LogFAQs > #939358482

Lokarin posted...

also since the plan is starvation, my scenario still stands - the non-sapient life would still get to go on

If you leave the Flood alone, they effectively eat all of the sapient life in the universe, and infect pretty much any species that eventually becomes sapient. In essence, the Flood become both the dominant and only race in the entire galaxy (and potentially other galaxies as well, if they choose to spread), and no other race will ever evolve, period.

If you kill the Flood now, then any and every race that will eventually evolve to sapience in the future will live in a galaxy free of the Flood, and will be able to choose their own destiny.

So the Forerunner answer was basically "Well, we're doomed either way, and so is any other sapient life still alive now, but if we all mass suicide now, then countless races not yet born will be saved." And because the Forerunner philosophy was one of obligation to the lesser races, they saw the choice as acceptable.

Of course, all of this is stupidly subverted because the Forerunners kept samples of the Flood on the Halos, so one mistake is all it takes to start the entire crisis over again.
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