Flood: Difference between revisions
→Combat Behavior
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==Combat Behavior== | ==Combat Behavior== | ||
[[Image:Floodambush.jpg|thumb|right|The Flood emphasizes "numerical superiority" in engagements and also aggressive swarming tactics.]] | [[Image:Floodambush.jpg|thumb|right|The Flood emphasizes "numerical superiority" in engagements and also aggressive swarming tactics.]] | ||
While possessing an unusual sentient intelligence, with Combat Forms still retaining extremely high-level cognitive functions such as vehicular operation, | While possessing an unusual sentient intelligence, with Combat Forms still retaining extremely high-level cognitive functions such as vehicular operation, traits such as dexterity and complex battlefield tactics are notably lacking in the Flood, especially in their psychological and combat behavior. While the Gravemind coordinates Flood strategy on a galactic scale, small encounters are not coordinated between individual Flood warriors. | ||
The Flood | The Flood's strategy is simple: They throw themselves at potential hosts in huge numbers and with any and all weapons available. Flood tactics are based primarily on asymmetrical warfare: the Flood uses all types of its different forms to kill the enemies that it sees. Infection forms swarm across the battlefield in waves, reanimating any corpses they can find, while Combat forms attack and kill any hosts in sight. Pure forms, if present, provide support to Combat forms in a number of ways: Stalker forms move to strategic positions and mutate into either Tank or Ranged forms, which can destroy enemy vehicles or fortifications or provide suppressing fire from afar. | ||
The Flood have a strong preference for close-range combat: combat forms possess abnormally strong melee attacks by whipping their tentacles, capable of dropping a SPARTAN-II MJOLNIR armor’s shields in half with a single hit. Carrier forms cause tremendous devastation at close ranges, and their explosions are extremely devastating to friends and foes alike at close range, with the added benefit of disseminating infection forms in the immediate vicinity of enemies. Infection forms are capable of attacking only at point-blank ranges, exploding in damaging bursts when meeting an opponent's personal [[energy shields]] or instantly grabbing hold of an unshielded enemy organism and infecting it. Combat forms can also use firearms, and have been seen clutching them in one of their hands (regardless of whether it is one-handed or two-handed). However, combat forms are extremely poor warriors at range with ranged weaponry: it is believed that the neurological ramifications of Flood infection significantly decrease accuracy, as well as weapon recoil if held in only one hand. The Flood are mostly only dangerous with heavy weaponry, such as the [[M19 Rocket Launcher]] or the [[M90 Shotgun]], and are curiously ill skilled with close-quarters weapons such as the [[Energy Sword]]. However, it is still possible that a Flood with a Energy Sword can kill a fully shielded Elite or Spartan in one blow. | The Flood have a strong preference for close-range combat: combat forms possess abnormally strong melee attacks by whipping their tentacles, capable of dropping a SPARTAN-II MJOLNIR armor’s shields in half with a single hit. Carrier forms cause tremendous devastation at close ranges, and their explosions are extremely devastating to friends and foes alike at close range, with the added benefit of disseminating infection forms in the immediate vicinity of enemies. Infection forms are capable of attacking only at point-blank ranges, exploding in damaging bursts when meeting an opponent's personal [[energy shields]] or instantly grabbing hold of an unshielded enemy organism and infecting it. Combat forms can also use firearms, and have been seen clutching them in one of their hands (regardless of whether it is one-handed or two-handed). However, combat forms are extremely poor warriors at range with ranged weaponry: it is believed that the neurological ramifications of Flood infection significantly decrease accuracy, as well as weapon recoil if held in only one hand. The Flood are mostly only dangerous with heavy weaponry, such as the [[M19 Rocket Launcher]] or the [[M90 Shotgun]], and are curiously ill skilled with close-quarters weapons such as the [[Energy Sword]]. However, it is still possible that a Flood with a Energy Sword can kill a fully shielded Elite or Spartan in one blow. | ||
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[[Image:Catch.jpg|thumb|right|Typical Flood combat behavior: ravenously targeting the nearest enemy, with infection forms running ahead of combat and carrier forms.]] | [[Image:Catch.jpg|thumb|right|Typical Flood combat behavior: ravenously targeting the nearest enemy, with infection forms running ahead of combat and carrier forms.]] | ||
Flood Combat forms have been sighted crudely operating [[Ghost]]s, [[Warthog]]s, [[Type-25 Assault Gun Carriage|Wraiths]], and [[Scorpion]]s in ground operations, although with slow deliberation and clumsy driving and accuracy. The assimilated crewmen of the [[UNSC Frigate]] [[UNSC In Amber Clad|In Amber Clad]] were also able to initiate a [[Slipspace]] micro-jump for the frigate and perform rudimentary maneuvering of the ''In Amber Clad'', navigating the frigate from the atmosphere of ''[[Delta Halo]]'' to ''High Charity'' and then crashing the vessel into a tower, releasing Pelican dropships to rain down upon the capital. | Flood Combat forms have been sighted crudely operating [[Ghost]]s, [[Warthog]]s, [[Type-25 Assault Gun Carriage|Wraiths]], and [[Scorpion]]s in ground operations, although with slow deliberation and clumsy driving and accuracy. The assimilated crewmen of the [[UNSC Frigate]] [[UNSC In Amber Clad|In Amber Clad]] were also able to initiate a [[Slipspace]] micro-jump for the frigate and perform rudimentary maneuvering of the ''In Amber Clad'', navigating the frigate from the atmosphere of ''[[Delta Halo]]'' to ''High Charity'' and then crashing the vessel into a tower, releasing Pelican dropships to rain down upon the capital. | ||
The Flood's | The Flood's millennia of existence has made the assimilation process extremely brief: Hosts killed in a short firefight can be reanimated within seconds to minutes by an infection form, and live creatures can be mutated into fully grown and mentally devious combat forms within minutes of contact. The mutations can occur randomly, or uniformly: according to the ''[[Halo Graphic Novel]]'', they can sometimes develop into engorged combat forms notably larger than the normal combat form, or can alarmingly grow thick shells within minutes, indicating that the Flood can facilitate tremendous and exaggerated metabolic activity during the physiological mutilation. Furthermore, in rare cases, the mutations can constantly shift: when Rtas 'Vadumee battled his comrade-turned-combat form [[Bero 'Kusovai]] aboard the ''Infinite Succor'', 'Kusovai continued to mutate throughout the duration of the battle. Though never seen, it can be assumed infection forms were involved in infecting victims in this case. Before being killed to prevent his becoming a Flood, one of the Sangheili accompanying Rtas 'Vadumee appears to have a wound in his chest that may have been the entry point for an infection form. Many of the Flood on the ''Succor'' seemed to constantly be mutating the infected biomass and also seemed to merge them together. This suggests the possibility that over time any infected host can mutate further and further, as exemplified by the Brain Form or the Gravemind and different versions of the Combat Form. | ||
==Known Victims == | ==Known Victims == | ||