92 replies to this topic

[SPECTRE]

Blatantly contradicted by this.

http://www.halopedia..._of_Reach_1.jpg

Halsey's theory is an in-universe theory, not fact.  The Covenant do burn the surface of a world to the point where it cannot support life anymore.  What has been changed is that they don't burn every square centimeter of the planet.  Here are the changes.

 

"When the Covenant destroys a planet, they typically move their large warships closer and blanket the world with a series of crisscrossing orbits to ensure that every square millimetre of the surface is covered with plasma bombardments."

is changed into:

"When the Covenant destroys a planet, they typically move their large warships closer and blanket the world with a series of crisscrossing orbits to ensure that nothing could ever survive on its surface."

 

 

 "Before I jumped to Slipspace, I witnessed the poles destroyed, and approximately two thirds of the planet's surface was on fire."

 

is changed into:

 

"Before I jumped to Slipspace, I witnessed the poles destroyed, and a significant portion of the planet's surface was on fire."

 

And lastly

 

"Something didn't fit. Covenant plasma bombardment had always proceeded in an orderly crisscrossing pattern across a planet until every square centimeter of the surface was glass and cinder."

is changed to:

 

"Something didn't fit. Covenant plasma bombardment had always proceeded in an orderly crisscrossing pattern across a planet until everything on its surface was glass and cinder."

 

 

So to reiterate the Covenant still glass worlds, its just not to such an extreme degree that they destroy every square centimeter.  

You bring up some valid points, but for all we know Reach may be a hell of a lot smaller than earth.

And the majority of the covenant navy was engaged at reach.

[Lord Stark]

That would actually make for an interesting strategic option, but it seems borderline game-breaking to me.  Viable but perhaps difficult to balance out.

Not that game breaking.  Its kind OP for Vasari loyalists because they have on-ship labs and (even more h4x0r imo) the ability to tax their capital ships.  So, they don't need as many planets.

[Centurian128]

Found it.  This is what I was thinking of before.

 

"The term "glassing" was originally coined by the Assembly in 2526, who chose it hoping it would galvanize humanity into action. At the time, the Assembly also estimated that it would take 30.3801 years for a Covenant fleet of comparable size to that of the UNSC's to glass the entirety of Earth. However, the Covenant fleet was later discovered to be many times larger than imagined.^[21]"

 

http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Glassing

http://halo.wikia.co...ssembly_(group)

[SPECTRE]

30 years?

[Stephan-338]

Not that game breaking.  Its kind OP for Vasari loyalists because they have on-ship labs and (even more h4x0r imo) the ability to tax their capital ships.  So, they don't need as many planets.

Those would actually be good things for the Covenant since they don't have that many planets in the lore as far as we know..

[Centurian128]

So it seems.  Although this doesn't really contradict anything since it cites that the Covenant fleet is much larger than what was thought at the time.  So, it's still a viable mechanic to include I guess.

 

 

Those would actually be good things for the Covenant since they don't have that many planets in the lore as far as we know..

Just the homeworlds for each of their member races, plus maybe six others, as far as I know.  But wouldn't it be logical to assume that they have a lot more than that though?

[Moustachio86]

I think the point's been picked up on already which I would see as my main issue: glassing offers little benefit to the Covenant. As you don't have a religious unity factor to worry about, glassing is essentially what planetary invasions are. The difference is the Covenant didn't (to my immediate knowledge) bother colonising once they'd glassed, whereas the principle of sins to turn the planets to your side. Basically if you glass every planet in a row you end up being overextended (think of the issues with blitzkrieg). The point about making Covenant similar to VL is an idea I have a lot of support for, culture issue aside, maybe glassing could be a stripped to the core replacement offering some bonuses, though I suspect the potential benefits are extremely limited. For instance, though it would be nice if glassing gave a research buff (simulating artefact pillaging) I just don't think it's possible.

[SPECTRE]

But the covenant was overextended. It probably took months, or even years to get from sanghellios to the front.

[Lord Stark]

Found it.  This is what I was thinking of before.

 

"The term "glassing" was originally coined by the Assembly in 2526, who chose it hoping it would galvanize humanity into action. At the time, the Assembly also estimated that it would take 30.3801 years for a Covenant fleet of comparable size to that of the UNSC's to glass the entirety of Earth. However, the Covenant fleet was later discovered to be many times larger than imagined.^[21]"

 

http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Glassing

http://halo.wikia.co...ssembly_(group)

 

Found it.  This is what I was thinking of before.

 

"The term "glassing" was originally coined by the Assembly in 2526, who chose it hoping it would galvanize humanity into action. At the time, the Assembly also estimated that it would take 30.3801 years for a Covenant fleet of comparable size to that of the UNSC's to glass the entirety of Earth. However, the Covenant fleet was later discovered to be many times larger than imagined.^[21]"

 

http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Glassing

http://halo.wikia.co...ssembly_(group)

 

 

http://www.halopedia.org/Glassing

 

I always took this as the idea that Low Altitude bombing would take 30 years, orbital bombardment would take days-weeks.  

 

The Return, First Strike, and Halo: Reach itself depict that glassing is very real.  

Furthermore the only instances where people witnessed glassing was at Harvest where the Covenant were trying to uncover something, the "glassing" Harvest was also done by an outdated battlecruiser that had one plasma turret.  So yes, a thousand Rapid Conversions would likely take 30 years to glass Earth.

 

The Battle of Bliss, in February of 2526, had no survivors.  The UNSC Prophecy retrieved the black box of the ONI prowler at an unknown later date (prior to 2531). But given the intense priority placed on retaking Harvest, it seems unlikely the UNSC knew about Bliss until they were in the midst of the Harvest Campaign in the 2530s.  

 

The only other encounter with the Covenant the UNSC had as of 2526 was at the Second Battle of Harvest with the Super-Destroyer.  Again, the Covenant were looking for Forerunner artifacts on Harvest.  That being said even with them doing that Harvest was still undergoing a nuclear winter in 2531  

[Verteros]

I want to add some perspective to glassing worlds based off the in-game lore.

We know that from when Truth's fleet arrived on Earth on November 17th that he went in with the Forerunner Dreadnought and an enormous fleet though the exact number of ships isn't known. We do know a few things though, firstly that the fleet had to go through the entire UNSC Earth Fleet, well over 200 ships and 300 Orbital Defence Platforms, we also know that a single Orbital Defence Platform can destroy the ship it hits, the ship behind it and cripple the ship behind the second and in addition can fire every 5 seconds. 

With that in mind we know that only 40 ships survived the charge onto the planet of which at least half would eventually become Covenant Separatists. That means that only 20 ships were present to help Humanity fight off the flood via glassing. Later on Lord Hood mentions that the Sangheili just glassed half a continent, given that we also know that continent is Africa we can assume that 3% of Earth's surface or 20% of it's land surface was glassed in a matter of hours by just 20 ships. 

[Verteros]

But the covenant was overextended. It probably took months, or even years to get from sanghellios to the front.

--

 

900 lightyears a day by Covenant slipspace technology if that makes any difference. 

[Lord Stark]

But the covenant was overextended. It probably took months, or even years to get from sanghellios to the front.

Nah not at all.   It took the Covenant fleet 13 hours to get to Instillation 04 from Reach, where as it took the Pillar of Autumn weeks. The Covenant's slipspace tech was just that much better; 912 light years per day compared to 2.65.  If the Covenant knew where every UNSC world was they'd have won in a matter of weeks. 

[Verteros]

Nah not at all.   It took the Covenant fleet 13 hours to get to Instillation 04 from Reach, where as it took the Pillar of Autumn weeks. The Covenant's slipspace tech was just that much better; 912 light years per day compared to 2.65.  If the Covenant knew where every UNSC world was they'd have won in a matter of weeks. 

--

 

Is there any accurate map on the galaxy in Halo? I've seen fan-made... and obviously wrong ... maps but I haven't found one that is plausible. 

[Lord Stark]

--

 

Is there any accurate map on the galaxy in Halo? I've seen fan-made... and obviously wrong ... maps but I haven't found one that is plausible. 

Nope, it would be nice if 343 released one with a legendary edition of their next game though.  In Mortal Dicata though it mentions that the Covenant had supply bases across the galaxy...which heavily implies the Covenant have outposts spread across the entire Milky Way.  

[Verteros]

Nope, it would be nice if 343 released one with a legendary edition of their next game though.  In Mortal Dicata though it mentions that the Covenant had supply bases across the galaxy...which heavily implies the Covenant have outposts spread across the entire Milky Way.  

--

 

Yeah near as I can tell the UNSC is spread across the entire Orion Belt... though I think that's a bit ridiculous given that their slipspace technology isn't that fast. It makes sense that the Covenant could be based across the entire galaxy though.

[SPECTRE]

I doubt that speed, its very "88MPH", think about it if you had ships that do 900 LY/day they could scout the whole unsc with just one ship in about 4 weeks, the furthest outpost was about 86 L/Y away from earth.

And 900L/Y a day would cause a lot of time back up.

And the Human covenant war takes place in the orion belt only.

[Verteros]

I doubt that speed, its very "88MPH", think about it if you had ships that do 900 LY/day they could scout the whole unsc with just one ship in about 4 weeks, the furthest outpost was about 86 L/Y away from earth.

And 900L/Y a day would cause a lot of time back up.

--

The speed is correct, it's been noted many times over and is backed up by the time difference in travel between UNSC and Covenant ships with an example being the trip from Reach to Installation 04. As for exploring all the worlds in the Orion Arm where the UNSC is based well that's definitely not achievable given that there are 16 or 20 billion stars in the Orion Arm. 

As for the backed up time:

 

In seriousness though Slipspace is a different dimension in which reality and thus the laws of physics change, that's why faster than light travel is achievable without time dilation.

 

[Lord Stark]

I doubt that speed, its very "88MPH", think about it if you had ships that do 900 LY/day they could scout the whole unsc with just one ship in about 4 weeks, the furthest outpost was about 86 L/Y away from earth.

And 900L/Y a day would cause a lot of time back up.

And the Human covenant war takes place in the orion belt only.

No that speed is accurate.  It takes the Bloodied Spirit about an hour to Zeta Doradus which is 38 light years away from Earth.  38 per hour x 24= 912 light years per day.

 

The Covenant just don't know where the UNSC is.  The Covenant literally went to each planet then likely explored every system within a certain radius of the planet.  The reason the Fall of Reach was scary for the UNSC was that the Covenant were now within 10 light years of Reach.  Literally a fifteen minute jump away for them. 

[SPECTRE]

You don't get me, Earth is in one of the most desolate spots in the galaxy, the furthest outpost from earth is 86 LY away(real terms) there are roughly 3496 stars in that radii, with a fleet (300 ships say) you could scout out all stars, in weeks, or perhaps even days.

I'm not saying its incorrect. 

[Stephan-338]

I found this photo, not sure if it's very accurate  

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