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| On the nature of the Compound Mind *very long* | |
| Posted By: Cthulhu117 | Date: 4/26/08 8:57 p.m. |
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Touched off by a discussion in this thread, in which numerous questions came up regarding the nature of the Flood's sentience with regards to the Gravemind, I realized that certain aspects of Audrey (which to me seemed very much apparent) seem to be contested or cast into doubt by the majority of the fanbase. So here's my vaguely crackpot theory on the Flood, which I believe is tied to the use of the word "Compound Mind." From Terminal Two on Legendary: That is, unfortunately, not that {~} similar to us {~} but where you are a single intelligence inhabiting multiple [instances], we are a compound {~} consisting of [a thousand billion] coordinated minds inhabiting as many bodies as circumstances require. This is the Gravemind talking to MB, for clarification. In this situation, it is affirmed by GM (and I believe it was earlier mentioned by Didact) that the Gravemind consists of a compound mind—many intelligences inhabiting many bodies. It is equally affirmed that MB is not of a kind with GM; instead, he is a single, unified mind able to inhabit many places(or times, even?) at once. This explains how MB was on both the Keyship and the Ark. But most importantly (and in this passage, self-evidently) the Gravemind is a plural being. "similar to us." "we are a compound." I'd like you to consider another, somewhat iconic sci-fi line for a moment: "We are the Borg." The Borg is a plural. Although there are many of them, many individual minds, they all form a single thinking hivemind. In the movies, it is revealed that this hivemind can manifest itself as a single spokesperson, the Borg Queen. But the Queen is not the body that goes with the hivemind. She's a mouthpiece, nothing more. A single voice to make some sense out of a chaotic compound mind: the single, multifarious cybernetic organism calling itself the Borg. So also is the Gravemind a single spokesperson (and here is where the theory begins)—a single voice to make some sense out of a chaotic compound mind: the single, multifarious cybernetic organism calling itself the Flood. The Borg can survive without a Queen. She is not essential in any way to their plans or their standard operating procedure. She is not a leader, not an individual. She does not make the decisions. All she does is provide a singular body for the overriding Borg intelligence that is really calling the shots. In the same way, the Flood can survive without a Gravemind. He is not entirely essential to their plans, although the Flood generally attempt to construct one in order to...well, do something, anyway. We don't really know why the Gravemind exists. But the Gravemind, I propose, is not a leader. It is, we know, not an individual. I contend that it is simply the embodiment of a collective, racial consciousness: a compound mind. So, as I said above, we don't know the purpose of the Gravemind. The Art of Halo tells us something on the order of "a cross between the ultimate stage in the Flood's evolution and a queen bee." But I don't think this is really an answer. What does a queen bee do? It sits in the nest and produces eggs. Nonstop. This is, I am decently sure, not what Gravemind does. And what is the ultimate stage in the Flood's evolution that the book speaks of? Well, it's GM itself, actually. This isn't a definition in the usual sense; it doesn't carry any non-obvious information. So, when do we see Graveminds? Only twice.
It's mostly the second manifestation I'll talk about, since we observe it directly. In the level "Cortana," we blow GM the hell up. We blow up the High Charity to do this. We are left with no doubt that he dies. He dies hard. And yet, in the very next level, "Halo," he's back somehow. Like the proverbial cat, GM came back; you thought GM was a goner, but he just couldn't stay away, oh no no, oh no no, oh no no. And yet, we know he's dead. We saw the ship he was on explode in a nuclear firestorm. Cortana even says GM has been destroyed. "It's trying to rebuild itself! On this ring!" That is tantamount to saying that Gravemind has been destroyed—so badly destroyed that it needs to "rebuild" itself. Presumably, this means it builds a new form from corpses, as seen in The Art of Halo. But how the hell can there be anything to rebuild? None of him can possibly have survived...unless, of course, there's more to Gravemind than the physical. If Gravemind's body is a mouthpiece for its guiding consciousness, rather than a shell. The Compound Mind that commands the Flood isn't contained in the vast, tentacular corpse-conglomerate we call a gravemind. It's contained in the Flood itself. As long as there is a single infection form to contain the collective, malevolent intelligence of the Flood, there will be a Compound Mind, and the single, many-headed organism called the Flood will survive. Now we see why the Forerunners couldn't meet the Flood in battle. We see why they didn't simply strike surgically at the Gravemind. We see why they realized the only way to stop the spread of the Flood was to remove all possible sources of food until the Infection Forms hopefully starved to death. They knew. They knew the Flood was a many-aspected, divisible mind manifest in many bodies. And they realized that ultimately, unless contained, the Flood is unstoppable. Now, this theory doesn't pretend to account for the apparent telepathy of the Flood, or any of the other weird and paranormal phenomena that occur around them. But all the same, I am quite convinced that the Flood is as I have described it: a single, Borg-like organism in many bodies and many minds. What do you think?
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