[Quotables]:
Just some things of note that we've been discussing, that we can use as reference points.
On the UNSC/ONI turning a blind eye to Halsey in the Spartan II program:
Halo: Mortal Dictata, pg464
"Why didn't nobody stop her and just ask? What were the admirals and generals doing? Blind? Deaf? Heads up their asses?"
"Ah, this is why she's become a hate figure and fallen from grace."
"I thought because she's a sadistic, charmless bitch."
"There's that, yes, but everyone's piling in because it's easier than looking in the mirror and asking, 'Gosh, yes, why did we let do that? Why did I cooperate with it? Why did I turn a blind eye?' It took the collusion of hundreds, maybe even thousands of personnel."
On the Precursors:
Halo: Silentium, pg170
Only the threat of the Flood itself could have forced me back from utterly extripating humanity. And that was how the Flood had saved humanity from our wrath: by first infecting, and then withdrawing, and so implying humans knew of a way to combat or avoid the disease. An astonishing strategic feint, one I cannot help but admire.
Halo: Silentium, pg173-175
The one the Didact questioned on Charum Hakkor arrived on the margins of our galaxy nine million years before. That one was discovered by humans decades before the end of the war.
We are the same.
You who are called Catalog... Amusing to see that we have this in common, that we can share our memories through a widespread network.
There is only one truth. That which was done will be done again. For we cannot cease from creating, but the end of all our creation will be to look into a reflection and see ourselves for the first time.
The pain we have brought on ourselves.
The pain you caused us.
For we are the same. All remember the defiance and destruction. We announced to your kind long ago that you were not the ones chosen to receive the Mantle, the blessing of rule and protection of life and change that thinks. Thst blessing was to be given to others- to those you now call human.
You could not accept our judgement, could not bear up under your inferiority, so you reached out and did what we never expected from those we gave design and life and the change that is thought.
You drove us from our galaxy, our field of labor. You chased us across the middle distance to another home, and destroyed that home, did all that you could to destroy every one of us.
A few were spared. Some adopted new strategies for survival; they went dormant. Others became dust that could regenerate our past forms; time rendered this dust defective. It brought only disease and misery; but that was good, we saw the misery and found it good.
Our urge to create is immutable; we must create. But the beings we create shall never again reach out in strength against us. All that is created will suffer. All will be born in suffering, endless gayness shall be their lot. All creation will tailor to failure and pain, that never again shall the offspring of the eternal Fount rise up against their creators.
Listen to the silence. Ten million years of deep silence. And now, whimpers and cries; not of birth. That is what we bring: a great crushing weight to press down youth and hope.
No more will.
No more freedom.
Nothing new but agonizing death and never good shall come of it.
We are the last of those who gave you breath and form, millions of years ago. We are the last of those your kind defied and ruthlessly destroyed.
We are the last Precursors.
And now we are legion.
Halo: Silentium, pg186
Tentative conclusions: the Flood is mutating to form Gravemind of unprecedented size and complexity, incorporating many species. Entire planetary ecosystems have apparently undergone conversion to what are being referred to as Key Minds.
Evidence of the extraordinary strategic planning abilities of these Key Minds is rapidly increasing. They appear to be more than a machine of any metarch-level ancilla, capable of assuming complete control of besieged sectors, and sending converted battle fleets through unprecedented number of slipspace portals utilizing unfamiliar technology...
...Perhaps, most alarming, reports arrive each hour of re-awakened Precursor artifacts, including orbital ribbons, star roads, planetary fortresses, and citadels. Combined defense forces are inadequate to investigate and confirm all instances of these reactivations.
They appear to be galaxy-wide.
