To all the people that think Noble’s mission to destroy the Long Night could be turned into a boarding operation, I ask what chance exactly two Spartans, cut off from UNSC support, have in boarding and holding a kilometres-long supercarrier.
It takes only those two men to light a fuse. But to capture the whole damn ship? The UNSC would need 10 times the firepower in Marathon-class cruisers to neuter the Long Night and its support contingent for long enough to capture it. Which they decidedly did not have.
Cortana captured the Ascendant Justice by venting the atmosphere, killing everyone on board. No crew equals no opposition. Or at least less since they had to deal with survivors from time to time who tried breaking into the Bridge. But they were dealt with.
EH.
NOBLE was not outfitted to drive the ship, and did not have Cortana.
Further, the Ascendant Justice had about half as many combat personnel as any given round of Firefight. The Long Night of Solace deployed all or most of the Covenant seen in Halo: Reach in the levels prior to Long Night of Solace, and was continuing to do so through the spires in the Viery territory. That is a whole lot of Covies.
It would be possible, yes. But damn bloody difficult, and given ONI’s (and therefore NOBLE’s) limited resources at the time (NO NUKES [although that is a separate argument]), it was MUCH more plausible to simply blow up the Long Night before it royally screwed any chances the UNSC had on the ground.
So, yes, to pull an Ascendant Justice would be possible, but it would require very specific resources, and a lot of luck, and considering its chances of going bad combined with the limited time the UNSC had to deal with the Long Night, if I were in charge, I would destroy the thing. Too much of a risk.
ONI wasn’t going to have Six and Jorge hijack the LNoS, if anyone were to hijack it, it would have been all of the SIIs initiating RED FLAG. Noble’s mission was completely different than RED FLAG, the two did not have anything at all to do with each other.
> It would have been impossible.
>
> To all the people that think Noble’s mission to destroy the Long Night could be turned into a boarding operation, I ask what chance exactly two Spartans, cut off from UNSC support, have in boarding and holding a kilometres-long supercarrier.
None. Try 25. That was the team for RED FLAG. If you read datadrop 5, the Long Night of Solace was deemed unusable for RED FLAG because SpecWar was too “trigger happy.” And ONI can’t very well scream “Wait, don’t! We need that ship for this huge plot that we’ve been working on all Cloak and Dagger like!”
> > It would have been impossible.
> >
> > To all the people that think Noble’s mission to destroy the Long Night could be turned into a boarding operation, I ask what chance exactly two Spartans, cut off from UNSC support, have in boarding and holding a kilometres-long supercarrier.
>
> None. Try 25. That was the team for RED FLAG. If you read datadrop 5, the Long Night of Solace was deemed unusable for RED FLAG because NavSpecWep was too “trigger happy.” And ONI can’t very well scream “Wait, don’t! We need that ship for this huge plot that we’ve been working on all Cloak and Dagger like!”
> > It would have been impossible.
> >
> > To all the people that think Noble’s mission to destroy the Long Night could be turned into a boarding operation, I ask what chance exactly two Spartans, cut off from UNSC support, have in boarding and holding a kilometres-long supercarrier.
>
> None. Try 25. That was the team for RED FLAG. If you read datadrop 5, the Long Night of Solace was deemed unusable for RED FLAG because SpecWar was too “trigger happy.” And ONI can’t very well scream “Wait, don’t! We need that ship for this huge plot that we’ve been working on all Cloak and Dagger like!”
Still, Long Night of Solace was a huge threat, and I doubt the Army and SpecWar would’ve wanted the ship hanging over their heads any longer than it was. Imagine the situation if the reinforcing fleet arrived before the Supercarrier had been destroyed.
Operation uppercut wasn’t even a huge op. It Only had a handful of fighters, 2 Spartans and one Frigate and was formulated by Kat with a knife in the dirt. Once ONI found out about the plan it was most likely already in play. That and There was only a limited amount of time it could be pulled off and by the time it would take Red flag to be put into commission the entire Fleet would have arrived and would make it nearly impossible to pull it off without any other ships knowing. Not fact by the way, just how I figure it
> Operation uppercut wasn’t even a huge op. It Only had a handful of fighters, 2 Spartans and one Frigate and was formulated by Kat with a knife in the dirt. Once ONI found out about the plan it was most likely already in play. That and There was only a limited amount of time it could be pulled off and by the time it would take Red flag to be put into commission the entire Fleet would have arrived and would make it nearly impossible to pull it off without any other ships knowing. Not fact by the way, just how I figure it
totally agree. I change my mind about data drop 5. Noble Team the heroes of Reach, spoil the first step of Red Flag, good irony. Congrats to 343i
> > Operation uppercut wasn’t even a huge op. It Only had a handful of fighters, 2 Spartans and one Frigate and was formulated by Kat with a knife in the dirt. Once ONI found out about the plan it was most likely already in play. That and There was only a limited amount of time it could be pulled off and by the time it would take Red flag to be put into commission the entire Fleet would have arrived and would make it nearly impossible to pull it off without any other ships knowing. Not fact by the way, just how I figure it
>
> totally agree. I change my mind about data drop 5. Noble Team the heroes of Reach, spoil the first step of Red Flag, good irony. Congrats to 343i
True but would Red Flag really of worked. Lets say the Spartans, Cortana and Keys took a ship and kidnapped a prophet. Would it really force a truce? We all see how backstabbing the prophets where and the covenant Civil war was getting ready to start around that point secretly. The Great Journey waits for no one and when they captured the Prophet the next in line would of took over and just had the ship destroyed with everyone on it. Not to mention the covenant would still find one of the Halos and released the flood and opened another can of worms with no Master Chief to stop it. So really It was a good thing in my opinion that Red Flag kept getting wrenches thrown in it gears or matters would of just been worse. Sorry for any errors but It is 6:30am where I’m at with no sleep so I don’t feel like editing it.
> Still, Long Night of Solace was a huge threat, and I doubt the Army and SpecWar would’ve wanted the ship hanging over their heads any longer than it was. Imagine the situation if the reinforcing fleet arrived before the Supercarrier had been destroyed.
And such was the political and military FUBAR situation that ONI put itself into.
> > > Operation uppercut wasn’t even a huge op. It Only had a handful of fighters, 2 Spartans and one Frigate and was formulated by Kat with a knife in the dirt. Once ONI found out about the plan it was most likely already in play. That and There was only a limited amount of time it could be pulled off and by the time it would take Red flag to be put into commission the entire Fleet would have arrived and would make it nearly impossible to pull it off without any other ships knowing. Not fact by the way, just how I figure it
> >
> > totally agree. I change my mind about data drop 5. Noble Team the heroes of Reach, spoil the first step of Red Flag, good irony. Congrats to 343i
>
> True but would Red Flag really of worked. Lets say the Spartans, Cortana and Keys took a ship and kidnapped a prophet. Would it really force a truce? We all see how backstabbing the prophets where and the covenant Civil war was getting ready to start around that point secretly. The Great Journey waits for no one and when they captured the Prophet the next in line would of took over and just had the ship destroyed with everyone on it. Not to mention the covenant would still find one of the Halos and released the flood and opened another can of worms with no Master Chief to stop it. So really It was a good thing in my opinion that Red Flag kept getting wrenches thrown in it gears or matters would of just been worse. Sorry for any errors but It is 6:30am where I’m at with no sleep so I don’t feel like editing it.
I have to agree wholeheartedly. Knowing what we know now about Covenant leadership, I don’t think capturing one of the prophets would have had the desired affect. When the Chief killed the Prophet of Regret on Delta Halo, Truth and Mercy barely batted an eyelash. Truth also made no attempt to rescue Mercy from the Flood…
Honestly, unless the Spartan’s carrying out OP RED FLAG managed to capture Truth himself, he may have viewed the abduction as a favor. At absolute best, the operation only had a 33% chance of success, assuming the Spartan’s were able to capture a Prophet at all.
> > > > Operation uppercut wasn’t even a huge op. It Only had a handful of fighters, 2 Spartans and one Frigate and was formulated by Kat with a knife in the dirt. Once ONI found out about the plan it was most likely already in play. That and There was only a limited amount of time it could be pulled off and by the time it would take Red flag to be put into commission the entire Fleet would have arrived and would make it nearly impossible to pull it off without any other ships knowing. Not fact by the way, just how I figure it
> > >
> > > totally agree. I change my mind about data drop 5. Noble Team the heroes of Reach, spoil the first step of Red Flag, good irony. Congrats to 343i
> >
> > True but would Red Flag really of worked. Lets say the Spartans, Cortana and Keys took a ship and kidnapped a prophet. Would it really force a truce? We all see how backstabbing the prophets where and the covenant Civil war was getting ready to start around that point secretly. The Great Journey waits for no one and when they captured the Prophet the next in line would of took over and just had the ship destroyed with everyone on it. Not to mention the covenant would still find one of the Halos and released the flood and opened another can of worms with no Master Chief to stop it. So really It was a good thing in my opinion that Red Flag kept getting wrenches thrown in it gears or matters would of just been worse. Sorry for any errors but It is 6:30am where I’m at with no sleep so I don’t feel like editing it.
>
> I have to agree wholeheartedly. Knowing what we know now about Covenant leadership, I don’t think capturing one of the prophets would have had the desired affect. When the Chief killed the Prophet of Regret on Delta Halo, Truth and Mercy barely batted an eyelash. Truth also made no attempt to rescue Mercy from the Flood…
>
> Honestly, unless the Spartan’s carrying out OP RED FLAG managed to capture Truth himself, he may have viewed the abduction as a favor. At absolute best, the operation only had a 33% chance of success, assuming the Spartan’s were able to capture a Prophet at all.
I’d go as far to say that Red Flag would have zero chance of success given its sole objective of capturing a high value target to ransom a truce.
Taking away their leadership wouldn’t break the Covenant’s ingrained belief of the Great Journey. The hierarchs could easily be replaced. If one were to be kidnapped or killed it would not change how the Covenant already believe that humanity must be purged.
Perhaps a newer Prophet may be more lenient towards humanity if Regret, Mercy, and Truth were all killed beforehand, but it certainly wouldn’t change the momentum of the war in humanity’s favor as quickly as proving their religion was a sham.