How much of the Milky way has been explored?

Community Halo Universe
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By both Humanity and covenant, are there any certain numbers, preferably in lightyears as to how far out these two civilizations expanded?

Normally I’d assume that both remained within the orion arm of the galaxy, however installations 03, 04, 05, and 07 are, or have been occupied by the unsc or the covenant at some point. For maximum effect I doubt the forerunners would place over half of the array in the orion arm alone.

I guess I’m asking whether or not contemporary 26th century civilizations have moved beyond the orion arm.

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I think humanity and the covernant have only explored a small portion of the galaxy. There are probably millions of forerunner worlds left to exlore and exploit. And humanity has yet to locate the remaining rings

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I read explored as exploded and was disappointed by the actual thread.

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> 2533274816487930;2:
> I think humanity and the covernant have only explored a small portion of the galaxy. There are probably millions of forerunner worlds left to exlore and exploit. And humanity has yet to locate the remaining rings

If you look up some of the crude fan-made Halo maps you’ll see that each faction has explored considerable portions of the Galaxy.
I only wonder how the maps would look now with all the Covenant info we have.

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The classic edition of The Fall of Reach used to say humanity had colonized the Beta Centauri system, which is some 500 light years away. The new Tor edition removed the mention of Beta Centauri, so we can deduce the UNSC’s colonial sphere has a radius of less than 500 light years, making their area of influence within the 100,000-light-year wide galaxy very small indeed.

It’s common for writers not to really grasp the scale they’re dealing with when galactic distances are involved, though, so considerable leeway is expected where these things are concerned.

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> 2533274848433317;5:
> The classic edition of The Fall of Reach used to say humanity had colonized the Beta Centauri system, which is some 500 light years away. The new Tor edition removed the mention of Beta Centauri, so we can deduce the UNSC’s colonial sphere has a radius of less than 500 light years, making their area of influence within the 100,000-light-year wide galaxy very small indeed.
>
> It’s common for writers not to really grasp the scale they’re dealing with when galactic distances are involved, though, so considerable leeway is expected where these things are concerned.

That is stuff definitive editions should focus on.

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> 2533274835488730;4:
> > 2533274816487930;2:
> > I think humanity and the covernant have only explored a small portion of the galaxy. There are probably millions of forerunner worlds left to exlore and exploit. And humanity has yet to locate the remaining rings
>
>
> If you look up some of the crude fan-made Halo maps you’ll see that each faction has explored considerable portions of the Galaxy.
> I only wonder how the maps would look now with all the Covenant info we have.

All humanity ever had explored was a small sphere of stars around Earth, with covenant worlds lying inside it and not found.
The covenant empire on the other hand controlled a huge part of the Orion Arm and apparently extended outside of it as the Universe encyclopedia states that they covered a good portion of the galaxy.
Still though the Covenant Empire was nothing compared to the Ecumene.

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Doing it again black.

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> 2533274848433317;5:
> The classic edition of The Fall of Reach used to say humanity had colonized the Beta Centauri system, which is some 500 light years away. The new Tor edition removed the mention of Beta Centauri, so we can deduce the UNSC’s colonial sphere has a radius of less than 500 light years, making their area of influence within the 100,000-light-year wide galaxy very small indeed.
>
> It’s common for writers not to really grasp the scale they’re dealing with when galactic distances are involved, though, so considerable leeway is expected where these things are concerned.

Kinda like how Harvest was supposed to be the furthest colony from Earth, yet it resided in a system that was only 11-12 light years away, if I remember correctly. And in addition, it was stated that Madrigal was the closest colony to Harvest, when the 23 Librae System was 85 light years away from Earth.

I kinda wish 343 didn’t “fix” this by saying “Oh, at one point, Harvest WAS the furthest colony, and the people never stopped bragging about it even when it immediately became untrue!” I’d rather they simply change the system Harvest is in, preferably to a system that’s reasonably close to 23 Librae, but still further from Earth.

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Didn’t catalogue say at one point the distance between objects in slipslace in relation to eacother isn’t necessarily the same in slipspace as it is in normal space? I know it doesn’t necessarily forgive the problems, but does create some wiggle room. The travel distance is likely more important than physical difference.

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Never considered that.

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Fan made maps make the Galaxy look like the Star Wars Galaxy, with large sections of it explored. I don’t believe the UNSC has traveled very far and the Galaxy map should look more like the Star Trek Galaxy. Only a small portion of the Galaxy has been explored by Humanity, perhaps only a 100 or so light-years. It may be larger than that but not every system the UNSC controls has a populated colony in it. Covenant Space would be considerably larger but not large enough to be on the other side of the Galaxy.

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With the tech time and goals of the covenant there’s no reason they wouldn’t have damn near covered the almost the whole galaxy by now with them being 3000+ years old

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I could’ve sworn that there was the retcon somewhere limiting the Covenant and UNSC to the Orion Arm Complex.

Don’t quote me on that though as the Covenant existed for thousands of years and surely would have been larger then what we are told.

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This is gonna make me guilty of bumping as well, but this thread is from 2015. It didn’t need to be necromanced because new users can’t be bothered to check dates or read the forum rules.

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> The seat of power in the Covenant,
> the Citadel is the main nerve center
> for the interplanetary warfare of the
> Covenant. It offers a modular system
> that makes aggressive colonization
> and rapid deployment of troops and
> armor effective. This is where the political and religious
> leaders of the Covenant or their underlings issue orders
> to the various races and cultures that create the
> Covenant.

> The Covenant is a highly advanced collective of different alien races that completely control a large portion of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. A caste-oriented society consisting of a ruling religious class (the Prophets), a warrior class (the Elites) and a worker class (including the Grunts and Jackals, among others), the Covenant has previously – or so available data suggests – assimilated subjugated species into its society. However, Mankind’s first contact with the Covenant was their complete destruction of the Outer Colony Harvest.
> For thirty-two years, the Covenant has waged war against the Human race, culminating in the recent obliteration of the planet Reach. The Covenant’s objective appears not to be conquest, but the unmitigated annihilation of our entire species.

> The Covenant is a technologically advanced collective of alien species that controls a large portion of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. Millennia ago, the Covenant were a small, heterogeneous group who banded together for mutual protection. Intervening centuries have interwoven the customs and beliefs of the disparate species into a strong society. The Covenant is a caste-based society regulated by theocratic rule.

Thus, the Covenant had a presence in most of the Orion Arm star systems (which consists of stars). This is potentially billions of planets. This is not impossible. In halo wars, just one Covenant ship deployed more than seven citadeles. They had hundreds of CSOs. Thus, the Covenant controlled almost all the areas suitable for settlement in Orion Arm.
This is also a feat for the number of ships, since the Covenant had to support all of these colonies. Of course, they do not even come close to the fertile worlds of the forerunners, but there are still a lot of them. In the new canon, as far as I know, nothing refutes this quote and it makes it clear how independent the halo universe was. A civilization that has existed for thousands of years could well have established billions of permanent colonies. Nevertheless, halo wars logically fits this quote into the new canon. On the other hand, we know that the Covenant did not colonize planets - so most colonies are space stations.Although the Covenant’s primary homeworld, the Holy City of High Charity, was enormous, fully mobile, and even capable of slipspace travel, the alliance utilized many sites as anchors of military, political, and utilitarian dominion. At the base, this included the worlds and colonies of each species it had subsumed, but it would also grow to include new worlds and even Forerunner installations. The Covenant, as an empire, dominated much of the galaxy, though they would generally leave a world untouched unless it offered particular treasures, whether practical or religious.
It is important to note that the Covenant is “completely control a large portion of the Orion”, which means we are not talking about size, but about territories. If it was about size, then the word “completely” would have no meaning.

> Although the Covenant’s primary homeworld, the Holy City of High Charity, was enormous, fully mobile, and even capable of slipspace travel, the alliance utilized many sites as anchors of military, political, and utilitarian dominion. At the base, this included the worlds and colonies of each species it had subsumed, but it would also grow to include new worlds and even Forerunner installations. The Covenant, as an empire, dominated much of the galaxy, though they would generally leave a world untouched unless it offered particular treasures, whether practical or religious.

Thus, the halo waypoint agrees the Covenant dominated the entire galaxy. However, dominance does not mean control, but only that the Covenant across the galaxy had no competitors.

> THE GALAXY
> The Milky Way galaxy is vast, with hundreds of billions of stars separated by incomprehensible distances and tangled slipspace routes. Limited resources and other distractions mean that only a few thousand star systems in the Orion Arm have been explored in detail by humanity and the Covenant. The state of the wider galaxy is a mystery except for small islands of knowledge recovered from Forerunner vaults or through special pioneer missions.

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This does not directly contradict Warfleet’s statement. If the Covenant has billions of colonies or stations, this does not mean that they should have studied each system in detail. However, this indicates rather that the majority of Covenant’s presence in the Milky Way is not full worlds, but stations that the Covenant somehow manages to maintain.

> The Covenant controlled thousands of star systems at the height of its power. So vast was the Prophets’ realm and so complex its administration that entire colonies and sub-domains occasionally vanished from High Charity’s records for decades before contact was re-established.

This quote also does not find contradictions, given that people living on Earth do not control the solar system (it is the planets that are part of the star system, just like the stars are part of the arms of the galaxy). Thus, COMPLETELY Covenant controls thousands of star systems (potentially tens of millions of planets). However, most of the Orion Arm will not be investigated in detail by them.

> “Is that still functioning?” It was a former Covenant resupply station, one of a network that had spanned the galaxy.”

> The station was on the edge of Covenant space, a depot for lone ships traveling without the fleet replenishment support of an agricultural ship. It was a comfort to have it there just in case of emergency

> SECTION VII HARBINGER EPILOGUE Ninth Age of Reclamation, Step of Silence \ Covenant Holy City “High Charity,” Sanctum of the Hierarchs.A hundred thousand probes darted and scanned with winking electronic eyes across the void of tangled nonspaces enveloping the Covenant inner empire. They gathered data and emerged into the cold vacuum, where they were recovered by the hundreds of supercarriers and cruisers in station-keeping positions around the massive, bulbous planetoid that dominated the heavens.Not a single rock larger than a centimeter could enter this space without being identified, targeted, and vaporized. Autho- rization codes were updated hourly, and if any incoming vessel hesitated for a millisecond with the proper response, it, too, met unyielding destruction.The High Charity drifted beneath this impervious network, il- luminated by the glow from scores of warship engines.Deep within, protected by legions of crack Covenant soldiers, the Sanctum of the Heirarchs was an island of calm. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the chamber were ornamented with mirrored shards made from the fused glass of countless worlds conquered by the Covenant Hegemony. They reflected the whispered thoughts of the one who sat in the center of this room—mirrored them back, so they might consider the glory of its domain, and learn from its wisdom… because there was no higher source of intel- lect, will, and truth alive in the galaxy.

Covenant is a parody Empire (For the Emperor of mankind !!!). It is absurdly large and this should not have been somehow explained. Like why UNSC could stand against it.

> The Covenant is a large alliance of several alien species that are more technologically advanced than Humans during the events of Halo Wars. First started as a loose non-aggression pact between the Elites and the Prophets, the Covenant quickly assimilated other races using superior firepower and tactics. The other races were given the choice of joining the Covenant or being destroyed.
> Over the many years since the Covenant was founded they have taken over a large part of the Galaxy and have declared humanity a heretic race and are engaged in a Genocidal war against them.

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> 2533274838418174;15:
> This is gonna make me guilty of bumping as well, but this thread is from 2015. It didn’t need to be necromanced because new users can’t be bothered to check dates or read the forum rules.

Comments like this are unnecessary. If you see something you feel violates the rules, report it and we’ll look at it. The universe section being lore intensive isn’t as damaged by necroposting (assuming the posts are at least some what quality and on topic) as other sections would be.

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Very little, and may offer even deeper secrets.