What events are missing? Pre Aug 30 Fall of Reach timeline

Community Halo Universe
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July 24, 2552
0728 Hours: Noble Team is ordered to investigate a possible Insurrectionist activity at the disabled Visegrad Relay. Shortly after, the team learns that the Covenant are responsible for the attack on the relay. After retaking the relay, Noble Team discovers a data module on one of the dead staff. WINTER CONTINGENCY is declared.

July 26, 2552
1128 hours: A Covenant corvette attacks ONI Sword Base. Noble Team is deployed to secure the base and surrounding outposts. After the corvette is destroyed by orbital bombardment, Noble Team meets up with Dr. Halsey and hands over the data module retrieved from Visegrad Relay.

August 11th, 2552
2630 hours Two members of Noble Team, Noble Six and Noble Three, investigate a Covenant-held “dark zone” in the Viery Territory, which UNSC instruments are unable to penetrate. The pair pushes into the zone, encountering moderate Covenant resistance, and locates a Covenant stealth pylon. After rigging the pylon with explosives, Six and Three push further into the zone and discover that the Covenant have covertly established a large landing zone, with at least two Corvettes and many ground assets.

August 12th, 2552
0800 hours: The UNSC Army begins a full scale assault on the Viery Territory. Noble Team is sent to gather intelligence of Covenant-occupied sites and to destroy a EMP-emitting Covenant tower. The UNSC learn too late that the tower served as a teleporter linked to a cloaked Covenant Supercarrier. The UNSC Grafton is destroyed by the Supercarrier’s energy projector.
2007 hours: Covenant invasion of Reach is fully underway. Noble Team begins developing a plan to destroy the enemy Supercarrier with a Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine used as a makeshift bomb. Auntie Dot informs Noble Team that 60% of the UNSC fleet is en route to Reach, the first battlegroup is set to enter the system in 48 hours.

August 14th, 2552
1248 hours: Covenant forces once again attack Sword Base and occupy the site. Dr. Halsey escapes capture by hiding under the facility.
1248 hours: Noble Team assaults and retakes the Sabre Launch Facility and use it as a staging point for a battle above Reach. Using the Slipspace Drive from the UNSC Savannah, Noble Team disables and boards one of the Covenant corvettes and use it as the detonation point for the bomb. Due to a malfunction with the triggering mechanism, a member of Noble Team is forced to detonate the bomb manually. The Supercarrier is destroyed just as a Covenant Fleet arrives above Reach.

August 23, 2552
1534 hours: The Covenant fleet begins glassing targeted areas of Reach, and a battle breaks out in New Alexandria. Noble Six and remaining Army infantrymen assist in the evacuation of civilians from the city.
1857 hours: Noble Six links up with the rest of Noble Team. The team destroys three jammers installed by the Covenant, allowing the UNSC to safely evacuate all personnel from the ONI HQ. When the team reunites, they are ordered by Colonel Holland to proceed to Sword Base. Another member of Noble Team is killed by a needle rifle shortly afterward.

August 26, 2552
The remnants of Noble Team are extracted by a Pelican from the ruins of New Alexandria.

August 29, 2552
SPARTAN-B312 and a team of ODSTs secure a landing zone for Noble Team’s Falcon. Later Noble Team proceed inside Sword Base only to learn their true mission: escort a part of Cortana to the Pillar of Autumn

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Reach/Fall of Reach 3.0

July 17th-18th:

  • Battle of Sigma Octanus IV
  • UNSC Iroquois compromised by Covenant Telemetry Probe

July 19th-23rd:

  • Sometime between these dates the UNSC Iroquois returns to Reach, unknowingly giving the Covenant the Planet’s location.

July 24th:

  • Reach loses contact with outer colonies
  • Winter Contingency declared

(Reach - Winter Contingency)

(Dr. Halsey’s Journal: July 24th, 2552

“Meanwhile, receiving scattered data from the usual suspects concerning atmospheric anomalies along with radar and slipspace monitoring glitches. Compared these events to those recorded near Sigma Octanus. No match. Still, a series of coincidences usually aren’t coincidence.” )

July 26th:

  • A single Covenant Corvette assaults SWORD Base and is destroyed by MAC Round.
  • Dr. Halsey debriefs Noble Team on the events that occurred at Visegrad.

(Reach - Sword Base)

(People like to argue how this violates Ghosts of Onyx, however it does not because she doesn’t know they are Spartan IIIs.

“Even more intriguing are the others on this NOBLE Team. They are considerably younger than Jorge. The way these others move… they’re obviously augmented. Are they all Spartan-IIs? Or as I suspect from their inelegant personas, are they substandard versions of the Spartan-II? Perhaps from a parallel program (JAVELIN), or some next gen venture piggypacking on the last three decades of my work.”)

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July 27th-August 10th:

  • No enemy activity detected
  • Operation: RED FLAG drafted
  • Captain Jacob Keyes chosen for RED FLAG
  • UNSC Pillar of Autumn chosen for RED FLAG
  • Dr. Halsey splits Cortana into two fragments

(Dr. Halsey’s Journal: August 3rd, 2552

“I’ll copy most of her IEP translation routines to an independent module. Meanwhile, the incarnate Cortana will continue with John and Blue Team. Both operations are critical to the war effort. If Laszlo made a breakthrough, that data would aid Blue Team in enemy space. The severed data-mining portion of Cortana can then be reunited and she can update herself before Blue Team departs.” )

August 11th:

  • Covenant forces reappear in greater numbers
  • Recon teams deployed

(Reach - Nightfall)

August 12th:

  • Spartan IIs return to Reach
  • UNSC Army engages Covenant forces in Viery Territory

(Reach - Tip of the Spear)

August 14th:

  • UNSC Air Force destroys Covenant Supercarrier Long Night of Solace
  • Covenant reinforcements arrive

(Reach - Long Night of Solace)

August 23rd:

  • UNSC forces. including Noble Team, engage Covenant in New Alexandria

(Reach - Exodus / New Alexandria)

August 24th:

  • Dr. Halsey momentarily examines holographic image of a mysterious crystal found on Sigma Octanus.

(It is said in TFoR that Cortana was able to decipher the Crystal’s markings but it never says how. Halo Reach, as well as Halsey’s Journal, confirm that she knew how to decipher the code because of her knowledge learned from the Forerunner structure. The patterns were not obviously recognized as star patterns because they were represented by Forerunner symbols. As Dr. Halsey states…

“Similarities to hypothesized navigational code in enemy transmissions are inconclusive. Possible IEP deconvolution? Is there a connection to these more 'standard stylized glyphs?”

August 25th:

  • Cortana chooses John-117 as her Spartan for RED FLAG
  • Dr. Halsey requests Noble Team to meet her at SWORD Base

(Noble Team was ordered to Sword Base for a “Torch and burn off”, however Dr. Halsey informs them that that mission was just a “pretext” to bring them to her.)

August 26th:

  • Noble Team extracted from New Alexandria

August 27th:

  • Spartan IIs informed of RED FLAG
  • Cortana continues to learn and decipher the alien proto-culture language, code forms and technologies

(The Master Chief makes note that the training facility seemed “eerily silent” which of course is because no one was there to train as they were busy engaging the enemy for real elsewhere on the Planet. He also makes note that security was much more tight with “three times the number of MPs patrolling”. This heightened security would be because the enemy is on Reach but not yet near those facilities.)

August 29th:

  • Master Chief trains with his Cortana fragment
  • Dr. Halsey returns to SWORD Base
  • Noble Team returns to SWORD Base
  • Cortana chooses Noble Six as her escort

(Reach - The Package)

(Evidence suggests Halsey was able to return to SWORD Base on the 29th because she had a Military escort. Troopers were alive and “Committed to the position”, which was the entrance to Halsey’s lab. There were also “Others” who handled the demolition which means there was some other team working in unison with Noble. ODSTS? Other Spartans? This is unknown at this point but we do know they destroy everything successfully. Halsey also says she “requires no escort” possibly because she already knew someone else was there to assist her. Jun is ordered to go with her anyways.)

August 30th:

  • The Fleet of Particular Justice assaults Reach
  • Pillar of Autumn engages Covenant fleet.
  • Spartans deployed to Reach
  • Autumn returns to Reach for rearmament, picks up Cortana fragment, escapes Reach

(Reach - The Pillar of Autumn / Lone Wolf)

(Dr. Halsey’s Journal: August 30th, 2552

“The Covenant on Reach. NOT a scout party; they are here en masse. I’ve seen the reports of how ‘contained’ the situation is - military shorthand for ‘it’-Yoink!- the fan’.”

(Cortana uses the knowledge gained from the Forerunner artifact under Sword Base to determine what the patterns on the Crystal mean. They are coordinates which lead them to Alpha Halo.)