The sudden loss of Covenant military power

Community Halo Universe
1

. . . is finally believable to me.

Up until recently, I had only played the Halo games. And going from Halo 3, where the Covenant fleet was still vast, to Halo 4, where all of the sudden Humanity is the ‘alpha male,’ was really upsetting to me. It seemed totally illogical.

However, I have now read through most of the cannon books (Harvest, Cole Protocol, Fall of Reach, Flood, First Strike, Ghosts of Onyx) and have changed my mind completely, for these reasons:

The Covenant military, between the events of Reach through Halo 3 (a short time), was utterly decimated.

  1. Covenant fleet at Sigma Octanus IV almost completely destroyed (18 ships).
  2. Covenant fleet at Reach, while insanely large (>300?) suffers massive casualties until the MAC generators fall. Halo wiki states that of a fleet of at least 341, the Covenant lose over 261 ships.
  3. at the first Halo (battle of installation 04), half of the Fleet of Particular Justice is destroyed.
  4. From the events of First Strike, when the Unyielding Hierophant was destroyed, it took out almost the entire 500-strong fleet.
  5. First Battle of Earth - a few covenant ship casualties (7 of 8 if I remember correctly?)
  6. At the second Halo (Battle of Installation 05), I couldn’t find specific numbers, however: High Charity, the Covenant capital, was lost. I will therefore assume that between the battle with the flood and the beginning Civil War, of the “hundreds of ships” always protecting the capital, a significant number was lost.
  7. As the Elites prepared to counter the Flood threat & Brute response @ Installation 05, their Supercarrier along with almost its entire fleet was destroyed by Admiral Whitcomb’s NOVA bomb.
  8. The other portion of the elite fleet to avoid the NOVA bomb was a 21 ship fleet sent to Onyx - and they too were entirely destroyed by the humans & sentinels.
  9. Unknown number of forces deployed by Truth at the Battle of Earth and the Battle of the Ark, but between these two, it appears that his entire fleet was destroyed by the joint human/elite alliance.
  10. Throughout all of this, the elites and brutes likely pounded themselves into oblivion; and the Covenant clearly dedicated a ton of resources to combat the Flood threat.

After a few decade war in which the Covenant fairly easily rolled over human colonies with limited allocation of their fleet, this sequence of events I outlined clearly show a massive increase in the Covenant’s force commitment against humanity, of which a great majority was destroyed in a matter of months.

2

And to clarify, I am simply observing the relative loss of power on the Covenant species’ side. Clearly humanity got its -Yoink- kicked and I don’t see how they could have so dramatically turned themselves around after 4 years.

The Infinity project makes sense, and I have no problems with that. But it is still a conventional-based weapons ship, and shouldn’t be depicted as just running-gunning and destroying -Yoink- without blinking.

The data Cortana obtained about Covenant plasma, slipspace, and shielding technology should be the human advances that should be noticable. 4 years after, the slipspace and shielding technology are there. Which is believable, since humanity had finally figured out limited shielding (i.e., MJOLNIR armor) by the battle of reach, and already had rudimentary understanding of slipspace.

In future games it would make sense that humanity would move away from projectile-style weapons. Whether we started employing plasma or hardlight, or even built more sophisticated gauss or rail, it makes sense. Though I wonder how this would be effectively integrated into gameplay while preserving classic Halo ‘feel.’

3

Humanity hasn’t recovered, or really become that much of a “top dog”.

A lot of it is an illusion, created by Infinity and propaganda surrounding it.

And yet, since it was launched, it was nearly hijacked by Innies, crashed, and then almost got blown up. Not really something to be proud of.

The Spartan IVs and Infinity are creating the new illusion of Humanity’s power.

Yet look at it again. The IVs are good, yes, but are still being killed and beaten. There are only some that may be considered true Spartans. And there are a limited number of them, until production costs catch up.

The UNSC Fleet consists of Infinity, primarily. Then we have a bunch of Halcyons. Old ships pulled out of storage. Some may have received upgrades like the Autumn, but probably not all of them. Then we have a bunch of new Frigate classes. The Home Fleet and MAC Defenses couldn’t stop Mantle’s Approach.

Humanity would still fall to a Covenant War size Covenant.

Weapons haven’t upgraded all that much, but that may chznge with research on Requiem.

Speaking of Requiem, Jul’s splinter force managed to evade and literally run circles around Infinity’s ground forces for quite a while.

Humanity is hiding behind new technology they are still struggling to understand. ONI is nuking the budget that should be used for rebuilding and are destroying attempts at peace with the prior Covenant.
When that all catches up to them, and it will, Humanity is going to fall flat on its face, unless they can really get together and understand the technology they’re faced with, and try not to piss ofd every species in the galaxy that already doesn’t like them.

4

Completely agree with you JSA.

My OP was merely a reflection on how much the Covenant ALSO got its -Yoink- kicked in the last few years. Until I read the books, this was not evident to me.

5

ONI taking a big part of the budget for that? Really?

Arthur, Daisy, Solomon, Cal. All dead.

With huragoks, I doubt there are old Halcyon limping around. We don’t know the size of the fleet but with upgrades and shielding, Halcyons should be good. And of course the ODPs couldn’t stop the mantle’s approach. It’s a forerunner ship. Tanked many gigatons. What did you expect?

Humanity is top species since the others are mostly scattered and fragmented. Jul had his forces inside requiem. The infinity didn’t risk going back inside. Infinity has survived and it’s crew did well. That’s what matters here.

When insurrectionists gather, the covenant sects gather up. How will humanity defend itself? With hugs and watermelons? This is known since December 2553.

6

> Humanity hasn’t recovered, or really become that much of a “top dog”.
>
> A lot of it is an illusion, created by Infinity and propaganda surrounding it.

Of course they haven’t fully recovered, but considering where they were 6 years ago, it’s quite a dramatic turnaround.

> And yet, since it was launched, it was nearly hijacked by Innies, crashed, and then almost got blown up. Not really something to be proud of.

And the Infinity managed to get out of every situation perfectly fine.

> Yet look at it again. The IVs are good, yes, but are still being killed and beaten. There are only some that may be considered true Spartans. And there are a limited number of them, until production costs catch up.

Of course they’re going to die. Even the Spartan 2s died at certain points. That doesn’t mean they’re not good at what they do.

> The UNSC Fleet consists of Infinity, primarily. Then we have a bunch of Halcyons. Old ships pulled out of storage. Some may have received upgrades like the Autumn, but probably not all of them. Then we have a bunch of new Frigate classes. The Home Fleet and MAC Defenses couldn’t stop Mantle’s Approach.

Wasn’t it stated in TTW that the UNSC planned to have huragok on every ship by 2557? If so then most of the fleet has probably been upgraded. That’s been seen with all the new ships we’ve seen in Halo 4.

And of course they couldn’t stop the Mantles Approach. It’s a Forerunner ship ffs.

> Humanity would still fall to a Covenant War size Covenant.

Obviously. Humanity post war is running low on ships, so even while they have upgraded a lot of their ships, they’re still low on numbers.

> Speaking of Requiem, Jul’s splinter force managed to evade and literally run circles around Infinity’s ground forces for quite a while.

Too bad it didn’t help them accomplish their main objective.

> Humanity is hiding behind new technology they are still struggling to understand. ONI is nuking the budget that should be used for rebuilding and are destroying attempts at peace with the prior Covenant.
> When that all catches up to them, and it will, Humanity is going to fall flat on its face, unless they can really get together and understand the technology they’re faced with, and try not to piss ofd every species in the galaxy that already doesn’t like them.

There’s really not much any race can do to Humanity at this point. The Elites and Covenant Separatists are the only ones that can do anything. And the Elites are stuck in a Civil War and have somehow managed to lose all their huragok, so they can’t even repair and upgrade their ships anymore. And the Covenant Separatists are running extremely low on ships, so low that they have to use light cruisers, so they’re not even a big threat.

Unless the Forerunners, Flood, or Precursors come back then there really isn’t much anybody can do to Humanity at this point. That’s kind of why a lot of the Elites didn’t like the fact that the Arbiter initiated a cease fire with them.

7

Humanity lost hundreds of colonies, tens of billions of civilians and military, and the vast majority of their fleet.

Until we see tons of thriving UNSC colonies, a fleet that doesn’t consist of Frigate classes and ships pulled out of storage, and a steady population, I wouldn’ t call anything a dramatic comeback.
They’re poking around with tech they don’ t understand, evident due to their inability to even work with Infinity’s engines without pulling in the “war criminal” that installed them.

Perfectly fine? Without the Chief showing up Infinity was quite sunken on Requiem. And even with his help there were a few hull breaches, lots of dead, damage inside the ship, and Ivanoff Station’s location was compromised.
Forward a little bit more ajd Del Rio remarks that Infinity is taking a beating by some Covie craft and light AA guns (Particle Cannons were offline).

During the return to Requiem Infinity hides outside the planet and gets EKPed by an artifact they brought in. Once more or less stabilized, the artifact locks them in place. Prometheans show up, Infinity’s defenses go down, and it is swarmed by boarding craft and enemy ships. Covenant set up a ton of nukes in the engine room, and Infinity would be gone now were it not for some last minute operations by Fireteam Crimson, several times.

For their flagship vessel, crashing and nearly blown up twice in 6 months doesn’t sound all that impressive.

They’re good at being Marines in pretty armor. Gek has still singlehandedly killed several and they were too spread thin to keep the Covenant effectively out of Infinity. Still not that big of gamechangers.

Still, they are pulling ships out of storage. Some upgrades are good, some new designs will be good. But how about the numbers? The fleet was devastated during the war. The fact that they’re pulling old ships out and mass-producing Frigates shows that numbers aren’t too great. They’re just trying to mobilize and intimidate.

Which is why they aren’t top dogs. Humanity isn’t invincible or super awesome now. Put one ship with better tech and Earth is decimated. Infinity punched a small hole in it, which was repaired immediately afterwords.

Has Humanity made a good recovery? Yeah, thats undeniable. Are they better than ever? In some ways, but they still have a ways to go in even understanding the tech they’re trying to put up.

Top dogs isn’t accurate. Unchallengeable isn’t accurate. Once all their black operations and budget stealing comes back, they’ll find themselves with unproven prototypes, a small fleet with one big, vulnerable ship, and not a lot of space to maneuver. 2557 shows them still scoping out worlds for colonization after the war.

They still did a lot better than what Infinity’s main objective was. They lost a ton of troops trying to secure some of these sites, and then lost the site a day or two later. Spartans were sent on mission after mission right after another to keep trying to clean up these messes, and it still didn’t work. And remember, they did end up completing part of their objective. They destroyed Requiem so Infinity lost its mission, and escaped with Halsey and part of the Key.

Exactly. Its an illusion, Humanity taking advantage of their situation to throw up a shield they’re still messing around with. Jul’s force on Requiem evaded and stalled Infinity, and nearly blew it up, and was quite a bit better at using the tech there. That was a little splinter group.
A year or two earlier a splinter group of just a couple ships unearthed a Forerunner Planet Breaker and devastated a colony/moon.
Insurrectionists are rising with a planet decked out in weapons. Innies nearly got Infinity too.

These alliances get together? Use tech against Humanity? Humanity won’t hold out that long. Infinity is a massive target. Take that out, Humanity loses their propaganda, Spartan IV HQ, and moral. Humanity doesn’t have many colonies either.

8

> And to clarify, I am simply observing the relative loss of power on the Covenant species’ side. Clearly humanity got its -Yoink!- kicked and I don’t see how they could have so dramatically turned themselves around after 4 years.

Yeah, the relative part is really important. The Covenant may believe that they have nearly nothing left, but that “nearly nothing left” is being measured by a collective that has been space faring for 3000 years and who viewed the loss of 500 ships as a minor setback; who viewed the loss of the Fleet at Reach as not impacting their search for Earth at all. Humanity shouldn’t get too aggressive just because they hear some Elites saying that they have lost almost everything because what little they have left is still very likely enough to finish Humanity.

9

> Humanity lost hundreds of colonies, tens of billions of civilians and military, and the vast majority of their fleet.
>
> Until we see tons of thriving UNSC colonies, a fleet that doesn’t consist of Frigate classes and ships pulled out of storage, and a steady population, I wouldn’ t call anything a dramatic comeback.

For a 6 year period, it is quite a dramatic comeback. They don’t need to have their entire fleet and all of their colonies back for it to be a dramatic turnaround. If they had all that then it’d be considered a miraculous recovery.

> They’re poking around with tech they don’ t understand, evident due to their inability to even work with Infinity’s engines without pulling in the “war criminal” that installed them.

Halsey’s really the only one who understands Forerunner technology hence why they had her install the engines. Everything else on the Infinity is human based.

> Perfectly fine? Without the Chief showing up Infinity was quite sunken on Requiem. And even with his help there were a few hull breaches, lots of dead, damage inside the ship, and Ivanoff Station’s location was compromised.
> Forward a little bit more ajd Del Rio remarks that Infinity is taking a beating by some Covie craft and light AA guns (Particle Cannons were offline).
>
> During the return to Requiem Infinity hides outside the planet and gets EKPed by an artifact they brought in. Once more or less stabilized, the artifact locks them in place. Prometheans show up, Infinity’s defenses go down, and it is swarmed by boarding craft and enemy ships. Covenant set up a ton of nukes in the engine room, and Infinity would be gone now were it not for some last minute operations by Fireteam Crimson, several times.

And was it destroyed, crippled, or even heavily damaged? No. You can sit here and say if this or if that, but the fact is that it escaped in tact and is still in full operating condition.

> For their flagship vessel, crashing and nearly blown up twice in 6 months doesn’t sound all that impressive.

And once again, was it blown up? No.

> They’re good at being Marines in pretty armor. Gek has still singlehandedly killed several and they were too spread thin to keep the Covenant effectively out of Infinity. Still not that big of gamechangers.

And Spartan 2s had problems dealing with Elites as well. Just because some die in combat doesn’t mean they aren’t effective.

> Still, they are pulling ships out of storage. Some upgrades are good, some new designs will be good. But how about the numbers? The fleet was devastated during the war. The fact that they’re pulling old ships out and mass-producing Frigates shows that numbers aren’t too great. They’re just trying to mobilize and intimidate.

I’ve already said their numbers aren’t that great, but their situation is sure better than any race currently out there.

> Which is why they aren’t top dogs. Humanity isn’t invincible or super awesome now. Put one ship with better tech and Earth is decimated. Infinity punched a small hole in it, which was repaired immediately afterwords.

You mean put one ship together with MASSIVELY better technology because that’s what the Mantle’s Approach was. And no race currently out there really has the resources to do such a thing anyway.

> Has Humanity made a good recovery? Yeah, thats undeniable. Are they better than ever? In some ways, but they still have a ways to go in even understanding the tech they’re trying to put up.

Obviously.

> Top dogs isn’t accurate. Unchallengeable isn’t accurate. Once all their black operations and budget stealing comes back, they’ll find themselves with unproven prototypes, a small fleet with one big, vulnerable ship, and not a lot of space to maneuver. 2557 shows them still scoping out worlds for colonization after the war.

And what race is currently going to challenge Humanity? The Elites who can’t even repair and upgrade their ships? The Covenant Separatists who are so low on ships that they have to use light cruisers? Hell, the biggest ship Jul had in his fleet (in spartan ops at least) was a CCS battle cruiser and the Infinity had already rammed through one of those with ease in the beginning of Spartan Ops.

Unless the races that originally joined the Covenant joined forces again then there really isn’t a race out there capable of currently beating them.

> They still did a lot better than what Infinity’s main objective was. They lost a ton of troops trying to secure some of these sites, and then lost the site a day or two later. Spartans were sent on mission after mission right after another to keep trying to clean up these messes, and it still didn’t work. And remember, they did end up completing part of their objective. They destroyed Requiem so Infinity lost its mission, and escaped with Halsey and part of the Key.

No, they really didn’t. They lost more ships than the UNSC did and most likely more soldiers as well seeing as Jul left a -Yoink- load of his men on Requiem when it went crashing into the sun.

And completing part of their objective doesn’t count as completion. Jul came to get his hands on Forerunner technology capable of wiping Humanity from existence. Did he acquire that? No.

As for Halsey, I think we both know she’s playing him, so trying to act like he’s an asset to Jul is quite ridiculous.

> Exactly. Its an illusion, Humanity taking advantage of their situation to throw up a shield they’re still messing around with. Jul’s force on Requiem evaded and stalled Infinity, and nearly blew it up, and was quite a bit better at using the tech there. That was a little splinter group.
> A year or two earlier a splinter group of just a couple ships unearthed a Forerunner Planet Breaker and devastated a colony/moon.
> Insurrectionists are rising with a planet decked out in weapons. Innies nearly got Infinity too.

Again with the nearly. Did Jul blow up Infinity? No. Did the Insurrectionists get away with Infinity? No. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. In other words, coming close isn’t good enough.

> These alliances get together? Use tech against Humanity? Humanity won’t hold out that long. Infinity is a massive target. Take that out, Humanity loses their propaganda, Spartan IV HQ, and moral. Humanity doesn’t have many colonies either.

Is there an alliance between them? No. You keep talking about what ifs instead of what is currently happening. And facts are that currently, no race has the manpower to wipe Humanity from existence.

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> > And to clarify, I am simply observing the relative loss of power on the Covenant species’ side. Clearly humanity got its -Yoink!- kicked and I don’t see how they could have so dramatically turned themselves around after 4 years.
>
> Yeah, the relative part is really important. The Covenant may believe that they have nearly nothing left, but that “nearly nothing left” is being measured by a collective that has been space faring for 3000 years and who viewed the loss of 500 ships as a minor setback; who viewed the loss of the Fleet at Reach as not impacting their search for Earth at all. Humanity shouldn’t get too aggressive just because they hear some Elites saying that they have lost almost everything because what little they have left is still very likely enough to finish Humanity.

I agree that if the entire Covenant were to completely mobilize, or even just the Elites to unify to go after humanity again, we wouldn’t stand a chance.

The loss of the fleet at reach was alone only a minor setback, but I think we are underestimating truly how devastating the events from Reach–>Ark were to the Covenant military in sum.

If the High Prophets really wanted to quickly eradicate humanity prior to the Covenant learning that they were being lied to, I don’t see why a larger, more urgent military action would have been undertaken immediately. It seems that the Covenant really ramped up their military assets against humanity quite ‘late’ in the Covenant:human war. Reach and Earth demanded a massive force dedication because of the military and strategic resources, as well as population, that we had there.

That also is evidence supporting Dr. Halsey’s hypothesis that there was ‘something else pre-occupying the Covenant’ and that we were only seeing a fraction of their force to date.

This is just speculation - but if a unified Covenant moved massive amounts of military assets from this other ‘unknown’ towards humanity, and almost all of these forces deployed were destroyed between Reach–>Ark, wouldn’t that render a Covenant that is no longer unified even more susceptible to this other ‘unknown’ enemy? Whether it is the Flood or something else?

The sudden loss of all Huragok makes no sense to me. The absolute ‘need’ for human forces to help Sanheilios makes no sense either. But between Dr. Halsey’s hypothesized ‘other threat,’ the recent human & human/elite victories, the losses to the Flood, and the losses from the Brute:Elite war and Covenant:Separatist war, I think there is a ton of unexplored universe that supports a very diminished Covenant military strength.

But again, as Anton alluded to, humanity collectively is still dwarfed by Elites in every facet.

11

> I’ve already said their numbers aren’t that great, but their situation is sure better than any race currently out there.
>
> And what race is currently going to challenge Humanity? The Elites who can’t even repair and upgrade their ships? The Covenant Separatists who are so low on ships that they have to use light cruisers? Hell, the biggest ship Jul had in his fleet (in spartan ops at least) was a CCS battle cruiser and the Infinity had already rammed through one of those with ease in the beginning of Spartan Ops.
>
> Unless the races that originally joined the Covenant joined forces again then there really isn’t a race out there capable of currently beating them.

Of the Covenant races and humans, I’d absolutely still say that the Elites are way ahead of anyone else out there, even during their Civil War. They still have access to the better tech, larger populations, and with the exceptions of a few humans in kick -Yoink- armor & enhanced genetics/physiology, completely outmatch human soldiers too.

How the hell all of the Engineers disappeared from the Elites, I have no clue. What a load of -Yoink-. Sorry. Huh? That is the single most frustrating plot point in the Halo universe to me. That a Tier 2 race suddenly forgets EVERYTHING to sustain their technology level AND the Huragok that they rely on disappear. I have no problem understanding that the Covenant & the Elites relied on Huragok for tech, maintenance, etc., but many ships did not have Huragok before the disappearance. Elites certainly know their -Yoink- and should be able to adapt to being without Huragok, despite the deus ex machina crap.

12

> > During the return to Requiem Infinity hides outside the planet and gets EKPed by an artifact they brought in. Once more or less stabilized, the artifact locks them in place. Prometheans show up, Infinity’s defenses go down, and it is swarmed by boarding craft and enemy ships. Covenant set up a ton of nukes in the engine room, and Infinity would be gone now were it not for some last minute operations by Fireteam Crimson, several times.
>
> And was it destroyed, crippled, or even heavily damaged? No. You can sit here and say if this or if that, but the fact is that it escaped in tact and is still in full operating condition.

The fact within a six month period it was nearly destroyed twice is just stupid, what happens if Jul exposes ONI and all the Sangheili turn against Humanity for ONI’s plans? Humanity would be outnumbered, and if the Covenant get their hands on a CSO-class supercarrier I’d say the Infinity would go down very quickly

13

Technology wise, yes, its quite a lot compared to where they were.
But Humanity as a whole making a dramatic comeback?

Until I have proof that Humanity has a steady population and a lot of good worlds to support it, I wouldn’t say the civilian aspect is dramatically back yet, especially if the damages on “surviving” planets haven’t been fully rebuilt yet.

Military wise, there aren’t many upgrades in weaponry. Spartans are being mass-produced on the field, but haven’t shown overall amazing save for a few notable squads. They are Marines/ODSTs in special armor, and the skills of some of them reflect that. Its a good step, but I don’ t think it makes Humanity super great outside of moral/propaganda.
Navy wise we’re using some old ships that may or may not hzve been upgraded, a bunch of Frigate class ships, and one massive target thats nearly been downed twice in 6 months.

Exactly. They are messing with tech they don’t understand, and are kind of relying on it. It already backfired with Infinity when its engines acted up and an artifact ate their main scientist, while acting as a gateway for Prometheans to phase in and deactivate the ship’s systems.

Del Rio believes it was a bit damaged. And just play Infinity, look at how much of the bottom decks were gauged out when it crashed. It is also a fact that Infinity was boarded and took damage twice in 6 months… at the same place. For what is being shown as Humanity’s greatest achievement… thats not impressive at all. The attack in Spartan Ops was so sudden and coordinated there weren’t any valuble units at the engine room, aft defense command, and server room. The engine room got a ton of nukes planted in it, which would have gutted the ship several times had Crimson not been nearby. That is also a fact, especially since they were cloaked from Roland.

Many Spartan IIs lasted for more than 20 years fighting the Covenant. Some of these IVs are already dead, at the hands of a splinter group trapped in a metal planet. Are some effective? Definitely. Are they all? Not really, and that comes back to the Spartan II issue of being spread too thin.

In terms of getting their hands on tech they don’t know how to work, definitely. In terms of population, military tech, colonies, and relationships… not so much. Hood went around to other colonies after the war and they denied assitance. Great job, Humanity. And now Innies are rising, and they have Covie allies and resources.

Covenant already did. They’re just disorganized.

Jul has an Assault Carrier. Assault Carriers were used at the Battle of Draetheus V.
The Elites are recovering, relearning. When they reunite and refocus, they’ll have the ships. Jul pulled a large fleet of various different ships just from wandering Hesduros and probably an outer colony or two.

Did you see how terrible the UNSC did at holding their bases on Requiem? Jul’s forces ran laps around UNSC forces, who were already busy nuking themselves due to messing with tech there. Crimson goes in, cleans up, leaves, and the base is right back into Covie hands.
The UNSC left with half a Janus Key. They lost the planet they wanted to study, lost Halsey, lost men, and fueled an even bigger force that wants to kill Humanity. Jul walked away with 8 ships, half a Janus Key, Halsey, and the motive and ability to continue this campaign against Humanity.
Neither truly got what they wanted, both lost a lot, but Jul certainly came away better. Whether or not Halsey will really be of assitance is a different story. He still walked away with the UNSC’s expert on Forerunner stuff. What happens when Infinity loses power again? Dr. Glassman touching buttons complaining? Palmer kicking the engine won’t do anything.

For a top dog species, these many occurances of coming close is something to mention. Shows that Infinity isn’t as great as you think… its just a really big target.

All the races have the power to take out Humanity. Some have already tried and done some damage. When talking about Humanity being the top dogs you have to consider what ifs, what might be coming. Just looking at what is immediately in front of you is a great way for you to be surprised and knocked off-balance. Calling Humanity the top dog with all these threats who can knock them down isn’t really top dog. Top of the moment, maybe, and the events at Requiem show that Humanity still has a ways to go to get a grip on situations. Thats why they aren’ t top dogs.

14

Well, considering on how many covenant we have killed over the years, I’m not suprised that there are still more of them. In fact, who’s to say that there are no prophet loyal elites left? We know the prophets are a much less common species, but what confirmation do we have the a large Covenant force isn’t out in hiding, Perhaps at the ark? I could see Covies using the ark as a “High Charity two”

But it does sadden me that the elites have no engineers. In thursday war, they state that every covenant ship had a team of huragok. If that is true, Where did they go? It would brighten my day if Thel or some other high up elites had taken them into hiding, keeping them from other factions.

15

> . . . is finally believable to me.
>
> Up until recently, I had only played the Halo games. And going from Halo 3, where the Covenant fleet was still vast, to Halo 4, where all of the sudden Humanity is the ‘alpha male,’ was really upsetting to me. It seemed totally illogical.
>
> However, I have now read through most of the cannon books (Harvest, Cole Protocol, Fall of Reach, Flood, First Strike, Ghosts of Onyx) and have changed my mind completely, for these reasons:
>
> The Covenant military, between the events of Reach through Halo 3 (a short time), was utterly decimated.
> 1. Covenant fleet at Sigma Octanus IV almost completely destroyed (18 ships).
> 2. Covenant fleet at Reach, while insanely large (>300?) suffers massive casualties until the MAC generators fall. Halo wiki states that of a fleet of at least 341, the Covenant lose over 261 ships.
> 3. at the first Halo (battle of installation 04), half of the Fleet of Particular Justice is destroyed.
> 4. From the events of First Strike, when the Unyielding Hierophant was destroyed, it took out almost the entire 500-strong fleet.
> 5. First Battle of Earth - a few covenant ship casualties (7 of 8 if I remember correctly?)
> 6. At the second Halo (Battle of Installation 05), I couldn’t find specific numbers, however: High Charity, the Covenant capital, was lost. I will therefore assume that between the battle with the flood and the beginning Civil War, of the “hundreds of ships” always protecting the capital, a significant number was lost.
> 7. As the Elites prepared to counter the Flood threat & Brute response @ Installation 05, their Supercarrier along with almost its entire fleet was destroyed by Admiral Whitcomb’s NOVA bomb.
> 8. The other portion of the elite fleet to avoid the NOVA bomb was a 21 ship fleet sent to Onyx - and they too were entirely destroyed by the humans & sentinels.
> 9. Unknown number of forces deployed by Truth at the Battle of Earth and the Battle of the Ark, but between these two, it appears that his entire fleet was destroyed by the joint human/elite alliance.
> 10. Throughout all of this, the elites and brutes likely pounded themselves into oblivion; and the Covenant clearly dedicated a ton of resources to combat the Flood threat.
>
> After a few decade war in which the Covenant fairly easily rolled over human colonies with limited allocation of their fleet, this sequence of events I outlined clearly show a massive increase in the Covenant’s force commitment against humanity, of which a great majority was destroyed in a matter of months.
>
> And to clarify, I am simply observing the relative loss of power on the Covenant species’ side. Clearly humanity got its -Yoink!- kicked and I don’t see how they could have so dramatically turned themselves around after 4 years.

None of that makes it any more believable, it’s still just as ridiculous as ever. Do you have any idea how many ship it would taken to control or police the Covenant Empire? The Covenant control almost all of the Orion Arm of the galaxy, and in case you don’t know, it’s about 3,500 lightyears across and 10,000 lightyears in length, and the Covenant control almost all of it! The amount of ships you would need to even have a chance of keeping that amount of territory under control is huge. The Human-Covenant War wouldn’t have even begun to put a dent in their military strength, especially since they’d be rebuilding ships all throughout the length of the war and replacing all of their minimal losses. To put it all in perspective, 500 ships is shrugged off as only a minor setback…and this is after losing more than half of the ships that attacked Reach and the remainder of the Fleet of Particular Justice that went to Alpha Halo after the PoA getting destroyed. If 500+ ships is still nothing more than a minor setback or annoyance after all that, think about what that tells you about the numbers the Covenant has.

What you have in your list would only amount to about 1,000-1,500+ ships, again, not even putting a scratch on their military might or potential to wage war, and the Elites control the majority of the military, they wouldn’t be anywhere near the dire straights that Kilo-5 has them in. Even after the Human-Covenant War is officially over, either side (the Separatists or Loyalists) would have no issue whatsoever going in and stomping what remains of the UNSC into the dust if they so chose.

> The Infinity project makes sense, and I have no problems with that. But it is still a conventional-based weapons ship, and shouldn’t be depicted as just running-gunning and destroying Yoink! without blinking.
>
> The data Cortana obtained about Covenant plasma, slipspace, and shielding technology should be the human advances that should be noticable. 4 years after, the slipspace and shielding technology are there. Which is believable, since humanity had finally figured out limited shielding (i.e., MJOLNIR armor) by the battle of reach, and already had rudimentary understanding of slipspace.
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> In future games it would make sense that humanity would move away from projectile-style weapons. Whether we started employing plasma or hardlight, or even built more sophisticated gauss or rail, it makes sense. Though I wonder how this would be effectively integrated into gameplay while preserving classic Halo ‘feel.’

There’s nothing wrong with Infinity existing…but it shouldn’t have been thrown into the series right after Halo 3 and seeing action. That is just dumb and raises too many questions, like why wasn’t it involved in the assault on the Forerunner Dreadnought in Halo 3 or otherwise involved in the Battle of Earth, rather than just sitting, fully functional, out in the Oort Cloud on its lazy butt. 343i shouldn’t have done that or let Traviss do that, it should have waited until Halo 4, imo. Otherwise I have no issue with Infinity’s existence.