> How quickly the sangheili advance,
Whether they can advance faster than Humanity or not is irrelevant I think. I am almost sure that however fast it is, it won’t be enough to close the massive gap between them and the UNSC before the UNSC gains the ability to turn around and wipe away Sanghelios like a smudge. I mean the UNSC already possesses a bomb of unimaginable power, easily capable of annihilating entire fleets of hundreds of Covenant ships and glassing planets in seconds. What will they have developed in 10 years with Forerunner technology? As it is, I think it is clear that the Sangheili don’t advance as quickly as Humanity, which only compounds the issue further for them.
> the fact that plasma weaponry is made on Sanghelios which I would believe they won’t run out of,
You are assuming that their factories will not require maintenance. Remember, no Huragok now. If something breaks down, that effects their production. They won’t be able to innovate and develop new weapons and counter-responses to others for quite a while until they are capable of building the facilities and means to do so. Facing something like Humanity, who is uncannily adaptive and cunning, this isn’t good. And no, not all their plasma weaponry was manufactured on Sanghelios. Over half of their weapons and almost all of their vehicles were manufactured on High Charity, which is now gone. The Merchants of Qikost and Iruiru Armory still have a fair amount of their infantry weapon production, but they have lost over half of it with the loss of the Assembly Forges and the Sacred Promissory on High Charity.
What they retain with the Qikost and Iruiri manufacturers:
Beam Rifle, Concussion Rifle, Plasma pistol/Rifle/Repeater/grenade/sword, Carbine, Ghost, and Revenant.
That is it.
They lose the ability to produce everything else. High Charity churned out the rest of it. The Phantom/Spirit Dropships, all the Wraith tank variants, the Scarab, all the Needler type weapons, all their aircraft (Vampire, all Banshee variants, Seraph), the Locust, the Focus Rifle, pretty much all their anti-vehicle weaponry (Fuel Rod, Plasma Launcher, heavy turrets) and their anti-air. (Like the Mantis) Let’s not forget the most important one as well: Starships. This is just me flicking through the Visual Guide btw. They have lost the ability to mass produce over half of their military gear. When the Shipmaster in the Return said that they were in a dire situation technologically, he really wasn’t kidding by the way. Do you remember how he had no energy sword, but a curve blade instead, and was forced to scrounge for a Human sidearm? And that is in 2559. They are still in the same predicament 6 years after the Schism, the same predicament they were in during Glasslands, with still no way out and no direction to rebuild in. Meanwhile, what do you think Humanity will have accomplished by then? How many Forerunner enhanced ships have they built by 2559? How many Spartan-IVs will they have, and how will their weapons and vehicles have been enhanced? Whilst Humanity gets stronger, the Sangheili continue to move back the way.
> how 'Telcam plans to balance the relationship with ONI,
The first problem is that he is trying to make a deal with ONI, and in doing so trying to undermine the intentions of the UEG and the UNSC brass who wish to establish peace with Thel. So like I said, risking making the situation a whole lot worse whilst Thel is trying to make sure that his people have a future at all. As for a balanced relationship, how is about threatening Human colonies on the border of UNSC space, how is about trying to tell Humanity what it can and cannot say about the Forerunners, what about him advocating that tampering with Forerunner technology is forbidden? This is not balanced. He is making tall orders of Humanity after his kind just committed a foul act of genocide. In other words, provoking Humanity when the Sangheili won’t have a chance against them in future no matter what they do.
> the fact that that Thel sees zero threat from humanity and would let them walk all over him should they choose to do so, etc.
Well, assuming this is true, what else is he going to do? Rally the Sangheili’s decaying and almost non-existent fleets, and use their rapidly diminishing supplies and their half-functional military production against an enemy who could in destroy his entire planet with a single bomb, who has a Forerunner enhanced warship and possible an army of Spartans, and who can adapt to anything the Sangheili do, and is quite possibly just better than them in R&D and strategic planning? Well yeah, if Humanity actually wanted to in future, the Sangheili would do as told, or die.
As it is, that has not happened, and doesn’t look like it will if Lord Hood, the UEG and Thel get their way. (And it was not said that Thel is not planning contingencies anyway…) So who is better for Sanghelios: Thel, who realizes that even if Humanity wanted to annihilate his people, preparation would be a pointless waste of time and resources, (But it does not mean he won’t try…) and so focuses on making sure that Humanity don’t want to annihilate his people. Or the alternative which is a bigot who’s policies are far more likely to make the Human populace turn against his people, and who’s policies would end up with the Sangheili becoming impotent in galactic affairs.
