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1) Cortana says that the Gravemind did not know about the portal to The Ark, or to where it led. How would the Gravemind even know where to go, assuming it could slipspace High Charity at least 200,000 light years away?

2) Physically speaking, how did the Gravemind manage to slipspace High Charity all the way to the Ark when even the best Covenant slipspace technology could only perform at approximately 1000 light years per day for CAS-Class Assault Carriers and the like at optimal condition (which High Charity was not given it lacked the Keyship to power it)?

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The Gravemind had taken over High Charity during the ending events of Halo 2. From there it intended to attack the Earth, but learned upon assimilation of Regret and Mercy of Truth's plan to activate the Ark and fire all the Halo rings, which would eliminate any organism capable of hosting the Flood. Thus it decided to follow Truth to Earth and put a stop to his plans. It modified High Charity's energy source to get it through slip-space and went to the Earth, arriving just after the portal to the Ark was activated. From there, it took High Charity through the portal to the Ark. High Charity was actually unable to survive the jump and ending up breaking apart and crashing into the Ark installation on the other side of the portal, but that was enough to get him in position to form an uneasy alliance with The Arbiter and John-117 to stop Truth from activating the Ark.

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  • Hold on... I thought that the portal was only 90km wide, and High Charity is like 250km across. It couldn't fit through the portal.
    – mematusz
    Apr 28, 2016 at 5:38
  • Possibly only a portion of High Charity went through the portal as it had been breaking up on its path to Earth (we know High Charity was headed to Earth due to Cortana's message received at the end of the mission Floodgate). High Charity itself wasn't meant to enter slipspace without the modifications the Gravemind made, as it relied on the Forerunner dreadnought to enter slipspace prior and Truth took that with him to Earth, hence why it was breaking apart under the stress of slipspace travel.
    – Jimmy M.
    Apr 28, 2016 at 14:12
  • Yes, but it clearly it had its original form when it first appeared in the skies of the Ark. This means that it was intact at least for the duration that it had endured strenuous slipspace travel. And besides this, if High Charity were broken up on its path to Earth, its shielding would be incomplete and the ship and Gravemind would not have been able to even travel through more slipspace - like how Cortana mentions that the spacecraft in Halo 4 didn't have shields certified for slipspace? The star roads were wiped out by the Array and so we are still left at the original plot hole.
    – mematusz
    May 12, 2016 at 18:21
  • @VPrime The Gravemind clearly had an advanced understanding of Forerunner systems (see how it was able to use the teleportation system on Delta Halo). If the slipspace portal was indeed too small when Truth activated it the Gravemind would probably be able to correct that. These same slipspace portals were how the Halos were initially distributed throughout the galaxy, and Halos are much larger than High Charity.
    – EldritchWarlord
    Jun 17, 2016 at 19:34
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  1. It is highly possible that the Gravemind absorbed the knowledge of the Ark's location from any of the countless covenant or humans that it consumed. Also, considering that the Gravemind tortured Cortana while she was stuck in High Charity, it is highly possible that the Gravemind fooled Cortana into believing that it did not know about the portal to The Ark as a way to keep the Sangheili-Human alliance out off its back while it came up with a plan of attack.

  2. The Gravemind, being basically of Precursor origin, had the knowledge and ability to access slipspace technology that was eons ahead of even the Forerunners, this gave it the capability of traveling across vast distances much faster and more efficiently than the "normal" slipspace used by the Covenant and Humans at the time. The Gravemind's ability to master Precursor technology, is explained in the Forerunner Saga books.

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