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2[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gravemind350_3.jpg]]
3[[caption-width-right:350:''I...? I... am a monument... to all your sins.'']]
4->''"We exist together now. Two corpses in one grave..."''
5-->--'''The Gravemind'''
6
7* ''NightmareFuel/HaloCombatEvolved''
8* ''NightmareFuel/Halo2''
9* ''NightmareFuel/Halo3''
10* ''NightmareFuel/Halo3ODST''
11* ''NightmareFuel/HaloReach''
12* ''NightmareFuel/Halo4''
13* ''NightmareFuel/Halo5Guardians''
14* ''NightmareFuel/HaloInfinite''
15* ''NightmareFuel/HuntTheTruth''
16
17[[foldercontrol]]
18
19[[folder:Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn]]
20* Cortana's [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Gollum]] -esque "arguments" with her rampant mind in the teaser:
21--->'''Cortana''' ''(shrill, demonic voice)'': ''I hate you!''\
22''(as glowing sphere flashes bright red and distorts, unusually high-pitched voice, shocked)'': ''Cortana!''\
23''(shrill, demonic voice)'': '''''STOP IT!'''''\
24''(normal Cortana voice)'' I've made up my mind. ''(young girl's voice)'' If I'm going to die aboard this ship, ''then Chief will suffer the same fate as me!''\
25''(Elderly woman's voice)'': Cortana, ''control yourself!''\
26''(young woman's voice)'': ''I've'' sacrificed ''everything'' for '''''him!'''''
27** When her infighting/attempted murder of Chief is interrupted by her being intrigued by an unknown object near the ''Forward Unto Dawn'', she unintentionally caps off what makes Rampancy so frightening:
28---> '''Cortana''': ''I need to think...''\
29'''Cortana''': '''THINKING IS WHAT'S KILLING YOU!'''
30* The ''entire'' Covenant attack on Corbulo Academy. Even for hardened fans of the series who have gotten used to the Covenant presence in the franchise will probably be utterly terrified of them here, since A) the attack is at night B) it's completely a surprise and they kill everyone at the Academy besides Lasky, Orenski, and Sully, C) it's at the very start of the war, so nobody knows ''what in the hell'' they're being attacked by, and D) the entire attack is seen through the eyes of undertrained teenage cadets.
31* The screams of people falling from a destroyed Space Tether. There's some very appropriately squishy sound effects to go along with the impact. [[NotTheFallThatKillsYou To think the ones killed by plasma fire were the]] ''[[NotTheFallThatKillsYou lucky ones]]''.
32** Dimah was last seen on the Tether. One of the falling bodies is wearing an all-white uniform.
33** And the implication that they've been [[IFellForHours falling all that time]] since the debris from the collapsing tether first fell on their heads.
34* The Elite slicing the statue in half at the end of Episode 3.
35* Unlike in the games, where Elite's cloaking has a semi-visible distortion effect a la the Predator, in FUD, it's completely invisible. J.J.'s death is a illustrates how terrifying this is, as he literally walks into an Elite without seeing it.
36** From the look on his face, and the fact that he has time to warn them to stop, J.J. apparently knows it's there and realise's he's already dead meat.
37* In Episode 4, the cadets ask why the Chief came to save them; he responds that they were the last people still alive. The cadets are surprised that they're the sole survivors of the Academy, but Chief corrects them; they're the last surviving people ''on the planet''.
38* The reveal of the Hunter, backlit with unearthly green light and standing to its full height, utterly dwarfing Master Chief (who himself is over seven feet tall). The cadets are all even more terrified of this thing than they were the other Covenant, and even Chief looks like he's silently cursing as he stares up at it. And of course, as any player of ''Halo'' knows, Hunters always come in pairs...
39* John-117, the Master Chief, a seven-foot tall cyborg and a striding force of death and destruction is only fifteen years old in 2526. Meaning he's barely old enough to have a driver's license. Meaning he's even ''younger'' than the frightened cadets he's saving from certain death at the hands of monstrous, alien zealots. The fact he does this all with an almost robotic calm makes the human cost of the Spartan-II project seem that much more horrible.
40** Reinforced in the end of episode 5. The surviving cadets are aboard a Pelican with John-117, Fred-104, and Kelly-087. Kelly and Fred take off their helmets (They look at the Chief, who keeps his on and looks away), leaving the cadet surprised at how young they look, leading to this exchange:
41-->'''Sully''': How old are all of you?
42-->'''Kelly''': That's classified.
43* Episode 4 shows just how messy a supercombine can be. Colonel Mehaffy was damn near liquified.
44* Silva's death is more of a fridge horror but her death is prolonged not only for the sake of drama, but because the needle shot shattered inside her just below her lung. She died choking.
45[[/folder]]
46
47[[folder:Halo Wars]]
48* Flood maps in Halo Wars occasionally have what sounds very much like someone shrieking, "HELP ME!" as a random background noise.
49** The level Shield World sometimes has one of the Marines complain that he was bitten or scratched (by the Flood) and is starting to feel strange...
50** Those EldritchAbomination flood bases, with moving tentacles coming out from all sides. Eugh.
51*** "Release" takes it up to eleven with a ''[[ThatsNoMoon massive]]'' flood base, and enormous tentacles to go with it. And it can't be destroyed or damaged in any way, because it's all part of the map.
52* The Flood return in the game's DLC, and remain just as scary as before.
53** The excellently rendered, [[SarcasmMode beautiful]] Brute Combat Form seen when the Flood return for the first time.
54** The utterly gigantic Proto-Gravemind tentacles.
55* At then end of the campaign, Anders is riding the newly-completed Installation 09 through slipspace back to the Soell system, [[HopeSpot confident that she can get a message to the UNSC and finally reunite the crew with humanity.]] Suddenly, the Halo is ripped back into realspace and Anders steps outside to see [[RobotWar a Guardian in the sky]].
56--> '''Anders:''' [[SarcasmMode Good job, Ellen.]] [[ThisIsGonnaSuck It may have been safer on the Ark.]]
57[[/folder]]
58
59[[folder:The Forerunner Saga]]
60* The Precursors. Once driven by an obsession to create life, they were nearly wiped out by one of their creations, the Forerunners. They are '''''not''''' happy about it and deliver a terrifying message to the Forerunners:
61-->'''Gravemind/Precursor''': 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 grayness 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. ''[[MeaningfulEcho 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.]]'' ''[[AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence And now we are]] '' '''[[IAmLegion Legion.]]'''
62* The Librarian, leading an expedition to a nearby galaxy, finds a primitive society of Forerunners seeded on a planet millions of years ago. A recognizable Forerunner race inhabits the planet, but at close examination, it turns out that ''everything'' on the planet was once Forerunner. Every animal and plant. The team observes a herd of cattle with many recognizable Forerunner features. Imagine living on a planet where everything, from the grass you stand on to the animals you eat, is descended from people no different from you.
63* The Flood gains new levels of nightmare in this trilogy. Apparently, before they were the twisted space zombies [[BlatantLies we all know and love]], it was simply a dust which genetically altered certain animals and spread benignly via consumption. Eventually, it spread to humans, subtly altering their behavior, until, when it became a widely known problem, it didn't bother concealing its nature. The first incarnations that encountered humanity spread by forcing uninfected humans to consume infected humans forced to grow to horrendous sizes. To quote a description of how it was spread:
64--> "Infected individuals combined their resources to force other humans to become infected- usually by cannibalism of a sacrificial individual, induced to grow to prodigious size before being consumed while still alive."
65** What it did to some Forerunners was closer to the version seen in the games, though more horrific. One variation was basically dozens of Forerunners mashed together into a huge snake...centipede-beast...''thing'', complete with scales grown over their skin which moved using dozens of limbs stuck in its side, blobs of flesh with faces and limbs protruding, [[AndIMustScream some still conscious]], a twisted face melted into the thing's chest.
66* A new classification of Flood was identified in the later years of the Forerunner-Flood War: the Key Mind. In short, a Gravemind created from an ''entire planet's ecosystem''.
67* In addition to the graphic descriptions and chilling implications, the Flood's ability to corrupt is shown to extend far beyond mere biological matter.
68** The Flood's ability to subvert A.I.s was hinted at via Cortana and Mendicant Bias in Halo 3, but this ability was taken to its logical extreme when warring against the Forerunners, who were hit with a full on ''logic plague''. Essentially, the Flood was able to dominate and enslave A.I.s and non-sapient data even faster than biological beings, and since the Forerunners utilized ancillas in almost every aspect of their lives, everything they relied upon started to betray them even before the Flood attacked. Imagine an evolving, self-aware computer virus that doesn't just corrupt data but turns it ''actively malevolent''.
69--> Judicial Network has been compromised, attempting ''THERE IS PEACE IN SUBMISSION.'' --- Do not access judicial network! '''Do not access!'''
70--> All Forerunner judicial proceedings are now on hold. [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt All Forerunner culture is now on hold]].
71* Near the end of the war, when the infestation was at its zenith, [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace faster-than-light travel became phenomenally dangerous]], as [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien slip-space was being deliberately altered by the Flood to better serve their interests]]. The Flood essentially ''infested hyperspace!''
72* The Ur-Didact's fate. He was trapped in that Cryptum of his for 100,000 years, and because the Domain was destroyed (something which ruined the Librarian's plan when she put him in stasis), [[GoMadFromTheIsolation he was left all alone, with only his madness for company]]. No wonder he's ruthless and genocidal by the time John frees him.
73* The true relationship between the the Forerunner, Humans, and Precursors. They did indeed reject Forerunners for the Mantle and intended for humans to hold it. The Forerunners did not accept this and drove the Precursors from the galaxy and beyond. Some Precursors survived by going dormant, others became powder that could regenerate their old selves in time, but time rendered it defective and it only created sickness and disease. The Precursors vowed that none of their creations would rise against them again and that all life would suffer and be in perpetual agony, through their new form as the Flood.
74[[/folder]]
75
76[[folder:Miscellaneous]]
77* ''Broken Circle'' gives us a [[SarcasmMode delightful]] example in the Gravitational Refinement Device. ArtificialGravity, selectively taken up to eleven as a means of torture. The device can [[SquashedFlat flatten the flesh and bone in a limb]]. The blood is either forced out [[HighPressureBlood away from the victim]] or can be moved up the body, [[LudicrousGibs into untargeted areas.]]
78* Certain aspects of the Hunt the Truth ARG. ''Halo'' usually is one of the few franchises that doesn't portray highly unethical SuperSoldier programs as universally terrible, showing the immense success of the Spartans and all the good they've done. Journalist Ben Jiraud blows the lid off the entire program that ONI has covered up for decades. He describes in horrifying detail what it would be like to be a sentient clone with the mind of a child with the sole purpose of dying, all of this so the families of the kidnapped Spartans-to-be would think their children were actually dead.
79* The Special Applications Rifle, Caliber 14.5mm, SRS 99... aka, the Sniper Rifle System 99. While there are real life sniper rifles that do use large calibers (the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14.5%C3%97114mm 14.5×114mm]] APFSDS [[note]][[ArmorPiercingAttack Armor-Piercing]] Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot[[/note]] in this case), and sniper rifles that also use this caliber in particular, having a sniper rifle that powerful in ''any'' game would be OverKill and game over for anything that gets in its way, not to mention the [[LudicrousGibs results on any human body]]. This is technically a nightmare ''for both, the Covenant and the Humans'' and considering some of the [[EvilIsBigger things]] the Covenant field it's ''not'' overkill.

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