The Fall of the Moa - The Fall of Reach

Games Other Halo
1

Early colonization efforts on the Reach planet faced seemingly insurmountable obstacles. When you visit the planet today, you marvel at the incredible installations, the scintillating scenery, the brilliance of all things serene and divine. To have seen the world in its infancy, though, would have sent you racing through your man purse in a desperate attempt to scramble an evac chopper.

Before the Spartan program existed as much more than a gleam in the eye of an unbalance military engineer, the UNSC had initiated a voyaging program designed to unearth -Yoink!- interstellar planetary systems that might support future colonization attempts. As the initial exploratory research reports concerning projects such as the Spartan initiative trickled in to the highest levels of military administration, those leaders realized such a savage, destructive breed of soldier could not possibly coexist with ordinary, soul-bearing human types.

Indeed, top command officials looked at the wild, barely hospitable ecology of Reach and deemed it the perfect staging area for the upbringing of a team of wild, bare-of-morals Spartan soldiers. Having then finalized the Spartan program’s design and also located an ideal fostering location, the UNSC executives expeditedly enacted the fated design. Little did they know…

To begin the project, UNSC dispatched a hefty mix of construction works, engineers, technicians, librarians, and simple soldiers to undertake the necessary terraformation tasks on the surface of Reach. Although a nominal percentage of this task force enlisted voluntarily, most of the members had no interest in forsaking the lush comforts of their spacefaring homes in favor of the savage lands of Reach.

Acknowledging these reservations, the UNSC administrators promised a number of perks to the planetbound team. In addition to a promising regular credit stimulus packages and a free iPad for every worker, the team lead also earmarked a free weapon for every surface trooper. The succeeding morale boost quickly faded, though, when the landing squadrons entered their cramped, deadzoned dormitories (many draftees trashed their iPads within minutes of landing) to find nothing more than an Assist Rifle waiting in their equipment locker. UNSC had painted a picture of a paradise filled with modern technology and powerful weaponry; they had ultimately delivered a hollow, crusty maze of tropical vegetation devoid of any filling whatsoever.

The first few weeks on Reach yielded some of the most haranguing challenges of the entire colonization program. As the reality of their harsh conditions took a firm hold in the workers’ minds, increasingly contentious arguments developed over meager rations, shift hours, and the like. One day a private would angrily throw his Assist Rifle into the water, infuriated by the weapon’s uselessness; the next day, lapsing into a fit of anger completely uncoupled from sanity, the private would angrily throw his very coworker into the water, only so that he could steal that coworker’s Assist Rifle. This unrest, however combustible, served only as a prelude to the coming storm.

High above the sky, the UNSC administration continued to closely monitor the weekly bulletins updating the status of the project. Many times the bulletins arrived 1 or 2 days behind schedule, but they had no real control over the turnaround time, let alone the mission’s day-to-day challenges. Indeed, the oversight committee could do not better than to wait for each report and, in turn, to react accordingly.

In this vein, the committee committed to numerous lively discussions as they read over the reports of unrest among the worker crews. After agreeing that they needed to provide additional incentives to retain their user base, they settled on offering a weekly jackpot to all of the workers on Reach. Offering this sort of credit bonanza, they theorized, would quench most of the petty strife and ensure that the colonization project continued unabated and on schedule.

At first, it worked. Over the second and third months of the colonization efforts, the crew started to hit its stride; progress came very quickly and almost easily. Units would work with great ardor during the week, fantasizing about the possibility of obtaining the jackpot. Eventually, though, the questionable consistency of the new incentive program began to relight the plebians’ rage. By the end of the fourth month of the project, small riots were breaking out on the regular basis as players played game after game in a fruitless quest for the extra credits.

The select players who did manage to score a surplus could not hope to enjoy their bounties. For starters, the arrival of a soldier’s credit bonus would immediately trigger dozens of envious stares from her or his empty-pocketed squadmates; many “winners” ended up having to spend a significant portion of their earnings on personal security teams. Furthermore, the various apparel and armor distributors on Reach quickly raised their prices many times over, ready to take advantage of the jackpot winners. For instance, a vendor could bring in a pair of gold sunglasses for around 100 cRedits, then turn around and peddle it on Reach for 250,000 cRedits; the workers on the planet could complain about the rate all they wanted, but they had nowhere else to shop.

As the economy on Reach descended into such madness, the majority of the workers had to resort to buying generic, cut-rate armor from the occasional spacefaring merchant. As you can imagine, this led to a great amount of homogeneity across the population’s wardrobes; most of the people ended up wearing red armor or blue armor. When holidays such as Christmas approached, the citizenry allowed themselves to hope for an improvement: perhaps instead of the constant red and blue, one of the vendors might add some red and green outfits to the playlist instead. Unfortunately, none of the 342 interuniversally-licensed equipment manufacturers showed any interest in such an endeavor. And so the numbing saturation of red and blue, blue and red carried on, indefatigable.

To no one’s surprise, this incessant monotony soon created a great deal of strife and enmity between the 2 colored factions. Progress on the terraformation projects drastically slowed as angry battles erupted between the spectral adversaries. Not only did the time spent fighting take away from time spent working, but many of the combatants did not emerge from the battle in a living state. This ultimately cost the project even further, as special teams had to carry off the collateral and stash their carcasses in the old limestone deposits scattered across Reach. These remote deposits provided a convenient storage location for such a task, even if the heavy mineral content did immediately begin changing the color of each lifeless denizen’s armor green.

2

As the surface workers continued to mold the planet from a savage paradise into a paradise of savages, the UNSC administration team worked to extend its streak of financially disastrous decisions. Atop the initial costs of the entire program, the team had thrown hundreds of thousands of cRedits into the marginally effective jackpot system. Meanwhile, external auditors were conducting analyses on a number of suspicious expenditures by high-ranking members of the marina corps. Captain Reyes of the Pillar of Autumn, for example, had earmarked repeated orders as “ammo,” despite the well-known fact that he never had any ammo on hand, especially during Covenant hijacking emergencies. Other officers appears guilty of similar indiscretions. On final tally, the program’s administrators were spending an enormous number of cRedits, and they were not bringing in any revenue to justify the expenses; in order to retain financial feasibility, the principals would have to find a way to streamline the Spartan project’s cost.

You can no doubt predict some of the budget cuts handed down from command. No more soaps, no more iPads, no more toilet paper: all harsh but necessary budgetary consolidations. Most of the journalistic properties stopped their presses, too; workers on Reach had to double take as they sat down on late June afternoons, opened their mail, and found themselves reading the May update all over again. That series of economic trimmings alone, though, would not have drastically changed life on Reach. Some of the workers had already forsaken showering, ultimately developing green wafts around their armor; no one could ever connect to the internet in the dead zone of Reach anyway; and the planet’s coastlines boasted an inexhaustible supply of seashells, allowing at least 3 per person. Indeed, the challenges of Reach had toughened the task force, rendering them capable of overcoming almost any obstacle. As long as they had food…

When the budget cuts put an end to the fresh cuts, the situation on Reach quickly fell. Progress on the infrastructure ceased immediately, and the entirety of the remaining workers – those who had survived the red and blue wars – held a hasty meeting to plan their next course of meal. After a number of perfectly reasonable vegetative propositions, one of the shadier workers offered a recount of his hauls to the limestone deposits. On those trips, he recounted, he had seen a number of beautiful Moa frolicking in the water. You could see the drool short-circuiting his armor as he promoted the Moa as the solution to their food shortage. The microphone in his helmet stopped working as his suit lost power, but his message had already hit the airwaves, and his audience had already proved disgustingly receptive.

Yes, the workers on Reach were eating “well” again, if you can call it like that. For weeks, the surface dwellers veritably gorged themselves on the slaughters. Hunger knew no name to this subset; nor did dignity, honor, or pride, but I digress. After their meals, the demons would round up their captured flocks and conduct wicked games such as “Moa riding.” They enjoyed these games, these final games. With no compassion whatsoever, they taunted and teased their prey, reveling in their cruel power. Soon the tables would turn, and they would find themselves helpless pawns in futile combat against a much more powerful enemy. For the time, though, they ate all too plentifully, with no greater inconveniences than sleepiness and an increasing alien insect population.

The humans could not sate their cravings. Within weeks, though, their daily helpings of Moa slowed to every-other-day helpings of Moa, and such. Unable to read that particular tea leaf, though, the people continued with their extensive Moa hunting programs. Although a man or woman might miss a meal here and there, this brief hunger did not even begin to compare to the hardships they had faced in the early days of Reach; furthermore, they made good use of the time not eating to ward off the ever-expanding insect population. In sum, the peopledom continued to tan on the shore, even as the sun flirted with the horizon and the darker tides crept ever closer to the levies. With their eyes closed, they never even saw their fate approaching.

As the clock neared midnight, only 2 Moa remained: one male, one female. Nervous chatter surrounded their captivity as the townsfolk debated their futures. They had fear now, yes; they finally were starting to understand the primest repercussions of their boundless hunting practices. Even at that fateful hour, though, they did not fully understand the chaos they had created. they did not understand until the ecological engineers began reporting the unthinkable: the insects of Reach were morphing into Covenant.

Admittedly, the people of Reach could never have truly known. They could not, with their simple minds, hope to understand the Moa population’s vital role in keeping the insect population in check. When the Moa disappeared from the ecological landscape, though, the pre-Covenant insects’ most beautiful enemy no longer stood in their path; they could freely develop into full-fledged Covenant armies. And that they did.

3

The war did not last long. In truth, it did not really even exist. The Covenant spawn struck swiftly, and they scored numerous glorious victories in the first few days. The humans fought with occasional traces of bravery, but they had eaten far too much Moa, and their physical conditions did not prove remotely conducive to any meaningful physical activity more laborious than hoisting a fork from their plate to their mouth in a repeated fashion. No, they did not respond well at all to this call of duty. Each battle played to the same tune: the Covenant would attack a human patrol, and the patrol would radio back to base for reinforcements. The Covenant would quickly slaughter the original patrol and lie in wait for the reinforcements to arrive.

By the time backup arrived with their tongues hanging from their mouths in exhaustion, though, the Covenant would have fallen asleep in boredom. This did enable the “fresh” human armadas to score a handful of stunning victories over the physically and technologically superior Covenant. Overall, however, the Covenant controlled every battlefield and ruled every line of communication; they had won the moment the Moa faded into the sunset. Essentially, then, the humans had defeated themselves!

High irony does have a sense of humor, even if a dark and morbid one. As the humans searched among themselves for an explanation for their terrible defeat, they could find no other option than to blame themselves for their dismal downfall. Beyond tired and completely uninspired, though, the remaining crew could not muster the effort required for an intraspecial conflict; if fate wished to witness this fight, it would need to interject.

And interject it did.

Far from the center of human civilization, the night winds danced among the limestone deposits, rife with anticipation. As the dark clouds gave way to a full spotlight, the first green-armored zombie staggered out of the deposit, As more of his brethren did the same, they looked upon one another with uncertainty. Soon, though, bits and pieces returned to them; they recalled the horrors they had endured in the red and blue conflicts, and they gazed in fury upon their meager, makeshift burial grounds. Forsaking their humanity, they lurched forward, bearing straight for the human encampment.

Not even orbital assets could save humanity from this final calamity.

4

They didn’t even get assault rifles, they got assist rifles!

5

> High above the sky, the UNSC administration continued to closely monitor the weekly bulletins updating the status of the project. Many times the bulletins arrived 1 or 2 days behind schedule, but they had no real control over the turnaround time, let alone the mission’s day-to-day challenges. Indeed, the oversight committee could do not better than to wait for each report and, in turn, to react accordingly.
>
> In this vein, the committee committed to numerous lively discussions as they read over the reports of unrest among the worker crews. After agreeing that they needed to provide additional incentives to retain their user base, they settled on offering a weekly jackpot to all of the workers on Reach. Offering this sort of credit bonanza, they theorized, would quench most of the petty strife and ensure that the colonization project continued unabated and on schedule.

Subtle! LOL!!!

6

> They didn’t even get assault rifles, they got assist rifles!

> You can no doubt predict some of the budget cuts handed down from command. No more soaps, no more iPads, no more toilet paper: all harsh but necessary budgetary consolidations.

…and no TP? that’s just plain wrong!

7

> > High above the sky, the UNSC administration continued to closely monitor the weekly bulletins updating the status of the project. Many times the bulletins arrived 1 or 2 days behind schedule, but they had no real control over the turnaround time, let alone the mission’s day-to-day challenges. Indeed, the oversight committee could do not better than to wait for each report and, in turn, to react accordingly.
> >
> > In this vein, the committee committed to numerous lively discussions as they read over the reports of unrest among the worker crews. After agreeing that they needed to provide additional incentives to retain their user base, they settled on offering a weekly jackpot to all of the workers on Reach. Offering this sort of credit bonanza, they theorized, would quench most of the petty strife and ensure that the colonization project continued unabated and on schedule.
>
> Subtle! LOL!!!

LOL

8

So many metaphors. A great piece of satire Redislove.