Alright, now just for its own sake, here's a chapter of what would happen to our world if the Flood were to show up out of nowhere. Can we survive against the rampaging Parasite?
Well, obviously not, we'd be lucky to last a day. Still, it's both entertaining and horrifying to think about, so let's take a look at what would happen to us. Inspired by a couple of threads I read on Space Battles.
Disclaimer: I do not own Halo.
It was an average day in New York City. The hustle and bustle of the Big Apple gave a sense of familiarity to the native New Yorkers while simultaneously awing the tourists from all over the globe.
They were all blissfully unaware of the hell that was about to be unleashed.
A single Flood dispersal pod landed in Times Square, drawing the attention of everyone around them. Screaming erupted as those closest to the impact site saw the grotesque horrors within.
In moments, one combat form had brutally mauled a dozen people, while infection forms leapt onto the people running and screaming, quickly converting them into more combat forms.
At this point, the police had arrived in force, and attempted to quarantine the situation. But already, hundreds had been infected, and their bullets did very little to their superhuman opponents, who rushed into their lines.
After 30 minutes, millions of people had been infected, and Flood forms were making their way out of the city via cars, boats or planes, as they rushed straight to the airports and normal ports, overwhelming the token defenses those locations had.
An hour later, the National Guard had arrived and attempted to gain control of the situation, but the Flood were too numerous and widespread, and quickly overwhelmed their efforts as well.
The government in Washington had little accurate intelligence as to what was happening, as the Flood had hijacked all communications and were spreading all sorts of misinformation. Having started in New York, the Parasite had taken control of the stock market and sent the global economy into freefall. Not that it mattered at any rate.
Within the hour, several planes crashed into the heart of Washington, some shot down by the air force and others just crashing of their own volition, spreading chaos and infection everywhere. One flaming plane kamikazed straight into the White House, as the Flood had made it a priority to decapitate the largest nation on the planet, having already gained lots of intel from infecting the UN.
The President had already been moved to the bunker, but the safe zone hadn't been designed with the Flood in mind. Within moments, the Parasite had broken through the Secret Service lines in spite of their best efforts, and quickly breached the bunker. The President and Washington had fallen.
The Flood's spread wasn't just limited to Washington and New York; hundreds of cities all over the North American continent had already been hit as the Flood eagerly targeted every population center and military base they could find. The air force had made a valiant effort to shoot down as many planes as possible, but it was all for naught.
Hundreds had slipped through the cracks, allowing the Flood to spread further to not only America, but the rest of the world. With little information, many cities around the rest of the world were unprepared as airplanes crashed into their capitals, spreading infection in their wake.
Cities with the highest population counts became more vectors for the Flood, adding to the chaos and governmental collapse as millions of civilians were turned into shrieking superhuman monsters, tearing through law and enforcement with ease.
It was at this stage that the governments finally resorted to nuking the largest areas of infestation, but it was too little, and too late. The Parasite had spread too far among the world to be stopped, and threw the survivors into chaos.
Those fortunate to be isolated from the cities when the Infection occured had little idea as to what was happening. Some rural areas escaped the onslaught, only to fall once 'refugees' made their way down there.
The pattern continued all over the globe, as one by one, cities and contries everywhere fell to the Flood, who kept growing exponentially with every human lost. Spores choked the atmosphere, blotting out the sun and spreading infection throughout the world.
Within 24 hours, it was all over. The Flood had consumed almost everyone in the world, with the amount of survivors in the single digits. A number that would quickly change as the Flood actively hunted them down.
But of course they weren't finished yet: having control over every former space program on the planet, the Flood launched payloads filled with Flood spores on collision courses with the few space stations in orbit.
The astronauts only had the word of ground control to go on about the inbound rockets, and so many let them onboard only to realize their mistake too late. With the death of the astronauts, the last humans native to this universe had been extinguished.
...
By the time the superpowers had arrived it was far too late. The planet had been completely infested by the Parasite, some of which had clearly made it off world. There was clearly no point in wasting lives on pointless evacuation efforts.
A small battle group of Republic and Separatist cruisers gathered in orbit over the infested planet. Beams of energy lanced out, shattering continents and tectonic plates via gravity warping before converging, amplifying their power to compress the Earth into a micro-singularity, which promptly dispersed.
Now, all that remained of planet Earth was nothing but dust.
Well, as can be plainly seen, if the Flood landed on modern Earth, we would be well and truly fucked beyond all measure. It also shows that for all the power of the Republic and Separatists, even they can't be everywhere at once, and exactly what they'll do to infected worlds too far gone to save.
Still, I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter and reviews are always welcome.