Halo Zombie
Vangele Ioannidis
Zombies is a gametype in Halo 2 based on the Slayer gamemode. In the gametype, red players are cast as survivors, whereas green players are the titular zombies, who must hunt down and kill the remaining survivors, at which point those survivors become zombies themselves. The gametype relies on an honour system; players are expected to manually switch teams upon death, and to equip the appropriate weapon for their team upon spawning. Initially, the Zombies gametype was a fan-made variant, but it was later officially distributed in an Official Xbox Magazine demo disc, making for a rare piece of Halo 2 downloadable content - though this is simply a repackaging of the fan-made gametype, and still relies on honour rules.
In Halo 3, the Zombies gametype became its own dedicated gamemode: Infection, wherein the rules of the mode are enforced by the game, rather than relying on an honour system. Infection (or the identical gamemode, Flood) has since appeared in every subsequent first-person installment of the franchise with a player-versus-player multiplayer, and has been cemented as one of the franchise's most popular modes.
The basic rules of Zombies involve two teams: a small starting green (or blue in some cases) team, who comprise the titular zombies, and a relatively large red team, the survivors. All players start with a Magnum and Energy Sword, and there are no shields. Upon spawning, red team players must equip the Magnum, while green team uses the Sword. Whenever a red team member is killed, they must switch to the green team. The ultimate goal for the survivors on red team is to last as long as possible without getting killed by the zombies, while the zombies' goal is to infect all remaining humans.[2]
The mode originated in Halo 2 custom games as a player-made variant of the Slayer gametype. It was based on honour rules, meaning players were trusted to manually switch teams when they were killed. In June 2005, this variant was distributed officially, in Issue 45 of the Official Xbox Magazine. The mode was included in a demo disc bundled with the magazine, and could be downloaded to the Xbox's hard drive and then played in Halo 2 as a game variant of Slayer, like any other.[3][1]
Zombie (or Zombies, Pandemic, and Dawn of The Dead) is a player-created game variant originating in Halo 2, although variants are also played in Halo PC. It's roots are now untraceable, and has become so popular that it has been translated into Halo 3 as Infection, with a few minor edits and many more custom game tools. The basic rules involve two teams: a small starting green (or blue in some cases) team and a relatively large red team. There are no shields; red team sports a Shotgun and a Pistol and green team (the zombies) sports an Energy Sword. Whenever a red team member is killed, they must switch to green team. The ultimate goal is to last as long as possible without getting killed by the Zombies, and becoming one themselves.
The Gametype Infection features the living dead known as Zombies. With quotes such as Infected and New Zombie commonly appearing. The aim is for the Zombies to kill all of the living to join their ranks. Although people can do the Zombie gametype from Halo 2 in Halo Slayer, Zombies have now been given their own, specific game.
My sleep that night was erratic. My child thinks Jesus is a zombie, and I am hands down the worst mother to ever have permission to rear a life chanted the voices coming from my pillow. My Catholic upbringing was ever present. I attended weekly Mass at my all-girls Catholic school from grades one through 12 and on weekends with my parents. For my entire pre-college education, I had religion class. So the idea that the meaning of Easter was not relayed to my son properly left me with enough guilt to sink the Titanic, again.
My faith and the belief in a higher power is the foundation of my life. The fact that my son surmised that Jesus is a zombie from my explanation of the Resurrection made me question religion and what role it would play in his own upbringing.
In every parent-teacher conference, his teachers remark on his compassion toward his classmates. They tell me he is humble, kind, and courteous; qualities that in my opinion highlight how our faith has impacted his life.
The Bible arrived, and he performed a CSI-level inspection even after I assured him that it had never been used. It has a reading plan, which can guide him through the Bible every day of the year. I find myself wondering what is going on inside of his head and his heart as his journey toward defining what God means to him begins.
The Flood is a parasitic alien creature that appears in the popular first-person shooter series, Halo. This organism is focused on killing and absorbing every sentient creature it can find, similar to that of a common zombie.
The Flood first appeared over 100,000 years B.C.E (Before Common Era, or just B.C.), when the alien organism attacked several Forerunner-controlled planets and proceeded to infect nearly every living thing it could find. This led to a long war spanning several decades and resulted in the fall , before the Iso-Didact, a Forerunner commander/general, activated the Halo Array, a series of ring-shaped weapons whose goal was to deprive the Flood of its food supply: sentient beings. The Array did this by generating a pulse that killed all sentient organisms it touched, and, when combined with the remaining Halos, annihalated all non-protected life in the galaxy, including the entirety of the Forerunners with the exception of the Ur-Didact. This effectively rendered the Flood starved, with the exception of trace colonies established on certain Shield Worlds and captive test groups sent to specific Halos for study by Forerunner Monitors, the guardians of the Halo weapons. One of these test groups escaped and eventually overtook the Monitor of Delta Halo, or Installation 05. This resulted in the complete takeover of the area around the Library of Delta Halo, what is now known as the Quarantine Zone.
A milenia later, in 2531, the UNSC Spirit of Fire, a human warship following a Covenant signature, stumbled upon a massive Flood presence on Shield World 0459, a relic of the Forerunners meant to protect sentient life there within a micro-Dyson sphere, or, in the case of 0459, a hollow interior that protected occupants from Halo effects. The Flood biomass here had caused a complete takeover of the surface of the installation, and trace colonies were scattered across the interior. These colonies included a Proto-Gravemind, the basic developing brain of that Flood colony. This colony was destroyed alongside Shield 0459 when Spirit of Fire detonated her faster-than-light Slipspace drive inside the planet's artificial sun.
21 years later, in the year 2552, a human spaceship, named the Pillar of Autumn, stumbled upon Installation 04, the first Halo to be discovered by humanity, when the Autumn made an emergency Slipspace jump away from the under-attack colony of Reach. Here, Spartan Sierra-117, or the Master Chief, stumbled upon that Halo's Flood subjects, who had been unwittingly released by the Covenant. These subjects eventually spread throughout the immediate regions of the installation. The Master Chief resorted to destroying the Pillar of Autumn, now crashed on the surface of Halo, by detonating the engine cores, which resulted in an explosion that fractured the ring into desolate segments after the fires reached over 1,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Several weeks later, the UNSC In Amber Clad, along with the Master Chief, discovered another Halo (Delta Halo). Coupled with the ignorance of the 05 Monitor, 2401 Penitent Tangent, the Flood subjects on the installation escaped, and caused a complete takeover of the area surrounding Delta Halo's Library. After Master Chief killed the Prophet of Regret, he was knocked unconcious by a Covenant ship's plasma bombardment and was taken captive by the Flood. It was discovered that the Flood Gravemind, a sentient organism comprised of the minds of thousands of hosts, was present in the depths of Delta Halo. This Gravemind was later destroyed when the Mater Chief activated the replacement for Installation 04 before completion, destroying the replacement and the Gravemind, as well as decimating the surface of the Ark and splitting the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn in half during the Master Chief's escape with the Arbiter. There has been no contact with any Flood resistance since the Gravemind's destruction.
The Flood is operated by a single hivemind-like creature known as the Gravemind. This joint organism is formed from the minds of many different hosts. Similar to the way ants work, the Gravemind commands all Flood colonies within reach, often on several planets. It sends orders in a drone-like fashion to infected hosts, who then work to complete an objective.
The Flood comes in many different forms. Mutations occur quite often, typically when a Gravemind is established. These "pure forms" are created purely from Flood biomass and do not require a host. The most common forms of Flood are Infection forms. These organisms are a small form of Pure Flood, and are the most typical forms of infection. Similar to Half-Life's Headcrabs, Infection Forms jump onto a potential host and latch onto any possible grips with it's legs. The Infection form then proceeds to burrow into the victims chest with its tentacles, which sprout blotches of biomass and result in a complete takeover of the host's nervous system and motor functions, as well as increased mobility (long jumps) and limited use of weaponry. These Infection Forms often group into large swathes, capable of overwhelming even the most resilient of attackers. Other forms of Flood infection are through spores, which, when breathed through the lungs of a host, suffocate and infect the victim.
The second most encountered form is the Combat Form. These organisms consist of an infected host occupied by an Infection Form. These combatants often grow long claws sprouting from the host's wrists and hands, and the heads of the victims are often deformed and misplaced. For example, the Elite Combat Form. The head of the unfortunate host is turned fully around in the socket and nearly encased in biomass, and the chest in completely covered over. The Human Combat Form has its head popped out of its socket and frozen in a scream or just dangling open. These Combat Forms have limited use of weaponry, often those that were in the hands of the host. These forms are quite formidable combatants, and should be approached wearily.
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