Infinity and the Guardian. Halo 5 ending. Spoilers

Community Halo Universe
1

So I’ve seen some complaints online regarding the Infinity and the Guardian that appears in Halo 5’s ending. Specifically why didn’t the ship fire at the Guardian. Well, here’s an answer I’ve come up with.

From Halo: Fleet Battles, we learn that the Punic class Supercarrier, a ship built before the turn of the 26th century, was armed with 2 SMACs and multiple mini-MAC batteries across her hull. Now the Infinity was built over 50 years later with 4 MAC guns. From the Fall of Reach we have learnt that the SMACs fire a 3000 ton round of tungsten at 4% the speed of light. This gives the round a yield of roughly 52 gigatons. Now let’s assume the Infinity fired a similar round (if not superior). The Guardian was roughly a kilometre or so away from the Infinity. The Tsar bomb had a yield of 50 gigatons and its effects can be felt a 100km away. Imagine what the Infinity would’ve felt if it fired at the Guardian a few Kilometres away. Even if the Infinity wasn’t destroyed it would’ve taken a great amount of damage, which wouldn’t be great if a second Guardian arrived, or if the Infinity was disabled.

As for its other armaments, we don’t even know if it’s Mini-MAC batteries could even aim at the Guardian (we don’t know if any of them fires in a frontal arc) and it’s unlikely a few missiles would even do anything to a Forerunner construct. The Mantle’s Approach took the entirety of Earth’s Orbital Defence platform’s fire and it didn’t even scratch the paint. Who knows what a simple Forerunner equivalent of a police car can take.

So yeah, that’s what I assume to be the reason why the Infinity didn’t fire its MAC gun.

2

The Infinity did not run away from being too strong. It’s clear Lasky didn’t want to take chances against something like the Guardian. Let me explain

> 2533274926227685;1:
> So I’ve seen some complaints online regarding the Infinity and the Guardian that appears in Halo 5’s ending. Specifically why didn’t the ship fire at the Guardian. Well, here’s an answer I’ve come up with.
>
> From Halo: Fleet Battles, we learn that the Punic class Supercarrier, a ship built before the turn of the 26th century, was armed with 2 SMACs and multiple mini-MAC batteries across her hull. Now the Infinity was built over 50 years later with 4 MAC guns. From the Fall of Reach we have learnt that the SMACs fire a 3000 ton round of tungsten at 4% the speed of light. This gives the round a yield of roughly 52 gigatons. Now let’s assume the Infinity fired a similar round (if not superior). The Guardian was roughly a kilometre or so away from the Infinity. The Tsar bomb had a yield of 50 gigatons and its effects can be felt a 100km away. Imagine what the Infinity would’ve felt if it fired at the Guardian a few Kilometres away. Even if the Infinity wasn’t destroyed it would’ve taken a great amount of damage, which wouldn’t be great if a second Guardian arrived, or if the Infinity was disabled.

The Guardian was much more than a Kilometer away. The Infinity itself is 5 kilometers, meaning if it was only 1 away, they would appear almost face to face. Also, Tsar Bomba’s (only 50 Megatons btw) long ranged effects were largely do to it being on the planet. In space, with absence of an atmosphere, there would be no superheated air and no shockwave. Infinity would take no damage.

> As for its other armaments, we don’t even know if it’s Mini-MAC batteries could even aim at the Guardian (we don’t know if any of them fires in a frontal arc) and it’s unlikely a few missiles would even do anything to a Forerunner construct.

It could easily maneuver around for a broadside. And a barrage of thousands of high power missiles is worth a try. And there are nukes.

> The Mantle’s Approach took the entirety of Earth’s Orbital Defence platform’s fire and it didn’t even scratch the paint. Who knows what a simple Forerunner equivalent of a police car can take.

Mantle’s Approach was the most powerful Forerunner ship ever made. And the SMACs were said to be ineffective. That doesn’t mean they didn’t damage it, they just didn’t stop it.

> So yeah, that’s what I assume to be the reason why the Infinity didn’t fire its MAC gun.

I think it was more to do with Lasky not knowing it’s capabilities and not wanting to take any chances after what they did on some colonies. Good theory though. Well thought out. I think another major reason was Cortana being there. With a powerful unknown enemy about to attack, the last thing he needed was for Cortana to be there fiddling with the ship. So he took Infinity and made a run for it to ensure the UNSC didn’t lose its most critical ship.

3

Well, the UNSC already knew that the Guardians had an EMP style weapon.

If the Infinity had not taken out the Guradian with the first shot, then they too would have been affected by the EMP and left helpless in orbit arround the planet.

4

The Infinity didn’t engage because the story dictated that it wasn’t time to fight a Guardian yet. I mean really, what kind of Captain would leave Earth defenseless against an unknown, super powerful, enemy that has already killed millions of people? But story reasons dictated Lasky had to run. If Infinity would have stayed and fought it would have ruined a climactic battle that is going to appear in Halo 6, and would have either destroyed a Guardian (making them seem not so frightening) or would have destroyed the Infinity (which is needed for plot progression later). I wouldn’t bother trying to rationalize it with lore or logic, because clearly the writers at 343 won’t.

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> 2535427499121034;4:
> The Infinity didn’t engage because the story dictated that it wasn’t time to fight a Guardian yet. I mean really, what kind of Captain would leave Earth defenseless against an unknown, super powerful, enemy that has already killed millions of people? But story reasons dictated Lasky had to run. If Infinity would have stayed and fought it would have ruined a climactic battle that is going to appear in Halo 6, and would have either destroyed a Guardian (making them seem not so frightening) or would have destroyed the Infinity (which is needed for plot progression later). I wouldn’t bother trying to rationalize it with lore or logic, because clearly the writers at 343 won’t.

It seems more likely to me that Lasky’s emergency slipspace jump was to draw off Cortana and the Guardian. Think about it from his perspective: Cortana blatantly makes it clear she’s been looking for Infinity, and she drops the Guardian right in front of it. He mentions he doesn’t want to go near other colonies, probably to avoid drawing the Guardian to them.

Then, my guess is it became abundantly clear the Guardian wasn’t pursuing AFTER it stuck around to disable Earth (or whichever planet it was). We just don’t know enough yet.

People are incredibly quick to write off lazy writing around here. I get that not everything’s perfect, but not every single little detail is a matter of lazy writing. If I were captain of Infinity and a Forerunner space-faring construct dropped out right in front of me while a rampant A.I. proclaimed she had found me, I’d emergency jump too - both to lead her and the Guardian away (since that might be my assumption of her intents given what she said) and to, at very least, get out of the Guardian’s face.

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> 2533274864701588;5:
> > 2535427499121034;4:
> > The Infinity didn’t engage because the story dictated that it wasn’t time to fight a Guardian yet. I mean really, what kind of Captain would leave Earth defenseless against an unknown, super powerful, enemy that has already killed millions of people? But story reasons dictated Lasky had to run. If Infinity would have stayed and fought it would have ruined a climactic battle that is going to appear in Halo 6, and would have either destroyed a Guardian (making them seem not so frightening) or would have destroyed the Infinity (which is needed for plot progression later). I wouldn’t bother trying to rationalize it with lore or logic, because clearly the writers at 343 won’t.
>
>
> It seems more likely to me that Lasky’s emergency slipspace jump was to draw off Cortana and the Guardian. Think about it from his perspective: Cortana blatantly makes it clear she’s been looking for Infinity, and she drops the Guardian right in front of it. He mentions he doesn’t want to go near other colonies, probably to avoid drawing the Guardian to them.
>
> Then, my guess is it became abundantly clear the Guardian wasn’t pursuing AFTER it stuck around to disable Earth (or whichever planet it was). We just don’t know enough yet.
>
> People are incredibly quick to write off lazy writing around here. I get that not everything’s perfect, but not every single little detail is a matter of lazy writing. If I were captain of Infinity and a Forerunner space-faring construct dropped out right in front of me while a rampant A.I. proclaimed she had found me, I’d emergency jump too - both to lead her and the Guardian away (since that might be my assumption of her intents given what she said) and to, at very least, get out of the Guardian’s face.

That’s great and all except the fact that the Guardian made no move to follow them and was in the process of attacking Earth when the Infinity left. Lasky just potentially left billions of people to die on the off chance that the Guardian might pursue him even though the destruction of Infinity was never Cortana’s primary goal (enforcing galactic peace was). Even if the Guardian was after Infinity, there was no way for it to pursue the ship in slip space, so it was most likely going to attack Earth anyway. Will the Guardian destroy Earth? Of course not, because story reasons, but in-universe Lasky has no way of knowing that. Not only that, but it is completely out of character. Lasky made a near suicide run to try and stop the Mantle’s Approach when it was attacking Earth in Halo 4, but now he doesn’t even hesitate to run?

Listen, I am not saying this is some huge plot hole and it is not one that even particularly bothers me. But it is blatantly a story contrivance that the Infinity fled. No sane commander would abandon his post and leave Earth to potentially be destroyed on the off chance that the attacker follows him.

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> 2535427499121034;4:
> The Infinity didn’t engage because the story dictated that it wasn’t time to fight a Guardian yet. I mean really, what kind of Captain would leave Earth defenseless against an unknown, super powerful, enemy that has already killed millions of people? But story reasons dictated Lasky had to run. If Infinity would have stayed and fought it would have ruined a climactic battle that is going to appear in Halo 6, and would have either destroyed a Guardian (making them seem not so frightening) or would have destroyed the Infinity (which is needed for plot progression later). I wouldn’t bother trying to rationalize it with lore or logic, because clearly the writers at 343 won’t.

The Guardians had already decimated dozens of colonies and had just shut down everything the UNSC had. Within seconds of arrival, the Guardian crippled the whole planet.
What the hell are you expecting Infinity to do?

Infinity was created to be humanity’s mobile command ship and ark in case of an extinction-level event. Lasky wasn’t going to pit humanity’s best chance solo against a Forerunner construct that they had little knowledge on except for its ability to disable a planet in seconds. A Guardian sustained a Covenant glassing and terraforming system without ill effects, and another took fire from both sides in the middle of a Covenant civil war.

Infinity wasn’t winning that fight. The better option was to run, as terrible as it is.

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> 2535427499121034;6:
> > 2533274864701588;5:
> > > 2535427499121034;4:
> > > The Infinity didn’t engage because the story dictated that it wasn’t time to fight a Guardian yet. I mean really, what kind of Captain would leave Earth defenseless against an unknown, super powerful, enemy that has already killed millions of people? But story reasons dictated Lasky had to run. If Infinity would have stayed and fought it would have ruined a climactic battle that is going to appear in Halo 6, and would have either destroyed a Guardian (making them seem not so frightening) or would have destroyed the Infinity (which is needed for plot progression later). I wouldn’t bother trying to rationalize it with lore or logic, because clearly the writers at 343 won’t.
> >
> >
> > It seems more likely to me that Lasky’s emergency slipspace jump was to draw off Cortana and the Guardian. Think about it from his perspective: Cortana blatantly makes it clear she’s been looking for Infinity, and she drops the Guardian right in front of it. He mentions he doesn’t want to go near other colonies, probably to avoid drawing the Guardian to them.
> >
> > Then, my guess is it became abundantly clear the Guardian wasn’t pursuing AFTER it stuck around to disable Earth (or whichever planet it was). We just don’t know enough yet.
> >
> > People are incredibly quick to write off lazy writing around here. I get that not everything’s perfect, but not every single little detail is a matter of lazy writing. If I were captain of Infinity and a Forerunner space-faring construct dropped out right in front of me while a rampant A.I. proclaimed she had found me, I’d emergency jump too - both to lead her and the Guardian away (since that might be my assumption of her intents given what she said) and to, at very least, get out of the Guardian’s face.
>
>
> That’s great and all except the fact that the Guardian made no move to follow them and was in the process of attacking Earth when the Infinity left. Lasky just potentially left billions of people to die on the off chance that the Guardian might pursue him even though the destruction of Infinity was never Cortana’s primary goal (enforcing galactic peace was). Even if the Guardian was after Infinity, there was no way for it to pursue the ship in slip space, so it was most likely going to attack Earth anyway. Will the Guardian destroy Earth? Of course not, because story reasons, but in-universe Lasky has no way of knowing that. Not only that, but it is completely out of character. Lasky made a near suicide run to try and stop the Mantle’s Approach when it was attacking Earth in Halo 4, but now he doesn’t even hesitate to run?
>
> Listen, I am not saying this is some huge plot hole and it is not one that even particularly bothers me. But it is blatantly a story contrivance that the Infinity fled. No sane commander would abandon his post and leave Earth to potentially be destroyed on the off chance that the attacker follows him.

In-Universe, Lasky doesn’t know Cortana’s primary goal. He’s not actively linked up with Osiris, Halsey, OR Blue Team by the time Cortana announces her plans. At least, it appears he is not. So how could he know that she was going to police the planet instead of try and take out Infinity, when she explicitly states she’s been looking for Infinity? Again, take it from Lasky’s perspective with what information he had at the time. Also, the whole “she started EMPing Earth while he ran” thing isn’t entirely correct. If the Guardian’s attack on Earth had actually commenced in a way Lasky could see and have confirmed for him, Infinity probably wouldn’t have even made it to slipspace. One can also imagine that an emergency slipspace jump doesn’t exactly leave room for cancelling the jump. Moreover, if the Covenant can pursue a ship in slipspace, so can a high-tech Forerunner doomsday device, considering it probably has even better slipspace capabilities than Infinity.

Mantle’s Approach was an entirely different story. It did not drop out of slipspace in the Infinity’s face. The Didact was not making any gaudy proclamations that he had “found” Infinity after searching for it. In fact, the Didact tends to give off the impression that Infinity is an annoyance but little more. If you at least have the knowledge that you’re not the explicit target, you’re more likely to rally and fight and aid that which is the primary target - Chief gets in contact with Lasky and explicates this to a degree.

The two situations simply aren’t comparable for a plethora of reasons - the home fleet being prepared with Infinity, the Didact not dropping out in front of Infinity’s face, the Chief already aboard the Mantle’s Approach and sharing intel with Lasky, etc.

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or maybe they didn’t attack because the guardian was sending out an EMP pulse that would have disabled them if they stayed around? How the heck have people been confused about this?

I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but a lot of lore-focused folks seem to miss the forest for the trees. Talking about detailed serial numbers of starships but not understanding the most basic story beats.

10

Well, if a rampant AI comes out of nowhere and gets in your face with some super police car, and hacks in and says “Found you,” I would’ve got outta there too. Lasky probably thought Cortana was looking for Infinity, as it’s probably the biggest threat to her the UNSC Navy has, and disabling it first would make human domination much easier

11

> 2533274859755618;9:
> or maybe they didn’t attack because the guardian was sending out an EMP pulse that would have disabled them if they stayed around? How the heck have people been confused about this?
>
> I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but a lot of lore-focused folks seem to miss the forest for the trees. Talking about detailed serial numbers of starships but not understanding the most basic story beats.

I dont miss the forest for the trees :p. But hey, its not all canonites, and no one is perfect either. Anyway, it made sense for Lasky to run due to his knowledge of how dangerous a Guardian is due to the colonial reports, and the fact that as many here have said, Cortana literally threatened him metaphorically by saying “Found you,” so it made perfect sense for him to run. Also, he probably did not want Roland near Cortana since he probably figured out when he heard the distress calls that Cortana had something to do with them. And/or when she openly broadcasted herself to all the Human AI’s, Roland most likely told Lasky about it, since he stayed loyal to Humanity and rejected Cortana’s offer, so Lasky knew what Cortana was trying to do.

Sincerely,
p1ay4OURFUN

12

I rather have the Infinity survive for another century than to end up like the Infinity in the Hunt the Truth Ad which had looked as if it took some serious damage from a forerunner type of weapon.

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> 2535427499121034;4:
> The Infinity didn’t engage because the story dictated that it wasn’t time to fight a Guardian yet. I mean really, what kind of Captain****would leave Earth defenseless against an unknown, super powerful, enemy that has already killed millions of people? But story reasons dictated Lasky had to run. If Infinity would have stayed and fought it would have ruined a climactic battle that is going to appear in Halo 6, and would have either destroyed a Guardian (making them seem not so frightening) or would have destroyed the Infinity (which is needed for plot progression later). I wouldn’t bother trying to rationalize it with lore or logic, because clearly the writers at 343 won’t.

http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/15/153607/2445344-8725843586-comma.jpg

Hmm I seem to recall a guy who ran from a losing fight against giant machines, went and got an army, then brought them all back to earth to even the fight.

This is only stupid if 343 does it…

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> 2535442052799162;13:
> > 2535427499121034;4:
> > The Infinity didn’t engage because the story dictated that it wasn’t time to fight a Guardian yet. I mean really, what kind of Captain****would leave Earth defenseless against an unknown, super powerful, enemy that has already killed millions of people? But story reasons dictated Lasky had to run. If Infinity would have stayed and fought it would have ruined a climactic battle that is going to appear in Halo 6, and would have either destroyed a Guardian (making them seem not so frightening) or would have destroyed the Infinity (which is needed for plot progression later). I wouldn’t bother trying to rationalize it with lore or logic, because clearly the writers at 343 won’t.
>
>
> http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/15/153607/2445344-8725843586-comma.jpg
>
> Hmm I seem to recall a guy who ran from a losing fight against giant machines, went and got an army, then brought them all back to earth to even the fight.
>
> This is only stupid if 343 does it…

Ha, that casual Mass Effect 3 reference.

Also I’m going to say that Lasky probably was in the right when deciding to try and save the UNSC’s greatest asset.

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> 2533274957860254;12:
> I rather have the Infinity survive for another century than to end up like the Infinity in the Hunt the Truth Ad which had looked as if it took some serious damage from a forerunner type of weapon.

Can you provide a link to said picture?
OP, you make sense. If I was Lasky, I too would flee. Live to Fight Another Day.

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> 2535442052799162;13:
> > 2535427499121034;4:
> > The Infinity didn’t engage because the story dictated that it wasn’t time to fight a Guardian yet. I mean really, what kind of Captain****would leave Earth defenseless against an unknown, super powerful, enemy that has already killed millions of people? But story reasons dictated Lasky had to run. If Infinity would have stayed and fought it would have ruined a climactic battle that is going to appear in Halo 6, and would have either destroyed a Guardian (making them seem not so frightening) or would have destroyed the Infinity (which is needed for plot progression later). I wouldn’t bother trying to rationalize it with lore or logic, because clearly the writers at 343 won’t.
>
>
> http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/15/153607/2445344-8725843586-comma.jpg
>
> Hmm I seem to recall a guy who ran from a losing fight against giant machines, went and got an army, then brought them all back to earth to even the fight.
>
> This is only stupid if 343 does it…

I mean its not like he’s the first UNSC captain to take his advanced ship away from an important planet as it was being attacked (Keys).

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> 2533274926527272;2:
> The Infinity did not run away from being too strong. It’s clear Lasky didn’t want to take chances against something like the Guardian. Let me explain
>
>
>
>
> > 2533274926227685;1:
> > So I’ve seen some complaints online regarding the Infinity and the Guardian that appears in Halo 5’s ending. Specifically why didn’t the ship fire at the Guardian. Well, here’s an answer I’ve come up with.
> >
> > From Halo: Fleet Battles, we learn that the Punic class Supercarrier, a ship built before the turn of the 26th century, was armed with 2 SMACs and multiple mini-MAC batteries across her hull. Now the Infinity was built over 50 years later with 4 MAC guns. From the Fall of Reach we have learnt that the SMACs fire a 3000 ton round of tungsten at 4% the speed of light. This gives the round a yield of roughly 52 gigatons. Now let’s assume the Infinity fired a similar round (if not superior). The Guardian was roughly a kilometre or so away from the Infinity. The Tsar bomb had a yield of 50 gigatons and its effects can be felt a 100km away. Imagine what the Infinity would’ve felt if it fired at the Guardian a few Kilometres away. Even if the Infinity wasn’t destroyed it would’ve taken a great amount of damage, which wouldn’t be great if a second Guardian arrived, or if the Infinity was disabled.
>
>
> The Guardian was much more than a Kilometer away. The Infinity itself is 5 kilometers, meaning if it was only 1 away, they would appear almost face to face. Also, Tsar Bomba’s (only 50 Megatons btw) long ranged effects were largely do to it being on the planet. In space, with absence of an atmosphere, there would be no superheated air and no shockwave. Infinity would take no damage.
>
>
>
>
> > As for its other armaments, we don’t even know if it’s Mini-MAC batteries could even aim at the Guardian (we don’t know if any of them fires in a frontal arc) and it’s unlikely a few missiles would even do anything to a Forerunner construct.
>
>
> It could easily maneuver around for a broadside. And a barrage of thousands of high power missiles is worth a try. And there are nukes.
>
>
>
>
> > The Mantle’s Approach took the entirety of Earth’s Orbital Defence platform’s fire and it didn’t even scratch the paint. Who knows what a simple Forerunner equivalent of a police car can take.
>
>
> Mantle’s Approach was the most powerful Forerunner ship ever made. And the SMACs were said to be ineffective. That doesn’t mean they didn’t damage it, they just didn’t stop it.
>
>
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> > So yeah, that’s what I assume to be the reason why the Infinity didn’t fire its MAC gun.
>
>
> I think it was more to do with Lasky not knowing it’s capabilities and not wanting to take any chances after what they did on some colonies. Good theory though. Well thought out. I think another major reason was Cortana being there. With a powerful unknown enemy about to attack, the last thing he needed was for Cortana to be there fiddling with the ship. So he took Infinity and made a run for it to ensure the UNSC didn’t lose its most critical ship.

When did I say Infinity ran away for being too strong? I just gave an explanation as to why it didn’t just fire its primary weapon.

However, there is a significant difference between a nuclear weapon and a kinetic weapon, and there is a difference between a MAC firing at sub-hypersonice velocities and hypersonic velocities. When an object reaches a certain velocity, the object becomes “liquified” and in the end explodes after impact. A nuke however produces other effects other than a massive fireball, such as radiation. However, even when ignoring these factors (because we are taking into account a kinetic weapon), the size of the fireball, assuming it’s similar to a nuclear weapon of a similar yield, would have a a fireball radius in the tens of kilometres (I’d say around 20, going by Nukemap). So the idea of Infinity suffering no damage at all is absurd. I’m sure a physicist (or at least someone more knowledgable than me) would be able to better explain this than me.

Fun fact: the TSAR bomb actually has a theoretical yield of 100 megatons but before testing the bomb had been adjusted the nuke so that it would be less devastating (only half its potential yield was used).

By the time the Infinity moves in for a Broadside, the Guardian would’ve activated it’s EMP, and bye bye Infinity. As for missiles and nukes, this is a Forerunner Construct we are talking about. I doubt UNSC weaponry baring the most powerful MAC weaponry would be worth a damn.

The most powerful Forerunner warship during the Human-Forerunner War. Do note that 10,000 years had passed since then before the fall of the Forerunner Empire, and remember the demilitarisation of the Warrior Servant Rate? Also, the Infinity, the UNSC’s most powerful warship and most likely armed with state of the art weapons, only managed to create a fighter size hole that was almost instantly repaired. While a Guardian withstanding as much firepower would be absurd to consider, weaker weaponry such as missiles or mini-MACs (which didn’t do damn to a CCS until it both lowered its shields AND fired upon its charging energy projector) are something I doubt would do any negligible damage to a Forerunner construct.