Okay so 343 have seen the gauntlet get thrown down on this apparently. 
To summarise the main points they make -
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Infinity was worn out during the Created War. Battlestar Galactica. Few refits and repairs. Munitions etc etc For around a year.
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Instead of the 17500 crew it should have the losses had reduced it to 7500. Of which some were civilians like the Pilot. Which circling up to first point this was some pretty heavy fighting. Which likely means similar drops in numbers of Spartans and ODST. It is not the same Infinity we saw in Halo 4.
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Apparently Escharum was lying about the 4 minutesā¦
Fairly interesting take. I could definitely see a Warship getting worn out fighting the Created, taking losses and struggling to refit your ships. Makes sense. Any force in that kind of war against that level of technology would be taking a massive toll on its ships and soldiers. I am not one for ārealismā and ālogisticsā but yeah those are reasonable points for why any large warship engaged with the Created for a year would be in a bad way.
Thereās just one small teeny tiny problem and it comes up whenever they use the Created War as an excuse for why the UNSC gets beat by the Banished.
The Banished got wrecked by Cortana
We see their homeworld get destroyed. The Infinity ran. The Brutes stayed and fought. The planet cracked before they did. If anyoneās ships are going to be battered, low on men and supplies it really should be thereās. Not the Infinity doing the smart thing and fighting a guerrilla war BSG whilst Atriox uses 40k Imperial Guard tactics. I mean if it werenāt for humanity creating the Weapon the Brutes were not long for this Galaxy.
The implied sentiment behind the article is that Banished are a fresh force firing on all cylinders against a worn out Infinity. But the Banished should be the spent force here. Given that they lost the Battle for Doisac and were fighting Cortana the whole time as well. In a much more direct war BTW. Not to mention other disastrous defeats at the Ark and Reach.
Basically it only tells one part of the story. You should probably lead more with the Banished having put everything into this Zeta Halo gambit where not every UNSC asset was at Zeta Halo because it was a stealth mission.
Also Escharum lying about the 4 minutes. Really? I donāt think weāre led to really question what heās saying. Heās one of the only sources of information and no other character casts doubt on what he is saying. So obviously players will take that at face value.
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Indeed, if the Banished have put all their ship and soldier against the Created, it is impossible fro them to be so strong on Halo Zeta. Maybe they used only half of their ships in Doisac and the other half on Zeta, but that would make a damn big fleet for a bunch of pirates
Halo Infinite and Halo Rubicon Protocol carefully avoided specifying what happened during the Doisac or Infinity battles. Is it a narrative choice or just a way to hide the inconsistency of their story, thatās the question
This is an excellent take and Iāll be honestā¦ I missed it first time round. The Battlestar Galactica type element does fill me with hopeā¦ There is so much narrative space which can be backfilledā¦
What upsets me most isā¦ The TV series would have been such a good vehicle for that. I pray someone like haruspis can get the franchise narrative direction on track
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Yeah, even the books have a weird approach to this. In Bad Blood and Shadows of Reach sure the Infinity is a base. But itās not the setting and kept in the distant background. Like if you did an episode of Battlestar where you only focused on those shuttle missions and got zero stuff on the ship or even basic setup.
Looking at concept art they very obviously planned that this would be a key pillar of the story so probably weāre reluctant to offload that to the books. Same thing goes with Cortana having her version of the Culture on Earth, the books acknowledge it but manage to skirt around the issue and make the story about something unrelated. Rather than getting a POV from the Cylons and insight into their threat and what theyāre doing.
But yeah, itās all up in the air right now anyway.
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Absolutelyā¦ I can also respect someone realising their narrative was slightly too āparallelā to BSG and wanting to row that back, but likewiseā¦ There are more effective ways
That would be fine, yano, if we say it play out in game.
Hell, a spartans ops season 2 could still do it.
In the halo 4/2 A engines.
Short text crawls an in engine cutscene where we get keystone.
Sadly never gonna happen.
But the awful incoherent plots would be easier to swallow if we didnt get most of the explanations in blogs and transmedia lore dumps.
I understand the reasons offered from the reduced staff on Infinity to the strength of the Banished force. And really, you could argue that not all of the Banished were at Doisac and what we see in Zeta represents a fresh force.
Iām still not sure how the Banished were able to get close to Zeta Halo in the first place. It seemed so undefended yet even the lone Guardian there shouldāve put a stop to any fighting period.
I donāt know know, the whole event still baffles me.
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The Banished fighted the Created at Doisac, so they must have a secret way to resist to the Gardian.
Didnāt seem like a fight to me.
The Encyclopaedia gives a bit more information on Doisac from how itās depicted in game. In Infinite it comes across as straight after Halo 5 and Cortana demanding Doisac submit. But actually thereās a huge war that takes place with Cortana going to Atriox a few times and telling him to surrender. Before getting bored of him having stacked 10k of Assault armies on one planet and using a Colossus. * Thereās also concept art of Banished fighting and beating Forerunner soldiers.
So yeah, there was a huge war and the Created were not able with the Prometheans, Guardians, Domain and led by Cortana to beat the Banished in a conventional war. It really doesnāt make any sense for Forerunner technology to have issues dealing with the Banished. Especially since she walks over Sanghelios and Earth in Halo 5. Itās more of 343 overselling the Banished as the big bad when they really should be budget Covenant and the UNSC shouldnāt have so many problems with them. Never mind Cortana with the Domain, Prometheans and Guardians. She should be able to build more sentinels/soldiers than there are Brutes on Doisac.
Genuinely either 343 comes out with the Banished being a front for Mendicant Bias or thatās never going to add up.
- Stellaris reference
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