The games have shown us that the “Halo conflicts” are some of the most crucial events to happen in the universe. Same with the Battle of the Ark, and the Fall of Reach.
The novels have shown us that the first battles of the war, such as the Harvest Campaign, were equally crucial.
But what happened in the middle of the war, arguably the only part of the war we know the least about? Other than several off-hand comments and short chapters about these seemingly inconsequential battles around 2535 - 2542-ish, the only in-depth battle we get is that of the Rubble and its surrounding events, which, in the scheme of things, are so backwater they seem to hardly make a difference.
So where are the crucial battles during the worst years of the war? Am I missing something? Or was every battle at that time a critical battle because of how bad things got? Can someone enlighten me as to important mid-war events?
I think it’s a mistake to look at the Covenant War as this constant onslaught from beginning to end, the 2520’s and the last two years were crucial because they were the beginning and the end of the greater conflict, and covenant were making big pushes into human space during those two periods. The time in between more saw the covenant slowly whittling away colony worlds as they found them, which were sometimes months in between.
I’d wager the most crucial events of that period happened in the shadows, like the Spartans doing raids on covenant fueling and armament stations like SIII alpha company, headhunters and Grey team would have.
There would have been some big scale stuff, but I think 2550/1/2 was when the covenant were finding our last strongholds, and humanity took a massive pounding in those final years.
Halo Wars had a couple of battles that you got to see with the the Prologue showing the Battle of Harvest and then gameplay of the Battle of Arcadia.
And then Halo Legends showed a couple of battles/missions/skirmishes throughout the conflict.
Granted it’s not in-depth because they can only be 10 mins to 20 and can’t be like a book that is 200 pages and takes 6 hours to read but there are instances out there not a lot but it does feel in some blanks. Personally I think 343 has abandoned everything before 2552 unless its a Forerunner story. We did get Broken Circle which was a good book but I’m trying to figure out what was the last material we got that wasn’t Forerunner that took place before 2552
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> Halo 2 had a couple of battles that you got to see with the the Prologue showing the Battle of Harvest and Battle of Arcadia.
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> And then Halo Legends showed a couple of battles/missions/skirmishes.
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> Granted it’s not in-depth because they can only be 10 mins to 20 and can’t be like a book that is 200 pages and takes 6 hours to read but there are instances out there not a lot but it does feel in some blanks. Personally I think 343 has abandoned everything before 2552 unless its a Forerunner story. We did get Broken Circle which was a good book but I’m trying to figure out what was the last material we got that wasn’t Forerunner that took place before 2552
Evolutions & Legends, there’s also that fleet battle game coming out.
Most media is S-II focused, especially chief focused, and the problem with the middle years is that its mostly just saving people before the planet gets glassed. Its like rehashes of Halo Reach with less spartans dieing.
I think for the most part, moving on from the war is a good thing for 343. Almost any attempt to show more of the war in a major form shows the covenant not as good as the early books hyped them up to be and is prone to introduce other complications in order to seem relevant.
Even broken circle is more just tieing in other forerunner elements and helping give proper closure to the old covenant.
I would say Admiral Cole’s last stand was a pretty decisive battle in the middle years, but the thing about the middle years was it was the most important part of the war second only to the last two years of the war. I say this because during the middle years is when the elites began to question why humans could be let into the covenant and that really began the rumblings of the great schism because without he middle years there wouldn’t have been time for the elites to even question the prophets about the war.
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> Most media is S-II focused, especially chief focused, and the problem with the middle years is that its mostly just saving people before the planet gets glassed. Its like rehashes of Halo Reach with less spartans dieing.
Or like, the Covenant are looking for something that will ultimately lead to Humanity’s defeat, (like the dormant Forerunner ship fleet, the Earth coordinates, etc etc) so the hero has to stop them. Usually by sacrificing himself.
In fact, you can probably sum up about 80% of the stories in Halo with that, couldn’t you? Only, for the main three games, just replace “Humanity’s defeat” with “Every living thing’s demise”.
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Harvest (2525)
- Second Harvest (2526)
- Circinius IV (2526)
- Harvest Reclaimed (2531)
- Arcadia (2531)
- Shield World 0459 (2531)
- Jericho VII (2535)
- The Rubble (2535)
- Cole’s Stand at Psi Serpentis (2543)
- Operation WARM BLANKET (2545)
- Fall of Reach (2552)
- Installation 04 (2552)
- Battle of Earth (2552)
- Installation 05 (2552)
- Installation 00 (2552)
- Battle of Onyx (2552)
Seems pretty filled-in to me.
Because every battle aside from the notable few was essentially the same; UNSC puts up a meagre defence, fails miserably and retreats. Rinse and repeat. You don’t need to be told that.
I mean, do you know every single battle that occurred during the -Yoink!- expansion into Eastern Europe leading up to WWII, or during in it? No. Because apart from several key battles (Stalingrad, Normandy, Berlin, Battle of Britain, Pearl Harbour and such), the war was pretty repeating and there’s too much to remember or note. For instance, nothing major changed in the North Africa campaigns, or the Japanese invasion of Australia. So we don’t often hear about them.
Same here, we know about the battle of Sargasso because it was defining point in Buck’s and Palmer’s life, and one that would influence them later on. However, it is not of note during the wider conflict, unlike Reach, Earth, Harvest, Rubble and Sigma Octanus because they each had a drastic effect on the UNSC and shaped the course of the war. Sargasso, Arcadia, and so forth did very little (From the UNSC’s wider perspective) aside from the standard loss of life, resources and territory. These battles had nothing special about them that is of note.
Besides, having it ambiguous also makes it easier for Authors to make up battles or planets rather than using an existing one and have to correlate it with the existing timeline (COUGHREACHCOUGH). It’s a matter of practicality as much as storytelling.
First Harvest, Chi Ceti, Biko, Bliss, Second Harvest, Circinius IV, Alpha Aurigae, XI Bootis A, Hat Yai, Harvest campaign, Groombridge, Arcadia, Shield World 0459, Vodin, Jericho VII, Charybdis IX, the Rubble, Metisette, New Harmony, Leonis Minoris, New Constantinople, Kholo, Alluvion, 18 Scorpii, Psi Serpentis, Miridem, and the list goes on…
Like you said, pretty much every battle was important at this time since they were going against a genocidal alien threat with far-superior technology.