Hey there guys, it's Tuckerscreator' 20:00, June 8, 2010 (UTC). A while ago I had some issues with logging in, as my computer was blocking me out, and for now I have found this workaround of using another computer. So my responses might now be pretty spread out in between, and it will be harder to make some constructive edits, but at least I can still type again.
Anyway, I started this forum because I wanted to ask a simple question: Did the UNSC really do all it could do? I'm curious because essentially I'm working on a fanfic called "Spoils of War" about a vigilante who believes that he must kill the Spartans. What leads him to this is when he manages to break into ONI files and gain secret data about the war, the Covenant, and the Spartans.
Now, half the reason he does this is because he believes the UNSC to be run by incompetents, who completely bungled the war and wasted their time on expensive and ineffectual programs that accomplished nothing in the long run. Writing this, I was curious when writing all his criticisms, and wanted to know what you guys's views are.
Now keep in mind that many of his criticisms (his name's Barton) are meant to be a little misfired, since he misinterprets some of data, such as assuming that the Spartan-II program was created to fight the Covenant, when it was really created to fight Insurrectionists. Half of it is also because he missed out on much of the war(got stuck in cryo-sleep, long story.) and as such didn't feel the desperation that the rest of humanity felt during the war.
I'm not going to put up all his criticisms here, I'd rather save them for the main story! But on some of his point on the UNSC Navy, the books and games are sometimes rather vague so I'd like to know your views. Basically, he argues that:
- The Spartan program was wasted by creating ground soldiers when they should have focused on creating brilliant child fleet admirals.
- Admiral Cole And Hood were incompetent commanders, Cole being too prone to wasting ships, Hood being too cautious and over reliant on values of honor and "going down with the ship."
- There wasn't enough of an effort to reverse engineer Covenant technology or offense attempts on their worlds.
- There was zero regard for the post-war future.
Now, on point 1 and 3 he's wrong, in another fic of mine it turns out there actually WAS an offensive attempt on Covenant worlds using child prodigy admirals, but poor communication killed and they didn't arrive until after the war was over(But they didn't know that. Uh-oh.) As for points 2 and 4, the canon is rather vague about this, so I would like to know your views, are his criticisms really justified in light of the entire Human-Covenant War? Please respond, I'll be glad to hear your thoughts.Tuckerscreator' 20:00, June 8, 2010 (UTC)
- I'm of the opinion that the UNSC actually did very well in the war, and that they were actually in a fairly good position after it was over, far cry from the "Oh God, Earth's all we've got left, there's only 200 million Humans left" wailing. Canon actually backs me up on this: At the Covenant's Step of Silence in High Charity, there's only 76 glass shards, each representing a planet glassed by the Covenant. 76. 76, out of 800 UNSC colony planets. The Cole Protocol apparently worked very well, if after 25 years the Covenant only found 76 UNSC colonies (possibly less, especially if the Covenant have glassed planets before the Human-Covenant War). UNSC ground forces were actually highly effective against the Covenant, it was in space where they failed. Thinking about it, the UNSC should probably have a pretty large colonial population and a large base of resources to draw on to begin rebuilding, although, the Halo Encyclopedia (which has a few errors, I admit), does say that only 17 out of 800 colonies had Human settlements on them (I'm going to assume that means major settlements of over a billion people. Anything else is unrealistic). Maybe the rest were poorly populated industrial or agricultural worlds, and the Covenant glassed quite a few of those as well as a number, maybe even a significant percentage, of those heavily populated worlds, which, given the civilian losses suffered at Earth, might do result in a nasty dip in the Human population.--The All-knowing Sith'ari 20:34, June 8, 2010 (UTC)
- So the Cole Protocol seems like it worked, based on those numbers, although I'm a little unsure about them as 091 posted a link a while back where Joseph Staten said that the "800 colonies" number was never canon, as it was written by a non-Bungie employee. But otherwise, what about battle wise? Can it all be chalked up to the fact that the Covenant were simply so much more advanced or was the UNSC really taking too long to exploit flaws in Covenant strategy?Tuckerscreator' 20:45, June 8, 2010 (UTC)
- Regarding the Step of Silence; that is an error. The Step of Silence is an age within the Ninth Age of Reclamation. The previous editors misinterpreted the format and deduced that it was the chamber within the Hierarchs. The shards of glass did in fact represented planets glassed by the Covenant, but it also included those before the Human-Covenant War. So, the exact number of human planets glassed by the Covenant remains unknown.
- As for the topic; I believe the UNSC did everything it could to combat the Covenant but knew it was an impossible victory. Focusing on naval firepower/tactics aren't always the solution to everything. We know that Covenant ships would eventually overwhelm the UNSC because of their superiority. The creation and support of the SPARTAN programs was crucial in slowing down the Covenant by eliminating key members and locations that fuel the Covenant's efforts. Ackerson's plan would be fundamental to this cause; trading lives for time, knowing that they would eventually lose the war. As Halsey once said, the UNSC is fighting a losing war and she knew the Covenant would eventually find Earth and eliminate humanity. It was an inevitable defeat.
- The turning point of the war was the stumble of Installation 04, which is a good luck charm to humanity... perhaps John-117's luck played some role? The downfall of the Covenant started when Installation 04 was destroyed; events after this crucial moment were fundamental in turning humanity's doomed fate.- 5əb'7aŋk(7alk) 20:48, June 8, 2010 (UTC)
- I guess that's the part I sometimes have trouble with myself, that the entire war was turned around within a space of just 6 months. It IS due the victories at Alpha Halo, Unyielding Hierophant, and the Ark, but what I've wondering is why those three battles WERE such devastating blows. Did the Covenant just have just too many ships at those regions or did their overconfidence just cause them to not build any backup ones?Tuckerscreator' 20:58, June 8, 2010 (UTC)
- Might be a little of both as well as some other reasons, such as (1) Flood consumed High Charity, probably reducing the Covenant's strength by millions, if not billions. (2) Great Schism broke out (y'know, Truth chose the WORST possible time to ignite civil war, or am I missing something?); that broke the Covenant apart entirely. And (3) All three hierarchs ended up dead. Without them, the Jiralhanae started repeating their cycles of internecine civil war. It's also possible that the Covenant felt the end of humanity was near and thus chose to tone down on ship production. But who knows? In the end, it's just Bungie who knows the whole truth :) --Survivor of the Old Guard
- Well, the destruction of Alpha Halo led to a political instability in Delta Halo, led by the Arbiter whom is fuelled by the former Heretic Leader and the Gravemind. Had it not been for both, the Arbiter would have simply be like the Arbiter we see in Halo Wars. A mere puppet. Without the destruction of Alpha Halo, the Shield World in Onyx would've not activate. The same applies to the Portal in Earth. Only with Alpha Halo's destruction these installations would activate.
- The destruction of the Unyielding Heirophant wasn't that significant to saving humanity; it only bought them time. Truth had them as the first strike force to weaken Earth's defense, if such defense exist like it did over Reach. As we see in H2, Earth manage to assemble far larger numbers of ODPs. If his strike force to weaken the enemy's defense fails, he can always use High Charity's defense fleet to perform that duty at the risk of having High Charity damaged. Keep in mind that the fleet protecting High Charity is larger.- 5əb'7aŋk(7alk) 21:24, June 8, 2010 (UTC)
- So the sudden collapse of the Covenant's assault on humanity was because of civil war. So they essentially forgot? Given the sudden lack of leadership with the death of Truth, I can see how this is possible, though it seems a little TOO covenient for everything to all be place like that. Still, makes sense, gotta give them credit.
- On the other hand, what about offensive attempts? I already mentioned my attempt above to answer this question, but to me it feels like, aside from FIRST STRIKE, which you said was to buy more time, and the canceled "capture a Prophet" mission, there seems to be very little effort by humanity to attack major covenant strongholds in an offensive attempt until very late in the war. And Cole himself say in "Evolutions" that all they'd need to find Covenant worlds would be a couple of satelliates.Tuckerscreator' 21:34, June 8, 2010 (UTC)
- In a sense, yes. To launch a successful assault, you need a stable structure within the military/government. If you don't have unity or the trust of your military officers/advisors, the assault will fail to some extent.
- You have to know that the Covenant has been on an offensive role ever since the Human-Covenant War broke out. Due to with inferior technology and numbers, the UNSC would have to focus on establishing proper defense. Once a defensive line is established, then they could try focus on attacking Covenant-populated planets. Such defense would be the Cole Protocol but the protocol itself isn't always enacted successfully. Then came the ODPs but developments and production of such were too slow. So, in all, the UNSC was too slow in having a proper defense. To go all out by finding and attacking Covenant-populated planet would be of high risk and of stupidity for disregarding the safety of others.- 5əb'7aŋk(7alk) 21:43, June 8, 2010 (UTC)
Well, human fleets were constantly eradicated, so I'd say there wasn't much room for offensives. But there may have been more missions than those revealed in the books. Headhunters tell us that several elite S-III pairs fought behind enemy lines, as did Grey Team. But there isn't much point in offensives if you don't have anything to attack with, so maybe most people thought that sending satellites to look for Covenant worlds would be a waste of resources.
And, even if they did find a Covenant world, it may be utterly insignificant as to the outcome of the conflict (ex. a backwater colony), and then the satellites would've been wasted. Add to that that the Covenant had difficulty finding the human worlds, and they had the Luminaries that reacted on humans and their AIs. As such, I think Satellites would've been less successful. This was another advantage for the Covenant; their goal was humanity's utter annihilation, so they just had to find the worlds one by one, ANY world, militarily significant or not. But for the UNSC to benefit, they would have to find a target worth attacking, and then somehow gather enough resources, ships and men to attack it.
Thus, it's quite likely that the actions against the Covenant late in the war was out of utter desperation; those who approved the Capture the Prophet mission probably didn't expect it to actually suceed, they were just desperate. And let's not get started about FIRST STRIKE. Just expressing my own opinions here.
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