Talk:Flood combat form

When a female Marine is infected, will she look like a male human Combat Form? BPL 01:25, 7 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes. Smoke My pageMy talk 02:09, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

gee, being converted into a combat form sounds painful...LOLMAN180

Hi. I noticed two potential errors made here, or rather, two points at which there may be an exception. The first is about the Human Combat forms. It said that they only attack with their tenticle arm, but I shot off that arm and while melee fighting that particular human form, it managed to some how hit me, and I beleive (though I may be wrong) it was weakly flailing its non tenticular arm. It might've just head bashed me so I dunno. The second I'm a bit more sure of. It says "In all three Halo games, a Combat Form may fall only to stand up again and keep fighting. This can only happen if it still has a usable limb and appendage" But in Halo 1, if you shoot off the arms and then kill it, I think it will sometimes still get back up. You probably have to shoot it in weaker areas but I think it still does reanimate. There is one other thing I was thinking about. The part that mentioned that while Halo 1 has the Combat Forms nearly naked while they are clothed in the next two games, I have an alt explanation (though I haven't really played H3 much since I dont have a 360, so I dont know if this explanation applies to H3). In H2 at least, all of the combat forms seem recently infected. In the level where you have to kill the Heretic Leader, the flood are unleashed within the gas chambers by the Heretics (As is stated on various pages concerning that level). In sacred Icon you can hear over the com how the commanding officer mentions that "they are not covanent" and then that group of humans gets infected, to be found by the Arbiter when he enters that floor seconds to minutes later. Quaranting Zone is very similar, and that level occurs probably less than an hour after the Arbiter loweres the Containment Sheild (if not within minutes). On the level High Charity, the the flood begin pouring out of In Amber Clad after it crashes, which is still while the cheif is fighting his way to and through the mausolium. The Elites are therefore freshly infected once more. The humans may have still been fighting against the flood while the In Amber was already flying through High Charity (all this during the level Gravemind), as Cortana mentions confirmed reports of flood only towards the end of the level. The Combat forms of H1 were mostly infected hours after the cheif first got to the containment facility (as it would take him a good amount of time to get to that facility by pelican ). The flood in the mean time were already spreading across the ring, and therefore during the time it took Cheif to get to the facility, get all the way down into it, and then get out, the flood were already infecting. So yeah just something to consider.--Black kille 20:28, January 8, 2010 (UTC)

Lesser Infections
In a discussion with Specops306, I mentioned the issue of Flood infection of Grunts and Jackals, and looking at one of the books, I found something interesting, which when looked at carefully, considerably undermines the past assumption that these two species weren't used by the Flood beyond biomass.

As far back as Halo: The Flood, there are two passages that state something very interesting about the Flood's usage of Grunts and Jackals:

""We suspect that Grunts and Jackals are deemed too small for first-class combat material, and are therefore used as a sort of nucleus around which carrier forms can grow (pg.271).""

While this quote makes it seem that Grunts and Jackals aren't used beyond that of biomass and as incubators, it does mention something very interesting. Lt. McKay suggests that Grunts and Jackals are used as a kind of "nucleus" around which a carrier grows and forms around, as if the infected being has to be augmented in some way to become a Carrier Form. This suggests that Grunts and Jackals are in fact readily infectable by the Flood, and are later augmented in some way to become Carrier Forms.

Presumably, before that happens, the infected being is in a sort of limbo state, with an attached infection form and presumably some altered biomass prior to becoming a Carrier Form. And surprisingly, the book shows that even Jackals will be taken as hosts, and presumably Grunts as well;

"Finally, with only three containers left to go, Bok undogged a hatch, pulled the door open, and disappeared under an avalanche of infection forms. One of the attacking pods grabbed onto the Jackal's head, wrapped its tentacles around the creature's skull, drove a penetrator down through his throat, and had already tapped into the soldiers spine by the time Yayap yelled, "Fire!" and the rest of the Jackald opened up (pg.298)."

This shows clearly what is the beginning of a process of a lesser being's conversion into a Flood form or resource. That means that an Infection Form will wrap itself around a Jackal's head, take control of the body, quite likely mutate it to some degree, and voila, you have an infected Jackal, most likely armed, and readily used in combat if necessary. Same would likely go for a Grunt, and for the time before they are turned into Carriers, they can fight, albeit likely not using melee attacks and less effective than proper Combat Forms, but useful nevertheless.

And this is exactly what happens in Halo Wars. When I played a Halo Wars skirmish game on a 2v2 Flood map, I deliberately forced some Grunts to be killed and infected. Sure enough, the infected Grunts run after the units I sent to inspect them, but never employed any melee attacks, and only fire their weapons. Infected Jackals do the same thing.

If they're going to be called anything, infected Grunts and Jackals should be called Sub-Combat Forms, for they are inferior to normal Combat Forms, and are easily disposed of. If a lesser Feral-stage group of Flood manage to infect a group of Covenant that are mostly Grunts and Jackals, and need to attack another Covenant force, wouldn't they quickly send all able forms, including freshly infected Grunts and Jackals?

If they survive, they would be turned into Carrier Forms, but that clearly requires some sort of augmentation to occur, for it is unlikely that the infected creature could supply the resources to grow four or more Infection Forms and the explosive features that are the Carrier Form's signature trait. Maybe the Flood attach bits of Flesh to the Carriers-to-be, which take that and develop that extra biomass as a part of themselves as they change? Maybe that extra biomass comes from the stores that the Flood inevitably create, especially in the Feral Stage.

Halo Wars hardly contradicts established canon in this area when following this logic, which is straigthforward and very plausible. Ensemble/Robot actually made a good choice here, for if the Flood infect any sentient species, even those that are fairly weak, then wouldn't the Flood use them in any way the can, including direct combat, even before becoming Carrier Forms? Works well beyond just mere gameplay, doesn't it?

Good theory, but if the sub cobat forms have a weak melee attack then they would be more useful as ranged infantry. The flood themselves seem to prefer meleeing their oppenents so it would make more sense for them to use lesse suitable hosts as biomasss to create more carrier forms and infection forms. Although, if the flood were in need of new rcruits, they would probably take whatever hosts they could assimilate.(Drone232 13:33, October 30, 2009 (UTC))

--Exalted Obliteration 02:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Problems Fixed on the Page
Admins, please mark problem #29.450 fixed. --Mr Slippy IV 05:13, September 18, 2009 (UTC)

Can't feel pain?
It said that Covenant weapons are ineffective because they are meant to case pain, and infection forms can't feel pain. But in Halo: The flood, Jenkins momentarily escapes his captors grip to signal that the flood are underground, but only after his wrist breaks, and the flood retreats from his mind. It also said that Grunts and Jackals arent used by the flood, but they are apparently turned into carrier forms in the same novel. L33tmcphee 01:54, February 2, 2010 (UTC)

- Agreed, i tried to change it, but has been reversed twice by the same person. AtomicRavioli 23:57, February 14, 2010 (UTC)

Grunts and Jackals Suitable Sized
I was playing Halo CE, and I noticed that the Grunts seemed perfectly suitable sized for a infection. Liquid Ink 08:26, March 6, 2010 (UTC)

Me and my friends have discussed this. We all reached the conclusion that bungie didn't establish correct sizes. Most weapons were bigger as duel-wielding wasn't placed in the game that time. The same thing happened with the covenant species. The hunters became bigger, the jackels became thinner and frailer, the elites more intelligent, slimmer and stronger. The grunts became smaller after Halo: CE. I'm sure the smaller sizes the established-canon sizes. Munch munch 04:56, June 5, 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, maybe I should test the sizes in Halo 3. Elite  B   81  12:01, August 14, 2010 (UTC)

Just checked out Halo 3, Grunts still seem suitable sized for infection. Elite  B   81  11:08, August 15, 2010 (UTC)

Flood Numbers
In Halo:CE, there are many, many human combat forms, but the only humans to encounter the flood recently enought to be already transformed would be Corporal Lovik's squad, as Johnson's squad went to attack Alpha Base, or stayed behind. The ODSTs who had died earlier in the The Flood would be inaccessable because their bodysuits, Drop pods, and general destruction apon impact would mangle thier bodies beyond use. The retrieval of bodies after the other battles would also be inaccessable because at that point, the flood were still locked up. So how were there so many human combat forms already at the library?--Turbogruntman117 13:42, August 19, 2010 (UTC)

An interesting question. It is possible, perhaps, that these are Forerunner combat forms, as the Forerunners and Humanity have similar a similar physical build. Not sure. -Shadowhand

They were probably just other squads that got lost during the original landing, that we never heard about. SPARTAN-347 13:31, 14 January 2011 (EST)