Gravemind (Form): Difference between revisions

The '''Gravemind''' <ref>[[High Charity (Level)|High Charity]], Cortana: "Flood controlled dropships are touching down all over the city! That creature beneath the Library, that 'Gravemind', used us. We were just a diversion."</ref> ('''Inferi Sententia''', meaning "Thinking Dead"), is the final stage in the life cycle of the [[Flood]] and is the leader intelligence of the [[Flood]]. It is a near-omniscient creature with complete control over all Flood forms.

A Gravemind starts out 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 Form]]s 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 infection, will then continue to accumulate. 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]], and Flood will leave the galaxy with the intent to create a new Gravemind elsewhere.

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 [[Wikipedia:Venus Flytrap|Venus Flytrap]]. The organ is used to speak and to exhale [[Flood Spore]]s.&nbsp; 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.

==Biography==

[[File:Originsgravemind.jpg|thumb|250px|A Gravemind present during the Forerunner-Flood War.]]

===Forerunner-Flood War===

During the [[Forerunner-Flood War]], the first Gravemind came into existence as a centralized intelligence to coordinate [[Flood]] efforts against the [[Forerunner]]s. Eventually Forerunner space navy 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.

{{flood}}

[[Category:The Flood]]

[[Category:Characters]]