> > Here is some scaling to put things into perspective.
> >
> > The Mantle’s Approach was waltzing through the entire ODP grid with absolutely no trouble whatsoever. That includes the SMAC platforms, which each fire about 50+ gigatons per shot, ever 5 seconds (that’s 50,000+ megatons). We know that the Mantle was making a linear approach, because if it was dodging those shots, then the Chief would’ve been slammed into the walls while he flew in its trenches. We also have reason to believe her shields weren’t up either, as we see them vanish upon exiting slipspace, we see no shield flares from the UNSC attacks, and we see the fleet hovering right over her hull.
> >
> > The Infinity managed to do what the entire ODP grid couldn’t do and blow a hole through the Approach’s hull. That puts her weapon at above the ODP grid.
> >
> > The Unyielding Hierophant, a Covenant space station larger than a Supercarrier, had shield generator nodes that each produced 512 terrawats per lobe, and after viewing some calcs online, that puts its defensive energy equal to around 1.3 megatons per second for each node (though I sensed a math discrepancy that would make the actual number even lower). Even if the smaller Supercarrier had 20 of these nodes projecting ts shield, it could only take about 26 megatons per second before failing and having to recharge.
> >
> > The Infinity, according to Halo 4, has a primary weapon more powerful than a 50 gigaton SMAC weapon. Even if the Supercarrier’s shields could recharge in 1 second, the shear brute force of the Infinity’s main cannon would either one shot or severely cripple the Supercarrier beyond saving, depending on where it hit. The Infinity is simply too powerful for the SC to handle, despite its superior size and (probably) more numerous weapons.
>
> I swear I did a whole thing about this kind of thinking before. Let me find it…
>
> Ah, here it all is:
> https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postst241364p2_UNSC-Infinity-s-Strength-and-Durability.aspx
>
> I think you are seriously forgetting the situation here. The Mantles Approach was under fire from the whole of Earths Orbital Defenses and fleets, along with the Infinity. It wasn’t just the Infinity saying “Hey, lets go make a hole lol”. Not in the least. And that hole wasn’t very big. It was barely enough to fit the Chief and his fighter ship into it. Then that hole promptly closed up. Impressive that it made a dent, yes, but don’t make it seem like the feat is any bigger than it is.
>
>
> I did say it was impressive that it made a dent. However, it did so with the aid of practically everything the UNSC had, which were also firing and taking fire. If it were a 1v1 battle, the Infinity would be out. Gone. Dead. Then we have to keep in mind that this Forerunner ship was extremely weakened. This ship had deteriorated quite a bit and had been taking fire by a Battlegroup, Orbital defense and then had Chief and Cortana helping them from the inside by clearing out things that would have been a major issue to Infinity when they fired. Then, under all those conditions, the Infinity fired which made a hole that barely fit the Broadsword in and then promptly closed off. Not that impressive under all those conditions.
>
> Yes, that was my point. The guns were not a minor annoyance, they were going to be a serious problem for both the Infinity and the other ships.
> No, no he is not. But then again, this is an insane Didact who was previously mindraped by the Gravemind and then was dormant for thousands of years. The Didact was planning a massive plot to destroy an entire species. The Chief has been following orders for 90% of his time between Halo 2-4. Not comparable at all. And like you said, one that ship he was maintaining 100% of the Mantles Approach. He isn’t going to be 100% on the ball considering everything he has been through.
>
> There you go.
You’ll have to prove that anything the rest of the fleet did to the ship had any impact on the Approach at all, because the only thing we have to go off of is that the ODP grid and fleet was “ineffective.” If they were doing appreciable damage to the hull of the Approach then the Infinity would not have been necessary to blow the hole open for the Chief to fly through in the first place, they could simply have launched an attack from one of the ODP’s with a larger range.
You say the ship was “deteriorated.” Prove it. We have no evidence whatsoever that the ship was in any way affected by the UNSC defenses; in fact, we only have testament to the opposite, that nothing they did had an effect.
And yes, the Approach’s defenses were legitimate threats to the Infinity. But given that these cannons are seen vaporizing UNSC ships in the same scene (during gameplay) then it is understandable. This is a Forerunner ship, the same people who saw detonating stars and destroying whole planets as another day at the office, their weapons are naturally going to be scaled very, very high (some calcs for their more powerful ships put them at the terraton range).
So as it stands, you have no real evidence for anything you said. The battle over earth consists of the entire defense network being rendered “ineffective.” If the ODP grid was actually doing anything to the Approach, then the Infinity didn’t need to be the one to put a hole into the ship at such close range. When the Infinity did make its shot, it did so alone. Absolutely nothing else was seen shooting at it as you seemed to claim, the fleet evidently having moved off to get out of the way. And we have no evidence at all that the Approach had “deteriorated” in any way over the course of the battle or over the course of the 100,000 years it had sat idle. If anything, we only have evidence to the opposite as the Defense Command reports all of their efforts were “ineffective” almost immediately upon attacking. The only proven effective weapon against the Approach was the Infinity’s MAC blast, which even looking at the design of the ship is more powerful than a SMAC by virtue of its much higher length.
SMAC weapons are 802 meters long. The Infinity is just over 7 times that length. If the MAC runs even half that length than the weapon has an acceleration 3.5 times greater than the SMAC platform at least, not accounting for the fact that it uses superior Forerunner technology. So it all fits the idea that the Infinity is more powerful than the Defense grid, the simplest explanation for the evidence on screen and the design of the ship itself all correlate with each other for this point.