The Elites post h3

Community Halo Universe
1

ive noticed among the newer books (Kilo-five) that the elites are not exactly the same as i remember. just thought id throw this out there as its really been on my mind. ive loved halo since day one and would brand myself a fanatic, i rarely go on the forums but i need to hear it from others (as my girlfriend doesnt really think haloverse talk is appropriate).

The degrading of the Shangheili
‘Excellent infantrymen and suburb commanders. they are tough fearless and relentless’
^the elites i remember.
from my first run on the pillar of autumn to the first time i picked up the fall of reach by Eric Nylund, elites quickly earnt my grudging respect through years of battling and reading about these formidable opponents. fast forward. halo glasslands is announced. evolutions gave us a breif look into the post halo 3 universe but this is the real story ive wanted. humanity is all but done. the covenant and its client races disbanded. the universe is a desperate place yet the tension is cut by potential peace between the major remaining factions (humans and elites).
then Glasslands came and painted a different story. (i will include thursday war from here on).
the elites i learnt to fear and respect in the books/games, the new found allies of humanity, have been reconstructed into a weak, illogical, uncoordinated squabbling race. where was the strong highly intelligent warrior the haloverse loves? surely not in any of the K5 books.
okay the elites no longer have the prophets to analyse and backward engineer forerunner tech, so major advancements are off the bill. but thats not to say the elites have no existing infrastructure, a society built for warfare can support itself. what of the elite fleets? post halo 3 the elites still had the superior fleet. they looked to be if anything the leading race navy terms. humans have fought a war on their home front for 30 years (humans been the main target where as the elites one of many races in opposition). the elites territory untouched. that aside humans and elites seek peace in a war ravaged state.all looks well
SPAM GLASSLANDS
elites are absolutely ravaged. suddenly they have seemingly fought a war on their homefront for years. little to no fleet, civil war imminent, peace talks with the humans going wayward. elites infastructure and resources out the window like a mcdonalds drive through. the general elite populations IQ has dropped to that of a tree and their military prowess are as questionable as north koreas.
may i ask what happened?
wheres the elites i last saw in halo 3?
wheres the engineers the elites had? (that could surely make up for the lack of prophets they could now work on the existing fleet and help incorporate forerunner tech)
wheres the fleets?
wheres the elites i love?
now the elites have gone from a joint hatred for the prophets and brutes and a significant military threat to infighting and the laughing stock of the galaxy. instead of uniting for peace with the humans, lets fight the same guys who were fighting against the very same prophet who tried to exterminate us to. the whole civil war thing seems to silly. more importantly it is just a ploy to bring a half developed form of the covenant into the reclaimer trilogy. i suppose karen was driven into doing this unfortunately so the elites can be bad again. still i think it was poorly executed. thel should still be retaining significant power especially militarily and majority of the events around sanghelios in K5 should not have been possible
military aside, the general elite populace is suddenly this stereotypical “dats da bad humaans lets get em guyz coz were da alieens, dey took our jobs”. forget the years the elites have been built up to be probably humanities primary threat that’s out the window to. now we have a laughable race that could have easily been plucked out from any b grade sci-fi.
now thats just the elites and what they have been reduced to. the humans on the other hand seem to be able to conjure ships in a space of months (i cannot except that the infinity was in development during halo 3, heck if it was able to fly i think the humans would have thrown it at the covenant been the final battle and all)that are supposedly stronger than just about anything in the universe (except palmer in spartan ops, that knight is still like lulwat?). now the UNSC, oh sorry ONI pretty much can wipe the elites out whenever they wish (with that uber warship). where were all these ships and new tech a few months ago when the population of earth was 200 mil? a few friends argued that ONI ran its own race away from the UNSC. thats cool, but dont you think the uber secret ONI would have even been forced to step in during the battle of earth? what else was there to fight for? surely ONI threw everything they had at the covies just as everyone else had, otherwise more would have been either mentioned in halo 3 or perhaps evolutions. but it was not and pre earth invasion, and then even worse post war humans were on their knees. sure as mentioned in the return they had the ark entrance on earth to work with. but even then given the timeframe and human resources and infrastructure left (no reach plus countless glassed planets) where does the UNSC infinty and tech come from? lets ask the elites. oh wait we cant they suddenly have lost all territory, operative integrity and intelligence. i refuse to believe this is a plausible scenario post halo 3.

i believe that the author has not taken the time and care to appreciate a race that has had such a impact on people such as myself. respect has not been given where it is deserved. instead they have been canned into a “copy and paste alien threat to humanity”. i understand halo is probably heading towards new primary antagonists away from the elites (example prometheans). but please respect something that has helped build the foundations for the powerhouse that is the halo universe, not push it into obscurity. (if anything do that to del rio)

in conclusion i have nothing against the author. i just logically cannot accept the K5 books. they are a far call from the greats like first strike and GoO. i understand people like the books, but it really hurt me as to how much the elites have been ridiculed. i just finished work so im pretty tired, i formulated this today in my head and as such have probably forgotten a few key points. but feel free to ask questions debate or add. i noticed a few topics with similar debates but there’s things i want to flesh out for myself in this area before i can accept the K5s in my head as canon.

TL;DR: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ELITES MAN?

2

I am glad to see another person not blindly accepting what was written.

I’ll quote anton.

> Their concept of “honor” seems to be selective as the Grunts were treated with a tad more respect after the elites saw what they were capable of. 30 years of fighting us and they value us less…

> I think I forgot to mention that in the article I did. I think this shows that 343i’s franchise development group went with the most generic and superficially obvious characterization of the Elites and put no thought into anything. They didn’t even try to build upon and carry forward the vast majority of their prior history and character. Almost no effort has been put into continuity.
>
> The Grunts getting increased standing in the Covenant after their rebellion makes no sense in Kilo-5’s surreal little world. Neither does the formation of the Covenant either. If I am to apply the casuist reasoning in Kilo-5 that is being applied to the Sangheili in the wake of the war with Humanity then there is no chance that they would form an alliance with the San-Shyuum; the San-Shyuum who fought a war that lasted 3 times longer than the Human-Covenant war, inflicted massive damage to Sanghelios itself and caused the deaths of hundreds of millions of Sangheili. The Humans came nowhere near as close to damaging the Sangheili in that way as the Prophets had. If Humanity is so unforgivable for the “damage” it caused the Sangheili in terms of assets and lives, then the Covenant shouldn’t exist. They would have called a truce and went their separate ways if they could ever have stopped fighting at all. The Sangheili would have turned down the Prophet’s request for an alliance. Just like with Humans now, they wouldn’t even think about co-existence. Once again, Kilo-5 attacking the fiction it is meant to serve by re-writing the fiction’s internal rules, history and personalities.
>
> Then there’s the business with the Sangheili not being able to do anything. Literally anything. They can’t even conduct a war properly because they know nothing about bluff and feint according to Kilo-5 (Even though they were more than capable of doing this in the previous canon all the time). For some reason, the author never addresses what it is that Humanity does that the Sangheili find so dishonourable. There is just this -Yoink- idea that Human tactics are disgustingly deceitful and dishonest, and that they are willing to sacrifice their own people’s lives for them. No examples. No explanation. No indication given as to how the Sangheili are any better than this. We are to just take this hook, line and sinker even though it is the fundamental premise behind 50% of this book’s misanthropic verbal waste. Such laziness. They just summarily retconned both the Sangheili’s intelligence and strategic/tactical capabilities, and their admiration for Humanity’s creativity and own strategic/tactical abilities in one go. And in place of that? We get some -Yoink-, generic warrior race trope that only believes in physical strength, views warfare as being some -Yoinking!- Braveheart style battlefield brawl and who are inept at everything else.
>
> As far as “everything else” goes…there are 8 billion Sangheili on Sanghelios alone. Probably around 4 billion are female. Now if the females never leave the home world, and run the keeps, then how can we possibly have the scenario we have where they cannot farm, run utilities, run logistics and supply chains, etc. Even 99% of those males will never leave the home world or see a battle in their entire lives. The Covenant simply do not have enough ships to move around that many soldiers and there are probably not enough battles going on in a Sangheili’s lifespan to facilitate them all seeing combat at least once anyway. So what do the other >3.96 billion males do? I’m supposed to think that they sit around and do absolutely nothing, all day everyday from the moment they are born till the moment they die, and don’t need to work to make a living. I’m sorry, but these novels just show me how simplistic and 2 dimensional the world that inhabits these Kilo-5 novels truly is. The vast majority of these Sangheili would hold jobs other than being warriors, and the scenario that they cannot do anything else for themselves would never arise. It’s literally impossible. Otherwise, they would all be in absolute poverty and starve. And the idea that they are all just “too proud to have a desk job” or anything other than a warrior? Too bad, because that doesn’t work. They might not be honoured roles, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t do them. The way these novels were written you would think that there were only a few thousand Sangheili or something. It’s even more poorly researched when we consider that some Sangheili have multiple skill sets. There are Sangheili who are warriors and politicians, warriors and engineers, warriors and -Yoink!- to the Prophets, etc, so being a warrior isn’t even necessarily restricting to them.
>
> Kilo-5 works best if you turn off your brain, or keep an open mind to the extent where your brain spills out of your skull. Either way, no brain is required to read them it seems.

He also did an extensive review of the elites here which is the article he was referring to.

You should have something against the writer as she didn’t do her research prior to writing and thinks that is her major talent. You can read this on her blog,her talking about GoW writing, and anything else she has done. She ignored the fact that the UNSC should have dozens of engineers from FS and the fact they just got another one from ODST. Yet to her the engineers they get within the novel are the first ones the UNSC has ever had.

I don’t understand how Trillions of Engineers could just disappear, That has to be The Worst non Halsey Element of the Entire story. There were thousands of Engineers on the larger ships alone and they were stated to be the ones to do all the upkeeping. So What exactly makes trillions of engineers disappear without any reason or a single soul seeing them? Why are a few engineers left behind? Why doesn’t anybody ask the engineer what happened? What is their Goal? What about the ships Jul is dragging from the edge of covenant space that don’t even know the war is over?

Best example of how stupid the writing is without talking about anything “controversial”.

3

> okay the elites no longer have the prophets to analyse and backward engineer forerunner tech, so major advancements are off the bill. but thats not to say the elites have no existing infrastructure, a society built for warfare can support itself.

This was the first instance in which that idea was introduced, a quote from Evolutions:

> They had to defend themselves, and always did so heroically, but since the Prophets controlled all of the major learnings that transformed Forerunner gifts into tools of the Great Journey, the Sangheili now largely lacked the understanding to build new facilities and weapons themselves. The Sangheili steadily lost ships that they could not easily repair, let alone replace.
>
> Page 507

Now it has been blown way out of proportion; the scenario in Kilo-5 is totally out of left field. Back then (2009 never seemed so far away in terms of Halo fiction…) this quote only said that the Prophets knew and held secret the MAJOR pieces of technical knowledge required to build, and convert Forerunner technology into, “tools of the Great Journey”, i.e. weapons and ships of war. Nothing in that passage even remotely hinted at them not being able to manage their own logistics, farm for themselves, build their own structures and have their own architecture, maintain supply lines and chains, or manage their own domestic utilities and infrastructure or any of that crap. They didn’t have a few pieces of fundamental physical and engineering principles required to build Tier 2 weapons of war and convert Forerunner technology into them. It’s flanderization.

I wouldn’t care as much if this issue was the central focus of the story along with the way in which the Sangheili resolve it or at least plan to resolve it and begin making some progress towards that plan, or if these were one of the central focuses, but it is just merely being used to justify bringing the Elites back as enemies because they can use it to say that it makes them delusional, paranoid and irrational through “vulnerability” hence that it makes perfect sense that they would want to strike the Humans down before they attack back. In other words, it’s not being used to tell a story. It is being used as a crutch for gameplay and hence I don’t seriously expect this issue the Sangheili have to ever be resolved with any meaning to it, at least not any time soon. It’s just not seriously intended as a proper story that is well thought out it seems, and it’s far too useful for gameplay to be resolved like that.

4

While I’d be the first to hate on the K5 trilogy, I don’t exactly have a problem with the direction they’re going with the Elites. It does make sense that they’d be crippled after the Covenant shattered; as crippled as K.T. makes them out to be? Maybe not, but still.

I also find claims that they’re “stupid” now hollow, since they’ve always been the “carry swords into battle, easily provoked by a “Yo mama” joke into going where you want them to” race. Really, it’s twice now someone’s destroyed entire fleets of theirs by saying “Hey, you suck, come get me!”, then them up.

(Also, capitalization. Your post is nigh-unreadable)

5

The use of this technological breakdown may be less for game play than you think.

If I remember correctly; the Elites in Halo 4 aren’t even from Sanghelious,but rather from the colony world of Hesdurous. Those elites were fed information about the current state of things from Jul Mdama, who more-or-less pulled Truth’s “Kill the humans because our gods told us to!” routine. So it makes sense for them to be enemies,because they still think theyre doing what's right. They just dont know any better,just like before.

6

> The use of this technological breakdown may be less for game play than you think.
>
> If I remember correctly; the Elites in Halo 4 aren’t even from Sanghelious,but rather from the colony world of Hesdurous. Those elites were fed information about the current state of things from Jul Mdama, who more-or-less pulled Truth’s “Kill the humans because our gods told us to!” routine. So it makes sense for them to be enemies,because they still think theyre doing what's right. They just dont know any better,just like before.

In other words a stagnant fiction devoid of creativity and inspiration. That story wasn’t very exciting even the first time around.

We don’t know that Hesduros is the only place of origin for this New Covenant. In the 11th Hour Reports it was mentioned that there was a large amount of activity across a cluster of Sangheili frontier worlds. With the information Jul has on what Humanity are trying to do to the Sangheili, he can very easily have Thel killed and the entirety of the Sangheili up in arms against the UNSC again.

Though the idea that the colonies are out of contact during a time when their species has been declared worthy of extinction by the Prophets and Brutes strikes me as a bit of contrivance on par with the disappearance of every single last Engineer in Sangheili space. I’m not sure that there was a good way to have Sangheili enemies again to be honest, judging from how ridiculous Kilo-5 is (I doubt you could get an army out of Elites who hate Humans either. At most a terrorist organization, but nothing like the Storm. I just don’t think it’s plausible in the context of the fiction). If there is then they haven’t discovered it yet. It just seems that 343i’s refusal to innovate here has lead to a drop in the quality of their fiction.

7

> I am glad to see another person not blindly accepting what was written.
>
> I’ll quote anton.
>
> He also did an extensive review of the elites here which is the article he was referring to.
>
>
> You should have something against the writer as she didn’t do her research prior to writing and thinks that is her major talent. You can read this on her blog,her talking about GoW writing, and anything else she has done. She ignored the fact that the UNSC should have dozens of engineers from FS and the fact they just got another one from ODST. Yet to her the engineers they get within the novel are the first ones the UNSC has ever had.
>
> I don’t understand how Trillions of Engineers could just disappear, That has to be The Worst non Halsey Element of the Entire story. There were thousands of Engineers on the larger ships alone and they were stated to be the ones to do all the upkeeping. So What exactly makes trillions of engineers disappear without any reason or a single soul seeing them? Why are a few engineers left behind? Why doesn’t anybody ask the engineer what happened? What is their Goal? What about the ships Jul is dragging from the edge of covenant space that don’t even know the war is over?
>
>
>
> Best example of how stupid the writing is without talking about anything “controversial”.

Thank you Mendicant. looking at some of Anton and your own responses in other threads i think our arguments nearly parallel. i would also like to hear at least one viable answer as to where the Engineers have gone, as that would be a massive loop hole in the story covered.

8

> > okay the elites no longer have the prophets to analyse and backward engineer forerunner tech, so major advancements are off the bill. but thats not to say the elites have no existing infrastructure, a society built for warfare can support itself.
>
> This was the first instance in which that idea was introduced, a quote from Evolutions:
>
>
>
> > They had to defend themselves, and always did so heroically, but since the Prophets controlled all of the major learnings that transformed Forerunner gifts into tools of the Great Journey, the Sangheili now largely lacked the understanding to build new facilities and weapons themselves. The Sangheili steadily lost ships that they could not easily repair, let alone replace.
> >
> > Page 507
>
> Now it has been blown way out of proportion; the scenario in Kilo-5 is totally out of left field. Back then (2009 never seemed so far away in terms of Halo fiction…) this quote only said that the Prophets knew and held secret the MAJOR pieces of technical knowledge required to build, and convert Forerunner technology into, “tools of the Great Journey”, i.e. weapons and ships of war. Nothing in that passage even remotely hinted at them not being able to manage their own logistics, farm for themselves, build their own structures and have their own architecture, maintain supply lines and chains, or manage their own domestic utilities and infrastructure or any of that crap. They didn’t have a few pieces of fundamental physical and engineering principles required to build Tier 2 weapons of war and convert Forerunner technology into them. It’s flanderization.
>
> I wouldn’t care as much if this issue was the central focus of the story along with the way in which the Sangheili resolve it or at least plan to resolve it and begin making some progress towards that plan, or if these were one of the central focuses, but it is just merely being used to justify bringing the Elites back as enemies because they can use it to say that it makes them delusional, paranoid and irrational through “vulnerability” hence that it makes perfect sense that they would want to strike the Humans down before they attack back. In other words, it’s not being used to tell a story. It is being used as a crutch for gameplay and hence I don’t seriously expect this issue the Sangheili have to ever be resolved with any meaning to it, at least not any time soon. It’s just not seriously intended as a proper story that is well thought out it seems, and it’s far too useful for gameplay to be resolved like that.

Exactly right and this is my point. Without the prophets the Elites may not be on a sudden technology boom. But that should have no effect on a race that has been space faring since at least 938 BC, surely post halo 3 the Elites would have the numbers and infrastructure to be ahead of humanity. Evolution’s paints the Elites and Humans as the major players left. the humans are struggling to rebuild and the elites are having a major inner questioning of themselves. In no way is it specified that they are broken, useless and ready for imminent annihilation as depicted in K5.
Thus far it feels as if the Elites are two warring toddlers in a sandpit whilst the humans (specifically ONI) watch over them from the shadows, as the teacher with absolute control. Last i recall humanity was on a near extinction set path.

9

> I also find claims that they’re “stupid” now hollow, since they’ve always been the “carry swords into battle, easily provoked by a “Yo mama” joke into going where you want them to” race. Really, it’s twice now someone’s destroyed entire fleets of theirs by saying “Hey, you suck, come get me!”, then them up.
>
> (Also, capitalization. Your post is nigh-unreadable)

Why yes the Elites particularly in gameplay look to be the easily provoked. While i will add their strong sense of honor can sometimes lead to short comings. i would argue that that is mainly for gameplay purposes. Not every second elite charges a garrison of humans. but then again the K5 books paint Elites to be near this level of idiocy.(What fleets in specific are you referring to if i may add?) Majority of elites are intelligent and brilliant strategists. An example been on halo 04 with the elites using a captured human to crack alpha bases defenses. Or the Arbiter fleets victory despite been outnumbered 3 to 1
Also can you give some examples excluding the K5 books as to why Elites would be ‘crippled’?
SORRY for the lack of capitalization i am rather busy and im writing these posts as fast as i can.

10

> > The use of this technological breakdown may be less for game play than you think.
> >
> > If I remember correctly; the Elites in Halo 4 aren’t even from Sanghelious,but rather from the colony world of Hesdurous. Those elites were fed information about the current state of things from Jul Mdama, who more-or-less pulled Truth’s “Kill the humans because our gods told us to!” routine. So it makes sense for them to be enemies,because they still think theyre doing what's right. They just dont know any better,just like before.
>
> In other words a stagnant fiction devoid of creativity and inspiration. That story wasn’t very exciting even the first time around.
>
> We don’t know that Hesduros is the only place of origin for this New Covenant. In the 11th Hour Reports it was mentioned that there was a large amount of activity across a cluster of Sangheili frontier worlds. With the information Jul has on what Humanity are trying to do to the Sangheili, he can very easily have Thel killed and the entirety of the Sangheili up in arms against the UNSC again.
>
> Though the idea that the colonies are out of contact during a time when their species has been declared worthy of extinction by the Prophets and Brutes strikes me as a bit of contrivance on par with the disappearance of every single last Engineer in Sangheili space. I’m not sure that there was a good way to have Sangheili enemies again to be honest, judging from how ridiculous Kilo-5 is (I doubt you could get an army out of Elites who hate Humans either. At most a terrorist organization, but nothing like the Storm. I just don’t think it’s pleasurable in the context of the fiction). If there is then they haven’t discovered it yet. It just seems that 343i’s refusal to innovate here has lead to a drop in the quality of their fiction.

Anton’s response nails it. The storm is portrayed as a formidable threat when in reality they should be no more than a underground terrorist organization that could easily be squashed by Arbiters military (K5 portrays Arbiters forces as a joke also). But once again why does the storm even exist? When the elites were united against the prophets and dangerous as hell (post h3). I was skeptical when h4 was shown with the elites been enemies and thought that glasslands would explain this. instead i was even more irritated with more questions i wanted answered.
that argument aside, as you say Jul may have force fed these elites with different information in order to create the storm but the problem lies to the events that caused jul to do this: why is humanity strong enough to play God over sanghelios?

11

Thanks for replying guys i appreciate it. Mendicant, after reading more up on Karen Traviss i must say i now view her in a rather negative light. No research on the HALO universe before writing? To think that came from an authors mouth.
And what moral dilemma is she referring to? I can only assume it is the Spartan II program she seems so keen to dig up again. If so id prefer she had created a trilogy on dealing with Naomi’s rebel father and the innies instead of using them to destroy the Elites legacy.

12

> > I also find claims that they’re “stupid” now hollow, since they’ve always been the “carry swords into battle, easily provoked by a “Yo mama” joke into going where you want them to” race. Really, it’s twice now someone’s destroyed entire fleets of theirs by saying “Hey, you suck, come get me!”, then them up.
> >
> > (Also, capitalization. Your post is nigh-unreadable)
>
> but then again the K5 books paint Elites to be near this level of idiocy.(What fleets in specific are you referring to if i may add?)

Both Admiral… forget his name, it was in First Strike, and Admiral Cole (in particular) decimated fleets of hundreds. Cole’s enemy, in particular, actually turned away from a superior force just to concentrate on him when he said “You guys suck, humans rule”.

> Majority of elites are intelligent and brilliant strategists. An example been on halo 04 with the elites using a captured human to crack alpha bases defenses. Or the Arbiter fleets victory despite been outnumbered 3 to 1
> Also can you give some examples excluding the K5 books as to why Elites would be ‘crippled’?

There’s no doubt about their military prowess, but it’s impeded somewhat by their whole “honor before reason” thing. And pretty much one of the only reasons humans were losing to them was because they had reverse-engineered Forerunner tech given to them by the Prophets; I believe it’s been stated since the first batch of novels that humans held together fairly easily on the ground.

As for the Elites being crippled, think about it: if you were raised to believe your race were the god’s favored warriors, and you had trillions of “lesser” beings to cook your food, fix your stuff, etc., why would you bother to learn how to do their job when you could concentrate on becoming the best warrior you could be?

> SORRY for the lack of capitalization i am rather busy and im writing these posts as fast as i can.

It’s not really that bad of a problem, just a bit hard to concentrate on what I’m reading…

13

> I just don’t think it’s <mark>pleasurable</mark> in the context of the fiction).

I just love Chrome’s spell check at times. That should have said plausible.

:confused:

14

> why would you bother to learn how to do their job when you could concentrate on becoming the best warrior you could be?

I’d say because there were nowhere near enough wars, nowhere near enough military resources and nowhere near enough ships to create billions of warrior positions. People have in their heads that it makes perfect sense for ALL Sangheili to be perfect warriors and that they didn’t do anything else. To me I don’t see how that scenario is possible at all.

15

I can agree that the Covenant should be considered as more of a cult than an empire.
On the topic of Juls forces; wasn't their original plan to wake the Didact and have HIM wipe out humanity? Obviously they did their share,but Im not sure they had intended to start another war.
That`s just me guessing though;they really should explain how all this happened(maybe the next Kilo-5 book).

16

> > > I also find claims that they’re “stupid” now hollow, since they’ve always been the “carry swords into battle, easily provoked by a “Yo mama” joke into going where you want them to” race. Really, it’s twice now someone’s destroyed entire fleets of theirs by saying “Hey, you suck, come get me!”, then them up.
> > >
> > > (Also, capitalization. Your post is nigh-unreadable)
> >
> > but then again the K5 books paint Elites to be near this level of idiocy.(What fleets in specific are you referring to if i may add?)
>
> Both Admiral… forget his name, it was in First Strike, and Admiral Cole (in particular) decimated fleets of hundreds. Cole’s enemy, in particular, actually turned away from a superior force just to concentrate on him when he said “You guys suck, humans rule”.
>
>
>
> > Majority of elites are intelligent and brilliant strategists. An example been on halo 04 with the elites using a captured human to crack alpha bases defenses. Or the Arbiter fleets victory despite been outnumbered 3 to 1
> > Also can you give some examples excluding the K5 books as to why Elites would be ‘crippled’?
>
> There’s no doubt about their military prowess, but it’s impeded somewhat by their whole “honor before reason” thing. And pretty much one of the only reasons humans were losing to them was because they had reverse-engineered Forerunner tech given to them by the Prophets; I believe it’s been stated since the first batch of novels that humans held together fairly easily on the ground.
>
> As for the Elites being crippled, think about it: if you were raised to believe your race were the god’s favored warriors, and you had trillions of “lesser” beings to cook your food, fix your stuff, etc., why would you bother to learn how to do their job when you could concentrate on becoming the best warrior you could be?

You make good points. First strike was a complete surprise attack when the fleets were amassing to strike earth (If i remember correctly)by the survivors of installation 04, and wasn’t really a example of elites been provoked but more so a complete failure of covenant security.
The other example is one Elite who fits the ‘blinded by honor category’ which we pointed out. but this does not speak for the entire race or as to why the elites are in their current shape.

While humans could hold their own the ground they were still losing nearly all their major territories and even after the odd one or two victories on the ground the planet was still eventually lost (due to either reinforcements or glassing). This was the war on humanities home front. not once is it mentioned that Elites lost entire worlds. Therefore isn’t it logical to say that the elites should be at least in a better position as opposed to the humans? (for that matter what happened to the fleets over installation 05 on quarantine watch?). Also the elites were not the only race fighting during the human covie war. i see it as highly improbable that all the elites were constantly fielded in battle otherwise humanity would have had no chance in ground engagements. A vast majority would have had to be at Sanghelios or on other Elite colony worlds fueling the war effort in some way or if not supplying food and resources for the race.

I appreciate you’re comments put i just cant logically accept (post Halo 3 backed by Evolution’s) that the Elites would be crippled in the span of months as depicted in K5. i really want to see some hard evidence before i can even try to accept K5 as canon.

17

> I can agree that the Covenant should be considered as more of a cult than an empire.
> On the topic of Juls forces; wasn't their original plan to wake the Didact and have HIM wipe out humanity? Obviously they did their share,but Im not sure they had intended to start another war.
> That`s just me guessing though;they really should explain how all this happened(maybe the next Kilo-5 book).

Yeah im pretty sure he found out the Didact hated humanity. To them that was game won, a God they worshiped, that hated their enemy maybe more then them. These parts make sense to me, but the events leading to this are still a mystery to me as has been discussed above.

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> Both Admiral… forget his name, it was in First Strike, and Admiral Cole (in particular) decimated fleets of hundreds. Cole’s enemy, in particular, actually turned away from a superior force just to concentrate on him when he said “You guys suck, humans rule”.

Um, with Cole I’m pretty sure they went after him because it Preston “mother–Yoinking!-” Cole, you know, the one human who consistently if not trounced them in battle time after time, severely bloodied their nose with each battle no matter whether the actual battle was a win or loss or how many ships the humans lost themselves. And here is pretty much just throwing him self out there on a silver platter holding up a bright neon sign saying “SHOOT ME!!!”. So personally, I always saw it as them taking their opportunity to eliminate the one human who was anything close to a thorn in their side.

As to Whitcomb and Unyielding Heirophant, the reason that they went after him was because of the remains of the Slipspace Crystal that had been found beneath CASTLE Base. I don’t have First Strike on hand with me, so I can’t check, but I believe he was even showing it to them or the shards of it that remained after Locklear destroyed it. Neither incident is because of insults, not it’s entirety anyway, certainly not at Unyielding Heirophant at the very least.

> As for the Elites being crippled, think about it: if you were raised to believe your race were the god’s favored warriors, and you had trillions of “lesser” beings to cook your food, fix your stuff, etc., why would you bother to learn how to do their job when you could concentrate on becoming the best warrior you could be?

As Anton pointed out, there are simply nowhere near enough military positions for each and every single one of the Elite population to be a warrior or soldier in the army. Being a warrior based culture I’m sure that every single one of the population receives training, but a great deal never serve in the military. In fact, the Cole Protocol talks a fair bit about Elite serfs, and it was not talking about other species there it was all other Sangheili that it mentioned and talked about. And likewise, there have been mentions of Elite engineers on at least two occasions and the Red Elite player from 4 player co-op campaign came from a family of merchants. Being a soldier or warrior is the most prestigious position in Sangheili society, but that is not the only thing they know how to do or the only occupation they ever have, not by a long shot, and that has never been the case.

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> > Both Admiral… forget his name, it was in First Strike, and Admiral Cole (in particular) decimated fleets of hundreds. Cole’s enemy, in particular, actually turned away from a superior force just to concentrate on him when he said “You guys suck, humans rule”.
>
> As to Whitcomb and Unyielding Heirophant, the reason that they went after him was because of the remains of the Slipspace Crystal that had been found beneath CASTLE Base. I don’t have First Strike on hand with me, so I can’t check, but I believe he was even showing it to them or the shards of it that remained after Locklear destroyed it. Neither incident is because of insults, not it’s entirety anyway, certainly not at Unyielding Heirophant at the very least.

Oh my mistake you referring to that incident OrKuun Byundis.