I know this has probably been brought up a lot before but no one really talks about just how unbelievably powerful the Didacts Flagship is. The Mantles Approach literally eats entire universes for power and if the Infinity actually did penetrate the ship with its shields on, that either says the Infinity had a Forerunner power source on board and was able to transfer it through its MAC or the Didacts ship wasn’t functioning properly and had its shields down which I believe is more likely. If those aren’t true, then it’s a very massive plothole. Note that I’m talking about its shields, the hulls being penetrated I can understand but the shields if they were even on I can’t.
There’s probably someone else here who can give you a more complete answer, but as far as I know, the MAC guns on the Infinity are massive. Like bigger than an ODP MAC gun. Also, the Infinity has integrated Forerunner technology. This apparently doesn’t give the Infinity enough power to take down the Mantle’s Approach, but it was enough to punch a hole large enough to fit the Chief through in a Broadsword.
It also helped that the Chief took out a handful of point defense turrets on the Mantle’s Approach which allowed the Infinity to get in closer to take the shot.
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> There’s probably someone else here who can give you a more complete answer, but as far as I know, the MAC guns on the Infinity are massive. Like bigger than an ODP MAC gun. Also, the Infinity has integrated Forerunner technology. This apparently doesn’t give the Infinity enough power to take down the Mantle’s Approach, but it was enough to punch a hole large enough to fit the Chief through in a Broadsword.
>
> It also helped that the Chief took out a handful of point defense turrets on the Mantle’s Approach which allowed the Infinity to get in closer to take the shot.and the Infinitys MACs actually went through the ship without its shields on? Because if it did in fact breach it’s shields, it would mean the Infinity was able to output energy equal to a universe.
Are you saying the Infinitys MACs actually broke through its shields? Because if it did in fact breach it’s shields, it would mean the Infinity was able to output energy equal to a universe.
While forerunner technology was powered by natal universes, that does not mean they had that level of firepower or shield strength. Energy would have been routed to what’s needed. Keeping the didact’s ship together via hardlight bonds and powering the composer would have been more of a priority to him. The best we have seen of forerunner alloy however was halo wars, which showed warships been pulled fully intact right into a mini-star, and Requiem, which pulled the same stunt.
Now the most likely reason the breach was even able to happen was pure stress. Hardlight, despite it’s durability, can only be pushed so far. We see this in the 2nd forerunner novel. A halo ring, about to crash into a moon, deploys hardlight spigots to slow itself down, with the moon passing through the hoop.
The hardlight lasted for a few moments at best, before shattering against the moon. In the same regard, a higher-yield round, focused on a very tiny area was to much for the hardlight structure to take and it broke. Despite this, the breach was only surface damage, as within moments the entire area rebuilds itself. With a hole the size of a fighter craft on a vessel close to the size of a moon, it was far below of anything to be concerned for as far as the didact knew.
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> While forerunner technology was powered by natal universes, that does not mean they had that level of firepower or shield strength. Energy would have been routed to what’s needed. Keeping the didact’s ship together via hardlight bonds and powering the composer would have been more of a priority to him. The best we have seen of forerunner alloy however was halo wars, which showed warships been pulled fully intact right into a mini-star, and Requiem, which pulled the same stunt.
>
> Now the most likely reason the breach was even able to happen was pure stress. Hardlight, despite it’s durability, can only be pushed so far. We see this in the 2nd forerunner novel. A halo ring, about to crash into a moon, deploys hardlight spigots to slow itself down, with the moon passing through the hoop.
>
> The hardlight lasted for a few moments at best, before shattering against the moon. In the same regard, a higher-yield round, focused on a very tiny area was to much for the hardlight structure to take and it broke. Despite this, the breach was only surface damage, as within moments the entire area rebuilds itself. With a hole the size of a fighter craft on a vessel close to the size of a moon, it was far below of anything to be concerned for as far as the didact knew.
First off, we don’t even know if the ring had a universe as its power source so that wouldn’t be enough evidence to suggest that was the absolute limit of hard light and that they couldn’t make hard light stronger if it was powered by something more powerful or if hard light was even their main way of defending against other threats since they only ever say they use hard light as personal shields for personal defense or to keep structural integrity of their large structures and unless I’m wrong, they haven’t said they used hard light as an actual shield for their ships to defend against actual weapons or other ships, only to keep structure integrity.
Now the fact that they can easily transfer and contain that energy in the blink of an eye should say something right? If they can transfer that kind of energy easily from another universe on to their ship, then I don’t know why they can’t transfer it elsewhere like say in their own universe.
Also the fact that requiem alone even needs to suck up more than one universe means it already used up the full energy of an entire universe in some way so if they can fully deplete the energy of an entire universe for something, I don’t get why they couldn’t use it as a shield. Even if it wasn’t used for their shields what kind of machine needs to literally deplete the energy of an entire universe for its power source? Just HOW was the energy of an entire universe depleted that fast? Unless it was used to defend against someone that also uses that same level of energy. More evidence that shows that could’ve been the case is that requiem was used for military purposes during human/Flood war so maybe the ancient humans or flood ships found it and started attacking it during the war between them.
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> First off, we don’t even know if the ring had a universe as its power source so that wouldn’t be enough evidence to suggest that was the absolute limit of hard light and that they couldn’t make hard light stronger if it was powered by something more powerful or if hard light was even their main way of defending against other threats since they only ever say they use hard light as personal shields for personal defense or to keep structural integrity of their large structures and unless I’m wrong, they haven’t said they used hard light as an actual shield to defend against actual weapons or other ships, only to keep structure integrity.
>
> Now the fact that they can easily transfer and contain that energy in the blink of an eye should say something right? If they can transfer that kind of energy easily from another universe on to their ship, then I don’t know why they can’t transfer it elsewhere like say in their own universe.
> Also the fact that requiem alone even needs to suck up more than one universe means it already used up the full energy of an entire universe in some way so if they can fully deplete the energy of an entire universe for something, I don’t get why they couldn’t use it as a shield. Even if it wasn’t used for their shields what kind of machine needs to literally deplete the energy of an entire universe for its power source? Just HOW was the energy of an entire universe depleted that fast? Unless it was used to defend against someone that also uses that same level of energy. More evidence that shows that could’ve been the case is that requiem was used for military purposes during human/Flood war so maybe the ancient humans or flood ships found it and started attacking it during the war between them.
The rings, like all forerunner technology use vacuum energy. Even in Silentium, the last old halo ring was said to pull in almost all nearby vacuum energy to power it’s charge. As for the limit of hardlight, that is the best we have, unless the dragoons, and Requiem themselves are made of mostly hardlight. As for hardlight shields on ships, let’s say they don’t, why bother? The alloy was already very durable, and Cryptum showed us the planet-breaker vessel that was able to hold off enemy fire, rebuilding its walls faster then the enemy could fire before being over whelmed by numbers.Any damage they suffer can be repaired quite fast. As for how they could drain a young universe, there was likely some type of “goldy locks” moment when forerunner technology could pick it up and consume it. I doubt humanity ever got to Requiem, seeing as we don’t have any proof.
Put simply; Infinity’s main armorment is the most powerful space-faring piece of ordinance in the entire UNSC. These are MACs as large in bore as the orbital defense ones, but their barrels are (at least) a kilometer long at least, powered by a Forerunner reactor. The amount of force they can exert is beyond merely flinging pieces of metal at a target; they’re “colony drop” levels of power.
One of these things carved a multi-kilometer wide hole into Sangheilios’s surface. At LOW POWER.
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> > First off, we don’t even know if the ring had a universe as its power source so that wouldn’t be enough evidence to suggest that was the absolute limit of hard light and that they couldn’t make hard light stronger if it was powered by something more powerful or if hard light was even their main way of defending against other threats since they only ever say they use hard light as personal shields for personal defense or to keep structural integrity of their large structures and unless I’m wrong, they haven’t said they used hard light as an actual shield to defend against actual weapons or other ships, only to keep structure integrity.
> >
> > Now the fact that they can easily transfer and contain that energy in the blink of an eye should say something right? If they can transfer that kind of energy easily from another universe on to their ship, then I don’t know why they can’t transfer it elsewhere like say in their own universe.
> > Also the fact that requiem alone even needs to suck up more than one universe means it already used up the full energy of an entire universe in some way so if they can fully deplete the energy of an entire universe for something, I don’t get why they couldn’t use it as a shield. Even if it wasn’t used for their shields what kind of machine needs to literally deplete the energy of an entire universe for its power source? Just HOW was the energy of an entire universe depleted that fast? Unless it was used to defend against someone that also uses that same level of energy. More evidence that shows that could’ve been the case is that requiem was used for military purposes during human/Flood war so maybe the ancient humans or flood ships found it and started attacking it during the war between them.
>
> The rings, like all forerunner technology use vacuum energy. Even in Silentium, the last old halo ring was said to pull in almost all nearby vacuum energy to power it’s charge. As for the limit of hardlight, that is the best we have, unless the dragoons, and Requiem themselves are made of mostly hardlight. As for hardlight shields on ships, let’s say they don’t, why bother? The alloy was already very durable, and Cryptum showed us the planet-breaker vessel that was able to hold off enemy fire, rebuilding its walls faster then the enemy could fire before being over whelmed by numbers.Any damage they suffer can be repaired quite fast. As for how they could drain a young universe, there was likely some type of “goldy locks” moment when forerunner technology could pick it up and consume it. I doubt humanity ever got to Requiem, seeing as we don’t have any proof.
Yes the rings did use vaccume energy, but how much? It was said to have used “nearby” vacuum energy which is no where close to the amount of energy requiem or the Didacts ship consumes and I doubt the ring needs almost an entire universes worth of energy just to exert a pretty much non existent amount of energy compare to the energy of a universe.
If they are able to fully deplete all the energy of an entire universe in that short amount of time, why can’t they use it to power their shields?
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> Yes they do use vaccume energy, but how much? It was said to have used “nearby” vacuum energy which is no where close to the amount of energy requiem or the Didacts ship consumes and I doubt the ring needs almost an entire universes worth of energy just to exert a pretty much non existent amount of energy compare to the energy of a universe.
>
> If they are able to fully deplete all the energy of an entire universe in that short amount of time, why can’t they use it to power their shields?
I think you’re jumping to conclusions with the power that forerunner vacuum technology can pull. The main weapon of the didact’s ship is noted as having the ability to buckle continental plates. If it really had the power of an entire universe on its hand, the ship could vaporize entire planets with ease.
Just in relation to the power of Infinity’s MAC, a UNSC Frigate packs a MAC that run roughly 1/3 the length of the ship.
If the same math applies to the Infinity, this would make its MAC cannons roughly comparable to the SMAC Orbital Defence Platforms in terms of length, though it would surprise me if they were as powerful as ODP’s.
Before anyone points out Infinity breached MA’s hull while the entire ODP nextwork proved useless, Infinity could only take its shot after MC was able to disable a small grid of AA guns which I imagine were intercepting the ODP’s MAC before they were able to impact the MA’s hull. If MC wasn’t in the right place at the right time, Infinity’s MAC’s likely would have been as ineffective as ODP’s.
In addition, I’d also like to point out that Infinity’s only forerunner tech is its slip-space drive and communications. Everything else is human tech including the reactor that powers all systems, so Infinity isn’t going to benefit from a magical Forerunner power source to feed into its weapons because it doesn’t have one.
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> > Yes they do use vaccume energy, but how much? It was said to have used “nearby” vacuum energy which is no where close to the amount of energy requiem or the Didacts ship consumes and I doubt the ring needs almost an entire universes worth of energy just to exert a pretty much non existent amount of energy compare to the energy of a universe.
> >
> > If they are able to fully deplete all the energy of an entire universe in that short amount of time, why can’t they use it to power their shields?
>
> I think you’re jumping to conclusions with the power that forerunner vacuum technology can pull. The main weapon of the didact’s ship is noted as having the ability to buckle continental plates. If it really had the power of an entire universe on its hand, the ship could vaporize entire planets with ease.
I’m not going into any conclusions, the lore already quotes and states they capture all the energy of big bangs from alternate universes in the blink of an eye. Who knows if that really was the limit of what the Didacts ship can do.
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> Infinity breached MA’s hull while the entire ODP nextwork proved useless, Infinity could only take its shot after MC was able to disable a small grid of AA guns which I imagine were intercepting the ODP’s MAC before they were able to impact the MA’s hull.
This point exactly.
Forerunner Particle Cannons on Requiem while they appear similar to the ones on the Mantle Approach. They were shown to be more then capable of shooting down pelicans and even the UNSC Infinity didnt get close due to the danger of those weapons. Now imagine how powerful those weapons are now that they being powered by the Mantle’s Approach.
I’d bet those weapons are more then capable of intercepting MAC rounds.
Believing that the Orbital Defense Grid on Earth was incapable of even damaging the Mantle’s Approach is very hard to believe. The ODP’s on Earth are known to possess generators installed on the platforms, but as shown with the ODP grid at Reach which used those large ground based generators. It is unknown if Earth’s grid had any like Reach but the power supplied by those generators is nothing to ignore.
Powered by Thomas J. Lasky enthusiasm!
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> I’m not going into any conclusions, the lore already quotes and states they capture all the energy of big bangs from alternate universes in the blink of an eye. Who knows if that really was the limit of what the Didacts ship can do.
I don’t mean to rude, but I think you’re misinterpreting what is said. I’m pretty sure the term big bang is never used. Rather, I’m pretty sure the implication is these universes are being snuffed out before they can build to that point. Otherwise the ship, let alone other forerunner technology, faces a number of issues. There’s just no logical way your interpretation works.
First of all, my mention of the main cannon being able to buckle continents also mentions the ship needs to reconfigure itself after firing. This would seem to imply the ship can barely handle firing this weapon at that power. Yet the power to do this would be microscropic compared to the power of a single big bang, much less countless ones. This is from a book on ships, not even a possible ‘lower power setting’ shown in game or for a narrative.
There’s also the thing that most forerunner weapons are ion weapons, or rather, anti-matter weapons (including this main weapon). If they are harnessing multiple big bangs, why aren’t they using energy projectors? The power would make anti-matter look like a joke. Even if they intentionally used lower power weapons to protect the mantle or whatever, their shields would be completely impervious to their own weapons, making the forerunner/human/flood conflicts impossible as portrayed.
Furthermore, forerunner ships are also mentioned to use vacuum energy as a propulsion system. If its firing big bangs out the back. You’d also have the problem of where does all this energy go when things are destroyed. Shouldn’t the halo rings and the didact’s ship explode with the fury of countless universes, completely obliterating our own?
Why would anything forerunner be able to be scratched by anything in our universe, if it can contain multiple angry exploding universes inside itself.
If your interpretation is correct, the infinity getting through the mantle’s shields is honestly the least of the plot holes.
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> > I’m not going into any conclusions, the lore already quotes and states they capture all the energy of big bangs from alternate universes in the blink of an eye. Who knows if that really was the limit of what the Didacts ship can do.
>
> I don’t mean to rude, but I think you’re misinterpreting what is said. I’m pretty sure the term big bang is never used. Rather, I’m pretty sure the implication is these universes are being snuffed out before they can build to that point. Otherwise the ship, let alone other forerunner technology, faces a number of issues. There’s just no logical way your interpretation works.
>
> First of all, my mention of the main cannon being able to buckle continents also mentions the ship needs to reconfigure itself after firing. This would seem to imply the ship can barely handle firing this weapon at that power. Yet the power to do this would be microscropic compared to the power of a single big bang, much less countless ones. This is from a book on ships, not even a possible ‘lower power setting’ shown in game or for a narrative.
>
> There’s also the thing that most forerunner weapons are ion weapons, or rather, anti-matter weapons (including this main weapon). If they are harnessing multiple big bangs, why aren’t they using energy projectors? The power would make anti-matter look like a joke. Even if they intentionally used lower power weapons to protect the mantle or whatever, their shields would be completely impervious to their own weapons, making the forerunner/human/flood conflicts impossible as portrayed.
>
> Furthermore, forerunner ships are also mentioned to use vacuum energy as a propulsion system. If its firing big bangs out the back. You’d also have the problem of where does all this energy go when things are destroyed. Shouldn’t the halo rings and the didact’s ship explode with the fury of countless universes, completely obliterating our own?
>
> Why would anything forerunner be able to be scratched by anything in our universe, if it can contain multiple angry exploding universes inside itself.
>
> If your interpretation is correct, the infinity getting through the mantle’s shields is honestly the least of the plot holes.
I don’t know how that’s rude at all. I’m not saying they work, I’m simply stating what I’m reading. We don’t really know all the different kinds of technology they posses and how they work so I don’t think it’s really fair to say what works and what doesn’t work for them. It actually doesn’t take that long to create a universe. They used the term “nascent universe” meaning it’s already developing AKA its still in its Big Bang state. It doesn’t matter if it’s in its infancy or not, the Big Bang or the singularity still contained as much mass as the entire universe, just in a smaller package. Fred in last light said he saw galaxies being born, a Big Bang has to happen first before galaxies start forming.
I’ll leave this link here if you want to know what I’m talking about: Forerunner capability thread (Halo) SPOILERS! | Page 2 | SpaceBattles
Reconfigure can mean a lot of things. It used exotic matter for ammunition so maybe that could explain the need for reconfigurations and who knows if it even needs to do the same for other types of energy they use. They could’ve been designed primarily for something else like breaking through these “phase rotated fortifications” which could mean dimensional fortreses. We don’t even know how fast the reconfiguration takes, for all we know it could be instantaneous. Maybe they didn’t even want to destroy planets, maybe they wanted to harvest it for resources which is pretty logical. The lore not mentioning something doesn’t confirm its not there. The UNSC can already destroy entire planets in a significantly smaller package like the NOVA bomb while the main canons of the Didact are vastly larger but does way less damage so it wouldn’t make sense to think that’s the limit of the MA. If this is the best its main canon can do, it would mean replacing it with a kinetic weapon would make the canon do insanely more damage. If we do the math, we can calculate how much energy using kinetic ammunition would produce. I’d say it’s heavy ion canon would be pretty huge considering it only has one that’s probably able to fit in several or even hundreds of Infinitys but let’s just use underestimates. So if we use the kinetic energy formula by using underestimates of two Infinitys for the size of its ammunition with a density double (their material density can easily be thousands more dense) that of tungsten going at 50% the speed of light since it’s said to fire projectiles at a “significant fraction of the speed of light”, we would get a total kinetic energy of 192,000,000,000,000,032,768,432,896,240,936,904,104,544,696 joules unless my math was wrong and remember I was just using underestimates so based on that I can conclude that the main heavy canon wasn’t purposely built for outright destroying planet or its ammunition was simply meant for a different purpose. Here’s a thread that shows you just how illogical the main canons of the MA is unless it was meant for other reasons: https://www.reddit.com/r/HaloStory/comments/8jw9lo/what_is_the_logistical_purpose_behind_the
What’s the point of using a weapon that can also destroy your own troops pretty easily? Anti matter weapons are just as effective for what their ground troop weapons are suppose to do but are more precise so they don’t end up blowing themselves up in the process. Their shields won’t be completely impervious because even the energy of a universe still has its limits. Their durability would depend on how fast they can harvest the energy and how fast they can use it.
We don’t know about every single piece of forerunner tech so we shouldn’t just assume they don’t have something to prevent universal level accidents just because they don’t have it in the books.
There’s actually pretty solid evidence that proves how the Didacts shields wasn’t actually on when the Infinity fired its MACs. I’m just wondering if people believed the Infinity was able to break through the MA’s shields, how would that be possible. Here’s the link just scroll down to the Halo 4 midnight section that’s blacked out for the explanation: Forerunner capability thread (Halo) SPOILERS! | Page 3 | SpaceBattles
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> There’s probably someone else here who can give you a more complete answer, but as far as I know, the MAC guns on the Infinity are massive. Like bigger than an ODP MAC gun. Also, the Infinity has integrated Forerunner technology. This apparently doesn’t give the Infinity enough power to take down the Mantle’s Approach, but it was enough to punch a hole large enough to fit the Chief through in a Broadsword.
>
> It also helped that the Chief took out a handful of point defense turrets on the Mantle’s Approach which allowed the Infinity to get in closer to take the shot.
I think the bolts from Mac guns are pure energy
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> I think the bolts from Mac guns are pure energy
MAC rounds are huge shells/slugs weighing between 600-3,000 tons depending on the size of the cannon.
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> > I think the bolts from Mac guns are pure energy
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> MAC rounds are huge shells/slugs weighing between 600-3,000 tons depending on the size of the cannon.
Yeah the orbital MACs tend to use ferric tungsten rounds while the ship-based MACs typically use ferric, ferrous, or depleted uranium rounds. Since the Infinity has MACs that are the size of, or large than, the orbital MACs, then I’d guess the Infinity uses ferric tungsten rounds.
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> sucking up the energy of an entire universe
Where is your lore source for this? I’m not calling you out or anything, I just can’t find it.
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> > sucking up the energy of an entire universe
>
> Where is your lore source for this? I’m not calling you out or anything, I just can’t find it.
Yeah I know how it sounds. I had doubts too when I first found out but it’s actually true.
Direct quotes from the books:
Halo Silentium; ch. 33.
“As the reflective orb rotates beneath my ship, I see also the outstretched, feather-like plumes of vacuum energy pylons, drawing in the potential of an infinity of alternate realities … aborting untold numbers of nascent universes to supply Requiem’s power. Strange that these cosmic deaths have never before struck me as cruel and futile. All of Forerunner technology has been made possible by drawing down vacuum energy. My own life, all that I know, arises out of cosmic predation.”
If you want to go more into detail, this guy literally explains everything: Forerunner capability thread (Halo) SPOILERS! | Page 2 | SpaceBattles
Here’s a quick YouTube video if you don’t want to read: Halo - Forerunners Cruel Energy - Lore and Theory - YouTube