Halo Space Combat Is Brutal

Thanks again to the lads at halopedia.com for providing much of the lore and details for this video ► Like and Subscribe ► The UNSC fought desperate space battles against the Covenant for small victories in their attempt to stop the destruction of humanity. Rare victories for the UNSC still cost countless ships.
#halo #haloinfinite

[@fatal3713]

UNSC losing UNSC: Load tha brick

[@boombang0418]

Love that Sergeant Johnson line.

[@kestrels-in-the-sky]

I love that you missed the t it gives the idea of a future Brummy

[@snowmanjj]

He did fly pretty good though

[@medicodyssey]

For a brick he flew pretty good!

[@Bobofett239]

FR Jorge and pre-Reach Noble 6: “I sacrificed myself to detonate a bomb to blow up a big covenant ship and saved countless lives” MC: “you had to sacrifice yourself?”

[@DistortionUltra]

Sigma Octanis was nuts. like 300 human ships and a massive repair and refit to kill a few dozen covenant ships. Reach was nuts too, originally doing really well with the dozens of orbital MACs but pinpoint slip jumps and the steal landing of the supercarriers was crippling. Meanwhile, Keyes uses ONE destroyer to kill two covenant cruisers, nearly kill a massive capital ship, and made a carrier run. ONE VS 4

[@Nikos.]

These are awesome, and I also find the time when the Innie and UNSC fleets teamed up together

[@fredbyoutubing]

The Pillar of Autumn was a true hero ship. Initially outfitted for operation Red Flag as a lead capital ship carrying Spartans, the most advanced AI, Cortana, plus elite Marines and ODSTs. It was a desperate almost suicidal mission to board and capture a Covenant capital ship. Then use it to sneak on High Charity and capture the prophets and use them as hostages to negotiate peace. The Autumn was old but completely revamped with new weapons, engine boosters and the ability to take extremes amount of structural damage and still function. I know the lore came after, but it explained why it was so hard to take down in Halo CE and why the Marines onboard were all badasses eager to fight.

[@ArtyKibbles2190]

⁠​⁠​⁠@@fredbyoutubingThe Pillar of Autumn also had that honeycomb pattern that made up its structure so it could take more of a beating than other ships

[@ash3s2dust7]

I'm pretty sure Preston Cole had some pretty good wins as well. I think it's was at harvest

[@michaelhaykal6548]

​@@ash3s2dust7Psi Serpentis was his most stunninh win

[@lanceleader163]

When you first saw Halo, were you blinded by its majesty?

[@D.Ambrose]

Blinded?

[@treytat1]

Paralyzed, Dumbstruck?

[@treytat1]

No!

[@treytat1]

Yet, the humans were able to evade your ships, land on the sacred Rings, and desecrate them with their filthy footsteps.

[@treytat1]

Noble hierarchs, surely understand that once the parasite attacked…

[@Sadako_Woo]

Ship master! Out numbered 3 to 1 “ Then it is an even fight”

[@jayvhoncalma3458]

UNSC in the comms: *first time?*

[@anthonylabrecque3396]

Who els read the first part in the wort wort elite voice?

[@da_berry6695]

This makes so much sense now wow

[@florians9949]

Weren’t the brutes steamroled on that one?

[@oscarcolunga8992]

“Burn their mongrel hinds”

[@JohntheDoe572]

This makes me realize even more how close the Covenant were to victory if Truth was just a *liiiiittle* less power hungry

[@haramberoth117]

It really be like that. They would have won if he just left thel alone. If they stayed a ship commander and was let loose back of humanity we would have lost. Thel was a massive problem and a tactical genius. He single handily caused so much human death. Truth lost because he let his pride and religion cloud his judgment.

[@m4x927]

@@haramberoth117 iirc, thel wiped out 3% of humanity.

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

@@haramberoth117a religion he knew was false

[@rivencraft1734]

Remove 2 Spartans, or hold 2 covvies back and everything would have been different.

[@TheHippyProductions]

​@@rivencraft1734 yeah imagine if ONI didnt let Noble have their precious boytoy...even IF any spartan 3 couldve made it as far as Six did, which is just no, dont know how many wouldve had the battlefield experience to CORRECT KEYES on how he needs to stay behind to secure their transportation. seriously, Keyes was just gonna let him aboard like "hey bro we'll take our chances you've done enough" and Six had the grit to understand what needed to be done. perfect ending to the series making it all come full circle like that

[@soulofcinder4748]

Thr Fall of Reach was devasting for the human fleet. If you play the campaign, they literally say "60% of UNSC forces were coming to reinforce Reach" and yet Reach still fell. Keep that in mind

[@physical_insanity]

Funnily enough, when it comes to the Fall of Reach, the only Naval assets listed in the battle are those of the Epsilon Eridani fleet, basically Reach's defence fleet, which only consists of 152 ships max. When Auntie Dot mentions the incoming UNSC reinforcements, it's entirely likely she's referring to just ships from that fleet being recalled back to Reach from elsewhere in the system, meanwhile the rest of the UNSC fleet was still golfing off elsewhere or was advised not to show up in order not to further cripple the Navy than it already had, which makes sense, because the UNSC was trying to enact Operation Red Flag during the Fall, which involved sacrificing Reach to complete step one, so fighting tooth and nail to save a planet that was meant to be lost wouldn't make sense.

[@nton8057]

​@@physical_insanity It was the whole fleet that was being recalled however human warships take time . they likely didnt all arrive back in time.

[@matthewchristian9591]

Yeah the 60% reinforcements didnt make it in time and they didnt even go down to the planet too look for survivors.

[@TheWorldMemeDatabase]

Reach really scrambled the already-established account of the Fall of Reach, which I actually prefer to the game’s despite loving that game. Having the invasion take place over a month with the Covenant sneaking ground forces planetside for some reason and somehow getting a 17 mile long ship past the orbital grid, just isn’t as cool or representative of Covenant military doctrine up to that point compared to a big ass fleet arriving and wiping Reach out in a day.

[@milkymalik2628]

​@@TheWorldMemeDatabase Reach takes place in a month? I would've figured it was over a couple of days

[@tonywhitburn]

So this is why Rtas wasn't affraid at all to be outnumbered 3 to 1

[@shrek1745]

Well yes but he's actually just that cool

[@thathappyaussie5209]

He wasn’t afraid just because the Sangheili had far more experience commanding ships than the Jiralhanae - he would’ve still recognised the danger of fellow Covenant ships

[@mikeym.4724]

Perhaps his flagship carrier was more advanced and powerful as to fight 3 brute carriers with just his limited fleet of 7 cruisers and One human frigate. I mean for total numbers It was Human - Elite alliance: -1 Assault Carrier -1 Human Frigate (Forward unto dawn) -7 cruisers (Get It 117? :P) Covenant ships: -3 Assault Carriers -6 cruisers

[@IvanIvanovv]

Nah homie half jaw just has that dawg in him

[@michaelbarquet4169]

I think it has to do with rtas being a badass and the brutes being dumbasses with space combat. Honestly the prophets losing the elites was a huge screw up on their part. The elites commanded the military for the majority of the war. How did they expect them to win without them.

[@odstjackson]

Always loved this part of the lore. Covenant dominated in space, UNSC dominated planetary ops. Which resulted in glassing.

[@songyani3992]

In the grand scheme of things glassing was the only winning strategy for covenant even with this kind of loss ratio in space battles. Considering there were almost 10 billion people pre-war, losing a few million every year in space battles would not be a decisive loss for humanity given the birthrate of such a huge population.

[@sanchorim8014]

I think the lore is that the UNSC is more on par with the Covvies on the ground, rather than dominating.

[@paulb5571]

@@songyani3992 Some of the easter egg datapads found in game detailed an report on how the glassing of planets was actually a double edged sword for the Covenant. It was used a a rallying cry to enrage humanity, while it was a inefficient use of their ships and time. Essentially the required numbers to start at the poles and literally burn the entire planet took so much time and effort that it would've have been better for them to target enemy infrastructure, leave the planet in shambles and move on.

[@alphacentauri3069]

Mmmmmmmmm no. It took the UNSC five years to get one colony world back. And it only went downhill from there. UNSC only did well when Spartans were present.

[@NoNameTaken117]

UNSC only were good with planetary ops because they were on the defensive, any attackers are gonna have a hard time fighting against an enemy that knows its way around a fortress.

[@spartantraveler7251]

The only overwhelming human victory was when Cole insulted their religion and nuked a star.

[@unscinfinity3337]

*gas giant

[@quorthon8411]

​@@unscinfinity3337that became a kinda-sorta-but-not-that-much star

[@KingAce595]

I'm sorry, was Cutter running and gunning from one fight to the next with a BARELY Warship not victorius enough for you? How about stopping the banished from taking the lesser arc WITH THAT SAME SHIP AND WHAT REMAINS OF ITS CREW?

[@spartantraveler7251]

@@KingAce595 1v1 vs 1v100 or something. Actually the biggest win should be when an Engineer messed with a Nova bomb and destroyed a planet and more than half of a fleet of Covenant ships, like over 200 destroyed.

[@KingAce595]

@spartantraveler7251 Actually, it was a Grunt. Personally, I don't fully agree that that should be considered their greatest victory, though I see how it can be debated

[@bamaboy5746]

It's generally believed that the odds of 2-1 were required for a real chance of victory. It was early on that Naval Command realized that covvie shield strength would only be diminished following coordinated MAC strikes from either ship or platfomed mounted MACs. Early war doctrine had fleets only engage free flying covenant forces (out in space) if such odds were in Humanitys favor. Fleet captains had to coordinate among themselves, firing their MAC in quick succession and moving to the rear line to re-arm. This was the fastest way to depelete shields. A regular concern of all captains was the firing of ALL fleet macs at the same time, leaving no ship free for follow-up shots, putting the fleet in extreme danger until a ships MAC was ready to fire.

[@smmk88]

Twas 3-1 odds

[@kerbodynamicx472]

Is it like the strategy used by musket firing squads?

[@bamaboy5746]

@@kerbodynamicx472 yes, actually. The grouping was considered dangerous in conventional warfare and was only used in these seldom instances to maximize firepower and avoid missing shots ( though I must confess I do not know much about covenant ships, the cases where in-game cutscenes showcase covenant ship weaponry makes it seems extremely risky for close flying ships in a fleet )

[@uknown6t669]

To also put things into perspective, the covenant never really took humanity seriously. They still had their fleet for high charity and anti-pirate fleets, and they were fighting the banished and even some border security fleets as well. The full military might of the covenant, which has been around for over a thousand years, was never focused on humanity. I could imagine the human/covenant war was more of a border skirmish for the covenant.

[@yagami1134]

This! 🎉

[@Kevineitor199]

nah, this was a retcon to get "not covenant" as enemies again, because they realized people didnt really liked forerunner enemies

[@narommalagonmorales2663]

At first, yes, by the end of combat evolved and Halo 2 they were priority for the Covenant, because of the "forerunner" Nature of humanity, being the reclaimers, and having the unit most well known by the entire Covenant, the Demon, Master chief

[@seemslegit6203]

​@@narommalagonmorales2663priority, kind of, but not the sole focus. There's a reason why they didn't just steamroll every human sector with a dozen supercarriers

[@robertharris6092]

​@@Kevineitor199 a kig yar and insure tionist colony litersly made friends.

[@Commander_Appo]

This is probably why there hasn’t been an official halo space battle game like empire at war or sins of the prophets. However, now that humanity as of Infinite is able to dominate against alien ships, maybe it’s about time we get an official one.

[@alexhensley-om3sh]

I think there was a picture teaser of halo wars 3 and it showed space combat but I wouldn’t hold your breath. Would be so awesome for there to be a modern halo space rts in the format of say, SW Empire at War

[@lostvayne104]

But cortana took out the entire UNSC fleet except the infinity

[@Commander_Appo]

@@lostvayne104 I’m talking more about how the UNSC between at least 4-5 has ships that can now go toe to toe with former covenant ships

[@lostvayne104]

@@Commander_Appo oh, I agree

[@Kisseyhersh123]

@@lostvayne104 the covenant remnant fleets are also super divided and not as unified as they were back during the war, so the UNSC has a major advantage overall now unless a group manages to unify again.

[@Whoami691]

In the books it was stated that the unsc would be able to hold their own on the ground but then the covies would retreat and glass the planet from orbit. The Spartans didn't like being in ships because they felt vulnerable and unable to control the outcome of the fight. They were limited by the tech they had Infront of them. Captain Keyes was a hero who got his commendations by taking out 2 covie ships, nearly destroying 3 and forcing a carrier to run with just his one single destroyer. It had never been done before.

[@D.Ambrose]

I love the battle of Ze Booties 9

[@memonavaramirez6261]

Wait what?🤔

[@kereiltutt5769]

"Chi boh-oh tis"

[@East_Coast_Toasty_Boy]

Imagine if Thrawn was a fleet Admiral.

[@nomercydoit3768]

Nah that would be scary

[@East_Coast_Toasty_Boy]

@@nomercydoit3768 For the Covenant. Humanity would stand a better chance. LOL

[@nissowolf7268]

@@East_Coast_Toasty_Boy depends. Is it thrawn books, thrawn rebels, or thrawn ahsoka ? lol

[@East_Coast_Toasty_Boy]

@@nissowolf7268 Obviously *EU* Thrawn. Haha. The BEST Thrawn. The Ascendency Thrawn, Heir to the Empire Thrawn... THAT Thrawn.

[@SantyWOlffish]

​@@East_Coast_Toasty_Boyhow do we know if he is that good

[@fatal3713]

UNSC also made sure their AI had thick ~~projections~~, I mean protections.

[@thesuperintendent4290]

Priorities...

[@quadeong7453]

I like how Silent Storm addresses this and shows how the UNSC addressed this disparity. Instead of attacking Covenant fleets directly, they would attack supply convoys and deplete the Covenants ships resources.

[@TheManofthecross]

and use those supply convoys to build better ships or get tech in the long run.

[@OpticBeatz]

I like how even after that operation the covenant return with 4,020 capital ships to fight humanity outnumbering them so bad that individual fleet sectors had to coordinate their own defense.

[@TravisLinde2010]

The most impressive feat of the Spartans was in the book he halo "first strike" which the spartans collected from reach infiltrated the " unyielding hydrophant" which was a covenant staging platform about to be used to assault earth.. the Spartans blew up over 450+ covenant war ships and rolled out

[@m4x927]

Chief almost got strangled to death here iirc and another spartan died to a brute spiker.

[@BLOrtega]

You mean the *UNEVEN ELEPHANT*

[@kaydencooper619]

@@m4x927grace 093 was killed by a brute shot. Chief activated her mjolnir armors fail safe which killed a lot of grunts and brutes. Chief thought that she would’ve liked to go out that way

[@kaydencooper619]

Uneven elephant in the words of Sergeant Johnson

[@AnakinSkywakka]

Two squids kissing, you mean?

[@dSlayer6160]

Something that I always appreciated about Halo was that it had real stakes...the humans were fighting a hopeless war until CE and that's why Reach and ODST are my favorite Halo games

[@thecheshire2334]

It should also be stated the only truly effective weapon used on covenant ships was the main MAC gun (the giant rail gun on the front of most unsc ships) It was the only weapon capable of reliably smashing through the covenants shields, but even then depended on the size difference. To also give credit UNSC ships had their upsides. Besides the giga sized cannon it was also equipped with honeycomb structures which made disabling the ships a much longer endeavor than it needed to be. After the war UNSC would carry traditional designs, but now with complete upgrades to shielding, jump drive, even weaponry ultimately leveling the field.

[@robertharris6092]

A MAC is not a railgun. And did you just copy the last paragraph from the wiki? The only ships that had a honeycomb structure are halcyon class cruisers.

[@Arbie117]

The unsc had so many less ships as well so if not for the great schism they would have run out

[@Specoups]

Even though many have played Halo 2, the majority fails to acknowledge what is evidently shown in the game: the Covenant was destroyed by the Schism and the Flood. Humanity and the MC did not, in fact, win their war. It just so happened that the Covenant got destroyed by other factors. And humanity was able to deal the last blow. By the time the human/elite alliance went to the Ark, what remained of the Covenant was more like a bunch of desperados in their last stand.

[@jamesmoniz5263]

I mean it was humans that unleashed the flood on the original halo installation, and it was humans that killed a prophet leading to power vacuum that split the covenant in two. Humanity was a factor in the fall of the covenant not just the clean up job in halo 3

[@Specoups]

​​​@@jamesmoniz5263 The Schism was due to Truth's insanity first and foremost. Humanity couldn't have known the result of this assassination would be so much favourable to them, it was done blindly but mostly to prevent Regret from activating Delta in the immediate future. The Flood on 04 was contained after the destruction of the ring. On 05, both factions were responsible for the Flood outbreak that would destroy High Charity, as both shut down the containment field and provided transportation and biomass for the Flood.

[@Servellion]

@@jamesmoniz5263 No it was the covenant that broke containment on the Flood on 04. The Marine mentions it looks like the Covenant worked hard to lock it down before Keyes and his marines even entered the room. The Covenant had already fucked around and found out when the marines happened to walk into the tail end of their mess.

[@adamjrabil]

Spirit of fire baby

[@colewyatt5298]

Man i remember reading the fall of reach and highschool and yeah the space battles were absolutely brutal

[@Marinealver]

This was what I wanted to see in Halo Reach, but we saw more Covenant Ships destroyed than UNSC ones.

[@clintjohnmanuba6917]

Operation FIRST STRIKE: 6 Spartans vs 500 ships and a space station. Result: 1 spartan dead, 488 ships and 1 space stationdestroyed.

[@accountabilityupholder3819]

I want to read this again now lol

[@as7river]

Who the hell is running the UNSC? Pyrrhus of Epirus?

[@stefanodegioia1598]

If anything, the Covenant is Phyrrus and the UNSC is the Romans. Just like Phyrrus, the Covenant with his superior military underestimates his enemy and wins pretty much almost all the battles, yet the UNSC (like the Romans) despite losing a lot just comes back and tries again. This "I didn't hear no bell" mindset was the key to defeat both Phyrrus and Hannibal in the end, i like to think it's the same for the Covenant.

[@KaiserFranzJosefI]

​@@stefanodegioia1598The sole reason the Covenant lost is because the genius Truth decided to start a civil war

[@halomaestro3384]

​@KaiserFranzJthe sole reason? A Spartan named John would have a lot to say about that

[@KaiserFranzJosefI]

@@halomaestro3384 As I recall, Truth was seconds away from winning the war regardless of John's actions and was only on the Ark thanks to a fleet of Elite warships

[@robertharris6092]

Fleet admirsl lord terrance hood.

[@dragon091327]

The halo reaches game graphics are stellar even to this day

[@BernieTheDevastator]

I WISH the halo games gave us more navy battles like the one in reach’s campaign.

[@Quattro_Joe]

The halo space combat is portrayed really well in the Preston Cole story in the extended universe book.

[@legionofmetal9968]

Then high charity shows up with an ungodly amount of ships. If that thing ever decided to go to war... The UNSC/Covenant war would have been over much quicker.

[@michaeledmunds7056]

Good thing it got ate by the worm god

[@legionofmetal9968]

@@michaeledmunds7056 lol yeah.

[@Specoups]

Indeed. For some good damn reason I cannot fathom, they just didn't commit to the war enough.

[@thesuperintendent4290]

​@@SpecoupsIf the covenant did, there is a huge risk of someone finding a forerunner relic and revealing the truth. Every forerunner relic had to be moulded in a way to support their uniting religion. Secondly war is good for holding unlimited power which the prophets did. Thirdly, they did commit a large amount of resources to the war. Not the entire force however as they have to keep a multi species galactic empire functioning as well as putting down rebellions.

[@ryerial7723]

We need a Halo Wars style game but it takes place in Space. You command Longsword Squadrons and stuff instead of Marines,and yes I know about the Sins of the Prophets Mod but an official game would be even better.

[@wesleywatson2009]

HALO!

[@chipsdubbo4861]

HALO!

[@Novato721]

HALO!

[@Darealquinn21]

HALO!

[@beastmode1915]

HALO!

[@masteryoyo1510]

HALO!

[@45johngalt]

that mission in ODST... I played that more than any other mission.

[@jakecameron9556]

Halos just amazing cod will never be as good

[@Moldy_Apple]

As a HUGE fan of BOTH game series... Halo 2 alone shits on the entirety of Call of Duty... It's a shame that Halo is in the state it is now...

[@deltawhisky7981]

The campaign of infinite wasn't bad though. Also cod is more focused on smaller wars and skirmishes while halo is focused on the fate of the galaxy

[@smmk88]

​@deltawhisky7981 ODST proves Halo can do small scale too.

[@deltawhisky7981]

@@smmk88 yup loved the campaign. It was my favourite along with halo 3 and 2anniversary's campaign. Hated the flood levels though.

[@Bocchi-chi]

​@@Moldy_AppleI think H3 does this. H2 is even better. I consider it the best Halos story (not to be confused with the best Halo game)

[@joelbindley-wg7jv]

Pillar of autumn could shoot 3 times big bussin out there huntin dem gators

[@theinfinitestoryline7588]

The PoA's MAC was essentially a Battle Rifle compared to a normal ships DMR (Bog Sticks being the Snipers), fires a 3 round burst/charge with less individual power, but they also fired, essentially MAC versions of Shredder Rounds too! Add to the fact that it could fully function and be battle worthy with 60% of its Hull compromised! She was a monster, to be sure! Hell, she got a whole Class of ships named after her (Autumn Class), that were basically just that but with Shields!

[@airriongalloway6998]

This is exactly why Cortana was so important to the fight. Her calculations helped the UNSC kick the Covenant’s butt.

[@jacobschrock8194]

Keys loop the best one-sided human battle. Jacob keys was goated

[@Gicocat203u47]

Spirit of fire soloing a capital ship and multiple battleships 🗿

[@TheManofthecross]

and two planets along with a station and a covenant fleet.

[@epat711]

The naval battles in the book were so cool!

[@trippiehippie5262]

“Sir! We’re surrounded on all sides!” “Good. We won’t miss.”

[@runawaygemm5397]

If you want some read good halo space combat and don’t mind books, read The Fall of Reach by Eric Nylund. It’s fantastic, and it’s got great Chief characterization

[@InquisitorialOperator]

When you first played Halo, were you blinded by its majesty?

[@deltawhisky7981]

Yes, yes i was

[@JoeMama-rv9wl]

stolen comment loser

[@halomaestro3384]

Still am homie

[@theadministrator4765]

Blinded? No

[@Specoups]

Blinded?

[@XIIIphobos]

Knowing the lore it makes me cheer whenever I watch the clip of UNSC Infinity exiting slipspace and just _plow_ through a Covenant capitol ship like it’s nothing.

[@visibleconfusion9741]

I remember a scene in I think ghosts of onyx where a unsc stealth prowler has to sit and watch as covenant ships engulf the space around it, so close they blocked out the whole viewport. They had to effectively shut down all functionality beyond cloaking to avoid any transmissions being tracked to them. They couldn’t run cuz their stealth vessel wasn’t made for it. They effectively had to sit in silence and watch what could have been their inevitable death. Like sitting in a cage surrounded by great white sharks.

[@shanenonwolfe4109]

Reading the Fall of Reach really shows how horrible it was. Especially when the book reaches the space battle over Reach.

[@kenichishirahama110]

Took 40 to take down one? That’s wild bro

[@dragonseatcheese8727]

The hilarious thing is the jump in the UNSC's naval power within 2 years of the end of the war. Autumn Class heavy cruisers massacre all but the most powerful ships in a straight up fight. They on par with the Pillar of Autumn, arguably the single most powerful ship in the UNSC fleet during the end of the war, which beat what is (if I remember correctly) the 3rd strongest Covenant capital ship in a straight up fight after taking heavy damage getting off Reach, and then disabled and/or destroyed 4 other ships before crash landing on Installation 01 and STILL having several operational systems. With structural durability in that class of UNSC ship surpassed only by the Pillar of Autumn, as well as heavy shields that make it more durable than the Autumn in an overall naval sense, and a main gun capable of straight up destroying a low level capital ship in a single pass. They are beasts only surpassed in lethality and survivability by the Infinity, a ship that was so powerful that it just straight up used Forerunner engines that they ripped from somewhere and a main battery that can damage a Forerunner flagship that could probably have taken any Covenant fleet aside from maybe their capital fleet with no issues. And that's their main one. Imagine if the UNSC STARTED the war with that and just built more while improving their tech even more instead of building to replace losses. Would NOT have been the same war. Not necessarily an easy go at it, but the UNSC would have been a threat like no other.

[@TheManofthecross]

it took time for the UNSC to get to that state.

[@solomonharvey-batten8974]

I’ve always joked that the UNSC is a step up from 40k’s Imperial Guard in terms of casualty reports

[@jesselee2792]

343 blowing the infinity up

[@akselvello2874]

Halo

[@truthfulpurpose]

Halo

[@realvarbs]

Keyes: "cool, now watch me do this loopdy loop."

[@EL-ISS]

In Halo: Reach, there's a Datapad on one of the earlier missions where Halsey (or some other ONI Spook) breaks down glassing. By the end, it suggests that to completely glass a planet would take more than a year and a half of constant ventral beam firing from 10 super carriers, (each being swapped out as it used all fuel). So yeah if the Covenant REALLY wanted to glass every single human world and mind you at its peak humanity had just over 800 planets, would be logistically impossible. And if they tried anyway, they'd have their most powerful ships or countless of their smaller ships tied up glassing planets while the humans regroup, repopulate, refitt and redeploy. The Covenant, though technologically and numerically superior, would lose the overall war. In the books it's mentioned countless times that the Covies are imitators not innovators. That's why when ONI reverse engineered Covenant shields, our version turned out more stable, powerful and could hold longer with less power. Humans would have won given enough time because we actually IMPROVE upon our own and alien tech, the Covenant got all theirs from copied Forerunner tech with the help of engineers. So they really don't know how their own ships work since the engineers are the only ones that fix and imrpove sh*t, thats also why they immediatly fell into shambles when they lost their engineers and humanity gained ours 😂.

[@TheManofthecross]

hence time is our greatest weapon. the ccovenant never had the speed to get the job done anyway.

[@OpticBeatz]

That datapad is fundamentally flawed though, they analyze the capabilities of a battlecruiser (with limited knowledge on the ship) and deduce it would take years, however, the encyclopedia tells us that assault carriers and destroyer classes are both equipped with the infernus-pattern superheavy excavation beam capable of glassing continents compared to the battlecruisers profero-pattern excavation beam. But even then, usually the glassing operations are delegated to the destroyers. We also have many sources of planets being glassed in hours (jericho VII, reach). The imitative vs innovative thing has continuously been taken out of context, mind you Halsey (while not even knowing how the covenant works) claims that they’re imitative as a result of societal absorption, but says they aren’t stupid and even gives an example of them learning human systems extremely quickly and having a lot of intel on them early on while humanity struggled until 2552. I’d argue that not only them making “better shielding” is a fluke, but it is hardly a knock on the covenant, again it took them the entire war to reverse engineer because the covenant made it impossible to reverse engineer their stuff, the only reason they had shielding was a broken Kig Yar wrist gauntlet. I repeat *broken* and we know that the sangheili limited the naval capacity of the Kig Yar who is to say they don’t limit their shielding tech either? Also, the covenant do improve on their tech, the plasma repeater seen in reach was a direct improvement on the plasma rifle which itself is a newer variant in service 500 years, the post war storm rifle and pulse rifles are improvements on the plasma rifle, we know that the RCS was from a time where energy shielding “wasn’t as good” and was supplanted by the CCS with better shielding, the encyclopedia tells us that several ships encountered are relatively new (the assault carrier design entered service in the 22nd century, and supercarrier during the brute induction).

[@OpticBeatz]

Also, would like to add that reverse engineering forerunner tech isn’t as easy as lore makes it out to be, and that the huragok pre-retcons only maintained and repaired, meaning that no, they wouldn’t build you forerunner stuff. You could work with them to help better understand it but they wouldn’t do all the work for you. Most if not all forerunner derivatives were studied for a while before being incorporated with covenant tech (they didn’t just use forerunner tech they studied until it could be mass produced) whereas humanity literally bolts a forerunner ftl drive onto infinity that they don’t understand *And* uses covenant interfaces to make it work. All huragok disappearing is straight up just to make remnants weak and has no basis. Also, according to the forerunner trilogy the forerunners existed for 10+ million years, it is good writing that the covenant doesn’t understand that shit or else it would make the forerunners stupid, it is bad writing that the unsc seemingly understands it in two seconds.

[@wilberreyes3235]

Well when u have a machine gun u can kill a bunch of dudes with spears and swords easily lets not forget the covenants technology was way more advanced

[@averagecustodes2562]

UNSC space doctrine: is admiral cole present? If yes, then congratulations on victory. If no, shit.

[@TravisLinde2010]

Also the battle for sigma octanus 4..if I remember correctly it's was 40+ unsc ship and 2 hospital platforms(which the unsc sacrificed after the first shots) vs 20+ covenant war ships!

[@seemslegit6203]

And thats when you take into account the UNSC usually being a lot more strategic. And they didn't even fight a supercarrier

[@dnegel9546]

Would love an alternate timeline where the great schism never happens. And earth ends up being a final stand type of thing like reach. Except towards the end the flood seemingly offer to help the humans in exchange for cortana or something. Both planing on betraying each other at some point. 😂

[@unscinfinity3337]

why tf would flood want cortana? You high or smthing?

[@dnegel9546]

@@unscinfinity3337 pretty sure cortana stayed with the flood. And then gravemind wanted cortana. I can’t remember its been years since ive played 1-5

[@unscinfinity3337]

@@dnegel9546 I suggest you replay it again cause she was left intentionally not willingly

[@BinToss._.]

As Keyes put it in the CEA terminal, "[the flood] want everything!"

[@Specoups]

​@@unscinfinity3337 He's either high or he's watched too much hentai. The reason why the Flood was interested in Cortana was because she knew about the location of many human worlds... Quite an interesting buffet.

[@VolitantBucky]

Halo...

[@michaelguernsey1206]

God I fucking love the gritty realism of halo lore.

[@theinfinitestoryline7588]

The quote Fred gives, along the lines of, "On the ground, Spartans always won. But then the Covenant just went to orbit and glassed everything anyway." Really freaking HURTS! Because it means the Covenant never truly took Humanity seriously. They had the Banished and other Pirate Fleets to deal with and still had the whole of High Charity + encompassing fleet to fight with. Then you have the fact that SPARTANS won on the ground... there were only ~34 S-II and maybe 2 or 3 platoons of S-III during this War... The Spartans couldn't be everywhere at once... meaning there were definitely times more than one planet was under attack, and UNSC FleetComm could only save 1... Imagine deciding which is more important and knowing that in the end, it'll only be a pyrrehtic win...

[@Agent_13]

H A L O

[@WitchyCoyote]

They relied heavily on wolf pack tactics. Usually having 2-3 mac cannons fire on a single target to overload the sheild (depending on the ship class) then launching archer missiles and firing pdc's. Kinda like red coats fire volly then move and let the next fire group in.

[@AnakinSkywakka]

Admiral Preston Cole's last stand was such a magnificent show of force from the UNSC. I remember getting goose bumps after reading the number of ships and ordnance he requested before the Battle of Psi Serpentis. My man was tired and emotionally numb after fighting so many battles, i don't blame him for going out the way he did. I'm still convinced that he is alive and enjoyed the rest of his life with his innie girlfriend.

[@SCP--106]

The covenant are lucky they never had to fight the imperium of man 😉😏

[@Geoff900]

And this is why 343i are shite, they don't know the lore, or use it to effect. Bungie uses the idea/realistic principle that war is hell.

[@samuel10125]

Your joking right 343 have complete access to Bungies Archive and the vast majority of plot points pushed where Bungies own writing are you aware that Bungie hated Halo Wars and called it whoring out their baby which is ironic giving it was how Halo was originally conception also Bungie despised the conception of ODSTs their arms had to be twisted to get one of the Greatest Halos ever also Bungies hated the EU anything that wasn't their own writing they didn't like. 343 has its faults but they spent and extreme amount of time trying to string together Halos lore and make sense of it because Bungie had made such a mess of it u don't the vast majority of players understand or know how much work 343 put into Halo before their games.

[@Bocchi-chi]

It's because you don't accept Halo's changes. Bungie games definitely had the best narratives. But H4 is one that I consider completely worthy of being called a "Good Halo". 5 has its interesting points. It's an amazing action game, but not a true Halo. It's a shame that they preferred to just continue with possible projects that already belonged to Bungie rather than say goodbye of Cortana, but bringing her in next only to blame Halsey even more for her crimes for doing to the Galaxy exactly what Halsey did to Chief, being blinded by her ambitions. Weak story, but an absurdly good game if you ignore the story itself. In Infinite things change. They deconstructed the villainous Cortana with the cliché of repenting and trying something to redeem herself, even if it was just a little. But when it comes to Chief vs Banished, I also consider it a worthy Halo. It's the most fun campaign and it's very interesting to see the values ​​of warriors being explained in their speeches.

[@forkme3165]

Meanwhile Captain Keyes had, what, 8 confirmed ship kills? Dude was an absolute madlad.

[@falcongamingproductions9938]

The books do a good job at explaining how space battles usually played out, especially First Strike

[@mr.godzilla8331]

Humanity didn’t win the war, they just happened to be lucky enough to survive it

[@samuel10125]

You say that but the Sangheili came to the negotiation table.

[@user-fs4xc5kc5n]

Reminds of America being in Afghanistan. Taliban were the UNSC. America was the Covenant. ... until the great political schism in America and then the war ended....

[@Nikos.]

Halo?

[@odstcuh7737]

Halo

[@alex.the.washed]

Halo

[@BUFFFROGO23]

Halo

[@TheSpyFromTeamFortress2]

Hlao

[@LeftvsReich]

Halo

[@paulb5571]

In the books, specifically the incident where Samuel-034 died, a Covenant ship intentionally used poor tactics, likely out of pride against the UNSC. It was stated that they could have turned their ship in an effort to minimize the damage, but refused to do so. This allowed a team of Spartans to board their vessel and sabotage it with explosives. Afterward the UNSC vessel scored a critical hit and destroyed the Covenant ship.

[@SuperTheast]

It wasn’t even the UNSC ship that finished it off. It was Samuel detonating a HAVOC I believe close enough to the main power source of the ship.

[@NolDragon]

A lot of the same happens for the ground battles of the Halo universe. The Covenant military chain of command was for the longest part, obviously full of elites. And for a young elite warrior that does not descend from a noble bloodline, the fastest, and sometimes only way to advance into the Covenant hierarchy is through glorious battle. That is one of the main reasons as to why the Covenant were so often engaging into unecessary ground battles and often using basic tactics such as frontal assaults. Culturally, they needed these ground battles to happen so that their warriors could gain personal recognition and climb the rank ladders. And blasting a colony from orbit brings in less glory than leading a frontal assault.

[@niteman555]

I imagine it's the Greek letter "chi", pronounced "Kai" and is rendered similar to "X". What might have happened is that they combined "x" and "chi" to get "xi"

[@magnusthered4973]

I mean it makes sense most unsc ships are smaller and less armed then covenant ships

[@suhdude2503]

Its quoted by the captain of the flagship in the battle of harvest that for every hard fought unsc victory in space, there mirrored a catastrophic loss on the ground

[@rendezvu175]

This is why Halo Reach was such a great game. You fought in space and even on water (sort of).

[@RicardoPerez-rz8pu]

That was the battle of New Alexandia and probably Sword Base .

[@HeyGuy4321]

We should've bred like flies if we wanted to survive more

[@mbphilipblack8993]

TELL ME ABOUT IT, god those seraphs are a PAIN on legendary

[@patcole7038]

One famous UNSC Admiral sacrificed himself and 70 of his ships to ignite a gas giant by using 100 SHIVA class nuclear missiles, causing it to go nova and take out two covenant fleets of 300 ships.

[@maxwellyates7085]

There was one legendary and mystery filled battle where one unsc ship took out over a hundred and perhaps it's self

[@Freelancer1790]

This just makes Keys destroying four covenant ships with his one in the fall of reach even more amazing when put in perspective

[@williamwest9204]

The thing u have to also look at is which ships were they using. The 70 vs 8 was A LOT of marathon class cruisers which are garbage and frigates

[@makiiavely]

how tf does this series have this amount of lore it blows my mind

[@cherrypoptart2001]

This makes me respect the infinity and pillar of autumn even more, those ships took a hell of a beating .

[@TravisLinde2010]

Forgot keys loop.. where keys had one unsc destroyer vs 4 covenant ships..including 2 destroyers 1 cruiser an 1 carrier..

[@1creeperbomb]

Covenant: "lol these puny oudated human ships are no match for us" *Master Chief maliciously holding a grenade standing in front of Autumn's reactor*

[@jackj9816]

Probably the only SCFY series that actually shows how much air superiority makes a difference

[@KrotharSmash]

The Pillar of Autumn had to be pulled out of retirement and retrofitted. It was considered small for current UNSC frigates but it was that older design, described as honeycomb that made it somewhat sturdier against Covenant weapons.

[@user-qp3nt5fr3d]

Within the Halo universe it is said that a CCS class covenant cruiser is equivalent in strength to 3 human ships, and the CCS class is one of the smallest and simplest covenant ships in comparison, so a freighter or larger ships could be equivalent to 10 or more human ships. In just the first battle of earth, the prophet of regret fleet only carried 13 cruisers and 2 freighters, 15 ships in total against the home defense fleet, which was composed of 8 cruises and 67 frigates, at the time of the battle when the prophet of regret fled the earth, only one cruiser and no more than 20 frigates remained from the home defense fleet in the space. For the events of Halo 3, during the second battle of earth, there were no more than approximately 5 frigates left, and they are only the ones we see in the cinematic at the end of the mission "storm".

[@corruptangel6793]

I remember reading somewhere ( I have no freaking clue what book it was) that the tech difference was 200 years. Imagine a navy from the 1820s going against our modern fleets.

[@The-King-of-Typos]

I really enjoyed this piece! ❤ Im definitely looking forward to future releases from you! ❤❤

[@elite4championjosh]

I read in one of the Halo books that a hospital class mega ship not used for combat was used as bait to draw the covenants fire. They won but sacrificed the hospital to do it 😢😅

[@amexicanwhoisverypatriotic2725]

I bet that's why Reach felt so hopeless when like 80 covenant ships pulled up.

[@TheJzsteven]

I remember the books saying something about how they could win all the battles they wanted on the ground but they never stood a chance in ship battles

[@patembersouls]

I remember the books explain the UNSC jump in tech was from Cortana both interfacing with HALO and a Covenant ship. The Covenant as it turns out are really inefficient with their tech so she was easily able to copy and then improve it.

[@philipdangelo6602]

The fall of reach novel is so good if you’re interested in the space combat of the Halo universe

[@alvincampo5811]

Halo 2 really put into perspective how massive Covenant fleets can be after Chief looks up at the sky on Delta Halo

[@CoolSmoovie]

343 be like, haha know UNSC ships can ram covenant ships. The ship has forerunner parts and forerunner engines, and speaks forerunner. Did we mention the forerunners yet?

[@coreymicallef365]

Keep in mind that the Covenant's ships were a hell of a lot more massive. Just comparing the ship types they had: - Covenant frigates were 30-40 times as massive - their destroyers were about 60 times as large - cruisers were only roughly 8 times bigger - and the Epoch class heavy carriers were only 1.48% the size of a typical Covenant carrier Keep in mind the Covenant fleet mix was a lot more heavily weighted to larger ship types compared to the UNSC too. In terms of the sheer tonnage ratio the Covenant lost compared to the the UNSC it would have been a disaster for the Covenant if the UNSC had even remotely close to the same level of shipbuilding industrial capacity as them.

[@TheManofthecross]

and the population pool to maintain it.

[@jamiemiller1482]

Attrition warfare at its most devastating

[@j-s-m]

The Fall of Reach is one the more tragic Stories in Halo.

[@McCrocodile6]

Covenant vs. A Brick that flew pretty good