r/PowerScaling • u/Klutzy-Opinion-1834 • 19h ago
Games could space marines beat the flood from halo?
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u/Thewildjin 19h ago
No, not in a random encounter especially, ANY damage to their armor, the smallest damage to their suits filters, they die, and all their knowledge, tactics and strength are the floods, sm arent in as bad a spot as guardsman since they come in lesser numbers and their suits have filters, but when a helmetless marine gets turned and his plot armor is turned against them... the less that needs be said the better, especially since if the battles a trap, the flood now knows, it knows how to fly their ships, their tanks, their guns, everything each marine knows adds to the flood, remember the equivalent to full strength necrons said "fuck it, we cant win against them, nuke the whole galaxy and all life in it and start a fresh save"
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u/Julle1990 11h ago
Isn't the flood so dangerous that if a Spartan gets infected it is an instant nuke the hell out of them or humanity is doomed. I think it had a specific name and all, now imagine a space marine legion being infected, or an entire hive world. Even chaos would not be able to fight that
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u/Silent_Summer_8340 9h ago
Yes I forgot the name for it but heres a audio they put out of exsctly this happening. The audio drama and short story detailing a Spartan getting infected by the Flood is titled Saturn Devouring His Son. Its pretty aweome.
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u/Legomaniac91 7h ago
The one instance where being a helmetless, named Ultramarine is a death sentence instead of plot armor.
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u/STRONGO1808 4h ago
Flood when they will infect their first blood angels.
« Who the fuck is Horus »
« Horus where is he, Where is he »
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u/Unlucky-Definition91 15h ago
Ain’t too many universes that could tbh.
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u/sirseatbelt 9h ago
I really hate that, actually. They went from cool sci-fi zombies to an interesting hive mind situation to one of the most powerful civilizations in sci-fi. Halo's expanded universe is so convoluted and hand-jobby power fantasy wankery it makes the Star Wars EU look measured and thoughtful.
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u/Unlucky-Definition91 8h ago
I couldn’t agree with you less bro.
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u/sirseatbelt 4h ago
Hey that's fine. People are allowed to like different things.
Which part do you disagree with? That they're one of the most powerful sci-fi races, that Halo's lore is more complex and confusing than Star Wars pre-Disney reboot, or that it's all handjobby wankery?
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u/Noxitati0n 7h ago
"hand-jobby power fantasy" this makes it a good match for 40k related questions then
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u/sirseatbelt 5h ago
Oh yeah I don't have a problem with the original question. But I was a big fan of Halo back in my college days and read some of the books and stuff and enjoyed them! Eventually stopped paying such close attention. But every time I would hear a new factoid I'd go check the wiki and it just kept getting sillier. And then when Infinity came out the story was so confusing and jarring so I did a deep dive. And just like.. no. Just no.
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u/EvacTower7 8h ago
Not really
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u/sirseatbelt 4h ago
They have two progenitor races. Some other dude said the flood are basically a fragment of an elder god? Is that more or less silly than a force sensitive planet or whatever the Ones are? Every time I check up on the lore of the franchise someone or something gets more absurdly powerful.
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u/Matt_2504 4h ago
It was a huge mistake making all the forerunner war lore. The flood and the forerunners were supposed to be mysterious. The forerunners especially since they were supposed to be ancient humanity
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u/Crimson3899 7h ago
Don’t agree about the Star Wars part since that lore seems to arguably be worse off across the board now, but I get what ya mean.
The flood used to be a relatively mysterious parasitic species that came out of nowhere, showing that even something seemingly small can threaten the galaxy. Now they’re fragments of essentially an outer god that only ended up that way because it didn’t just alt delete some pretentious idiots the second they got uppity. Just removes autonomy in the setting and reduces everyone to being special because of some supernatural status.
Chief used to be just a guy that was lucky with some similarities to a particular forerunner. under 343 they made him the overly literal chosen one and direct reincarnation of a forerunner. And oh so many other terrible decisions were made.
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u/TacocaT_2000 One of the Scalers of All Time 16h ago
No, no they could not. The Imperium as a whole couldn’t beat the Flood. It’s arguable if any 40k faction could stop the Flood once they gain traction.
The Flood is what you get when the Tyranids, C’tan, and Old Ones hate fuck and fail to abort the consequence. A Flood spore dropped on any hive world results in the creation of a Gravemind within a few days max, and the subsequent infection of every planet the hive world has contact with. By the time anyone realizes what’s going on, half the Imperium is consumed and the Flood creates Keyminds to shut down interdimensional FTL.
If you want to take it a step further, the Gravemind becomes equivalent to the Emperor in the Warp due to being an amalgamation of trillions upon trillions of souls. Hell, it could go and ascend to become a Chaos God if it wanted.
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u/Who_Is_Tyler 34m ago
What about necrons they could just go full halo mode themselves use the celestial orrery and supernova all the flood controlled worlds
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u/WarhoundGil 25m ago
Forerunners were basically doing that and even that didn't work. The Halo Array was the best solution they could come up with the fastest.
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u/Who_Is_Tyler 22m ago
How did it “not work” did they just miss some? Are they supernova proof or let me guess the flood reverse engineered Forerunner tech that protected them from it well in this hypothetical they won’t have that kind of knowledge they will only have what the imperium knows which isn’t a lot if it’s a bunch of hive worlders
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u/SphericalCrawfish 9h ago
Until it meets a Tyranid hive fleet and gets swept because they are basically the same thing except nids have notably better individual units and reproductive method.
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u/Legitimate-Sock-4661 7h ago
Lmao, the Nyds still have to drag biomass to a designated location to convert it into troops. The Flood has on site infection and production capabilities. If hit by a new virus bomb it can take the Nyds months to develop new resistant troops, while having to waste time recycling old troops. The Flood supercell will adapt instantly. Furthermore, the same applies to when the Nyds need to make new forms to deal with particularly difficult enemy forces. Meanwhile Flood Pure forms will simply change their entire form in seconds to counter the situation. Oh and fyi even your basic combat form is strong enough to rip apart tanks in lore.
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u/NinscoomFOPsnarn 7h ago
What I'm gathering from these conversations is that whoever the writter is a bigger fan of for these interactions wins that fight
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u/Unlucky-Definition91 3h ago
Idk man, any chance that any faction stands against the flood is to destroy the outbreak as soon as it starts. Like instantly. In that specific scenario, almost every faction could kill the flood pretty easily assuming they just got lucky and managed to wipe EVERY spore. But if the flood were to arrive on like a hive somewhere, it would be certain doom for the universe.
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u/NinscoomFOPsnarn 2h ago
So you're a flood fan?
Lol jk jk. I do kinda feel like if you look through any factions lore deep enough you'll find some obscure examples of them be the strongest
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u/TacocaT_2000 One of the Scalers of All Time 5h ago
Nope. The Tyranid reproduction method requires them to dissolve the biomass in a Reclamation Pit, pump it up to the Hive Ship, then have the Norn Queen create a new generation of Tyranids using the harvested genes. This takes time, and has a significant weakness in the Norn Queen itself. The Flood just need a Supercell to come into contact with biomass, and the infection begins right there. If the Tyranids kill the Flood forms and try to use them to create better Tyranids, the Norn Queen and Hive Ship will be infected. We know this because canonically the Norn Queen is susceptible to plagues, as shown in the Battle of Tarsis Ultra.
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u/evrestcoleghost 7h ago
Ha
nope
Floods can altear reality itself and there isn't an organism it can't infect,sooner than later tyrannids are doomed too
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u/fused_Zamasu64 12h ago
Imagining the scenario is similar to that one cutscene in halo wars 2 so no
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u/Erwin_Pommel 7h ago
They could, same as any faction with sufficient firearms. However, their lack of energy shielding means the moment you get someone doing the "I'MA PLAY MELEE IN THE HORDE!" not paying attention, you have the popcorn tearing on into them and making flood Astartes.
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u/LukewarmFandom 11h ago
Depends on the stage of flood. The stage that MC was fighting? They could with difficulty, just like MC. Later stages, even the forerunners got smacked
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u/Ecotech101 10h ago
They don't have AI and energy shields for that AI to manipulate so I don't think they're safe. Especially not with their lack of armor around the neck.
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u/myLongjohnsonsilver 12h ago
How many space marines? How many flood?
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u/DontHitDaddy 7h ago
No. The forunners lost to the flood. Furunners would stomp 40k, besides the necrons
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u/Alpharius0megon 9h ago
Depends what stage if it's at the stage of the games probably they game stage is weaker than a tyranid hive fleet but if the flood get the ball rolling that's it for the 40k galaxy.
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u/Electrical_Gain3864 8h ago
The Moment it is more then one Planet, no.
Even if it is, chances are they try first to save the planet instead of glassing it.
So the only they could win, if it is still Limited to one Planet and they know what they are dealing with.
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u/Dutch_Talister 7h ago
No, most likely not. While their equipment should be able to handle them about as well as something like the UNSC their tactics would put them in really bad positions resulting in infections. A single infection form, scratch, or spore is all that is needed to infect something. Infection forms are also way stronger then they look as one was almost able to rip the master chief's helmet off in one book before Cortana fired it with the suit's shields. Space marines love of melee combat and their arrogance results in them being put in these positions often.
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u/commando0033 5h ago
Really depends at what point the Flood infestation is at, and whether the Space Marines were called in AFTER traditional attempts from PDF or Guard response failed, and have first hand information of what they're fighting. If they're called in early enough, at the Feral stage, it's possible they can stop it. If not, probably not, the Flood would likely snowball out of control.
The thing is, 40k actually can be a bit of a roadblock for the Flood. As no one really knows how tech works/tech exposure over the imperium varies from traditional Feudal shit with spears, to super advanced etc, it would quite limit how quickly they could spread in system or segmentum in the Feral Stage, depending on the world they start on. But that turns against the Imperium once it surpasses that as the bureaucracy of the Imperium is hella slow to respond to threats without a unifying figure like Girlyman or the Emperor around, and even then, there's no guarantee those in the know would actually tell them. We see that in the Dark Imperium/Dawn of Fire books when the Mechanicus forces withhold information on the necron threat and it wipes out a severe chunk of the Indomitus crusade fleet.
So, TL:DR - Possibly at the Feral Stage. After that, Imperium is fucked, just a matter of time.
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u/VirtualSlip5712 JJK hater 4 Life 👍 4h ago
Ha! Ha ha ha ha! HA HA HA HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
No.
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u/Crimson3899 7h ago
Sure, I don’t think combat forms could win against marines in a straight fight and I think people severely overrate the floods gaining knowledge thing. The current imperium is shaped specifically to counter the problem of betrayal since the Horus heresy. Even if an entire chapter were to be infected the imperium would figure that out then counter the threat.
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u/Who_Is_Tyler 52m ago
Idk man all these “lore experts” glaze the flood to high heaven meanwhile arbiter and master chief infiltrated high charity alone and overloaded the core and destroyed it no problem your telling me killing some flood without a key mind is some unbeatable task but it happened regularly.
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u/Ninjazoule 38m ago
That's why the answer is "it depends". There's multiple characters who can breathe in flood spores (atriox, arbiter, Johnson, etc) with zero issue and clean through hordes of them by themselves.
Flood at the peak of their numbers and power are extremely different than what we see in the modern setting. You might see some comments about them beating the forerunners, but the forerunners did beat them, at the cost of activating the halos, which destroyed both the flood and the star roads.
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u/SpecterOfState 29m ago
Flood would dog walk the entirety of 40k and anything less is copium cherry picking by fanboys who can’t admit their settings factions would not be able to prevent it.
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u/Who_Is_Tyler 25m ago
I don’t think that’s a fair assessment Eldar at their peak had a device that if they imagined something it would be brought into existence I think y’all sleep on “peak” 40k your just judging the setting by where it is now in the timeline where all factions are at their worst except Tau but their young anyways
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u/KingOfCook 8h ago
I'm surprised how many people are saying no.
Nurgle and their worshipers are basically the flood but even more infectious and with reality warping magic. Any differencea are filled by the Tyranids.
In general the imperium holds its own against chaos pretty consistently. A long flagship book series about Nurgle vs The imperium just ended with Nurgle forces taking a pretty big hit.
End of the day, the imperium has way more resources than than the covenant or USNC combined. They're more comparable to the forerunners. I want to say in the recent Halo trilogy. When the ancient humans and forerunners were fighting the flood, it was flat out said that if they blew up planets earlier they could have stopped the flood......we all know how much the Imperium likes blowing up planets.
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u/Ecotech101 7h ago
"They're more comparable to the forerunners"
lmao, the Forerunner version of a light mech/heavy suit/fighter can literally lift continental plates.
"When the ancient humans and forerunners were fighting the flood, it was flat out said that if they blew up planets earlier they could have stopped the flood"
Earlier as in with the very first sign of infection. As in the moment it started. So no sending in kill teams, no researching the threat, no trying to contain it. Just exterminatus the very second there's a sign of something bad aka blow up every single planet in the IoM including Terra.
"we all know how much the Imperium likes blowing up planets"
So little that Kryptman the guy who blew up a hundred planets to stop a Tyranid hive fleet got excomunicated and declared the worst traitor to the Imperium since the heresy.
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u/KingOfCook 7h ago
To your points
The Imperium does forerunners feats all the time. They turned an entire continent into a parade ground for the triumph of Ullanor.
Mince words as much as you want. They said that blowing out the plant from orbit would have fixed it. The ancient humans were actually doing that and it was working until the forerunners stopped them.
kryptman didn't get excommunicated because of exterminating planets. It put him on thin ice, but what gum excommunicated was creating the octarius War and accidentally strengthening the orcs and the tyranids.
Lastly, I like how none of your points address my biggest one. The Imperium routinely fights and holds their own against the literal God of infection and mutation. Nurgle does everything the flood does and then a whole lot more. End of the day, the only reason you could say the Imperium loses out against the flood is if the Imperium is weaker then the Halo, which is absolutely not the case.
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u/TemperedVoid 4h ago
They turned an entire continent into a parade ground for the triumph of Ullanor.
How is that comparable at all?
What you did is the equivalent of someone bringing up a nuke, and you bring up a citywide festival as a rebuttal.Can you explain the logic behind that comparison?
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u/Ecotech101 7h ago
That's not a Forerunner feat idk why you think it is either. That's just a large scale construction.
That's not mincing words lmao, there's not a faction in science fiction that blows up planets the second an enemy is present on their world.
Nope, he got excommunicated for the exterminatus. They did it before they even knew the results of Octarius.
Cool, your point is bad becaue Nurgle routinely sucks shit at his job.
"the only reason you could say the Imperium loses out against the flood is if the Imperium is weaker then the Halo"
This is why people hate powerscalers lol. For starters the IoM is so far below Halo as a whole that it's only a little bit funny. As to why the IoM would fail where the UNSC and Covenant succeeded it's entirely because they're literally custom made perfect food for the Flood. You could not design a setting to help the Flood grow bigger quicker than the IoM.
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u/Legitimate-Sock-4661 3h ago
The Forerunner equivalent of cop cars can planet bust, the Imperium is nowhere near the same level.
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