Key mind

"Entire planetary ecosystems have apparently undergone conversion to what are being referred to as Key Minds."

- String 18, one of thirty-nine such abstracted pieces of sourced from a Catalog unit and damaged monitor associated with a single fossilized Juridical.

Key minds are specialized Flood organisms that network their individual intelligences.

Overview
Key minds act as coordinators for nearby Flood forms, leveraging wisdom harvested from the parasites' hosts to expand, outwit, overwhelm, and consume other life. The abomination, an evolved form of the juggernaut command form, is a known type of key mind war-form. The creation of key minds causes an infestation to transition from feral aggression to coordinated conversion. As the Flood grow in number key minds combine and expand into larger, exponentially more intelligent networks. The appearance of these vile collectives typically indicates most local sentient hosts have been infected or consumed. Once a critical mass of key minds have combined the Flood's centralized intelligence can begin to emerge in their seething mass of corrupted flesh: a Proto-Gravemind that sifts through and feeds on the memories of every Flood-infected victim.

History
Near the end of the Forerunners' struggle against the Flood, entire planetary ecosystems underwent conversion to the Flood. The monicker "Key Mind" was first used by Forerunners to refer to the Flood controlling these ecosystems. These Key Minds displayed extraordinary strategic planning abilities and appeared to be more than a match for even any metarch-class ancilla. They were capable of seizing complete control of besieged sectors and sending converted battle fleets through unprecedented numbers of slipspace portals through the use of Precursor neural physics.

Many thousands of years later, key minds were encountered on Installation 00 in the form of abominations when the Banished forces occupying the installation came into conflict with the Flood ater releasing it from the crash site of High Charity, where it had previously been confined.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Silentium
 * Halo Wars 2