampant was because a super intelligent rogue ai could cause all kinds of problems. Plus, during the time of the Human Covenant War they couldn’t afford to deal with internal threats, while they needed to keep their full attention on an external one. Something else that’s really cool is pre Rampancy the terminals refer to Mendicant as it, and post Rampancy call Mendicant he. This implies that before entering Rampancy Mendicant Bias was just a machine and wasn’t truly sapient until later. He then viewed his past servitude as a form of slavery and wanted vengeance. Also, aside from the things Frank O’Conner has direct control over like one third of 3’s terminals and the Iris campaign it was HEAVILY IMPLIED and in some cases outright stated that humans and Forerunners were one in the same. In fact that was the whole point of the Human Covenant War, with the Prophet’s goal being to wipe out the evidence that their faith was a lie. Contact Harvest also came out after Halo 3, and most of 3 was made with humans being Forerunners in mind. It was just kept vague as to whether or not we were literal Forerunners or apes molded into Forerunners to act as a replacement who would Reclaim(er) their legacy if they failed to defeat the Flood by any means other than the Rings.

[@Devj530]

Giving frank the keys to the lore so he could continue his fan fic will forever be one of the most damaging decisions ever made to the halo lore.

[@RorikH]

​@Devj530 Well, at least they paid off all of those changes in a satisfying way. Can you imagine if they massively changed the Forerunner lore only to kill off their forerunner villain in a comic book? God, that would've been a waste. Fortunately, no company is dumb enough to do that.

[@Dryym]

You're close, But the Forerunners being literally ancient humans would be impossible in the canon as of Halo 3 because Halo is supposed to canonically take place in our universe, And we where humanity came from. There's no room in our evolutionary history for us to have evolved into an interstellar empire and then come back in time to look like we evolved later. Especially because modern humanity has used up all of the readily available fossil fuels. An interstellar empire before us would have left us with nothing. The Forerunners were implied to be analogous to the biblical God. Creating us in their image to inherit and rule over their creations.

[@RorikH]

@Dryym I'm not sure we could ever reconcile the firing of the Halo Rings with the fossils record to begin with, but the fossil fuel thing might be because Earth wasn't the Forerunner homeworld, just a planet the Librarian really liked, though the terminal lore is sketchy since the main writing team said that Forerunners were ancient humans but the terminal team decides to go its own way and heavily imply that they weren't, and management just wanted to finish making their multi-player shooter game and didn't really give a damn about lore.

[@Dryym]

@@RorikH The firing of the halos is relatively easy to reconcile with if we assume two things. 1: Everything which was killed by the pulse was destroyed without any trace of it remaining. 2: Everything which was killed by the pulse was properly indexed and replaced on Earth after firing. I don't think these are too unreasonable to expect. As for Earth not being the original Forerunner homeworld, I don't think this really works. This would either mean that the alien Forerunners just so happen to look like they naturally evolved on this planet and are genetically related to everything on it by pure coincidence, Or that the Forerunners fabricated billions of years of evolutionary history while transferring an entire ecosystem from their homeworld to Earth in order to look like they evolved here instead. The way I see it, Everything in the lore as of Halo 3 is consistent with the Forerunners having created us and made us evolve into their successors. Meanwhile, In order to make them be literal ancient humans, You have to make huge leaps in logic which aren't worth it when you have a simpler solution which works well. Especially when you consider the biblical allegory angle. Which I just don't think works if the Forerunners are literal ancient humans. What I think happened, Personally, Is that in CE, When Halo was still sort of a Marathon sequel, The Forerunners supposed to be ancient humans. But in the time period where 2 and 3 were being developed, Someone on the writing staff realized it wouldn't make sense and as such, The Forerunners shifted to being our creators. Personally, I think this is what we see in Halo 2's cut ending. The human skeleton in the sarcophagus would be "Adam". The first man. The original human created by the Forerunners, And the template for humans to evolve into.

[@matthewcortes487]

Don't forget that when the flood infects something they get all the stuff they can do/all their memories which would potentially just connect all of the flood to the hivemind. Now giving the flood all of that information. Potentially. (Could be wrong)

[@MacroLore]

Exactly. If they were to eat a Lichtor for example the would gain the insights of not only that one bio form. But every single “spawn” of that bio form every variation. If they got their hands on 2-3 bioforms no matter how “customized” to the hive fleet they are. It’s GG the flood would then have a complete understanding of how they came to decide on this form, and every adaptation as well as how they were earned/harvested

[@Redditor6079]

100% correct.

[@deadman9335]

They can disconnect from the hivemind and the hivemind can force them out and depending on the form, they will either just adapt to the ecosystem acting as just another animal or they will literally steal space ships in order to fly to and attempt to reconnect to the hivemind or throw themselves in a bio pit, with the example I'm referring to being a group of infected Tyranids that the hivemind forced out because they would corrupt the entire tendril if I remember correctly. Regardless, the flood would likely infect several Tyranids in their first encounter and as you said, could potentially give the entire knowledge of the hive mind at that time, the hivemind likely feeling this happening and immediately cutting off every single Tyranid who gets infected after this point, likely adapting immunity to infestors and the super cell within a month or so, the tendril would completely change its goal to wipe out the flood seeing as anything the flood touches may be unrecoverable biomass(corrupt) and would require complete cellular destruction. I mentioned in another comment already that Tyranids might also be able to learn from what they eat, as their ability to learn and take genetic information and abilities before applying them to their own forms may have allowed them to take the ability to eat people and learn what they knew from space marines who do have this ability. This is speculation on my part as I don't know if this ever ran through games workshops mind or not however assuming that is the case. It might modify its biological information collection forms that normally test for biological weaknesses and even tech related stuff like gas mask filters. The modifications may include complete immunity if possible, learning from the flood hivemind, some way to breakdown and possibly use flood biomass although I doubt it, if immunity isn't an option then a resistance allowing them to study multiple bodies before succumbing, and likely exploding before succumbing so that the flood may not use them. The counter tendril would likely use Bio-plasma, Acid, fire, and other ranged options that would destroy the flood at range. Their bodies would become highly armored their nervous system would become extremely minimal in order to prevent infection the best they can. If they were getting infected, they would likely adapt to disconnect themselves automatically and self destruct in order to stop the flood from gaining any ground. After a battle, the intel gatherers will move in to study the bodies and further adapt to fighting the flood with the end goal to become immune to infection, purify flood biomass for their own use and not to stop the loss of biomass, to continually learn what the flood is thinking if possible although I don't doubt the flood would attemp to trick it and adapt to this in some way as well, and to eradicate the flood as quickly as possible leaving nothing of them left so that they can collect biomass as normal without the flood ruining it.

[@TheAns51]

@@deadman9335 Great analyse! Though Flood is also capable to evolve very quickly, even quicker than tyranids i think. They can basically evolve immediately and as the flood is super intelligent and can think many steps ahead when they're at keymind stage. Flood would absolutely evolve against anything that tyranids evolve so it would be endless evolution on both sides. And even if the flood cannot use tyranids as infection forms, they can use them as a biomass to create pure flood combat forms in hives so flood doesn't neccessary need to infect tyranids to gain new combatants.

[@zergrush_9704]

​@@MacroLoreAlso wrong, tyranids life forms possess only information which hive mind ALLOWS them to take, for example single hive tyrant doesn't know all the strategies that hive mind does, they are learning on themselves with each battle.

[@cyberpun2552]

The flood gravemind is something uniquely terrifying, he speaks so educational, rational, poetical that it makes you fear it, like how something so grotesque and dangerously lethal can communicate with such mannerisms, thats how it convinced the a.i to turn against its masters. The flood makes Shakespeare look like a kindergartner

[@rushpatriot2866]

It's the most intelligent being in the halo universe. It holds all the knowledge from previous gravemind including the precursors. The primordial having a small yap sesh sent humans into insanity with ease. Very terrifying and mysterious

[@wolfleader17]

Absolutely love that the gravemind we know often chooses to speak in poetry. It's not just an animal, or just a hunger, or just a zombie, it's an ancient being of such accumulated intelligence that it has developed tastes far more refined than our own, but at the same time, borne of it.

[@rushpatriot2866]

@@wolfleader17 yeah man when he was on screen in halo 2 I was captivated by his banter though I guess that really isn't saying much sense halo 2 always has me captivated when playing

[@deoxi3207]

Yeah the flood gravesmind may be the most intelligent thing in the universe once it's conquered a few worlds. Like all those memories and knowledge from great minds of any race packed into one organism and you've got something that'll make Einstein look like a baby in the knowledge comparison. And with that knowledge the flood can create new ideas because it's so intelligent, so it may even find revolutionary ways to do wars just by existing.

[@spicyladjr3650]

I completely think that if the flood outbreak just got started then it would be easily taken care of in 40k, but if they get their hands on a couple of worlds, they very quickly because a serious issue. This is especially true considering the numerous technology that exists in Warhammer (which the flood can and will learn how to use at peak efficiency)

[@edot7266]

Also really depends on if you wanna nerf the flood or not. Technically as soon as a Gravemind (and later keymind) is formed they immediately gain access to the shared memories of every previous one. Meaning they'd have a understanding of forerunner technology and most forms of technology found in 40k would be considered rudimentary in comparison. Understanding 40k tech would probably come extremely easy to it.

[@steeldragon9041]

The thing is a new flood outbreak will not be considered a threat really, it is something new that will take time to learn how "dangerous" it is. By the time they realize how bad the flood is, it's to late unless they recognize how threatening they are and DISINTIGRATE the planet to leave no trace. For in the wise words of the shipmaster "A single spre can wipe out a species" Also a new infection from a single spore, I think could have an entire planet consumed within a month, with is being slow at first then exponentially increasing in speed of infection

[@BertoxolusThePuzzled]

Ehh, peak 40K tech easily matches peak Forerunner tech and even exceeds it in many notable examples, IE the Necrons galactic Orrerry basically being a better more efficient halo ring given its ability to instantly supernova any chosen star in the galaxy at the simple push of a button.

[@steeldragon9041]

@BertoxolusThePuzzled some quick facts I looked up, A supernova would have to be within about 160 LIGHTYEARS for earth to feel its damaging effects (just feel the damage that is all). The range of 1 halo ring is 250 light-years of exterminating all organic life capable of sustaining the flood (pretty much 99.99999 to ♾️%) of life. I feel like technology wise it is Lowe tech to just, hay blow up sun and make supernova vs making a device that creates a pulse of energy that has MORE RANGE THAN A SUPERNOVA and is more of a precise weapon. Also that pulses range can grow exponentially if other rings are fired at the same time as mentioned by 343 guilty spark. Also forerunners literally made sun's and planets around sun's that they made and called them shield worlds.

[@williamnixon3994]

@@BertoxolusThePuzzled Definitely more efficient and precise (making it ideal for just detonating the star of a single system without splashing everywhere else), but it's a bit more difficult to call it a 'better device' outright when it took but seven Halo Rings to sweep the entire galaxy, billions of stars, of the Flood. Bit of a sniper rifle vs ICBM comparison

[@MistahFox]

The Flood would basically be the anti-chaos in 40k

[@BertoxolusThePuzzled]

So... weaker Tyranids? Sounds about right XD

[@lv1543]

@@BertoxolusThePuzzled tyranids are bugs. Flood are cordeceps

[@BertoxolusThePuzzled]

@@lv1543 Cordyceps has to evolve an entirely new strain for every species of bug it infects, and a great many species of bugs actually EAT the spores they are immune to as an easy source of sustenance. There are even some species of wasps that are passive carriers and inject it alongside their eggs as a cheap easy way to weaken the targets immune system... This is a great analogy, just not for the reasons you seem to think. Lol

[@IntrusiveThoughts838]

@@lv1543not even cordyceps. Literally just H.P Lovecraft AIDs

[@JTruong3rd]

If we were to compare what civilization tier the flood would be in Warhammer, it'd be War in Heavens era powerhouse tier assuming it gets to keymind stage.

[@spartanx9293]

Make sense the precursors were essentially the old ones on crack

[@jarlwilliam9932]

We have no way to scale the flood to war in heaven warhammer. The flood threatened several galaxy while war in heaven civs were threatening the entire 40k universe. It wasn’t just a galaxy going down in that war.

[@lashedandscorned]

Highly doubt tbh. War in Heaven era Warhammer was fucking insane beyond belief. I don't think any sci-fi universe tops WiH in terms of power levels. IIRC the entire fucking universe was a battleground between Necrons and the Old Ones & company iirc.

[@jarlwilliam9932]

@@lashedandscorned There are plenty that outscale it, marvel and dc and I’m sure there is an anime somewhere that does, but yes war in heaven warhammer is insane.

[@alexinfinite7142]

While we have no means to fully scale that properly, I think you're probably right lol. The flood get insanely God tier when they get all worked up and on the warpath

[@mervinreyes3008]

i mean i see both as some scary shit we never got to see the worst of but my human pride says we can beat it just get enough dakka.

[@MacroLore]

It would have to be insane amounts of Dakka. Ulinor orks + the beast could most likely do it

[@cadendains8106]

The more the Flood evolves and grows, the more you realize that endgame flood is basically just the Vex from Destiny. They're damn near invincible, can bend the laws of space and time on whim, and will most likely be capable of invading other universes and timelines. The tyranids, however, are just hungrier, larger, more adaptive bugs from Starship troopers.

[@l0sts0ul89]

So wtf are The Vex? Just super god robots?

[@cadendains8106]

@@l0sts0ul89 Basically. They were created by two 'gods', which you could technically call the masters and creators of all universes, The Gardener and The Winnower, by those said beings trying to play a 'flower game', to see if there's any other ending for a species than for one to reach the total apex and dominate everything, or death. The Vex always did the former, and they never really died between 'games' (universes), and instead became so powerful that they bled into the 'garden' where these two beings 'played'. Currently, our game is going on in Destiny, but instead of taking the hands off, both the Winnower (Darkness) and The Gardener (Light) are taking active roles in it, and thus the Vex were capable of invading this new universe. So basically, they're all that's left, an echo of sorts, of a species/creature so powerful that it was capable of literally 'stitching' itself into the fabric of reality. They also time travel.

[@l0sts0ul89]

@@cadendains8106 soooo- how exactly are they gonna loose on the end? I mean they have to eventually right? I heard the Vex you fight in the games are like rejected ones.

[@cadendains8106]

​@@l0sts0ul89 So, the Vex time travel and win so often because they're utilizing incredible amounts of computing to predict everything town to attoseconds. However, they can not compute nor predict powers such as the Dark, the Light, or this weird in between thing (hard to explain), and so this gives them a huge, glaring weakness to what's called Paracasaul threats, which you, a Guardian, basically a demigod that can be almost infinitely revived and powered by the Light, are. Also, you're not fighting rejects, what we're fighting are builders who are shooting us with the equivalent of a Vex communication device. We've only seen one 'combat' form, and it's the weakest one made to guard things, not even an attacker. They're called Wyverns and BOY are they tough to kill and annoying. They also have these things called Vex Minds which are basically an improved super computer form that has an express purpose to calculate. Like, there was one Vex Mind that was given the sole purpose of repurposing a planet as efficiently as possible.

[@l0sts0ul89]

@@cadendains8106 So basically they're like a super virus and we're the anti bodies who barely manage to keep them off Bay)

[@dicerson9976]

When it comes to these "2 Biohives that absorbs all mass going head to head" scenarios, the thing to remember is that they all follow one very simple fundamental rule. Scaling. If one of them gets an advantage in momentum, they just win. They end up in the position to "deal" with the other hive by whatever means they want. Whether that is leveraging an advantage in terms of subversion, or simply finding ways to avoid or prevent contact altogether ("starving" their opponent). When one of these forces has a significant enough advantage in sheer mass, they can quite literally turn it into an unwinnable battle of attrition. So, if you want to call to base fundamentals and declare a victor based on an "even" start, you then have to consider where these inflection points are and how they happen. Firstly, the force with the most potent subversion is the Flood. They subvert things at the molecular level via the *supernatural* properties of their supercell. It isn't relying on fundamentally natural scientific principles, it quite literally breaks and bends reality in order to take control. At the cellular level, the flood always win. Tyranids (and the Zerg, for that matter) *do* rely on fundamentally natural scientific principles in order to subvert biomass. The nids, specifically, are very brute force in that they use powerful caustics to *destroy* matter and reduce it to its base organic compounds before doing anything like a subversion- Nid pathogens do exist, but they don't subvert. They just kill and destroy, except for the Genestealer virus which only acts over the course of generations via minute genetic alterations to in-vitro progeny. The flood Supercell, however, doesn't really "have" base organic compounds. It is, itself, a sort of fundamentally homogenous meta-material with a cell-like structure, so introducing it into a vat of tyranid caustics will only see the supercells independantly adapting to the caustic environment and using the organic compounds within to create more supercells through its weird space-magicky processes. This means that in any sort of "direct" confrontation, the Nids only option is to avoid physical contact by any means necessary. Thankfully the flood isn't really compatible with the Warp and probably couldn't access the Tyranid hivemind unless/until it was already at the gravemind stage- at which point it could just outright blap the nids anyways using "neural physics" (read: space magic) without needing to go that far. So if we assume an equal start scenario, the flood simply win. They instantly win the subversion battle at a stage where the nids aren't big or powerful enough to skirt around it. But if you give both sides roughly large starting forces and also put them on different starting planets, then the nids stand a decent chance for the same reason that the Forerunners were able to almost wipe the flood out despite being in a very much losing conflict. The nids, being larger and smarter than a desperate disparate crumbling society, would be able to very easily execute the strategy to a far larger degree by simply *picking up* the biomass around the flood and then fucking off to a different galaxy entirely as they are known to do (they leave worlds barren in their wake, unlike the flood who actually kind of develop them). Permanently cucking the flood out of the requisite mass necessary to grow powerful enough to make use of neural physics to pursure. Fundamentally jailing them until the end of time. The amount of stuff the flood needs to be tactically hyper-intelligent is higher than the nids, since the flood is very much undirected and imprecise until they reach that stage whereas the nids genetically reach it almost immediately once they have enough biomass to create a single somewhat large brain.

[@red244]

Tyranids fight on the microscopic level too, so it's fair to assume they are just as quick to adapt to any infection. It all depends on the situation. Put the Tyranids and Flood on different planets in the same system, Tyranids sweep. The Flood lacks any reliable means of infecting neighbouring planets. Put them on the same planet? Well what forms? Tyranid Norn can pop out trillions of Tyranids without the restriction of necessitating hosts. They can also feed off all biomass, as opposed to the Flood that needs complex organisms. It would be a race against time for the Flood to create a Gravemind, and even then it's debatable how easily it can fight a gestalt consciousness of equal intelligence, warp fuckery could just nullify any advantages it might otherwise have. People need to understand, the Tyranid super organism is multi-layered. It's simultaneously seeding the atmosphere with Tyranid microbes AND assaulting upon the Warp whilst an invasion is happening. The Tyranids you see swarming the battlefield in their trillions is just one facet of their assault. Tyranid microbes entered an infinitely escalating war with Ork spores, which backfired epically for the Inquisitor who thought it was a good idea. Ultimately, the winner is whoever the writer decides.

[@rushpatriot2866]

It takes more than scaling the nuances like where it takes place what enemy units exist at the start and what tools or environments they have at they're disposal. Haxs come into play heavily and is probably the most important aspect of this match up in a versus debate.

[@guyperson754]

I’m man enough to admit when I’m wrong. I’m a 40k fanboy, always will be, but I can still look at the Flood and say “yep, that shit’s fucking scary.” The Flood is basically if you took the terrifying adaptability and hive mind of the Tyranids and made it so they were always a Nurgle entity with all the corrupting power and insidious ulterior motives that comes with. Take two of the more powerful and prominent factions of 40k and retcon them to have always been the same galactic threat. That’s the Flood.

[@MacroLore]

Well said, thank you

[@jasonlosiewicz8491]

That's actually a really cool thought

[@user-oj4ll2bf6k]

Im not just "fanboy". Im wh40k fan already 20 years. And im say that no, Flood will not dominate above Tiranids.

[@manofculture4938]

​@@user-oj4ll2bf6k the flood does dominate the nids tho. In every conceivable way.

[@user-oj4ll2bf6k]

@@manofculture4938 no. Proof?

[@Thorax2552]

The Precursors actually had a philosophy that all things in life (pain, happiness, peace, war, ect) were all part of the experience of existence. They could've wiped the Forerunners out with ease but chose not to as the Precursors' extermination was part of their existence. They still strived for self preservation, but didn't exercise their god like power to fight back

[@MacroLore]

Exactly. The precursors are eternal constants. They are as alive as the universe is

[@lennardchurch8483]

I'd like to add to this... flip to Halo: Cryptum pg156-157. Bornstellar gets a glimpse of a literally eternal Precursor mind, the descriptions of the experience leaving little room to argue. They didn't actually develop or evolve, they just are. The Precursors are eternal constants, always having existed in their current unchangeable state, which means their biological forms, including the Flood and Endless, are avatars they use to enact their will on the galaxy in specific ways. The Logic Plague is then a Precursor grafting its mind onto the mind of the afflicted, giving the Precursor direct control over that being's perceptions and decision making, allowing the Precursors to make it further the Precursors' goals, while still thinking that it has full free will to make its own decisions.

[@kingofhearts3185]

As in the Endless from Halo Infinite? I've seen so much speculation about a possible connection, but that's pretty clear. Or is that just 343 being idiots again? Which part of that is a direct quote?

[@lennardchurch8483]

@@kingofhearts3185 The TLDR is that most of the lore on the Precursors is given in little clues throughout various sources, mostly the Forerunner Saga, and very little is directly stated, rather the evidence is spread out for the reader to figure out, like a mystery novel that allows the reader to figure out the culprit about the same time the investigator does. We know the Halos kill all neurological biomass from the Forerunner Saga, and we can clearly see that the Endless are neurological entities via the Harbinger in Halo Infinite, yet they were found alive after the Halo Array fired. In the whole of the lore, the only way we've seen anything survive the Halo Array is by not being there when it's fired, such as being outside of the flow of time in temporal stasis. The Forerunners didn't have records of the Endless, which means they were either something very new, or something ancient that the Forerunners had tried to erase from history, and given the complexity of temporal stasis, the Endless being new enough to have not been previously found by the Forerunners is unlikely to the point of virtual impossibility. The only race the Forerunners tried to erase from history, leaving behind only a mythological version of them, was the Precursors. Also, there's the question of what sort of temporal stasis releases the occupants after a super-weapon erases neurological life from the region? Technology is typically unaffected by the Halo Array, but we do know that it causes Neural Physical constructs to disintegrate, and again from the Forerunner Saga, we know that Precursor-made temporal stasis chambers when destroyed by a Halo releases the occupant after the destructive energies have passed, because that's what happened when the Forerunners fired a Halo on the planet the Primordial was on. All of this strongly points to a strong connection between the Endless and the Precursors, as does the Forerunner Ancilla in Halo Infinite having determined that they believe the Endless are something more terrifying than the Flood. It's revealed in the Forerunner Saga that when the Forerunners rebelled, the Precursors put some of their biological avatars into temporal stasis at the same time they turned others into the Flood dust, so everything points towards the Endless being those Precursor avatars, who were released by the Halo Array, only to be immediately found by the Forerunner Ancilla, and placed into Forerunner-made stasis, until they were eventually released by the Banished, all a part of the Precursors' grand design. As such, I feel extremely confident that I am correct that the Endless are the Precursors' avatars that were placed in temporal stasis at the same time they turned others into the Flood dust.

[@galomir833]

The precursor are the fabric of reality They can’t be killed Even if not a single flood supercell or any other form they have exist anymore they will still be

[@JesusRodriguez-wi1yy]

Not want to sound like a rude fanboy, but the Hive-Mind as a whole, is just a very, VERY atomic tendril of the true form of the Tyranids, heck, if you read enough, the Hive-Mind in the Skein, you know where we have: -Conceptual and Metaphysical tides -infinite planes of existence, with infinite possibilities, planes of existence and timelines -a Space so big that the material multiverse, which I will remind you, has Mathematical universes with Mathematical and Geometrical principles, vectors and raw, digital Mathematical data, is only the SURFACE of it The Hive-Mind in the Skein, that extends its tendrils around all of the Skein, is just a SMALL, projection of the Shadow in the Warp, the Great Dragon, in the Warp itself, the same plane of existence that: -is beyond Mathematics and Physics, which in 40k are so advanced, that not even the scientists who theorized the multiverse, gravity, dark matter and geometrical concepts, would rather taking the hardest tests of the world than actually solving how the Imperium Mathematics and Physics work. -The same Warp that itself is beyond the entire concept of Philosophy, Dimensions and Concepts -a Plane of Existence that has infinite layers that are trascendental and dimensionless «The Hive-mind's true form/soul is described as 'The Great Dragon' and it's form coils around the stacked planes of of Existence or 'Panes of Glass'. Here it's true form is described as even more fundamental then it's depiction on the Skein which is the essence of it's Fate and 'higher dimensions' while at first seemingly referring too merely the 'Infinite' dimensions of physical reality, however as we have already established, the Skein is separate from the material plane and transcendent over it. Furthermore, I believe it's also referring more to how it's soul within the Warp is the true reality of it's soul as opposed to it's existence within the Skein that is merely a psychic abstraction. I also believe the true state of the Hive Mind or 'The Great Dragon' is implied to be a fully grown 'Voidspawn' or the adult form of the Void Grubs/Voidspawn that Belianna views within the Panes of Glass when attempting to view the Skein as a Outergod/Lovecraft type reference (more on this in Age of Sigmar section) "Beyond the shield she saw the Great Dragon's true form. Not the hideous intrusions into the mortal realm that swam the black star sea, nor as a Farseer might see it, as a great and braided cable of malicious fate dominating all the skein. The first was merely a part of the whole, and the second psychic abstraction. What Iyanna saw was the reality of its soul. It was a great shadow when seen from afar, a wave of dread and psychic blindness that preceded the hive fleet's arrival. But the greatest shadows are cast by the brightest lights, and seen closely, the soul of the hive mind shone brighter than any sun. She was so close now that she perceived the ridged topography of its mind, larger than star systems, an entity bigger than a god. It contemplated thoughts as large as continents, and spun plans more complex than worlds. It dreaded dreams that could not be fathomed. She felt small and afraid before it, but she did not let her fear cow her defiance. Against this vista flickered the souls of Eldar, their jewel-brightness dimmed by the incomparable glare of the Great Dragon. And this was but a tendril of the creature. The bulk of it stretched away, coils wrapped tight about the higher dimensions, joining in the distance to others, and then others again, until at a great confluence of the parts sat the terrible truth of the whole." -Forges of Mars omnibus» I will leave you this link that explores the lore, more so the Cosmology: all-fiction-battles.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:Sky_Stalyn_Teta/Warhammer_Universe_Cosmology What we see of the Tyranids, are just very tiny, lovecraftian aspectos of the Eldritch Beast that is in the Warp.

[@RoastTurtle2]

If it doesn't exist yet I want someone to make a mod or just a full game that's cross between Halo and Warhammer. Halmmer 334 would be the name or something along those lines

[@kevinkillion8232]

There are Warhammer 30k/40k and halo mods for Arma 3

[@Binnonexe]

creepy thing about the flood is even if you are dead it will still assimilate you and bring you back

[@SentientMeatloaf1]

Tyranids adapt to your advantages. The flood just steal those advantages outright. The flood would absolutely dominate the nids, especially given all the deep lore from the books and not just the games. From what I understand the nids fight, get pushed back, adapt, try again, over and over until the goal is achieved. They need to time to consume, gestate, and repurpose biomass for their use. Not very much time, but time nonetheless. The flood only need seconds to infect and completely take over a life form, making it immediately useful to them and turning the strengths of the enemy into the strengths of the flood. The only possible way the nids could counter this is by becoming uninfectable. But the practicality of that is very dubious. anything that has a central nervous system can be infected, and since the nids have creatures literally known as synapse creatures, I don’t think it’s possible to completely remove their nervous system. That is what connects them to the hive mind, it’s the ONE thing they can’t go without without also losing all the benefits the hive mind gives them. Plus, the biomass would still be useful to the flood regardless, even if it can’t be infected in the traditional sense. And that’s not even getting into the way the flood can infect space time like chaos and even AI, meaning even the necrons aren’t safe. The only conflicts the nids are winning in this matchup is local engagements vs relatively small amounts of flood. Basically if they show up with an overwhelming advantage to begin with, they can pull a victory. But if the forces are anywhere near evenly matched, the flood have the clear advantage

[@MacroLore]

The fact is though. The flood are never at the disadvantage. They have other galaxies they can feed from. Even if they need to go dormant they lose none of their abilities or memories. This was a really well put comment. Thank you :)

[@zergrush_9704]

Bullshit, tyranids can create several nerve systems for every organism, don't forget that the hive mind is obsessed with symbionts and multiple creatures in one body. And if one of them is infected, the others will destroy it. For example: neurogaunts - even if you shoot off his head, the body will still continue to fight, because neuroparasites in the spinal cord can take control. In addition, some Tyranid fleets are able to create toxins that even many Nurgle servants cannot withstand, and then eat bodies infected with this toxin. I'm not talking about rippers, parasites of Mortex, tyranid psykers, what will flood do with psykers for example? It can shoot them, obviously, but not infect them, they literally create shields out of nothing, levitate and fire beams of energy in all directions. They gonna eat flood faster than it gonna infect them.

[@gabrielcoventry4586]

Not to mention if flood have the biomass of an entire galaxy it basically becomes a god. The power of neural physics and star roads. They could think apart civilisations. (Although they wouldn't do that, they prefer not to kill where they could instead consume. They want to savour experience so blinking out civilisations wouldn't be in their best interests but the fact they could do it is terrifying enough) Point is, the flood cannot lose. Even if pushed back they will then just wait. "Resignation is my virtue; like water I ebb, and flow. Defeat is simply the addition of time to a sentence I never deserved... but you imposed."

[@Dryym]

One other thing about the Flood. Large scale infection takes place over a fraction of the time. After the events of Halo 3, The UNSC deduced that if it weren't for Voi's outbreak being glassed, The Flood would have overtaken Earth in mere hours. Meanwhile the numbers I have seen for Tyranids put planetary assimilation at days or weeks. We can confirm the Flood numbers with the other two outbreaks we've seen. The feral stage infection in CE has basically completely taken control of the ring in under a day. And the infection on High Charity has overtaken the Covenant holy city in hours. To the point that even the hierarchs aren't safe.

[@Gustav_Kuriga]

The flood are only able to steal those advantages if they're able to infect in the first place. If the Tyranids find a way to prevent the infection, Flood are done. Anything that has the same kind of central nervous system as the species in the Halo universe are able to be infected. That doesn't mean a form of central nervous system that works completely differently couldn't evolve, or that a way to prevent the infection from reaching the central nervous system couldn't evolve.

[@Blundabus1337]

Gravemind kills a funny chaos space marine wearing faces on his armor Then the gravemind becomes a funny chaos space marine wearing faces on his armor

[@TheLastRaven]

Something often left out of the debate is the psychic powers of the tyronids and the shadow they cast which can cut of connections like warp entities or hive minds. Glad you brought up the shadow in the warp.

[@MacroLore]

Even though I strongly believe the flood could overpower the Shadow in the Warp. It is still important to talk about it, since a weaker flood form might not be able to break through that shadow

[@TheLastRaven]

@Macro40k the flood are definitely allot more resilient on a cellular level but the tyronids are more refined when it comes to thier gene craft and adaptability. Flood will likely be able to overun and consume a planet quicker than the tyronids but the tyronids will probably be able to make more use out of what they consume if that makes any sense.

[@TheLastRaven]

@Macro40k I agree the higher tier of Flood should be able to break through.

[@lennardchurch8483]

@@MacroLore The Flood's abilities aren't "Psychic" in the sense that 40k uses the word, because the Flood's abilities aren't Warp-based. The Tyranids' Shadows in the Warp is their massive psychic presence drowning out other psychic sources, like radio interference. But the Flood's using an entire different system, so that interference won't affect them in any way.

[@lv1543]

@@TheLastRaven when the tyranids fought the death guard, the shadow in the warp did not nullify their defensive resillience which is dependant on the warp to function. The tyranids were unable to use nurgle tainted biomass from a planet that they defeated the death guard on. They had to destroy a hive ship before it could spread nurgles rot to the other fleet. In 40ks own words “better to lose a toe than the whole limb” Which means that the tyranids would be unable to recover flood biomass. Even if disolved in acid. The flood operate on neural physics which is way better than the warp, no downsides like your brain exploding from using it. The flood would be able to withstand or ignore the shadow in the warp. As they consume more biomass, the flood will form giant planet sized keyminds which will be able to outmaneuver any forunner class AI. The tyranid hivemind would find its tactics and strategy outclassed. The tyranids lose on every front. The only thing they stand a chance on is if they are able to destroy the flood before it escapes a planet.

[@lennardchurch8483]

The lore on the Precursors and Flood comes mostly from the Forerunner Saga, but much of it isn't directly stated, it's presented in the form of clues, pieces of information scattered throughout the trilogy for the dedicated reader to piece together, because the author trusts the reader to be intelligent enough to make the connections. The subtlety of some of the clues makes it almost mandatory to read the series a second time, because there's more you'll catch due to context that you have from later books. The Precursors are eternal constants, fully existing outside of the confines of space and time, giving them the full, omniscient view of everything that is, was, or may be. They used biological avatars to give the mortal races examples of how they're supposed to conduct themselves. Thus the Precursors' avatars lived many existences, some simple and tied to their worlds, others spanning the galaxy, but all growing, advancing, and eventually dying out, before being replaced by the next ones. The Precursors created a race to give the Mantle of Responsibility to, and put them on the planet, Ghibalb, and that race was humanity. At some point, some of them left for the far side of the galaxy and lost contact with those who stayed behind, most likely when those who stayed behind accidentally destroyed their homeworld in a stellar engineering accident, which would have resulted in the loss of records. So the Humans on the far side of the galaxy continued as they were, but the others, now without their homeworld created a new capital, Maethrillian, and spent the next more than ten-million years genetically engineering themselves, incorporating favorable traits from other species they found into their own genetics in an attempt to turn themselves into the perfect species, turning themselves into the Forerunners we know. The Forerunners thought they were destined to hold the Mantle, because it had been promised to the descendants of their ancestors, but they didn't remember that the Humans were also descendants of those same ancestors, so the Precursors hadn't changed their minds, rather they'd merely chose to go with the faction that was still what the Precursors had designed them to be. The Forerunners were only slated for execution by the Precursors because the Forerunners had committed gross violations against the Mantle, by perpetually subjugating all of the other races, de-evolving them and stealing their technology and worlds whenever they reached anything close to the Forerunners level of power. (The Mantle is the rule that each race has the right to the opportunity to reach their full potential, not any sort of mandated authoritarian "peace"). Thus the Forerunners had to go so the other races could advance as they were designed to. But the Forerunners themselves hadn't reached their own potential yet, so they couldn't be eliminated yet. That's why the Flood held back for hundreds of years to give the Forerunners the time to reach their full potential, before the Flood used its full power to quickly crush the Forerunners. On that note, when the Forerunners rebelled, they didn't understand that the "Precursors" they were attacking were merely avatars, and that the Forerunners had no ability to actually harm their creators. Yet even so, the Precursors didn't have their avatars defend themselves, and instead they passively allowed the Forerunners to exterminate them across both the Milky Way and Path Kethona, again allowing the Forerunners to prove that they were not worthy to hold the Mantle. But the Precursors chose to preserve some of their avatars for future use. Some they turned into a fine, apparently inert dust that would eventually be found by humanity, who would unwittingly release it to become the Flood, serving as a test of humanity, allowing them to show their worth in how they handle being responsible for releasing a plague on the galaxy. Humanity passed this test by being self-sacrificial in their attempts to stop the Flood before it spread to the other races. As a reward, the Flood stopped targeting humanity, which created the false appearance of humanity's final "cure" working, which would later cause the Forerunners to preserve humanity, instead of eradicating them as the Forerunners would have otherwise done. The Flood attacked the rest of the galaxy, but holding back its assault to make the process take hundreds of years, giving the Forerunners enough time to relocate the other races to the Lesser Ark, and to develop the Halo Array, so that when the Flood finally makes the final push, forcing the Forerunners to activate the Halo Array, the Forerunners last stronghold on the Greater Ark would be destroyed, and the Flood would be cleared out of the majority of the galaxy, allowing the races from the Lesser Ark to grow, out from under the shadow of the Flood. The Precursors allowed the Flood to re-emerge on some Forerunner structures after the firing of the Halo Array to safeguard the technology from the mortal races who weren't ready for it, so they wouldn't use it to wipe out themselves or each other. That's the context of the Halo games, in which the Flood isn't fighting to win, it's fighting to deny assets to the mortal races. Other avatars of the Precursors were put into temporal stasis, where they would be held until after the firing of the Halo Array, which dissolved the Neural-Physical constructs, releasing them after the destructive energies had passed. Thus the Forerunners' Ancilla found them, initially mortified at the prospect of the implications of something surviving the Halo Array, but then figuring out who this race was, and concluding that it was more dangerous than the Flood, an assertion that could only apply to the Precursors themselves. Thus the Forerunners' Ancilla put those avatars into Forerunner-made stasis, where they'd again wait until their eventual release by the Banished, at which point the first of these avatars released, the Harbinger, manipulated the Banished into decisions that would ultimately result in the Master Chief wiping out the majority of their top commanders, rebalancing the Banished' s conflict with Humanity, giving Humans the chance to rebuild and re-arm to withstand the power of the Banished. Everything the Precursors and their avatars have done is for the ultimate goal of having the mortal races achieve their full potential. The Precursors' tactics change with changing circumstances, but the goal is always the same.

[@CommissarChaotic]

man I wish we had like... A version of that one creepy ending in AOT that spoiled things except its this info that's portrayed. Ever since I learned about the new lore, that ending just kept coming to my head. If I could draw I would probably try to create it.

[@ObsidionshadowX]

I was literally saying just the other day that the Flood would solo 40k. And that's being a fan of both, not even The Warp would be safe.

[@MacroLore]

As a fan of both. It’s safe to say the flood contain all aspects of chaos and could easily replace it

[@ObsidionshadowX]

@@MacroLore neural psychics is the real end game. Lol

[@thesnakeanimator5673]

Not to be a dick but i dont think they could solo 40k

[@liquidsweg4858]

@@thesnakeanimator5673 yeah necrons alone would slap em

[@JohnDoe-wt9ek]

I disagree. The Hivemind still resides within a realm of reason, he is, after all, a philosopher who has seen time immemorial and has seen empires rise and fall since the dawn of time (so he says). To venture into the Warp and face the Chaos Gods would require complete and total insanity. Which is why the only individuals to survive are people who have gone insane, or Orks who are so simple minded that they can absolutely reside without issue. And each one uniquely separate. Not to mention that supernatural beings cannot be infected by material realm parasites... Nurgle would probably see the Flood as the ultimate creation of plague itself. I think the only affront he would find is that it detracts from the very idea of the gift of mortality being slow and sweet.

[@rory8182]

Remember: The reason that the Tyranids avoid Necrons in just because they don't gain any biomass from killing them

[@rustkarl]

Well that and the stellar powered super weapons most established dynasties carry in their back pockets for just such an occasion.

[@locarno24]

Except they can and do crush tomb worlds when they're in the way, and early worlds consumed by the hive fleet are scraped to the core of minerals and atmosphere too. The tyranids generally avoid tomb worlds because there's SO MUCH life in our galaxy that they have, in Inquisitor Kymryptmann's words 'become picky eaters'.

[@generalnawaki]

Halo is amongst the series that could dominate with the 40k universe. Old sci fi is full of empires that would dunk on the Imperium of man.

[@thedirtbagstash]

Halo is Old sci-fi. Damn I'm old, I thought old sci fi was Asimov, Herbert, and Heinlein. Also 40k is like more than a decade older than Halo... But yeah Flood smokes 40k galaxy, no contest.

[@seekingabsolution1907]

The UNSC probably wouldn't simply because they lack the resources and territory to sustain fighting a war against them.

[@angelobrewster6293]

I like both Halo and Warhammer 40k and even I know the Precursor/Primordials are on a whole different level When I told my friend who is a big 40k fan about Precursors, I told him that Precursors are kinda like the Old Ones of 40k only much more powerful.

[@superdope710]

Finally someone mentions what I think is the obvious here which is the precursors ALLOWED the forerunners to “wipe them out”. All of the lore surrounding the precursors paints them to be these godlike nigh-omniscient beings that could do pretty much anything and yet we’re to believe that the forerunners just surprised them real good. I don’t buy it. Throughout the forerunner trilogy anytime the primordial or grave mind is “on screen” so to speak, he is constantly referencing that the precursors have essentially planned out the galaxy and, although being pissed about what the forerunners did, never mentions that their actions in anyway hinder or set back their plans as if it was anticipated and worked into the calculus. He even specifically mentions that Humanity will be tested next for the mantle and nothing has changed that. The only thing they are referenced as specifically not knowing is if humanity will prevail or not, clearly to raise the stakes when the eventual “test” does come, if we even get that in a game or book or whatever. And the way he described this ignorance is by saying: “It has not yet been decided”. Yeah the Precursors let the Forerunners win, no doubt in my mind.

[@aezxrialeeld]

Considering that the flood also did something similar against the forerunners as well. They retreated from human controlled space for thousands of years to get the forerunners a semblance of hope that there was a cure just to get them to waste time and resources before coming back and wiping them out. Also in lore human controlled space was on the edge of the galaxy so who knows if they hadn't gone to a different galaxy in the meantime, how plausible this is idk, but it's an interesting theory.

[@goratron1]

The problem is the flood will be all but immune to the tyranids as the flood supercell will be transforming the tyranids the moment they enter melee combat. The strength of the tyranids, where they can digest the enemy and eachother to generate new forms, doesn't work here as the supercell won't give them enough time. They will be food, nothing more.

[@ParagonGoetia]

I do feel like the infestation from Warframe given its nanite nature, being able to adapt through different strains and overall access to the void would consume both.

[@devoutrelic1228]

At full strength, the Flood has the ability to literally alter the laws of physics with their mind, it's an ability called "neural physics" that connects their consciousness to the underlying fabric of the universe as a whole. One time, in order to cripple the movement of it's enemies, the Flood changed the way hyperspace works, causing everyone's slipspace drives to malfunction. They then used their minds to DELETE THE SPACE IN BETWEEN TWO PLANETS to allow the Flood's fleet to easily move between places, not by using slipspace, but by literally making parts of the universe smaller so it would be easier to cross.

[@Eldelturnodelatarde]

​@@devoutrelic1228THE F*CK?, that's broken.... no... BEYOND BROKEN

[@calebkaminski6951]

​@@devoutrelic1228here I was thinking the forerunners were God like The flood basically becomes a god

[@intercontinentalballisticben]

@@calebkaminski6951 the flood doesn't become a god, it is the distorted remains of multiple gods

[@dabbingraccoons6416]

I’m not so sure about that, the warframe infenstation doesn’t seem as powerful

[@Saphire_Throated_Carpenter_Ant]

I didn't know tyranids vs flood was even an argument being had... I would be much more interested in tyranid vs zerg or xenomorph.

[@solomonadjei758]

Yeah. A Tyranid hive fleet or fleets vs the Zerg would be fair. The flood are just too different.

[@GokageBlack]

Sidenote imagine if they gave Kryptman ONE halo ring 😅

[@petrusv8752]

"By order of Inquisitor Krytman we are to enforce exterminatus."- some officer "Which planet are we targeting my lord?"- some grunt "Yes."-Inquisitor Krytman entering the room

[@beemerwalker5945]

Please do a part 2 I think this is very interesting

[@lowtiergod2020]

It pisses me off a little bit how little info is really known about the tyranids. They have like no expanded lore and theres almost nothing on the hive mind. Could it really hurt GW to maybe let us see it one day? Or even explain where the tyranids exactly come from and how big of a scale they have in the universe? Honestly tyranids need more lore and info about them

[@hernehaugen6878]

@4:00 "neural physics, mind science" Ah yes. Sci-fi jargon for space magic.

[@ButFirstHeLitItOnFire]

Keep in mind one nasty little detail that would be The Flood’s ace in the hole: *_They would have Slipspace travel, in a setting where almost every other faction has to make do with infinitely more dangerous and unreliable Warp Travel._* Once a Gravemind is formed, the flood would have access to ALL of the memories of the Forerunners they consumed AND the knowledge of the Precursors they once were. It would be child’s play for The Flood to modify ANY space-worthy craft to use Slipspace and scatter across the entire galaxy faster and more precisely than anyone could keep track of. By the time everyone realizes what’s going on, The Flood would have already entrenched itself across every corner of the galaxy. And the WORST PART? NO planet under attack from the flood could be considered “expendable” or “low priority”, as any worlds conquered by The Flood would just become KeyMinds that would toss more flood across all of the galaxy (The best way I could describe a Keymind in 40K terms would be Tyranids tried making their own Daemon World equivalents that acted as nodes for their hive mind to operate like mini-astronomicans).

[@firepowerx-venezuelangame3890]

IMO, Depends on what stage the Flood are at. If we give the Flood stuff like the Star Roads? Immediate flood win, no question. However, in a slugfest, tyranids have the advantage thanks to their sheer adaptability, notable example being overcoming the plagues of Nurgle and the Death Guard. Not only that, but their psionic powers and individual bioforms like the Doom of Malan'tai could very much turn the playing field in their favor.

[@rianmacdonald9454]

Not big on 40K lore - but HALO is my thing - it doesn't matter what you throw against the flood, they will just infect it - then you only managed to strengthen them, plus they have now gained all the memories and knowledge of the infected host. That is the entire point of the Halo arrays - the only way to beat the flood was to starve them to death by wiping out all life - and that still didn't work.

[@firepowerx-venezuelangame3890]

@@rianmacdonald9454 The same thing goes for the tyranids, except they can adapt to a much greater degree than the flood. Flood require pure forms and hives to adapt (Tanks changing into stalker forms), whereas even a Tyranid ripper can change into a Mawloc or Swarmlord if instructed by the Mind.

[@alphastronghold715]

Accurate. As soon as the Flood creates a Gravemind, the entirety of the 40K universe is doomed. If they’re wiped out before then, 40K is saved.

[@opticalraven1935]

They will wait, stalk, and observe their prey before sending out their infectors to take over bodies. The take the dead and living alike. Infectors are intelligent enough to hide and stay out of sight until it is time to strike.

[@joshrobinson2409]

It really doesn't matter what stage the flood are in all it takes is for one tyranid to get infected after that the tyranids are beyond fucked

[@Hankthestank04]

One thing in havo v warhammer is plasma 40k plasma sucks and is hard to use it still one shots 60% of things halo has plasma so perfect they can give a wepon better than than 40k plasma to cannon fodder

[@WanderingCoyoteXVII]

You know how the Tyranids are said to be running from something outside the galaxy? Maybe they're running from the Flood.

[@weaselwolf8425]

This video gave me some motivation to get in 40K lore. Ive been procrastinating but honestly the more games I play the more lores I want to delve into and compare. Thxs for the video.

[@MacroLore]

Going into a new universe with an open mindset is key. Each different threat has a different place in the structure of the setting. Some setting have incredible scale like 40k. Halo is a lot less so most of the time

[@weaselwolf8425]

@@MacroLore It doesn't help that Halo game lot and Halo book lore have some inconsistentencies if not retcons. It's kind of annoying but I'm still trying to finish the books and get caught up with the games. WH is cool but it's got sooooo much going on I've never put much time into because of that. But it don't hurt to try and you're right open mindset is key.

[@SUCKASOUP]

It’s never crossed my mind until now, but could the flood be precursor? Like never was any corruption or maybe the flood being a deliberate action taken by the precursor. I always took it at face value that the flood was something new like a zombie issue that was never intended

[@lennardchurch8483]

You're just about on the money. There's a part in Halo: Cryptum that shows that the Precursors are literally eternal constants, which means their biological forms were avatars, and also means they still exist as they always have, including during the Flood's outbreaks, and as constants, the Preccursors knew everything that would happen, whether they deliberately made it happen, or merely let it happen. The Precursors directly control the Flood, and they still have the same motivations and goals, but the Flood are using a different tactic than what the Precursors used before, because the nature of life in the galaxy changed, requiring a new approach. First the Precursors established the Mantle, the rule that each race they created had the right to the opportunity to reach its full potential. And the Precursors had their avatars gently directing the mortal races in how they're supposed to conduct themselves, leading by example. Then the Forerunners rebelled, and it became necessary to give the mortal races a foe to strive against that wasn't each other, something that would drive them forward and make them work through their differences with each other to survive.

[@what_the_...]

Halo: Epitaph confirmed, as far as I know, that the flood are the precursors and furthermore that they use the flood to destroy intelligent life and thus ensure that the domain continues to run. 

[@lennardchurch8483]

@@what_the_... The Forerunner Saga confirmed the Flood are the Precursors' avatars, created to uphold the Mantle, the rule that each mortal race had the right to the opportunity to reach its full potential. That's why the Flood went after the Forerunners for violating the Mantle by perpetually subjugating the other races, and why the Flood held back for 300 years to give the Forerunners time to reach their full potential before eliminating them. The Flood's duty was not to protect the Domain, evidenced by it gloating to the Librarian that the Domain would be wiped out when the Halo Array fired at the end of Halo Silentium. The Domain is the memory of Abaddon, a Precursor-made AI, that uses the whole of the galaxy for memory storage, and that memory was wiped out when the Halo Array was fired, but Abaddon still exists, and is still creating from the depths of Maethrillian.

[@opticalraven1935]

The Flood are some of the surviving Prescursors. They ground themselves into a dust form and esrly humans and the prophet race found the derelict ship and foubd the dust vials on board. Then the they took the vials back to their labs and found no evidence of it being dangerous at that time. However, unknown to the humans and prophets, the dust had corrupted due to the these particular Precusors wanting vengeance. They used it as an infusion for their pets to give them certain fur patterns and to make them more docile but eventually, the dust turned the pets cannibalistic and the infection began to spread from animal to human and so forth. The rest is history.

[@constantlyphil]

Yeah the flood is the precursors basically saying "lmao even a weaker version of us can decimate you prideful insects" The forerunners were convinced they had won but I don't think fighting the gods who created you would ever work

[@elixexo4011]

Yooo the flood can *INFECT* reality itself, it's not even a competition, I haven't watched this vid but I really hope you talk about star roads.

[@jager477]

Something to note about the Tyranid's is that they have attacked the milky way galaxy from completely different points of contact, implying that the entire universe is completely surrounded by the Tyrranid hive fleet. There is also a Warhammer 40K story about a psyker who peers into the Tyranid hive mind to save I think a commissar and sees a mass of tendrils that envelopes entire planets and spans across several galaxy's. While that could be a illusion, but for all we know the Tyranids might have conquered the entire UNIVERSE(literal) of 40K with the Milky Way Galaxy being its last victim. I'm not here to argue but I do want to point out that the story of Warhammer is still being built, so maybe someday the nids might surpass the Flood when more lore is developed, interesting video.

[@MacroLore]

I wouldn't be surprised if in the end both the Precursors and the Nids turn out to be the same thing. I also wouldn't be surprised if 40k does what HALO did and go "oh shit, this big organic plothole. Let's fill it by saying they're actually these guys" by making the Tyranids the wrath of the Old Ones

[@jager477]

@@MacroLore I plead the fifth and say “Dude, same.”.

[@little_lord_tam]

The flood soloed a species that flipped a damn galaxy for the sole reason of seeing wheter they can. And I havent seen the 40k factions instigating a multi galactic extinction event to defeat their enemies like those did

[@LitmusPapyrus]

I’ve never heard of the “Inheritor” species the Precursors attempted before the Forerunners, where could I learn more about them?

[@MacroLore]

They are literally a one or two sentence mention in the forerunner trilogy. Cryptum, Primordium, and Silentium. They have 0 lore, I think halo 3-4 writers were setting them Up to appear then the new ceo came in and brought in a new faction nobody had heard of

[@ahmaddagodelchapo793]

Your flood chaos vids sounds dope

[@MacroLore]

Thank you! And thank you for making it that far into the video :)

[@TheRaptorsClaw]

Yeah I'd love to see that video too!

[@OK-zo3cq]

The Skibidi toilets will solo both the Flood and tyramids I will die on this hill, fight me

[@OK-zo3cq]

🚽

[@Truckahhmf]

Truly a force to be reckoned with

[@lv1543]

No ones debating you

[@yeetusdeletus1827]

No one's debating you, it's hard to win an Argument against a smart person, but it's impossible to win an Argument against a stupid person.

[@lv1543]

Skibidi toilets can solo the xeelee universe

[@badanalysis]

this video is insane man great work!

[@impa2787]

YOO I LOVE THE MECHANICUS MUSIC PLAYING, I LOVE THAT SOUNDTRACK SO MUCH-

[@jeremiahhoy1905]

While I agree that the flood would be the tyranids this felt much more like a old one's versus the tyranids videos. I would like to see your opinion on how the tyranids deal with the flood on all stages of there developments and how the flood would deal with the tyranids in its in all stages of there development. Naturally the flood of their zenith with wipe the floor with pretty much most things getting to that point would be the hard part.

[@Drewski-hw1yi]

Funny enough ive hear arguments that the gravemind wouldn't be able to figure out alot of the technology because no one knows how to use it. Like the gravemind couldnt figure out alot of imperiums tech especially after it regains it's memories from the forerunner days.

[@MacroLore]

Keep in mind that it doesn’t need to understand the technology. Just how to use it, the neural physics will do the rest

[@KillerOrca]

(Eats one Tech Priest Dominus)

[@galomir833]

@@MacroLoresound like ork

[@MalkuAtu]

the gravemind actually was able to get enough power out of high charity to send it through slipspace to the ark even though the forerunner keyship powering the entire thing was gone, which shouldn't have been possible, I'm sure given a little bit of time it could figure out the imperium tech.

[@DarKronoz]

If i remember correctly as soon a gravemind its formed, it gains acces to all of the past memories of all the graveminds Meaning that no mater if a gravemand its formed hundreds of millions of years after the halo rings fired, as soon as the gravemind its complete it will gain all the previous memories and knowlege of the flood Even if thats not the case, im sure that the knowledge of a planet its enough for the gravemind to understeand how to use a weapon, vehicule or whatever it wants to use

[@blickman5090]

I need to hear part 2 FOR THE ANALYSIS IN COMPARISON OF BIOFORMS AND ABILITY

[@seanlamb7501]

loved the video! please make part two!

[@MacroLore]

soon

[@silent_stalker3687]

Halo Flood Bungi: hivemind with lots of 404 errors in it’s memory but is basic enough to be sane. 343 corrupted creatures from dust, but actually not corrupted just literally spiteful beings that wanted revenge meanwhile the uncorrupted ones were harvested and studied (we can assume we had friendly flood but were wiped out due to obvious advantages of the hostile flood). However the flood may have an advantage in the halo series… this being a flood was put in a reverse stasis field set for an absurd amount of time and that means it has had a flood stream of the flood for that time giving the flood a peek into what may happen. We also know the flood shed biomass as by the Didact who was held prisoner by them for a period of time. We also have ‘oh people keep going missing so we keep sending forerunners there’ origin of the flood idea and then it became too great for them to contain it. Edit Also we have a forerunner, Flood/precursor, A.I alliance in halo.

[@MacroLore]

I think you’re applying 3rd dimensional thinking to a 4th or 5th dimensional being

[@silent_stalker3687]

@@MacroLorenah, it really is just ‘the 343 writing is so bad that this is the best thing i can come up with’ Literally the flood letting the forerunners ‘win’ just so they can say ‘haha made you hurt yourself’ Especially after 3 books and that is the end goal? The literal laughing in the librarian’s face moment… I mean compare the flood of halo 1-3 book wise vs the flood that has been written by 343… It just feels like it is missing so much that made it intimidating and a threat… The gravemind was the flood in a mental form. Go around threats, find small details and so on. Now they did the whole Martyr thing that it suffers every pain that the flood forms suffer… halo 2 changed a lot of stuff for better or worse. Read halo reach, the flood, and then Contact harvest. You can kinda tell they did a heavy transplant of the elites negative traits into the brutes… A few examples of rough elites still are around at times but not very often. Even when they are a bit dirty it is from someone else like the prophet that glassed a volcano

[@Daveo3]

people really need to keep in mind that the tyrannids are only a CONTENDER in the great clusterfuck that it 40k, whereas the Flood dominated an empire 3 times the size of the imperium and so technologically advanced that they could hollow out stars and turn them into factories, without causing it to go supernova, and the guy overseeing the operation was the underpaid intern from forerunner IT in all honesty, the only scenario in which the eldrich horror that is the flood looses is if they start out on a semi-important imperial world, not important enough where the imperium fight to get it back because that just gives the flood more bodies, but also not irrelevant enough where the flood just sit there and stew because nobody has noticed the big green ball of biomass sitting there, the flood would only loose if they started on a world that makes them easy to notice, but the imperium doesnt really have value of it and are willing to throw a planet buster at it

[@zakshmo6835]

I always find this vs interesting you can make so many points for each side such as the nids being able to adapt to use more acid based weapons or to become resistant to flood infection or the flood gaining the knowledge of the entire tyranid species de to take hive mind after taking a single gaunt but safe to say t would be a really cool arms race between the two factions

[@jordancollins1270]

Crazy thing out of all this is not if they can destroy each other....it would be if the gravemind and hivemind communicate and ally with each other as their end goal is essentially the same, that would be mental

[@MacroLore]

Yes and no. The flood feed off from consciousness, where as the nids feed off biomass. A symbiotic relationship for sure. But I don’t know if the tyranids would stop or lie dormant for a couple million years like the flood

[@KillerChickn]

I thought everyone understood Forerunners, Precursors, Ancient Humanity and the Flood would absolutely each dominate WH40K simply because they're all (save Flood) around Golden Age of Humanity level of tech and the Flood would simply consume all the Tyranid biomass and combine with them, eventually spreading to their origin galaxy and consuming that too.

[@ryanstewart2289]

The Flood seem quite vulnerable to exterminatus.

[@Jose_Doe]

Precursors are literally gods

[@Jose_Doe]

​@@ryanstewart2289the imperium seeing a Venus fly trap planet thing smack a ship outta da sky 😮😮😮😮

[@neooblisk0084]

​@@ryanstewart2289 only in the beginning, once they eat enough people to gain the knowledge to pilot ships or even hide themselves in ships, which as we seein Halo CE the flood are smart enough to do with only a proto gravemind, which needs about a few hundred to a few thousand infections to form. So yeah the flood would be easy to wipe out if you catch it early, otherwise its game over

[@lashedandscorned]

"Around golden age of Humanity level of tech" And peak humanity in 40k is not even close to War in Heaven era Necron Empire. WiH era Warhammer is probably the most insane batshit sci-fi universe there is in terms of power levels.

[@silentknightstudios1427]

You earned a subscriber I always hated to see that people compare warhammer 40k to Star Wars and it gets me upset because I’m like what about halo there are more closely alike. Anyway I believe you are right with the flood because yes the nids adept very quickly but to me the flood only do that much quicker and the knowledge they gained goes to all flood. Have a good day.

[@deadman9335]

To start, not a big Warhammer fan, I prefer Dead Space the most, titanfall second, and halo third with Warhammer being somewhere below that. That being said, the flood really hasn't shown the adaptability present in the Tyranids. The Tyranids are known to adapt their tactics on a day-to-day basis, taking the information learned from losses or victories with forms specified for learning new information down to gas mask filters, and they have adapted some extremely powerful abilities like regenerating and adapting to damage, bio-plasma, psychic abilities capable of actually blowing things up like invisible artillery. While I don't know if this has ever run through anyone else's head, they should also be able to learn information by eating your flesh even just your hand. Now you might be thinking hold up, nothing like that has ever been stated for the Tyranids, and the closest thing to that is that they learn your genetics which they can use to modify themselves. It is that second statement that is why the first is likely true because while that first is canon to Warhammer, it isn't canon to the Tyranids but the space marines, yes that is right, a space marine can take a bite out of you and learn from you and the Tyranids who have eaten likely thousands of space marines would be able to take this ability and apply it to every Tyranid form so this should be the case, I don't know if this has been talked about or not in canon but yeah, there is the possibility.

[@quarkedbutt3957]

I feel like it would come down to which one of the two could actually consume and assimilate the other.

[@TheAns51]

@@deadman9335 Adaptability is very common thing for the flood too. After flood has enough biomass to have developed a gravemind, it can adapt to every situation. After few planets worth of biomass and keymind developed it has nothing it can't adapt to. In halo 3 it shows that flood pure forms can change or adapt to situation in hand very quickly trough mutation. There are no other showed forms but i would imagine that during forerunner-flood war era, there are billions of different flood forms, adapted to different situations like tyranids can. In forerunner-flood war, Didact said that the flood has adapted to basically every strategy forerunners have put against them.

[@deadman9335]

@@TheAns51 Yes while the flood can and do adapt, it isn't nearly as fast and as often as a lot of creators make it sound because they have a habit of over hyping what the flood can do, don't get me wrong, they are strong and very capable but they have some simple weaknesses that they can't adapt to. While a gravemind can be formed from the population of a planet a key mind requires a large amount of biomass said to be about a galaxy and it couldn't adapt either to the same weaknesses, sure it can now make pure forms and advanced tactics with a gravemind but that is about it. Yes pure forms can easily change to and from 1 form to another form but only 3 options which are stalkers, tanks, and range all of which are not nearly able to keep up with a basic Tyranid swarm which could be made of a dozen different forms and even 2 of the same kind could be extremely varied to the point you wouldn't realize that they are the same type. There are actually more types of flood but they are all highly specialized for specific jobs like blight stalkers only appearing in blight zones. The flood adapted to "forerunner" operations but they didn't adapt as well as the forerunners because the Forerunners were winning towards the very end until the Didact was imprisoned and the choice to fire the rings was made. How you might ask, well they took advantage of the floods weaknesses, so let's get started listing those shall we. The flood are dead, they rot, not fast but they still rot, and they reconsume themselves to save the biomass losing some every time and with it some information, normally this process wasn't that fast with the gravemind taking some where within 100,000 years to reach a near feral intelligence(it took like a day for it to become the gravemind we know) but the rings rapidly accelerate the time of everything with a nervous system until it turns to nothing in moments erasing the flood and much of its knowledge instantly. This rot also makes them really easy to destroy with fire, heat, plasma and even basic kinetic force from bullets can cause them to fall apart all of which are options that the tyranids possess. If you don't have a nervous system or it has been modified in some way, you are immune to flood infection, Spartan 1s, and 2s are immune, 3s are possibly immune and 4s are the only Spartan that can and on 1 occasion has been infected, engineers are completely immune due to not having a nervous system, the are immune Sharquoi although they had cybernetic enhancements by the forerunners which may or may not be why, the Mgalekgolo or hunters aren't immune but are because they can just disconnect the infected individuals from the colony much like how I just described how I think the Tyranids would do the same thing, and finally, plants are immune to infection. This isn't to say the flood can't absorb them into its mass, just that they can't be infected and used. The Forerunners took advantage of this in 2 big ways, the rings and the prometheans, robots that can't be infected, smart enough to strategize but not smart enough to fall for the logic plaque, their weapons leave nothing left to use for the flood, they can teleport, dash, see through walls, rebuild fallen prometheans, catch and throw back grenades, and more. They are quoted as wiping out graveminds with their Incineration Cannons, and shown breaching ship halls to wipe out the flood presence aboard. The flood met their match, and were losing against prometheans even at their peak. The Didact was right to use them however he was also insane and composing everyone he could and had to be stopped, with out him leading them, and not wanting to compose what remained, they fired the halo array.

[@CommissarChaotic]

Or Starcraft. I hate seeing it wither away with time and looked on as some 40k ripoff when a lot of the evidence is superficial and could be explained by shared inspiration (Starship Troopers and Aliens franchise). Protoss are moreso Force-wielding Yautja/Predators without much facial features than they are Eldar, they don't use psionics like warp magick. And the Zerg, they and the Nids never looked alike than later on, and the way they are structured closely resembles the Arachnids. The deal for a game wasn't for SC and 40k too but their predecessors Warcraft and Fantasy, and why would you go for a new deal when the reason why it didn't go ahead was because a bunch of your team wanted more creative control? Anyway, Starcraft is actually somewhat OP in its own right. The Terrans have their standard CMC armour which I heard has auto aim, auto stim, basic NBC shielding, life support, and their gauss guns fire supersonic needle rounds, they have good manufacturing abilities, they can deploy psionics users, have a knack for adapting, etc. The Zerg can do the hivemind evolution thing but with seemingly more deliberation with the forms they take, they can spread infestations, they can swim through the ground which explains their burrowing ability, etc. The Protoss are like the Imperium if it had more Dark Age tech, they are naturally attuned to psionics, they can use void energy as well, they have strong shields, and a lot of their stuff would be pre-built things and they just teleport things in and out as long as there are pylons. Their psi blades are said to be able to cut through anything with ease, and warriors could just be teleported when endangered though they have a culture of honouru somewhat like Elites. They can also glass planets. Their void energy users could blend in with the shadows and teleport with it.

[@andrewmarklowitz2728]

i laughed at tik toks this morining that said that costodaes could be the flood cause the move at light speed i then ask how long could one hold there breath.

[@Nerdy4Life]

Good video. I think only thing with putting the Flood into a 40k setting is it's hard to resolve how the warp would interact with it.

[@MacroLore]

I 100% agree, the warp is the only wildcard

[@rookie4582]

I’ve always wondered how if the precursors we basically gods, how did they lose to the forerunners. Finally found the answer. Never thought of them intentionally “losing”. Great video. Just happened to be the first video I’ve seen from you.

[@TexMeta]

They had powerful tech and knowledge, but they weren't omnipotent. Just because you have a gun doesn't mean a bunch of dudes with sticks can't beat you to death first.

[@lennardchurch8483]

@@TexMeta Halo Cryptum: pg 157, (Bornstellar getting a glimpse of a Precursor mind through the Didact's imprint, who had acquired the Logic Plague from a previous conversation with the Primordial, and the Logic Plague being the grafting of a Precursor mind onto the mind of the recipient, granting a greater degree of control over the recipient's perceptions and decisions). "It was knowledge that belonged to others from very fare away, other existences where life and death were meaningless, light and darkness twisted together, where the twin fists of time uncurled their fingers and joined in a clasp, so that nothing changed or ever would." That in no uncertain terms shows the Precursors to be eternal constants, beyond the confines of time, the nature of which makes them omniscient, which combined with the scope of their power is effectively omnipotence. The Forerunners didn't understand the nature of the Precursors, and assumed that they'd achieved their abilities through technological prowess, which is not accurate.

[@CommissarChaotic]

From what i have seen or heard, especially from the new lore, they really did do it on purpose, they arent just beings who reincarnate or something and the flood was that gone wrong, they just are. The flood is just one of their avatars, their role to be the common enemy to unite against, a universal threat. Its like a sort of carrot and stick, but mantle of responsibility and the flood i guess?

[@quarkedbutt3957]

It could go either way. I lean towards the Tyranids, although i understand how the Flood could also win. It all comes down to who can actually consume and assimilate the other (also i think it would be funny to see a confused Gravemind that assimilated a shitload of Imperium tech and tech priests and still not know how to use the shit. Thus you could see flood forms praying to a ship engine like the mechanicus does.) The reason why the Tyranids aren't a bigger threat in 40k is because Game's Workshop doesn't want one species to outsell all of their other models on tabletop. That and named Ultramarines characters exist....

[@Dryym]

The main issue here is that once the Flood reaches the coordinated stage and forms a gravemind, It gains access to all of the memories it has of everything it's ever infected, As well as the Precursors. Under the control of a gravemind, The Flood is also just clever. It doesn't just have the memories of things it's infected. But it has the combined intellect of everyone it's infected. In Halo 3, When High Charity reaches the Ark, It didn't take the Ark portal there. The Gravemind literally upgraded High Charity's slipspace engines with esoteric Precursor knowledge.

[@Gustav_Kuriga]

@@Dryym The Tyranids have all of that from every galaxy they've ever consumed. What we're seeing in 40k are effectively scouting fleets.

[@Dryym]

​@@Gustav_Kuriga And the Precursors are transsentient nigh omnipotent gods. They seeded all life in the galaxy and are capable of moving galaxies like lego bricks, Or ending them for fun. I think their knowledge counts for more.

[@KillerOrca]

​@@Gustav_KurigaIsn't thr main thrust now arriving with 10th ed and the events of Leviathan? We've got Nid brethren moons now being scouted by the Raven Guard apparently

[@Gustav_Kuriga]

@@Dryym Congrats, they're not the flood.

[@juanpablo4831]

What if the neds are running from the flood

[@luckeyjake14]

Well, we know 2 things that can't be infected by the Flood. Stg A Johnson and the latest beings known as The Endless. We actually fight 1 Endless being in Halo Infinite called The Harbinger. The tried and prime method Flood Infect life is a nervous system. The issue we learn later is that they can talk AI into turn coating. So the Tyranids need to be capable of not having a good working nervous system or they have to not be able to be talked into switching sides. The ladder is it would be very difficult not to have a nervous system.

[@lennardchurch8483]

Dr Halsey was canonically wrong about Sgt Johnson. There is no immunity. Johnson wasn't converted into Flood, because the Flood let him remain, as it knew he had important roles to fill, and the Flood being in his blood gave it the ability to not just grant him a healing-factor to better accomplish what they wanted him to, but they could also turn him into a Flood Combat Form any time the Flood wanted to. And the Endless are the Precursors' avatars that were put into stasis instead of being turned into the Flood dust. That makes them the same faction as the Flood, basically being the Precursors' other hand in manipulating galactic events. The Flood uses creatures' nervous systems to turn them into puppets, combat forms, but it can turn any biomass into Pure Flood Biomass, such as Infection Forms or the other pure forms seen in Halo 3 or the Halo Infinite DLC.

[@luckeyjake14]

@lennardchurch8483 Hold up, the only issue I have with Johnson being infected but let go like he was on a leash makes no sense because of Halo 3. The Flood didn't want them activating the Halo at the ark, and the only big players at that time were Master Chief, Arbiter, Stg Johnson, and 343 Guilty sparks and The Halo 2 Gravemind. Why wouldn't the Flood turn Johnson prior to the Control Room? Where did we even hear this information? Source the book. I need the knowledge or video game, but I doubt it was in any game.

[@zergrush_9704]

What about several nervous systems in 1 body?

[@lennardchurch8483]

​@jake14 On Halo Waypoint, Catalog is a 343 Industries account, meaning it's officially the people who make Halo, confirmed in a post made 6/29/2014. And on 7/6/2014, Catalog confirmed that there is no immunity to the Flood in a Q & A. "Query: Catalog, can the augmentation process that made Sergeant Major Avery Johnson "immune" to the infection be replicated? "Query Answer: No known biological [scaffolding] augmentation impedes efficacy of parasite conversion process." The Precursors are constants, beyond the confines of time, revealed in Halo Cryptum, which means they allowed the dust they created to become the Flood, and its actions are still in accordance with their design, and it is not a corrupted perversion of them as it is depicted. As close as the Halo Array came to being fired by Johnson's forced hand, the Precursors knew it would be stopped.

[@Gustav_Kuriga]

@@lennardchurch8483 Pffft, you're bringing up 343 bullshit to justify your crap.

[@thorshammer7883]

The Flood are no way omnipotent. They have limitations but I will compile the traits they have from what I have observed them being capable of doing and to what effective extent. From what have been able to discern and distinguish. The Gravemind's spirit actually always the same with every incarnation of it. All those other seperately formed Graveminds are truly extentions of the mind of the Flood. His personality has always remained the same. All it takes is just enough biomass to remember what happened before. His memories of what he has experienced in the past will return fully in time and completely intacted. And his processing of knowledge and information is rabidly quick and never seems to falter and instead as the infestation spread his capacity to output complex thoughts and creative indepth strageies and tactics that are constantly adapting and improving his perception, institutions, and problem solving skills. He will use every single asset to his advantage of winning every game. From lying, misdirection, exploiting, undermining, lying in wait, ambushes every strategy and tactic he will create and use cohesively to it's maximum effective lethality. He also uses the technologies, industries, weaponry, and defenses of all his adversaries at a astronomical growth rate that will eventually outpace whole hyper advance Ai networks. He will use Slipspace, the Domain, and all kinds assets to his rapidly growing assets This is something the Tyranids never had to deal with before. Now that is a good example of both panmnesia and hypercogniton superpowers. The Gravemind also unlike the Tyranid Hivemind who is not as quick or creative can absorb the souls of his victims permanently. As seen when the Forerunners were trying to revive the mind of a infected combat form they captured by composing the Combat form and puting the subject's mind into a clone body that was uninfected without the Flood supercell. The experiment failed miserably as when they did that, the clone body immediately turned into a Combat Form. The mind of the combat form was lost forever absorbed into the Gravemind and all the information he ever experienced with him as well. Not even the Tyranid Hivemind ever had soul absorption and information gathering like the Gravemind did. Even if the Tyranids do have the ability to adapt atleast to a point where they develop the proper countermeasures to resist the Flood supercell's infection rate if not be immune to it the Flood have other tactics in mind. They could simply kill the Tyranids bioforms and ships through direct combat and war which case the Gravemind is a far better tactician and strageic perceptive commander then any Tyranid swarmlord ever was who will constantly observe analyze the current and future situations and be aware when and where to opply maximum damage or prioritize the target in attoseconds. Gravemind's grip over every one of it's pureforms and combat forms are even tighter and seemly far stronger then the Tyranid Hivemind. Though there are times where a infected host could atleast resist the Flood Overmind's will such as Jenkins those times are too few and far between and only during the times where the Flood outbreak is at it's weakest or very old infection forms. And even then most will not be able to make enough decisive impacts to stop the infestation's growth rate. Once the Gravemind is in the galactic stage and has a keymind those issues of a host resisting is over as the Gravemind's ability to project it's will becomes stronger and far more consolidated and organized then before. During this time it unlocks both reality manipulation with Neural physics and the Logic Plauge to it's already op stats. This is the time when it's all over as the Gravemind will now directly manipulate reality to a limited but greater extent as it grows. With the logic plauge it can subject it doesn't want to infect quite yet or use ai against it's opponents in the game of total war. It is ruthless and proactively efficient at what it possess and does perpetually. This is a war of escalation between the Flood and Tyranids. And when it comes to escalation and able to keep up their cohesion the Flood have shown to be both a superior intelligence in the art of warfare and have a far more effective army who do not waste time through attrition like the Tyranids often do. And it doesn't always use superior numbers to win a war. When it knows it's forces are low it will preserve them and use them where and when the situation is best for it to act. It will use Logic Plauge infected machines in a war against the Tyranids. And the Flood will take whatever dead biomass they can harvest. There is no doubt in my mind the Flood will create multiple armadas of fleets and task forces whose purpose and specializations is to target and isolate Tyranid hivefleets and hit them where they are weakest and assimilate the dead bioships when they can and see what they have adapted to resist the Flood supercell and steal those traits as well. Defense in depth, hit and run tactics, and superior firepower are some of the few options the Flood can do to weaken the Tyranid advance as it prioritizes the growth of it's armies and keyminds and creating Pure Forms which will take on the Tyranids varies bioforms and kill the Swarmlords. The Flood has some pure forms who specialize at assassination and covert operations though they are bit more seperate from the Gravemind's direct control to encourage creative thought and be unpredictable to the Gravemind's enemies. Eventually the Gravemind will go on the offensive once it is confident and self assured that it's forces are strong enough fight back against the Tyranids tendrils which takes years or decades to travel around the Milky Way's star clusters. I give this a complete decisive victory over to the Flood majority of time with their strageies, tactics, cohesion, intuitions, stealing traits, and decisive thinking indepth. These being the greatest advantages the Flood have as a infestation horde. There are few infestations in fiction can rival or surpass the Flood. Even Stellaris Devouring Swarms despite their advance traits don't quite compare to the Flood especially in growth rate in the beginning. Though they would eventually get up there as their technologies grow more powerful. However there are some infestation factions who I think can be perfect contenders who can defeat it through keeping up. Such as the fleshly cosmic legions of the low elder god Yaldabaoth of the SCP Mythos. And the Blight from A Fire Upon the Deep who needed to be stopped through creating a multilayer galaxy wide phenomenon to be a effective countermeasure to the Blight's potency. The Blight have a way of spreading through both organics and technology that is extremely similar to the Logic Plauge. It's very good and ruthless at it. You want the Flood to face opponent nearly as equal to them? You can call upon the Blight for that match up.

[@MacroLore]

The Flood would also most likely lose to the Xeelee or the Photino Birds. Thank you for the feedback

[@thorshammer7883]

@@MacroLore Definitely so. I don't think they have a available method potent enough to infect something like the Xeelee or Photino birds. Unless they have the technology or gain a strong durability trait and higher powers I don't think they can. Heck I think they would struggle alot against the Blokkats from Stellaris Gigastructural Engineering even during the Forerunner Flood war. And against the Stellarborne from Ancient Cache of Technologies the gap in power widens even more.

[@nobleman9393]

Species not created by the Precursors are very resilient against the Flood btw.

[@thorshammer7883]

@@nobleman9393 But how can we say they are resistant to the Flood infection? And to what degree? I would not say they are immune. Especially with the Precursors amd Flood professional experience at psychological and physiological manipulation on a sort of supernatural incorporeal level. Especially slain Tyranid bioforms can be assimilated and their traits harvested for analysis for the Gravemind. Flood Pure Forms and controller ships can do the job since the Gravemind is tactically more indepthly creative and has better institution skills then the Tyranid Hivemind usually does. He will use everything in his arsenal to get the upper hand of the Tyranids. Even if it means hit and run tactics, ambushes, traps, mines and bombs and other tactics.

[@thorshammer7883]

@@nobleman9393 How do you know any species not created by the Precursors are very resistant to Flood infection and assimilation?

[@creeperboom8635]

It's honestly a bit sad seeing so many people say number company bad. Like, I know they haven't done a steller job on the games, but they have apparently done significantly better on the extended universe side of things. What with actually talking about what the setting was like before the games instead of just being vague and saying MyStErY constantly. Gonna be honest, it really just seems like so many people are just stuck in the early days of the number company being in charge, unable to move on, and accept that not everything the number company has done has been bad

[@creeperboom8635]

Given how the precursors liked to spend their time by experiencing different apsects of life, I think it is entirely plausible that they just let themselves be killed, especially if they made a way for themselves to come back at a later date. After all, death is just another part of life, ultimately

[@gamebrainjagras4193]

I think I missed the transition between Flood and Precursors

[@MacroLore]

There is no transition :)

[@gamebrainjagras4193]

@@MacroLore that’s what I started to think, so rewatched the part 2 more times and finally caught that. I am not a lore expert so I thought there was a singular moment where they transitioned. But you are 100% it’s not a transition, it’s just they are the flood now.

[@lennardchurch8483]

@@gamebrainjagras4193 There's a section in Halo: Cryptum that shows the Precursors to be eternal constants, which means they see the whole of time and are unchangable. That means their biological forms, known for their changeability, are avatars that the Precursors are using. The tactics change, but the Precursors and their goals don't change. That means the Flood wasn't trying to win. It tested ancient humanity, punished the Forerunners' crimes against the Mantle, and it denied the Covenant, Humanity, and the Banished access to technologies they weren't ready for, all for the purpose of helping to ensure that the mortal races had the opportunity to reach their full potential, even as the tactics had to be shifted from peaceful demonstration to adversarial pushing when the Forerunners rebelled.

[@quazarKiragon]

Necrons have toys that can destroy time let alone the galaxy and universe, the problem is trying to applying rules to two different settings, yeah celestial orrery can snuff out systems or the entire galaxy like a fart in the wind, but the breath of the gods will destroy existence if misused

[@TarsonTalon]

Flood: *Takes over the Imperium of Man Keymind: "Am I...the God Emperor?" Assimilation Failed SUCCESSFULLY.

[@eiric6958]

Everyone loves Barabas Dantiok, but nobody loves Barabas Dantiok more than the Tyranids 😂.

[@ItatsuMagnatsa]

What about Parasite X from Metroid? Could the Flood beat it? Could the Precursors beat it?

[@sh4d0wfl4re]

Scale for scale, the Zerg still win, right? Problem is we have not seen Zerg reach the galactic scale the other two swarms reached so eventually the Zerg would simply face down a too vast swarm to keep pace

[@MacroLore]

I'm fairly certain the flood would win, since they would just allow the "fruit to ripen" as said by the primordial himself. Let the Zerg burn itself out, or just travel to a universe/dimension where that wouldn't happen. Sadly the flood unless instantly atomized by some godlike being is going to always "win" or at the very least escape. The Xeelee from the Xeelee sequence books and the photino birds from the same series

[@sh4d0wfl4re]

@@MacroLore yes, I already said that peak scale flood wins. I was talking about the smaller scale swarms when I said scale for scale the zerg would win, up until the point where the flood or tyranids had a larger scaled swarm than the zerg have been shown to have

[@jasonsoto5273]

I am a Zerg fanboy, and this is how I break it down. The Zerg would likely win upfront engagements of similarly sized forces due to their ability to mutate directly on the battlefield, allowing large swaths of Zerg to pivot on a dime for what a battle needs. Unfortunately the Tyrranids and Flood gain special features when reaching larger scales that we have just not seen in the Zerg. For instance once Tyrranids are numerous enough all the organisms constantly communicating with one another creates the shadow in the warp, allowing them to suppress other forms of communication and restrict travel thereby giving them a advantage. Then comes the flood, which is an order of magnitude more insidious than the Zerg or Tyrannids in its infections. Once it reaches a certain level the flood can infect technology, and at finally at its peak it can theoretically infect spacetime using neural physics which is something the Zerg (and I'm like 90% sure the Tyrranids) are unable to do. At that point it is hard to compete when empty space itself is actively trying to kill you (more so than usual). There is also a bit of "ideological" difference in these xenomorph races that may let you get a "partial win" in certain scenarios. For the Zerg (assuming no one is directing them) you can just let them have that or this planet and you will be fine, they really don't spread unless directed to. For the Tyrannids, they are looking for a net gain in biomass so if you are sufficiently unappetizing (which is hard and involves a lot of dakka) they will eat everything else and leave you be (for the most part). For the Flood, there is no partial win condition as it literally wants to infect everything and that is its ultimate goal. The only winning move is to overpower it while it is in its early stages or if that fails wipe the galaxy clean of life and try again.

[@Ashalza]

The precursors sound like Ctan in alot of ways.

[@MacroLore]

That's a fair connection

[@Anthonyspartan514]

the forerunners knew about the precursors but forgot they killed their makers

[@lennardchurch8483]

Technically, the Forerunners killed their creators' avatars, and they were only able to accomplish that because their creators allowed them to do that, by not having the avatars fight back.

[@Redacted_Ruler]

How come I’m only JUST finding your channel

[@MacroLore]

I'm fairly new to this. Thank you for the compliment :)

[@br2nd]

i have heard a fan theory that the thing that called the nids was the eldar death scream when slanesh was 'born'.

[@rustkarl]

That’s just a fan theory. More common implication is the overloading of the Pharos Beacon.

[@orionriftclan2727]

Honestly, I do think that the Flood goal is the play the reset card and become the precursor once again, honestly, I wonder if the flood is the origins of the precursor, they eat a whole galaxy, the seed new life, see if any of them are worthy of the domain, if non are or they are attacked by one of their creatures and almost completely "killed" they restart and do it all again

[@MacroLore]

With Epitath we know for certain that they feed in "cycles" they seed a universe, allow them to build up a ton of consciousness and then harvest their food

[@Shalltear773]

I think with these something vs tyranids videos is that it might also depend on which tyranid fleet is fighting the Flood because each one had a different strategy from any of the others. such as where Behemoth would basically bulldoze its way through the opposition, another fleet named Hydra - though much smaller - would abuse its even greater ability to produce bioforms plus whatever other traits I've forgotten about. Besides that, I do agree Flood in their final stage would be very, very difficult to deal with. but I think the greatest obstacle for the Flood would be Chaos if all four gods decided to halt their Great Game and focus entirely on the one threat since daemons don't seem to leave corpses behind when killed and we don't really yet know exactly what each individual god is capable of... unless the lore has advanced there without me knowing.

[@IAmAlpharius20]

12 galaxies worth of Nids: lol, lmao even

[@catsareamazing3616]

Pancreasnowork also did a video about how the flood could take over 40k

[@MacroLore]

Many people have. lots of Homogeneity between people who make content on the same stuff. The 2 universes have a decent bit in common aswell

[@catsareamazing3616]

@@MacroLore very true I can't wait for your part 2

[@TheGM-20XX]

The Flood got stopped by one space marine in plot armor, just wait until they meet The Ultramarines.

[@lennardchurch8483]

That's not remotely what happened. The Flood let Chief and the Arbiter survive, because it all factored into the overarching plans the Flood is working towards, plans that don't require the Flood to "win" battles for it to accomplish its goals. If you read the novels, particularly the Forerunner Saga, you'll find that the Flood, undead Lovecraftian horrors that they are, are actually merely avatars created and used by a race of literal eternal constants who dictate the laws of reality from their omniscient perspective outside of time, and the purpose of the Flood is to bring about the desired outcome of that race of eternal constants. The Flood executed judgement on the Forerunners, but only after allowing them to reach their full potential, then it filled the role of asset denial regarding humanity, the Covenant, and the Banished, preventing them from acquiring technologies they weren't ready for, tech that the mortal races would used to wipe out themselves or each-other if they'd acquired before they were ready. The Logic Plague was even deployed against Cortana, making the Created serve as a test of worth for modern humanity. The Ultramarines are at best the tactical equivalent of Brute Chieftains. They're not besting the Flood.

[@TheGM-20XX]

@@lennardchurch8483 sounds like some cope-a-cola right there.

[@lennardchurch8483]

@@TheGM-20XX No, it's the actual lore. Read the Forerunner Saga.

[@TheGM-20XX]

@@lennardchurch8483 lol, lmao even.

[@lennardchurch8483]

@@TheGM-20XX Keep trolling my friend. You're factually wrong, and I can't be bothered to care about how deep your head is in the sand.

[@izzymosley1970]

Honestly the only thing I can think of that could stop the flood in 40k is chaos because even if the flood consumed all sentient life the warp is still going to exist and chaos is still going to exist to some extent. There's also the possibility of the flood falling to chaos.

[@CommissarChaotic]

From the new lore we have, it probably depends if the Precursors themselves can reach or be reached by the Warp or Chaos because the Flood is just one of their avatars and not just a corrupted version of them. It seems that they are doing like a be the common threat that everyone would team up to fight approach. This just solidifies that the Precursors are more gods than just godlike beings to me...

[@gono4806]

Did you make the inheritors up? The new book confirmed that the precursors made previous species before but as far as I know they were never named.

[@MacroLore]

Nope. Somewhere in the precursor trilogy

[@gono4806]

@@MacroLore I guess I'll just have to take your word on it as halopedia doesn't mention it. Doesn't matter though as you are right in the end regardless of what they were called.

[@lennardchurch8483]

The race of inheritors are hinted in the Forerunner Saga, but rather than being stated directly in one place, the evidence is littered through the whole trilogy making it abundantly clear on the second read-through when you know what you're looking for, if you're paying attention. The Precursors created one race that they promised to pass the Mantle to the descendants of. That race split, with humans staying as they were designed to be, whereas the Forerunners extensively practiced their genetic engineering on themselves for tens of millions of years, trying to make themselves the most "perfect" race in the universe. Part of the evidence of this is how the Form Zero Forerunners who haven't had their first personal mutation yet are described as resembling humans more than the older Forerunners, and the Forerunners of all ages from Path Kethona who stopped applying new mutations to themselves ten-million years before the events of the Halo Array, and are also described as being very human-like. We also know that the Forerunners accidentally destroyed their homeworld, so given that the ancestors of humanity set off to explore the far side of the galaxy at some point before that, the unexpected destruction of their homeworld is likely why the Forerunners lost records of those humans, and why they didn't recognize each-other when the two factions rediscovered each-other. There's also the detail where the Forerunners just kind of picked Earth (Erda Tyrene) to be Humanity's "homeworld" in spite of there being no evidence there, and the reason there's no evidence of any world controlled by humanity being their homeworld, is because their actual homeworld is Ghibalb, the "Forerunner" homeworld that had already long-since been destroyed. And the Precursors didn't lie to the ancestors of the Forerunners, as the Precursor did indeed intend to pass the Mantle to the descendants of those ancestors, it's just that the chosen descendants were humans, who were still what they were designed by the Precursors to be, not the Forerunners who'd turned themselves into something different, and perverted the idea of the Mantle in their arrogance. If you want to check it out for yourself, the author is Greg Bear, and the novels are in order: "Cryptum", "Primordium", and "Silentium".

[@gono4806]

@@lennardchurch8483 God damn

[@Jump-Shack]

Not quite related to the video but how would john carpenter's the thing fair against both the Flood and Tyranids

[@Nyghtking]

I figured the Flood would because of one simply thing they do: They can infect anything that has a nervous system, and they can then assimilate any knowledge anything they infect possessed. Basically unless the tyranids can figure out a way to adapt to that then they just lose, and not only that, everything loses, because the flood infect without using anything like "the warp" so warp protection doesn't help either. It also only takes a single flood spore to infect you, it will just take longer. In theory if the flood were in 40k it would be a nightmare for everyone except chaos, and then even maybe for chaos assuming the flood could do something like assimilate a psyker and learn how to channel the warp.

[@rustkarl]

I mean, Tyranids eat anything with biomass which includes certain natural minerals, no nervous system needed. They kill, they digest, they eat, they adapt. Whatever dies becomes harvestable resource to recycle again which makes attrition almost pointless since they can recoup their losses with, well their losses and yours.

[@AUSNotAnIdiotCommentary]

Now let's see Sir Edmund Rockwell's virus.

[@MacroLore]

With 12k hours on ark I think I’m qualified to do this

[@eiohnanananunu9871]

We are the Phyrexian Borg Tyrannid Flood Necro Infestation. Lower your sanity, surrender your bodies, we will embrace you, the sweetness of existence.

[@Odinfang]

Well I knew the flood would be game over for nids, matter of fact, considering they’re a logic plague, devouring tyranids first would be a good move to replicate the shadow in the warp to combat chaos spawn and demons when dealing with the warp. However, one other scenario I’ve brainstormed is the necromorphs and flood working together, with precursor dust being used in the construction of a Marker, with the flood raw material affecting the functions to where instead of people killing themselves, they gather around the marker and touch it so they become flood to gather mass for the marker and send out infection forms.

[@ItatsuMagnatsa]

Also are you going with the 343 Lore or the Bungie Lore?

[@MacroLore]

343. Greg Bear specifically

[@Robert-rw5lm]

Man do that script about the flood, that sounds awesome

[@TheLostPrimarch]

Nice video!

[@--...--...--...]

Where are you getting the info for The Inheritor species mentioned around 6:35 that predates Humanity/Forerunners? I cant find ANYTHING about them, whatsoever...

[@MacroLore]

I have a vivid memory of reading it in the forrunner trilogy. But maybe it was a fever dream

[@lennardchurch8483]

That's because it's dotted through the Forerunner Saga like a puzzle for the reader to put together, rather than being spoon-fed. All throughout the books it points out that the fewer mutations a Forerunner has imposed upon them, the more the Forerunner looks like humans as opposed to resembling the older Forerunners, which is especially clear with the Forerunners of Path Kethona in Halo Cryptum, where the Forerunners stopped applying new mutations to themselves ten-million years earlier than the Milky Way's Forerunners. The books even make it pretty clear that Erde-Tyrene isn't humanity's homeworld, evidenced by there being no human structures on it at all before the Forerunners seed the planet with humans after "de-evolving" them. The Forerunners claim there was "evidence", but no such evidence is ever presented. Also, the Precursors promised the Mantle to the descendants of a particular race they created, and the Forerunners kept record of that promise, distorting it into something it was never meant to be, but then the Precursors told the Forerunners that the Humans were the inheritors of that promise, which means the Humans are descendants of that raced directly created by the Precursors, the same as the Forerunners.

[@--...--...--...]

@@MacroLore it's been a bit for me (since i read the trilogy), and the subsequent comment to yours was very informative as to why I didn't remember it, explicitly. Lol TL;DR - My baddd

[@--...--...--...]

@@lennardchurch8483 🫡🫡🫡

[@DeltaPhoenix180]

The thing is most people compare the flood from the games to the Tyrannid in general. The early stages of a flood outbreak, while extremely dangerous, are still relatively mundane. The Flood have to 'climb the tech tree' a bit and advance through different stages before they gain access to the reality bending @#$%, while Tyrannid more or less just scale up and down normally with numbers. The newer stuff regarding the Precursors just makes things even more ridiculous.

[@floppyfishreal8936]

could you do more of these like necrons vs prometheans?

[@MacroLore]

Sure :)

[@floppyfishreal8936]

@@MacroLore YIPPEE

[@user-jh4xc4ei1p]

This is why I believe the flood has the potential to be a multiversal threat

[@orendamusic7577]

I feel like the flood and nids would assimilate each other and just make a thing that is both tyranid and flood

[@MacroLore]

Agreed

[@kriskool3095]

The Milky Way may be the only galaxy left not infected by the Flood

[@mattfransen1551]

The Flood literally infected slipspace (an entire other dimension) and started warping reality on a galactic scale.

[@dragonlord498]

Would say of the swarm/infectious type species that im aware of the nids are number 3 with the zerg and flood being above them given unless nids completely wipe out the zerg extremely fast in the long game the zerg would come out on top given zerg are better at the adaption, assimilation and microbiology, and movement etc games by a fair amount while the nids would only have a advantage at the start but would likely get surpassed. Partly cause their is lore reasons as to why the nids would refuse to consume and assimilate stuff from the zerg such as zerg are to biologically unstable which nids avoid absorbing while the zerg wouldn't have issues assimilating nids and the genestealers would be something that gives the zerg gifts so if a. Genestealer tries to infect any zerg it will be giving them new toys to work with not what usually happens when genestealers infect something And the flood are some Eldritch horror virus as explained in this video

[@mahe7744]

One thing, it could be that tyranid lifeforms are not made to last, so the infected flood would die out

[@rustkarl]

Partly true, many of the lesser tyranid forms don’t possess a proper digestive system, they aren’t meant to survive for long, given just enough energy to keep going and intelligence to receive orders: They die out once they’re no longer needed and are recylced in the digestion pools.