Halo: Ground Command - Lore

Community Halo Universe
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CHOOSING YOUR WARZONE
The Covenant’s brutal campaign of annihilation raged across the entire human sphere for decades. The orders of the Prophet Hierarchs were clear and unequivocal: all humans were to be put to the sword.

The conflict spanned decades and raged across many varied worlds and battlefields, from the upper atmosphere of burning colonies to the crushing methane oceans humanity fought for survival against overwhelming odds.

The following provides a short precis on the events that took place during pivotal military campaigns on Harvest, Sigma Octanus IV, and Reach.
Each one can be the backdrop of an epic Halo: Ground Command campaign or scenario.

Harvest: First contact. The UNSC is utterly outmatched while the Covenant is not yet aware of the true size of the human domain. Confusion reigns on both sides.

SIgma Octanus IV: Victory at what cost? The Covenant invades the planet to search for a Forerunner artefact while the UNSC tries to contain their invasion.

Reach: The fortress falls. Humanity’s most strategically important colony is besieged. The end is near, for both the UNSC and Covenant.

FIRST CONTACT - THE DEMISE OF HARVEST

The Outer Colony Harvest lies in the Epsilon Indi system, close to Earth in real space but reachable only after a lengthy and circuitous path through slipspace. Though placed in a remote edge of Earth’s communication and trade network, Harvest was a verdant world and major exporter of agricultural goods throughout the Outer Colonies: until it became the first of many human worlds to be attacked by the Covenant war machine.

THE MILITARY CAMPAIGN
On February 3, 2525, first contact was made with the Covenant, with a peaceful encounter quickly turning violent. For several months the fate of the colony remained a mystery. The situation only escalated after the scout ship CMA Argo was sent to investigate the silence, but was then lost and presumed MIA. This prompted the UNSC to send Battle Group 4 to investigate Harvest, which was when a Covenant ship was encountered, with devastating results for the technologically outclassed human ships. The lead ship, CMA Heracles, managed to escape back to UEG territory to inform the military of what had happened to Harvest.
It was in 2526 that Vice Admiral Cole arrived in the Epsilon Indi system with one of the largest UNSC naval fleets ever assembled at that time. The battle raged for five long years, with control of the planet hanging in the balance. By 2531 it seemed the UNSC had finally gained the upper hand, though victory was pyrrhic at best: the colony lay in utter ruin, the Navy had lost over half of its fighting strength, and the Covenant forces continued their advance on other human worlds. The UNSC was soon forced to evacuate Harvest, leaving behind a burnt husk devoid of life and littered with wreckage. It would not be the last.

GAMING HARVEST
The miniatures from the Battle for Reach game can be used to represent UNSC forces fighting on Harvest during Admiral Cole’s campaign, or the brave last stands of Harvest Colonial Militia in the very first hours of the Covenant attack:

  • A small force of Colonial Militia must kill all nearly Covenant before they can raise teh alarm and alert the main force of the survivor’s presence. - The Covenant forces sent to retrieve a Forerunner artefact turn on each other so that they alone can claim the glory for its return.

BATTLE OF SIGMA OCTANUS IV

“We’ve come to take Sigma Octanus IV back from the Covenant. To do that, we’re gonna kill every last one of them…”
-Master Chief John-117
On July 17, 2552, Covenant forces struck at Sigma Octanus IV, searching for Forerunner artefacts and eradicating every human that stood in their way. After a brutal ground and space campaign, the UNSC succeeded in defeating the Covenant assault, buying time to evacuate the remaining population and retreat - unknowingly bringing with them a probe that would soon lead the main Covenant fleet to Reach.

THE MILITARY CAMPAIGN
The Covenant deployed thousands of troops to the city of Cote d’Azur, seeking an artefact that was inadvertently stored in the City’s Museum of Natural History. Unaware of the Covenant’s actual intentions, a Marine regiment was quickly deployed to relieve the local security and police forces and prevent an invasion beachhead from being established. Unprepared for the scale of the Covenant occupation and hampered by poor intelligence, the strike force was quickly overwhelmed and destroyed in less than an hour. Of nearly two thousand marines who landed on the planet, only one percent survived.
Struggling to contain the situation, the UNSC ordered a Spartan team sent in, consisting of twelve Spartans under the command of the legendary Master Chief John-117. With reinforcements unlikely, asset denial was the only option. After fighting into the heart of Cote d’Azur the Spartans placed a HAVOK tactical nuclear weapon in the heart of the occupation area and evacuated. The city was incinerated along with the Covenant army clustered around the artefact site…

GAMING SIGMA OCTANUS IV
The conflict at Sigma Octanus IV was a prelude to Reach, and the battle for Cote d’Azur was just one story. Covenant forces also landed in the planet’s other major cities, engaging UNSC and militia units as they scoured areas their artefact-seeking Luminaries had detected the faint presence of Forerunner machinery. Example scenarios include:

  • A Covenant raiding group attacks a heavily defended UNSC firebase to scan a possible reliquary and carry off what they find, regardless of casualties. - Remnants of the Marine strike force fight their way back to the extraction zone while being pursued by bloodthirsty Covenant hunting parties. - Take control of the four Spartans from Red or Green Team as they complete their missions alongside Master Chief’s Blue Team.
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THE BATTLE OF REACH

“We knew this day would come. They have found our fortress amongst the stars. The Covenant are on Reach. They will burn this planet, kill millions, and when Reach falls - and fall it will - there will be nothing left to stand between them … and Earth.”
-Catherine Halsey
By 2552 the UNSC was exhausted, its naval and ground forces smashed by the Covenant or tied up in delaying actions on a dozen worlds. The Outer Colonies had fallen, and the Covenant were moving into the Inner Colonies. The remaining UNSC fleets consolidated in the Sol and Epsilon Eridani systems to repair and rearm, and it was in the latter system that the majority of humanity’s remaining military power was concentrated.

THE MILITARY CAMPAIGN
On July 23, 2552, Covenant scouting parties were first detected on the planet Reach by an Army special forces team investigating a downed communications relay near the settlement of Visegrad. WINTER CONTINGENCY went into effect immediately: a standing security protocol triggered in the even the Covenant ever infiltrated Reach.
Shortly after this initial security breach, a number of Covenant stealth vessels managed to penetrate Reach’s orbital defenses and land ground troops. Though the Covenant was seemingly defeated, it soon became clear that this was an independent fleet and not the main force.
The hammer fell when the main Covenant force arrived in the Epsilon Eridani system on August 14. By August 30 major combat operations had ceased. Reach had fallen, Earth was next.

THE MILITARY CAMPAIGN
Reach provides a veritable banquet of scenario ideas for gamers. From small skirmishes to full scale military actions, the conflict on this planet has them all. Examples include:

  • An Army ground team must destroy Covenant stealth generator pylons to clear the way for naval and air strikes. - Time is of the essence as the UNSC orders a cavalry charge with all available Warthogs to relieve a besieged outpost. - A Spartan and small detachment of troopers must delay a Covenant armored column to buy time for civilians to escape.
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Biggest takeaways from the new info:

  • The UNSC expended half of its Navy to retake harvest (depressing) - By 2552, the UNSC Navy was either at Sol, Epsilon Eridani, or conducting delaying actions on a dozen worlds (super depressing) - Main Covenant forces arrived on August 14th (intriguing)So the last bit may only be one sentence, but it’s actually incredibly helpful for finally putting together the final pieces of the military campaign at Reach. My initial reaction was confusion, however it now appears to be canon that the combined Covenant fleets at Reach totaled to be around 750 ships. Yesterday I was looking at some stuff surrounding Reach on halopedia and read that the initial re-print of TForR (prior to the DE) was changed to say that the fleet that had arrived was around 750 ships instead of the 314. For the main force to have arrived on August 14th, it must have at least had 315 ships, putting the total at a minimum of 629 ships. Of course, the 750 number has been thrown around since late 2004, and the short period of time it was canon makes me believe there was some truth to it. Seems logical then to assume that the combined fleets totaled to around 750.
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Any other goodies? I did hear the rule book was light on lore.

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Huh. So this is the lore included in Ground Command, that you’ve scouted out for us? Thanks, dude.

That 750 number… would that be Lord Hood’s “15 ships? The fleet that attacked Reach was fifty times that size”? I wouldn’t put so much stock in that value, if so. He was in a tactical scenario, making a point about the difference in scale – I don’t think he picked “fifty” because he thought it over as the most apt term. He probably just picked that number because it was in the ballpark. 629 and 750 aren’t so different when 15 is “everyone panic.”

It’s nice to see the war era revisited with the same vibe as before. Since 343’s been making games, we’ve generally only seen the war as something that the humans won or something that the Covenant felt as affected by as the humans. But for the prior ten years, Bungie (and also 343, oddly) had portrayed it as a grim, slow defeat that the Covenant, on the grand scheme, barely put an effort into.

That the UNSC of 2526-2531 had invested literally half their power in the first campaign of the war is a great bit of pathos. They didn’t know how unwinnable the war was at the time, I suppose.

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This is awesome. Anyone done this for Fleet command yet?

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> 2535464839815963;4:
> Any other goodies? I did hear the rule book was light on lore.

I transcribed all the lore on the unit cards as well, but since Grim provided all that for us in the last canon fodder I didn’t feel it was necessary to post. But yeah, most of the lore in the rule book is a repeat of the universe building done in the Halo: Fleet Battles Rule Book.

Sadly, there’s no campaign that comes with the game. Thanks to Toa Freak though, we know the next campaign will include both Ground Command and Fleet Battles and features a Covenant fleet luring the UNSC away from a colony world, first by getting their attention by hijacking a SMAC and aiming it at the colony, then by retreating into a nearby nebula. During this, the Covenant covertly sent down ground troops to the colony to raid a Forerunner vault.

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> 2678033349858034;5:
> Huh. So this is the lore included in Ground Command, that you’ve scouted out for us? Thanks, dude.
>
> That 750 number… would that be Lord Hood’s “15 ships? The fleet that attacked Reach was fifty times that size”? I wouldn’t put so much stock in that value, if so. He was in a tactical scenario, making a point about the difference in scale – I don’t think he picked “fifty” because he thought it over as the most apt term. He probably just picked that number because it was in the ballpark. 629 and 750 aren’t so different when 15 is “everyone panic.”
>
> It’s nice to see the war era revisited with the same vibe as before. Since 343’s been making games, we’ve generally only seen the war as something that the humans won or something that the Covenant felt as affected by as the humans. But for the prior ten years, Bungie (and also 343, oddly) had portrayed it as a grim, slow defeat that the Covenant, on the grand scheme, barely put an effort into.
>
> That the UNSC of 2526-2531 had invested literally half their power in the first campaign of the war is a great bit of pathos. They didn’t know how unwinnable the war was at the time, I suppose.

No problem.

I would normally have agreed with you about the 750 number, but it was actually canon (beyond Hood’s line) for a short period of time. Apparently the reprint of TFoR done before the Definitive Edition changed the 314 ships arriving at Reach to 750.

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> 2533274904397463;6:
> This is awesome. Anyone done this for Fleet command yet?

Yup. I did it when it first came out actually. Made a thread on Waypoint, but over on the Halo Archive is a more complete transcription of the lore present in the game that I did.

Here’s a link to that thread: http://www.haloarchive.com/forum/topic/3554-halo-fleet-battles-lore/H

Here’s a link to the thread on Waypoint (This one is mostly discussion with the lore interspersed throughout): https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/forums/db05ce78845f4120b062c50816008e5d/topics/halo-fleet-battles—lore/8b89379f-38b0-4a2c-b209-8524f7cd027b/posts

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Fall of Reach. Fall of the Spartans.

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Explains everything

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And people wonder why the UNSC basically forbade anyone else from trying to retake a fallen planet. When you loose THAT MUCH it kinda makes a mark…

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Question do somebody know when we will get expansionpacks?
I want this antiair scorpion which has been anmounced.