During the Human-Covenant war humanity was on the brink of extinction. Why are the post war factions of the Covenant so easy to kill? Is it because humanity is more advanced than the original covenant was? In Halo 4 and moving forward you see covenant ships and ground troops just get slaughtered like they are no match at all for the UNSC.
I wouldn’t say they’re no match. They certainly aren’t as strong as they used to be, particularly due to the more frequent use of smaller and older vessels, but they’ve done some damage to the UNSC.
Jul 'Mdama’s forces practically ran laps around UNSC research teams on Requiem. Covenant-Insurrectionist forces have put holes in the Infinity. There have been some major glassings and attacks post war as well.
Primarily because the Covenant’s ace was their fleets. However, following the flood taking high charity, the majority of the Covenant fleet was annihilated either by flood or infighting. While the various factions still have vessels, they aren’t as numerous or powerful as the modern counterparts.
I would say it a combination of the Covenant being nocked to its knees and not as organised as it once was, and the fact the they UNSC seems to making quite a bit of progress with their tech.
Its a combination of two factors
- The Covenant has been fragmented, resulting in different factions getting varying levels of equipment. The Covenant also faced significant losses during the Human-Covenant War, and also during the Great Schism. After the war they fought among each other, in addition to humanity, further eroding their strength. - Humanity has gotten much better since the end of the war, adopting forerunner and Covenant tech into their ships. Also humanity is centralized, whereas the former covenant is not. Humans can divide and conquer. Also ONI has worked to keep the Covenant devided.
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> During the Human-Covenant war humanity was on the brink of extinction. Why are the post war factions of the Covenant so easy to kill? Is it because humanity is more advanced than the original covenant was? In Halo 4 and moving forward you see covenant ships and ground troops just get slaughtered like they are no match at all for the UNSC.
To build on what the others have said, also keep in mind that the point of view we’ve been taking up most of the time in post-HC war media is that of Spartan IVs and the Infinity. That in of itself is a far greater edge than what the Covies normally faced during the war. So from our standpoint we see those forces engage and defeat these post war factions. Not the regular rank and file that fill up the greater majority of UNSC forces. Yet even then there’s struggles here and there. As someone noted earlier, Jul’s forces easily evaded UNSC forces time and again on Requiem. We as Crimson burst through the Covies like they were nothing because we’re positioned as the very best squad among other effective Spartan units. Meanwhile reports of Marines and the like getting bog down or are straight up unable to succeed were quite common.
Even Spartans can get bogged down themselves outside of the operations we directly see/are in control of.
Ultimately it’s just a matter of perspective. At the moment Infinity and her complement represent the pinnacle of UNSC might, but at the same time it’s also the only real beacon of force they have to show off. And as can be seen in Initiation, Halo 4, Escalation, and 5 the Infinity can only do so much against various post-war factions. Heck that -Yoink!- thing has already been boarded, battered, incapacitated and crippled multiple times already. It’s hardly invincible.
There are a few reasons some of which were covered above. But its mainly two things:The UNSC is now the large dominant organization while the former Covenant races are split up and doing lots of infighting coupled with the Prophets leaving, they were the scientific ones of the Covenant along with the Huragok, so building new ships and technologies is hard.
Many of their ships were lost to the Flood and in the Great Schism, and without the Huragok and Prophets it was impossible at first to rebuild. The Sangheili and Brutes are at each others throats, and the Grunts seem to have split along old allegiances to commanders and to whoever has the biggest stick. Jackals are mostly pirates and mercenaries by nature, so they will fight just about anyone. Without the vast fleets of the Covenant they are reduced to one or two ships here and there, which compares to the Humans steadily building since the war ended.
Compare this to the UNSC, while there is the insurrection to deal with they still are mostly united and now have a large Fleet with new Forerunner tech equipped ships like infinity. Then imagine in addition to fighting the Covenant all the different ethnic and racial groups of humanity had split into different factions: White vs Asian vs Black vs Latino, etc. So there is a lot of distraction for the former races there.
As for actual ground combat, it was often said that human forces could typically hold their ground against the Covenant, Elites had an advantage with their Shielding which meant that facing them was often fatal for human soldiers, but the real advantage of the Covenant was their huge fleet which could glass a fortress or holdout from orbit. What was the point of deploying ground troops when you could simply burn the planet? A lot of the time Covenant ground forces were really only deployed when they were searching for something, or had a motive for the invasion other than a bit of fun and slaughter. When you add the new Spartan IV’s into the mix, which could be considered the equivalent of regular elites as far as skill and equipment is concerned, you have a potent human force.
Finally it is heavily implied that Humanity is now the dominant technological faction, with the possible exception of the Forerunners. I say possible because we have seen the humans integrate Forerunner technology into their fleets rapidly and effectively. Ships like the Didact’s are still individually more powerful as are the Guardians as far as we know, but this is more than likely going to rapidly change. The Covenant not only relied heavily on the Huragok and Prophets for their technology, but it was also heavily emphasized that they were not an innovative bunch. Human research far surpassed theirs, because the Covenant religion forbade more than superficial tinkering with Forerunner technology on which the Covenant based theirs. Imagine kidnapping all the scientists on earth and having to start raising a completely new generation to replace them, but without universities and schools and anybody to teach them, thats where the Covenant races are right now.
All of the above is conditional on the circumstances, if the there is an attack on an undefended human colony then the results will likely be the same as during the war, but when the full force of the UNSC is brought to bear they are usually outmatched.
If you’re interested I recommend Karen Traviss’ book series, the Kilo-Five Trilogy, it gets a lot of abuse from fans from its bias against Halsey and other flaws including the lot of moral agonizing which is mostly pointless, but it is Canon and it does a good job of providing insight into the immediate post war situation, starting just a few months after the events of Halo 3. I personally like the series, but many people hate it, but like I said, good insight.
Put simply the dynamic of the post war great schism has shifted and with the Covenant now embroiled in a civil war, the pressure on the UNSC and humanity has now shifted. I really can’t emphasize enough that this doesn’t represent a sudden economic or military recovery for the UNSC and neither should it now be considered the dominant military power. (Especially with the Insurrections steadily chipping away at its authority)
The UNSC is still a tier 3 technological power and all Covenant splinter faction still posses tier 2 level technology that they are improving on all the time. (Check out the service history of the CAS-class Assault Carrier Shadow of Intent. Between 2552 - 2558 this ship was damaged, fully repaired and its armaments and defences were actually improved)
The difference post war is that with all the Covenant splinter faction vying for power and warring with each other, none of them at yet as the manpower to spare to finish of the UNSC.
A few important things to remember about the Second Battle of Requiem. Yes the UNSC Infinity destroyed several Covenant CPV light cruisers and a single RCS heavy cruiser, but we know with hindsight Jul always intended to board the Infinity in order to liberate Doctor Hasley from ONI’s custody, therefore his fleet were effectively engaging the Infinity without being able to employ any anti-ship weaponry, as destroying the Infinity would result in Halsey’s death.
With the exception of the Second Battle of Requiem, we haven’t seen a large scale fleet engagement of the kind that took place at Reach or any other human inner colonies to date between the UNSC and any one of the numerous Covenant splinter factions.
Considering it only took a single Covenant OPD sized space station to below 3 holes straight through the Infinity and completely cripple the ship, I think any large scale engagement between the UNSC Navy and Covenant remnants would still end in a disaster for the UNSC barring extraordinary circumstances or good luck.
I think people are also to quick to disregard the possible combat capabilities of the Sangheili ship designs in Halo 5. Yes these ships are old, but its specified that most if not all are updated with modern Covenant technology that their designers would not originally have access to. I’d put them as being below modern Covenant ships in combat capabilities, but still far above those of tier 3 human warships.
Saying that, its also specified in the lore that the Sangheili Man’O’War ships had aspects of their design that modern Covenant warships were never able to match, so its entirely possible these Sangheili era warships are actually superior in some regards to their Covenant counterparts.
Either way, we didn’t actually witness the Infinity downing any Sangheili warships in Halo 5, and considering that it couldn’t overcome a single Covenant space station in a conventional fair fight, I’d say the UNSC still has a very long way to go before they can match the Covenant ships technologically.
I think a lot of it has to do with the Great Schism. With the former Covenant members now divided and slaughtering each other, this gives Humanity a chance to develop their technology, create better tactics and strategy, and be able to take on opposition with almost total ease since they’re no longer fighting against more than one species. Plus, their alliance with the new Sanghelie government is working out pretty nice.
- Humanity now has more Forerunner tech - Spartans can now be massed produced - INFINITY - Humans can adapt more than the other races
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> - Humanity now has more Forerunner tech
> - Spartans can now be massed produced
> - INFINITY
> - Humans can adapt more than the other races
- Still their new ships are in limited numbers and they don’t get attacked by covenant armadas because the covenant is busy fighting itself.
- Those Spartans also fall in large numbers. They aren’t invincible.
- A single ship that cannot be everywhere at once and has been boarded/crippled at least 6 times each time in a different way.
- Utter nonsense supported by nothing. The majority of the human race is Tier 3 while the remaining are stuck in conditions of modern 3rd world countries. Humanity hasn’t even adapted to the fact that the Forerunners exist and most civilians don’t even know what is going on outside of UNSC space with some even thinking the UNSC won the war.
I have to say again what others are saying that it is a mix of many things from the decentralization of the covenant and the inner conflicts between the various factions to the fact that humanity is advancing rapidly and honestly humanity was getting beat in the war but not as bad as you would believe. Also lately in the post war the covenant is going against what made them formidable in the covenant war and choosing to face the UNSC on the ground where humans excel at ground combat. Don’t believe me look at reach and most battles of the human covenant war the battle was either even or the humans were giving the covenant a run for there money but as soon as the glassing started the battle was lost. Also the fact that more and more UNSC ships are using energy shielding is pushing the battles into there favor as well in some cases because initially the covenant would tear through them like paper but with new tech humanity can last longer and have time to strike when before they couldn’t even blink before their ships were destroyed.
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> I have to say again what others are saying that it is a mix of many things from the decentralization of the covenant and the inner conflicts between the various factions to the fact that humanity is advancing rapidly and honestly humanity was getting beat in the war but not as bad as you would believe. Also lately in the post war the covenant is going against what made them formidable in the covenant war and choosing to face the UNSC on the ground where humans excel at ground combat. Don’t believe me look at reach and most battles of the human covenant war the battle was either even or the humans were giving the covenant a run for there money but as soon as the glassing started the battle was lost. Also the fact that more and more UNSC ships are using energy shielding is pushing the battles into there favor as well in some cases because initially the covenant would tear through them like paper but with new tech humanity can last longer and have time to strike when before they couldn’t even blink before their ships were destroyed.
Humans were getting butchered on the ground too. They only had the advantage of fighting on their ground, and the advantage of numerical superiority. And they were still getting slaughtered. Post war shielding is limited to newer models only.
Lesser numbers, advancements in human tech, fragmentation among the Elites. The Storm Covenant lacked the unity that made the original Covenant so powerful.
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> > I have to say again what others are saying that it is a mix of many things from the decentralization of the covenant and the inner conflicts between the various factions to the fact that humanity is advancing rapidly and honestly humanity was getting beat in the war but not as bad as you would believe. Also lately in the post war the covenant is going against what made them formidable in the covenant war and choosing to face the UNSC on the ground where humans excel at ground combat. Don’t believe me look at reach and most battles of the human covenant war the battle was either even or the humans were giving the covenant a run for there money but as soon as the glassing started the battle was lost. Also the fact that more and more UNSC ships are using energy shielding is pushing the battles into there favor as well in some cases because initially the covenant would tear through them like paper but with new tech humanity can last longer and have time to strike when before they couldn’t even blink before their ships were destroyed.
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> Humans were getting butchered on the ground too. They only had the advantage of fighting on their ground, and the advantage of numerical superiority. And they were still getting slaughtered. Post war shielding is limited to newer models only.
I think its mentioned that they are upgrading older ships to the newer standard. I know for sure that its mentioned that the Sabre’s tech was added to the Broadsword and Longsword Fighters.
The Covenant just simply is less united and smaller than it used to be that’s why the main enemy is the Prometheans since they are clearly the superior force in tech.
I wouldn’t say they are easy to kill, they still can have a challenging fight but yes i can understand why they seem so easy to kill.
In addition to what everyone has said, it is also worth noting that the Covenant (under the Prophets’ leadership) was technologically imitative, rather than innovative. They imitated Forerunner technology, but were never able to meet its quality as their understanding of it was restricted. Humanity was able to take the Covenant’s own energy shielding technology and improve on it. When a human AI was able to take control of a Covenant ship, she was able to use it far more effectively than the Covenant ever had before. Humanity has had something of a technological boom in the post-war years, thanks, in no small part to the understanding of these technologies that they achieved late in the war. Cortana herself learnt a great many things on Reach, Halo and in the Covenant ship they escaped on. Then there’s things like Trevelyan, access to Huragok and so on.
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> In addition to what everyone has said, it is also worth noting that the Covenant (under the Prophets’ leadership) was technologically imitative, rather than innovative. They imitated Forerunner technology, but were never able to meet its quality as their understanding of it was restricted. Humanity was able to take the Covenant’s own energy shielding technology and improve on it.
I honestly wouldn’t put too much trust in this argument, as the whole human innovation argument has been taken well out of context.
Despite the majority of their technology being reverse engineer from Forerunner relics, the Covenant have designed and deployed new weapons before. During the novel Fall of Reach, the Covenant flagship made use of what captain Keyes described as a previously unseen and “new” beam weapons, “faster than their plasma and deadlier to.”
Likewise just before the Great Schism, its known that the Covenant were researching anti-gravity weapons, through they didn’t think they would be ready to use before humanity was wiped out.
By comparison, when you look into this augment in detail you realize that it was actually the UNSC that remained imitative throughout the war. Their entire campaign was defensive, with them always waiting for the Covenant to attack their next world or counter attacking Covenant forces occupying human colonies which had already been glassed.
Not once did they ever try to take the war to the Covenant own territory to cut them off at their source, so I’d hardly call human tactics and strategy innovative.
More repetitive and predictable.
As for Spartan II energy shielding, the advantage your pointing out here is false economy. Yes Spartan II shielding may be marginally stronger then a Sangheili foot soldier’s armour, by Sangheili armour is mass produced whilst as single suit of MJOLNIR power armour is known to cost the equivalent of a small starship to produce.
First rule of mass produced body armour is that it’s got to be economically affordable.
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> When a human AI was able to take control of a Covenant ship, she was able to use it far more effectively than the Covenant ever had before. Humanity has had something of a technological boom in the post-war years, thanks, in no small part to the understanding of these technologies that they achieved late in the war. Cortana herself learnt a great many things on Reach, Halo and in the Covenant ship they escaped on. Then there’s things like Trevelyan, access to Huragok and so on.
Yes a human AI can make better use of a Covenant warship’s system then its organic crew can, but the same could be said of a SMART AI taking control of a human warship. The Covenant deliberately did not go down this route as they made the sensible decision that that a sentient AI which could control a starship, city or entire colony posed to much of a security threat.
Yes a human AI can push a Covenant warship to feats its organic crew cannot, through as of 2558 the majority of human warships, colonies and our home-world is now in the hands of a rogue faction of AI who literally shut down human civilization in a matter of minutes rending all our technology useless.
Yes the Covenant’s organic crews may not be able to pull of the feats Cortana did with one of the ships, but neither could a human crew in her place, and last time I checked the Covenant splinter factions are still in control of their military and industrial assets whilst the UNSC is not.
The Covenant’s non-use of SMART AI’s stems from very justified ethical concern rather then technological limitations. The UNSC ignored the ethical concerns of a sentient AI, and as result are now paying the price.
As for humanity’s supposed post-war tech boom, this has been massively overrated by certain members of the fan-base. Yes the UNSC has access to Forerunner tech, but they still have a very poor understanding of the science behind it. The Infinity’s forerunner engines may give it a limited advantage, but their welded into its superstructure exactly because the UNSC lacks the Covenant understanding of Forerunner technology to reverse engineer their own engines. This is exactly what led the Infinity being crippled and boarded twice at Requiem, all of its supposedly superior tech rendered useless.
Going back to the topic of the original thread, the only reason the Covenant is less threatening to the UNSC at the moment is because the Covenant empire no longer exists as a unified military force. As of the Great Schism, there too busy fighting each other to worry about the UNSC or humanity, the exact same way as human colonies are now declaring themselves independent.
I really can’t stress that this situation will not last indefinitely. The longer the fighting goes on, the more the continued fighting is going to improve Covenant tech and the more accustomized their economy will come to a war-economy. (See combat history of the Shadow of Intent, as engaging other Covenant warships has already resulted in this Assault Carrier’s weapons and defences being improved)
Sooner or later all these Covenant splinter factions will unite or be absorbed into one unified Covenant empire, probably with a Sangheili such as the Arbiter or someone else less sympathetic to humanity at its head. At which point, it will be the dominant military power in the known galaxy again, capable of snuffing out the UNSC in a heartbeat.
That would be a really bad time for ONI’s secret bio-weapon project intended for use on Sangheili to become public knowledge.
The Covenant is in war with itself and much of the aliens that made up the army left to live their lives. They didn’t originally get the choice of joining the Covenant, they were forced to join, but now that some do get the choice, they don’t join. It isn’t their fight. With the absence of the Prophets, they don’t have a set leader and while you could argue that Jul or even the Didact are kind of leading the Covenant, they don’t have as much of an influence as the Prophets did. Plus their both kind of dead now, so. . .
If none of the above was weakening the Covenant then surely the prometheans and the increased number of active spartans in the UNSC are doing it. Humanity has become more advanced then in the original games, they uncovered Forerunner technology and have a number of Engineers assisting them. They learned how to fight the Covenant.