Alright so I’ve seen a few of these in the past but in general people seem to agree that even with the upgrades given to the UNSC the Covenant would still win so I want to up the ante.
UNSC
All Humans naturally have Spartan IV augmentations
Mjolnir GEN2 armor has become cheap enough to produce that it is given to all soldiers
Human weapons are replaced by hard light weapons
All Human warships have shields (although they aren’t as strong as the Covenants)
The UNSC has a proportional number of Infinity class warships to Covenant CAS class Assault Carriers
Human Slipspace drives allow starships to move at 150 ly/day instead of 2 ly/day (Still far slower than the Covenants 900 ly/day)
I’m not adverse to this kind of debate but I think we would need a lot more information on exactly how the UNSC had procured enough resources to match the Covenant in terms of ships, and what shortcut’s they’ve had to make MJOLNIR standard issue.
One undeniable advantage the Covenant had over the UNSC was that they were multiple alien races waging war against one, and they had been spacefaring a lot longer.
Then what would be the point of the game/story if we did this? It’s like during a horror movie. Why do the people split up and go in the empty house? Because if not then what’s the point of the movie? So yes you can upgrade and make the UNSC much stronger, but then there won’t be anymore war or point in anything.
> 2533274853837831;3:
> I’m not adverse to this kind of debate but I think we would need a lot more information on exactly how the UNSC had procured enough resources to match the Covenant in terms of ships, and what shortcut’s they’ve had to make MJOLNIR standard issue.
>
> One undeniable advantage the Covenant had over the UNSC was that they were multiple alien races waging war against one, and they had been spacefaring a lot longer.
Nothing necessarily would have to be cut, part of the reason that Mjolnir armor costed so much was because it was a new technology and as the years progressed most likely because they were at war. It has been stated in the lore that Gen2 is much cheaper to make, so it wouldn’t be a stretch that if the Mjolnir had existed for 100 years that it could be made standard issue.
The Covenant would still have the massive numbers advantage and a resource advantage as well, humanity would just be better prepared.
The Covenant would likely still win. Sheer numbers is a fairly large advantage. Sangheili and Jiralhanae can outmatch Spartans in strength. The Covenant also has the Forerunner Keyship (or Dreadnought).
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> The Covenant would likely still win. Sheer numbers is a fairly large advantage. Sangheili and Jiralhanae can outmatch Spartans in strength. The Covenant also has the Forerunner Keyship (or Dreadnought).
Bingo. Covenant also have a vastly larger territory of controlled space.
Hmm that’s a tough one but I would actually have to say humanity if they had those advantages to extend the war to more of a stalemate in the beginning. The only weakness the Covenant really had was their hubris of what was a justly inferior opponent. Allowing the “demon” Spartans and the occasional brilliant human to deal unimaginable blows to them and this barely slowed them down. However the Covenant mainly found most of there advanced technology and were forbidden from fully understanding or modifying it. When Cortana, I believe, takes control of a covenant ship she can utilize it far more efficiently due to humanity innovating all its creations. If given the time the UNSC would be able to superiorly backward engineer the technology needed to eventually win.
I would have to say humans also would win that one. Look at how much damage the original group of Spartans did to the original covenant war effort. If the unsc’s entire military comprised of soldiers like those I think the humans would absolutely win. Plus having a number of infinity class ships would put them almost at an advantage. One infinity class can take on a group of covenant ships. Multiple Mac cannons and the ability to jam covenant plasma torpedoes not to mention shields and forerunner slipspace tech. Arm a few of them with nova bombs and I’d even call it an easy win for humanity. A bit tougher but still doable without the novas
The Covenant in terms of military might was never really quantified in the lore. It was heavily implied at certain points that the Covenant was only commiting a fraction of its military to fighting humanity and the leadership only started looking seriously at the situation during the final years of the war due to Reach and the destruction of Halo. As a result, I believe if humanity were as strong as you said in this scenario, it would be a far bloodier war but the Covenant would’ve still come out on top. In the end its still a 3,000+ space-faring civilization that encompassed a significant portion of the orion arm with potentially thousands of worlds. Thus, the amount of resources the covenant could draw upon were enormous compared to Humanity which had only had been space-faring for a few hundred years. And lets not forget the covenant supercarrier and the fact that its improved with Forerunner tech. If the calcs on this behemoth are to be believed, 1 covenant super carrier vs modern earth | SpaceBattles, the supercarrier is more than a match for an infinity class ship. And thats not even counting the the scenario where faced with the possiibility of defeat, the Prophets would have weaponized the dreadnought.
However, much of what we can say in such a hypothetical scenario is speculation of course.
> 2558071395489075;9:
> I would have to say humans also would win that one. Look at how much damage the original group of Spartans did to the original covenant war effort. If the unsc’s entire military comprised of soldiers like those I think the humans would absolutely win. Plus having a number of infinity class ships would put them almost at an advantage. One infinity class can take on a group of covenant ships. Multiple Mac cannons and the ability to jam covenant plasma torpedoes not to mention shields and forerunner slipspace tech. Arm a few of them with nova bombs and I’d even call it an easy win for humanity. A bit tougher but still doable without the novas
I suppose I should mention that the Humans wouldn’t have reverse engineered any Forerunner tech for this scenario. All of these upgrades were just them advancing their science like they should have been doing in the first place.
While the Humans would likely do extremely well on the ground and their ships would be massively upgraded they would still be at a disadvantage in space combat. The disadvantage just wouldn’t be so enormous.
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> > 2535437652903765;6:
> > The Covenant would likely still win. Sheer numbers is a fairly large advantage. Sangheili and Jiralhanae can outmatch Spartans in strength. The Covenant also has the Forerunner Keyship (or Dreadnought).
>
>
> Bingo. Covenant also have a vastly larger territory of controlled space.
They’re also religiously adherant, while the UNSC is free to fight as dirty as it wishes too (and Spartans do just that, and win, quite often. Ex; Spartans boarding Covenant ships the same way TWICE).
> 2535437652903765;6:
> The Covenant would likely still win. Sheer numbers is a fairly large advantage. Sangheili and Jiralhanae can outmatch Spartans in strength. The Covenant also has the Forerunner Keyship (or Dreadnought).
I remember in the books that the Spartans were just as strong or stronger than both. In one of the books I know John took on either a Sangheli or a Jiralhanae and even though he was tired from having to fight for days they were still rather evenly matched.
Why would human weapons be hard light? That’s Forerunner tier 1 tech buddy. I don’t think the UNSC can even come close to making a functioning prototype, let alone mass producing them.
> 2533274929827389;15:
> The UNSC infinity is less than equal compared to a CAS and I’m not saying because I want to.
Yeah I agree, in length I believe the CAS is slightly longer but thats really it. In armament the Infinity easily outclasses the CAS both in its sheer amount of advanced macs and missiles to its experimental laser weapon. Troop deployment wise they’re pretty even with both being able to carry thousands of troops and even smaller vessels of the respective faction such as frigates or corvettes. For slip space and protective shielding the Infinity yet agains triumphs due to the incorporation of forerunner technology (engine) and Covenant technology. In comparison the Infinity has the edge due to its more offensive and advanced design while the CAS is primarily just a flagship or carrier. It’s like comparing modern day naval ships such as the battleship to a carrier almost.
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> > 2533274926527272;7:
> > > 2535437652903765;6:
> > > The Covenant would likely still win. Sheer numbers is a fairly large advantage. Sangheili and Jiralhanae can outmatch Spartans in strength. The Covenant also has the Forerunner Keyship (or Dreadnought).
> >
> >
> > Bingo. Covenant also have a vastly larger territory of controlled space.
>
>
> They’re also religiously adherant, while the UNSC is free to fight as dirty as it wishes too (and Spartans do just that, and win, quite often. Ex; Spartans boarding Covenant ships the same way TWICE).
I would say the covenant religious adherent causes them to fight extremely dirty in their belief of annihilating all humanity with no regard for civilians. I would like to see it brought up in the lore how the UNSC would treat covenant non-combatants which I assume there are many more of than their military.
> 2533274831273847;14:
> Why would human weapons be hard light? That’s Forerunner tier 1 tech buddy. I don’t think the UNSC can even come close to making a functioning prototype, let alone mass producing them.
What is the point of this comment? I gave the UNSC some upgrades and wanted to know how people think it would change the war. If I wanted to know how humans would do with plasma weapons I would just read the older novels. They are plenty of examples of humans utilizing dropped Covenant weaponry that I could pick from and try and form an idea around.
I also don’t see why human tech wouldn’t be hard light, I mean in war zone all of the loadout weapons can be equipped with kinetic bolts and I would think pure hard-light weaponry would be the evolution of that. It seems pretty logical to me.
> 2533274831273847;16:
> > 2533274929827389;15:
> > The UNSC infinity is less than equal compared to a CAS and I’m not saying because I want to.
>
>
> Yeah I agree, in length I believe the CAS is slightly longer but thats really it. In armament the Infinity easily outclasses the CAS both in its sheer amount of advanced macs and missiles to its experimental laser weapon. Troop deployment wise they’re pretty even with both being able to carry thousands of troops and even smaller vessels of the respective faction such as frigates or corvettes. For slip space and protective shielding the Infinity yet agains triumphs due to the incorporation of forerunner technology (engine) and Covenant technology. In comparison the Infinity has the edge due to its more offensive and advanced design while the CAS is primarily just a flagship or carrier. It’s like comparing modern day naval ships such as the battleship to a carrier almost.
I also already stated above that the Infinity class warship and the other technologies that the UNSC are being upgraded to are purely based of Human science and that there has been no reverse engineering of Forerunner tech involved in these advances. So yes while the Infinity Class vessels would still be a force to be reckoned with it probably wouldn’t be quite as good as it in the games.
> 2533274845863353;1:
> Alright so I’ve seen a few of these in the past but in general people seem to agree that even with the upgrades given to the UNSC the Covenant would still win so I want to up the ante.
>
> UNSC
> 1. All Humans naturally have Spartan IV augmentations
> 2. Mjolnir GEN2 armor has become cheap enough to produce that it is given to all soldiers
> 3. Human weapons are replaced by hard light weapons
> 4. All Human warships have shields (although they aren’t as strong as the Covenants)
> 5. The UNSC has a proportional number of Infinity class warships as the Covenant has CAS class Assault Carrier
> 6. Human Slipspace drives allow starships to move at 150 ly/day instead of 2 ly/day
>
> Covenant
> 1. No Great Schism
>
> Tell me what you guys think the changes will do
I draw attention to Point 2: Gen2 maybe cheap to manufacturer so theoretically could be mass produced. However aren’t we overlooking the augmentations needed to wear it?
I can’t believe people are arguing for the UNSC here. First off, the Covenant were never in total war footing throughout entirety of the Human-Covenant War, and the majority of the time they sent a few (at times single digits, rare occasions dozens), only amassing a large number of ships to fight the UNSC on three occasion: the Battle of Psi Serpentus, the Fall of Reach and the Battle of Earth (2552). Have the UNSC be more of a threat? Sure, now the UNSC can bloody the Covenant’s nose, but now they would have to combat the full might of the Covenant armada, whose territory stretches far beyond the UNSC’s borders, encompassing the entire galaxy and likely possessing thousands if not tens of thousands of worlds (being generous, given the Sangheili have been a space faring race for over 2,000 years), and a population likely being over a trillion (again, very generous), compared to the UNSC’s 39 billion some time before the War. Throughout the war it was only a single ministry being dedicated against the UNSC. Now imagine all of them.
Then you have to consider naval combat itself. Sure, the UNSC can now hold its own in space, but they only have 2,000 or so ships. The Covenant almost certainly outnumbers them beyond an order of magnitude (I suspect tens of thousands), and the UNSC is still stupid enough to utilise spinal MACs (at least the Infinity’s and Punic’s design partially reconciles that with Mini-MACs, but still) that they have to rely on in order to combat the Covenant’s naval vessels, which distinctly fives the, the advantage of not having to turn the entire ship around just to aim, instead they have several plasma torpedo turrets that magnetically track (Hunters of the Dark was stupid enough to say they are heat seeking. So they seek themselves?) their targets, which automatically makes them better than most forms of the MAC. Also, most showings of Plasma Torpedoes put their firepower above the MACs. So what advantages does the UNSC have in naval combat?
And really? How the hell are Spartans going to be relevant when the important battles take place in orbit? A couple of guys in fancy suits didn’t affect the Covenant War machine during the war and it still won’t affect them now. Sure, they’ll be able to effectively resist most ground invasions, but how important is that when the Covenant are glassing you from orbit.
Personally, the moment I read the OP I was baffled. I don’t think he took that much consideration into it, instead just shoving a bunch of upgrades into the UNSC and see what happens, no offence OP.