Gravemind

For the Halo 2'' level, see Gravemind (level). For the music, see Gravemind (Music).''

The Gravemind (Inferi Sententia, meaning "Thinking Dead"), is the final stage in the life cycle of the Flood and is the controlling consciousness of the Flood. It is a near-omniscient intelligence existing throughout all Flood forms, with a huge body composed of Flood biomass serving as its central "brain."

Life cycle
A Gravemind originates as a Proto-Gravemind -- a Flood form created by merging the bodies and biomass of numerous sentient life forms; some Flood forms may also be repurposed and merged into the Proto-Gravemind. After a Proto-Gravemind has been created, nearby Combat Forms will continue to supply it with fresh bodies, allowing it to accumulate mass, increase in size, and gain more memories and intelligence from consumed hosts. Eventually, the Proto-Gravemind reaches a certain critical mass and becomes self-aware - a Gravemind. This critical mass tends to be in the thousands, if using human-sized bodies as a measuring unit.

The Gravemind, and its subordinate Flood forms, will continue to accumulate bodies. Eventually, when the Flood infection has become too large for even the Gravemind to control—or when no life remains in the galaxy—the Flood infection will reach the Intergalactic Stage. At this point, the Flood will use all resources that it has at its disposal to leave the galaxy, with the intent to create a new Gravemind elsewhere.

Description
Due to the brevity of its mysterious appearances in Halo 2, little is known about the Gravemind's physical form. It is a massive Flood form whose "mouth" resembles a fleshy, multi-layered Venus flytrap. This organ is used to speak. The remainder of the Gravemind's body consists of a mass of enormous tentacles. During its time beneath Installation 05's Library, some of its tentacles grew to be miles long and stretched throughout the Installation.

The Gravemind, like the Proto-Gravemind from which it formed, is made of countless bodies and corpses; The Art of Halo states that Gravemind is "literally built from the bodies of its enemies and its own fallen warriors reassembled into a massive, tentacle, and intelligent entity." Gravemind references this fact often, often calling his current whereabouts an empty grave or burial mound—where there should be many graves, there is just the Gravemind. Even his name, "Gravemind", references this: he is the mind of the grave. The consciousness of the Gravemind is formed from the accumulated intelligence and memories of every Flood host ever consumed.

The Gravemind is the controlling intelligence behind the parasitic Flood species. When a creature is assimilated into the Flood, its knowledge is transferred directly to the Gravemind, and the remainder of its mind is destroyed. In addition, it appears each Gravemind also retains the memories and knowledge of previous Graveminds. This has made the Gravemind virtually omniscient, and ensures that should the Gravemind be destroyed, its consciousness will never truly die as long as some flood forms are left. In an archived conversation with the Forerunner AI known as Mendicant Bias, he compared himself to the AI, describing it as "a single intelligence inhabiting multiple instances" and calling himself "a compound [intelligence] consisting of a thousand billion coordinated minds inhabiting as many bodies as circumstances require". While it is not known how the Gravemind is able to communicate with subordinate Flood forms across the galaxy, his self-comparison to a computer network implies that similar techniques may be used, with each Flood form possibly acting as a networking node and redistributing the Gravemind's commands to other forms.

It is widely believed that the Gravemind uses some form of telepathy to command its disparate Flood components. This theory is reinforced by the Gravemind's ability to communicate with John-117 during the events of Halo 3 - he appears to speak directly to John's mind. However, this may have been an example of the Gravemind somehow contacting John's neural interface.

Like all Flood, the Gravemind itself is genderless; however, most characters have interpreted its personality as being masculine, and some have referred to it as a "he". Given that the Gravemind is a being composed of millions of absorbed consciousnesses, such a distinction really has no meaning.

Biography


The Gravemind was first formed in an unknown galaxy, far from the Milky Way. After it had consumed all sentient life in its galaxy, it spread its Flood infection to other galaxies. Presumably, the automated starships which spread the infection to the Milky Way were either captured or created by the Gravemind, who sent them to the Milky Way.

Forerunner-Flood War
During the Forerunner-Flood War, the Gravemind coordinated Flood efforts against the Forerunners. Eventually Forerunner naval tactics began to fail. The Forerunners developed the Halo Array as a desperate countermeasure, which would destroy all sentient life in the Galaxy, thus denying the Flood "food" for growth. This was only to be used as a last resort, and the Forerunners refused to use the system.

However, the Flood were growing in number, and were forming a centralized sentient intelligence to coordinate their efforts; the Gravemind, and their "raw computing power" began to overrun the last Forerunner naval countermeasures, which consisted of using Keyship vessels and drawing the Flood into pricey naval engagements which lasted for approximately 300 years. Forerunner commanders realized that their naval tactics were being overcome, and a new solution was necessary if the Forerunners were to pull out of this "stalemate"; a Contender-class Artificial Intelligence, Mendicant Bias, was crafted by the Forerunners to directly attack the Gravemind form and any surrounding Flood biomass in an effort to eliminate the central Flood consciousness. At least three installations, the Ark, Onyx Shield World and an unnamed Shield World, were constructed by the Forerunners as shelters for themselves when the Halos fired.

The Gravemind contacted Mendicant Bias and convinced him to abandon the Forerunners and join the Flood cause, convincing him that the Forerunners were so gluttonous and proud as to deny the next step of biological evolution: the Flood. The Gravemind insinuated that by clinging to the legend of the Mantle, the Forerunners had doomed the galaxy to eternal stagnation; the only way for the galaxy to progress was for superior beings to "restart" it. These superior beings, unsurprisingly, took the form of Compound Minds such as Gravemind and Mendicant Bias himself. Convinced by the Gravemind's arguments, Mendicant Bias intentionally became rampant, developed a hatred for his creators and actively worked toward their destruction.

The Forerunners developed a new AI, Offensive Bias, which coordinated the final battle against Mendicant Bias and the Flood. The Gravemind was destroyed or stopped by the first activation of the Halo rings.

Human-Covenant War
"Relax. I'd rather not piss this thing off."

- Master Chief to a struggling Arbiter while both are being held prisoner.

Through neglect shown by the Monitor of Installation 05, 2401 Penitent Tangent, a Flood outbreak occurred, and the Gravemind was able to find enough biomass to rebuild itself deep under the Library of the installation. It assimilated the dead Prophet of Regret into itself and also captured the Monitor. During the Battle of Installation 05, the Gravemind was capable of utilizing Delta Halo's teleportation grid. After capturing the Master Chief and the Arbiter, the Gravemind gave them their "assignments" to stop the Halo's activation, and then teleported them to their respective targets. It is not known how the Gravemind, a non-mechanical Flood form, was able to tap into the teleportation grid. However, it is possible that when the Gravemind captured 2401 Penitent Tangent he absorbed the knowledge of how to access Halo's teleportation grid, as was done by Cortana from the Control Center of Halo Installation 04.

Gravemind later used the UNSC In Amber Clad to board the Covenant Holy City High Charity, crashing the frigate into a city wall and releasing numerous Pelicans full of the Flood plague. Within days he took over the entire city and all life within it.

Earth, The Ark and the Flood's defeat
"I am a timeless chorus; join your voice with mine, and sing victory everlasting."

- Gravemind.

The Gravemind initially planned to attack and infest Earth, but through the knowledge of the assimilated Regret (and possibly Mercy), he learned about the Prophet of Truth's plans to use the Ark to remotely activate the entire Halo Array. Realizing the extent of the danger he faced, the Gravemind did not attack Earth but instead used High Charity to make a Slipspace jump and crash-land on the mega structure. He briefly allied with the Chief and the Arbiter to stop Truth from activating the rings, but betrayed them the moment the crisis was averted. The duo managed to escape from their foe and discover Cortana's solution to the Flood—a replacement Halo ring made by the Ark. To activate it, the Chief infiltrated High Charity to retrieve Cortana, who had the Activation Index from the first Installation 04.

As the Chief traveled deep into High Charity, he faced multiple Flood forms. Taunted by the voice of the Gravemind, which allowed Cortana to briefly send pained messages as he corrupted and tortured the UNSC AI. The Gravemind became increasingly frustrated at the Spartan's progress, becoming suspicious of what Cortana was hiding from him and threatening to "feast upon [the Chief's] bones" if she didn't reveal the secret.

After the Chief rescued Cortana, the Gravemind became enraged, realizing that she planned to use the incomplete Halo to destroy him. He attempted to kill them both but failed as the Chief successfully destroyed High Charity, presumably killing the Gravemind. But after traveling to Installation 04 (II), the Chief discovered that the Gravemind was attempting to rebuild himself on the new Halo. Despite his best efforts the Gravemind failed to stop the Chief. In the end, the Gravemind is thought to have been destroyed once and for all, as Halo's activation destroyed itself, the Ark (presumably), and the Flood.

Personality
"Now the gate has been unlatched, headstones pushed aside. Corpses shift and offer room, a fate you must abide!"

- The Gravemind after Truth's death.

The Gravemind has an obscure and complex personality. When he was first seen by the Master Chief and the Arbiter, he was calm and collected, if not seemingly sad or mournful, and he spoke with a sullen tone in his voice. He was also quite logical, psychologically analyzing the duo, and trying to convince the Arbiter of the Halo Rings true purpose, to which the Arbiter reacted with stubborn pride. The Gravemind showed no irritation to this nor the bickering of 2401 Penitent Tangent and the former Prophet of Regret. Later, though, the Gravemind showed a more emotional side, basking in his victory at High Charity, and displaying a sinister air of anger when demanding answers from the newly captured Cortana.

In Halo 3, his personality undergoes a similar progression. Early on, he is shown to have a calm and collected personality, but once the activation of the Ark is prevented, the Gravemind bursts into a victorious, maniacal laugh, briefly boasting in iambic heptameter. In the following level, Cortana, a broader spectrum of his personality is asserted. He begins with his calm and collected voice, as well as a slightly confident tone. As the Chief finds his way deeper into High Charity, however, the Gravemind becomes more irritated by his progress, and begins to shout at him. Once Cortana is rescued, the Gravemind begins to emit a series of mangled, animal-like roars, and speaks in an infuriated tone. In the final level of Halo 3, Flood Dispersal Pods crash onto Installation 04B, and the Gravemind begins to speak again, this time in an angry yet confident tone.

The mostly collected and impassive tone that is frequently heard from it can be justified by his implied near omniscience; his knowledge of the present and ability to accurately predict the future means that he has little reason to worry about anything. He only becomes truly irritated or angry when an unforeseen event happens, or when there is something he doesn't know. Triggers for his anger include Cortana's secrets and the Chief's ability to rescue her. When defeated, he shows sadness, not anger; it may be that he has become used to omniscience, and is only truly angered when he is wrong. This is supported by the fact that in the level Cortana, his tone quickly changed to confidence and almost amusement when he realized parts of the Master Chief's objective (with phrases such as "Of course, you came for her! We exist together now. Two corpses in one grave").

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

The Gravemind is not violent when it doesn't benefit him; this is what makes a Gravemind a key point in Flood evolution. Unlike the savage and bloodthirsty Combat and Pure Forms that precede and obey him, the Gravemind is able to put aside differences when it is necessary for its continued survival.

By the end of the game, the Gravemind gives a short monologue in a disheartened tone, cryptically admitting that he knows he can do nothing to stop his fate, which he believes was unjustly forced upon him. He says that the activation of Installation 04B will only add time "to a sentence [he] never deserve [d]". This seems to suggest that the Gravemind does not understand why the living races hate the Flood; indeed, he seems to think that it is only natural to absorb all life in the universe.

Throughout nearly all encounters with the Gravemind, he has shown a fondness for speaking in poetic style - specifically, iambic heptameter. When pressed about this detail by Cortana, he states that "I have the memories of many poets far beyond your limited human culture. And I have the quickness of intellect to compose all manner of poetic forms as I speak rather than labor over mere words for days."

Trivia

 * The term "Gravemind" was coined by Bungie staff member Jaime Greisemer.
 * In Origins, the Gravemind that was extant during the Forerunner-Flood War was depicted as having blue skin and roots growing out of its head, as well as some teeth. This appearance differs greatly from the Gravemind present during the Human-Covenant War, as it has none of these characteristics whatsoever. A possible explanation is that humans and species of Covenant corpses used to form the current Gravemind, whereas the Gravemind then was probably composed of mostly Forerunner bodies, as they were the dominant and smartest species in the galaxy at the time. Also, its blue appearance could draw from the lighting of the area, as the other forms are blue in this scene, but the standard green in others. Alternatively, these differences could simply be a result of inaccurate interpretation of the first Gravemind's appearance by Cortana; according to Frank O'Connor in the Origins commentary, all of the visual elements of the episode are formed from Cortana's concepts of the events she describes, thus rendering the appearance of the Gravemind and everything else depicted in Origins highly questionable (particularly as Cortana is clearly shown to be either rampant or borderline-rampant in the episode).
 * In Halo 3, the Gravemind's face is never shown, unlike in Halo 2, when he is shown in his introductory cinematic.
 * In several Forerunner data logs, the controlling intelligence of the Flood is referred to as a "Compound Mind".
 * The Gravemind resembles Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors, a tentacled, plant-like alien who is fed humans to grow and who is bent on world domination. Bungie staff and fans jokingly call it the "Little Shop of Horrors Reject" Parallels can also be drawn with Overmind from the StarCraft franchise, the graboids from the Tremors movie series, the Hive Mind creature from the survival-horror game Dead Space, and even Sauron from Lord of the Rings. It even resembles the Blob, which is a large tentacled (1988 film) monster that consumes organisms to grow.
 * Originally, the Gravemind was meant to have skulls as teeth; this was cut from Halo 2 and Halo 3 because it would have made it difficult for the parasite to speak.
 * The Gravemind frequently speaks in trochaic heptameter. In Human Weakness, it was revealed that this is merely preference and he converses normally with Cortana after she criticizes him for it. He also mentions that he possesses the memories of poets of many alien cultures.
 * The Gravemind is one of the few extraterrestrials to learn John-117's name.
 * The Gravemind was initially going to have a much greater presence in Halo 2 and would have been introduced in the level Forerunner Tank, but due to time constraints, Bungie removed the level and instead made a long cinematic for his introduction.
 * The Gravemind is voiced by Dee Bradley Baker.
 * The Gravemind pictured in the Halo 3 instruction manual looks strikingly similar to Ogdru Jahad from Hellboy.

List of appearances

 * Halo 2
 * Halo 3
 * Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe
 * Human Weakness
 * Halo Legends
 * Origins
 * The Forerunner Saga