Before I jump into this, I just need to say that there's a lot about Halo: Nightfall that I'm enjoying. There's lots of small details that do a good job of tying the universe together, and while a few points might miss their mark ("Expand search: Known Universe"), overall I think 343 has done a great job keeping this consistent with the rest of Halo.

That said, there's something about it that really, really bugs me, far more than any Halo production has bugged me before, and I need to get this out there. Photos taken on my phone, so please bear with me on this one.

As I was watching through Halo: Nightfall Chapter 2, I began to notice that something was very off with the Lekgolo. I immediately rolled my eyes as the swarms came crashing over the hills, even though I didn't exactly know why. Realizing the reaction I had, I went back and watched it a second time to try and figure out what it was that my brain hadn't liked, and the reality slowly dawned on me.

From the very beginning, I found myself confused by the Lekgolo invading the Pelican Condor, a vehicle flying a good 20 ft above the surface. As I watched more, something weird started happening. The worms, clearly, were being sucked into the Condor's intake. But from where?

Rather than being sucked off the sides of the Condor's wing, they were moving straight towards it, head first, from somewhere off screen. If sucked into the intake, their path would have been more curved by the effects of gravity and their bodies oriented more haphazardly, illustrated below (exaggerated curves, because I can't art too well).

If they were jumping straight in, they would first need something directly opposite of the intake to jump off of, which we know doesn't exist based on the Condor's geometry.

Whatever. Bad animation, but I got the point (even if in the next shot of the Condor - where it crashes - there's no indication of any Lekgolo whatsoever). Moving on, we next see a massive wave of various Lekgolo swarms surging over the hills, moving... really fast. Like... really, really fast. Those individual worms had to be moving at record speeds (although without the ability to do a frame-by-frame, I can't even approximate the speed).

The fastest real-world animal with a similar body-type and speed is the Black Mamba, which can only move slightly faster than a human can run. The Lekgolo swarms in this definitely move far faster than that, and without any apparent contact with the ground. In this first shot of the swarms, they can be shown whipping across the hills at frightening speed, and in later sequences, writhing down a slot canyon even faster.

For that matter, what's even keeping this thing supported? Worms, like most life forms, are predominantly water. That's a lot of weight to have in the air, held together by creatures that, in this rendition, are constantly moving, wriggling around.

In real life, ants are known to form living bridges, rafts, or even parachutes to help ensure the survival of their colony. But in real life, the ants that comprise the majority of these interesting structures are actually stationary, their bodies locked together to form the skeleton over which the rest of the ants can flow.

Other animals are known to exhibit this sort of behavior, latching together to make themselves appear like larger animals and to make singling out the individual more difficult for predators. This is a defense mechanism that all sorts of creatures display. Even mammals.

But the simple fact is, there's no terrestrial animal that can match the speed and rhythm portrayed by the Lekgolo here. The sheer weight of those swarms, combined with the restrictions placed on movement by gravity, would mean that the motions they make in this last episode are physically impossible. The only way it could be even remotely possible is if the Lekgolo themselves were lighter than - or close to the weight of - the air, so that they could float through it, bonding together in loose swarms but still being light enough to quickly dart around as they're shown to do. It would allow the individual worms to maneuver through the air as if it were water.

When I rewatched the shot immediately following the squad shutting off their technology, it occurred to me that this might actually be what's happening. As the swarm slowly makes its way down the slot canyon's wall, you get the impression that they're more akin to a school of fish, swimming very closely together. The bodies wriggle around too much to maintain any consistent physical connection, and - at one point - you can even see an individual worm break free of the swarm, hover for a brief moment unconnected to the main mass, and quickly dart back in rather than falling straight down due to the pull of gravity.

It's clear to me what effect the animators were going for. In fact I joked on Facebook.Bungie.Org that I had found leaked footage from Halo: Nightfall Chapter 3.

I think there's something to be said for the fact that it's most similar to a fictional creature intentionally portrayed breaking the laws of physics for the sake of appearing supernatural and 'godlike'. It reeks of the animators understanding the colonial nature of the Hunters, yet not grasping the actual physics that go into a process such as that (or the fact that the fiction they were borrowing ideas from was using those movements for an intentional disconnect from reality).

Some other, "supernatural"-looking special effects it reminded me of that only work because they communicate to you that reality has been broken:
Lost. (Lighter than air.)
The Matrix. (Flying.)

In fact, I think the Smoke Monster from Lost (specifically the scene above) might have even more parallels to Nightfall in next week's episode:

The only real-life animal (other than schools of fish) that actually accurately represents the movements of the worms is a flock of starlings.
(In case you haven't seen starlings flock before, it's quite amazing. Here's a second video.)

Anyways, welcome to Nightfall's take on the Lekgolo... Flying Hunter worms. :P