In Chapter 19 of The Fall of Reach where Corporal Harland and whats left of his squad are racing through the jungle on their warthog away from Hunters and Grunts and then meet up with some Marines in a bunker and then meet up with Blue Team, what time of day was this? In the beginning of the chapter it states it’s 6am(0600 Hours) so I was imagining it was still very dark maybe with the sun starting to rise, however at the end of the chapter when the pelican arrives it says “High on the edge of the darkening sky was a dot, and the unmistakable roar of Pelican engines.”(Page 201 of the 2011 Definitive Edition)
Notice the words “darkening sky” that implies it was evening and getting dark. So whats the deal?
Also the beginning of the chapter where Harland’s Squad encounter Hunters they act as if they have never seen Hunters before. However haven’t the UNSC seen many Hunters throughout the war on planets such as Kholo and Harvest? Events that took place years even decades before. Unless this just happened to be the first time these marines have encountered Hunters. Can anyone explain?
A lot of the information in Fall of Reach and First Strike has since been retconned. Examples include the Elites, Hunters, and Brutes only first being encountered in 2552.
As for the darkening sky part: remember that fall of Reach is told on the universal Military calendar, meaning it doesn’t take timezones or planet-local times into account. It’s also possible the “darken sky” was a result of the Covenant attacks on nearby areas. The fires from these attack could have been blotting out the sun.
> A lot of the information in Fall of Reach and First Strike has since been retconned. Examples include the Elites, Hunters, and Brutes only first being encountered in 2552.
>
> As for the darkening sky part: remember that fall of Reach is told on the universal Military calendar, meaning it doesn’t take timezones or planet-local times into account. It’s also possible the “darken sky” was a result of the Covenant attacks on nearby areas. The fires from these attack could have been blotting out the sun.
Except I’m reading the 2011 Definitive Edition. All such changes and retcons have been fixed.
The only conclusion I came come up with is this is the first time these marines have seen Hunters.
> > A lot of the information in Fall of Reach and First Strike has since been retconned. Examples include the Elites, Hunters, and Brutes only first being encountered in 2552.
> >
> > As for the darkening sky part: remember that fall of Reach is told on the universal Military calendar, meaning it doesn’t take timezones or planet-local times into account. It’s also possible the “darken sky” was a result of the Covenant attacks on nearby areas. The fires from these attack could have been blotting out the sun.
>
> Except I’m reading the 2011 Definitive Edition. All such changes and retcons have been fixed.
>
> The only conclusion I came come up with is this is the first time these marines have seen Hunters.
The 2011 edition did not change anything. It contains a lot of the canon errors the original did. All Tor did was fix any grammar errors and some date errors.
In the original “Fall of Reach”, hunters were first encountered during the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV, and same with the Elites. However, this has since been retconned. Like I said though, the definitive editions didn’t edit this.