A few Precursors either escaped or were spared by the Forerunners. They either went into suspended animation or became molecular dust that was meant to eventually regenerate into their past forms. However, over millions of years, the dust became defective, failing to reconstitute the Precursors and instead inducing madness and mutations in life-forms that came in contact with it. This new form of the reduced Precursors would later be known as the Flood. Far from accepting failure and extinction, the Precursors viewed the Flood as a means to bring unity to the galaxy, as well as punish the Forerunners for their insolence. Vowing that none of their creations would rise against them again, the Precursors decided that all life would be deprived of free will and merged into one; in the end, the sum of the Precursors' creation would be a reflection of themselves and the suffering their creations caused them.