Carrier Form

When an Infection Form takes over a body that is unsuitable for combat, or once a infected form is damaged beyond usefulness, it becomes a Carrier Form. Eventually when a Combat Form has lived long enough, it too will mutate into a carrier, regardless of damage taken. Speculations indicate that the Carrier Form was once a Covenant Grunt, a Jackal was seemingly too thin and weak to be of any usefulness. Another theory as to why Jackals may not be infected is that if the Jackals were once an avian species, they might have hollow bones like birds on earth. Because of this, Jackals may lack the amount of calcuim needed to be infected by the flood.

Carrier Forms perpetuate the Flood species by acting as incubators for new Infection Forms and keeping them safe until they're fully developed. Once the Infection Forms are ready, the carrier simply explodes spotaneously, sending the new Infection Forms flying into the air. As soon as they are released, they begin searching for new hosts.

It should be noted that Carrier Forms will sometimes not wait until full maturation has occurred, and will simply get close to an enemy and explode, sending the Infection Forms flying at the unsuspecting and often damaged enemies. These should be considered dangerous even though they may not have any other means of inflicting damage.

Carrier Forms are usually considered slow and of little threat. However, one particularly dangerous trait of exploding Carrier Forms is the explosive chain reactions they can cause. A Carrier explosion will cause any other Carriers close enough to explode also. They also cause any nearby grenades to explode. This means a single Carrier can cause a massive explosion filling much of a room. This can be used to a soldier's advantage if there are Combat or Infection Forms surrounding the Carrier.