- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
These quotes might answer your questions (or might not...), Draerden:
“The Master Chief saw the Covenant fleet gathered around planet Reach. They swarmed and circled like sharks. The first of their plasma bombardments launched toward the surface. Clouds in the fires path boiled away.” - FoR 331
“The cruisers fired salvos of plasma that burned the sky.” - FS 32
“Before I jumped to slipspace, I witnessed the poles destroyed, and approximately two thirds of the planets surface was on fire.” - FS 102
“As I indicated, they started at the poles, but took in only a few ships. They were spread thin along the equatorial latitudes, and no additional ships were inbound. In fact, a large number of Covenant ships abandoned the system, in pursuit of the Pillar of Autumn.” - FS 105
“Fred watched as the plasma impacted upon the horizon and the sky turned white, then faded to black as millions of tons of ash and debris blotted out the sun.” - FS 32
“Overhead, tangerine borealis pulsed from the north. Sheets of silver crackled across the sky, and the black clouds boiled, lit by the raging fires beneath them. They piled into thunderheads and spat lightning.” - FS 109
“He’d seen this before. They all had. When the Covenant conquered a human world they fired their main plasma batteries at the planet - fired until it’s oceans boiled and nothing was left but a globe of broken glass.” - FS 32
“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 millimeter of the surface is covered with plasma bombardments.” - FS 105
“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.” - FS 109
“Looks like they missed a spot,” the Sergeant said.
“The Covenant don’t ‘miss’ anything when they glass a planet,” the Master Chief replied. “We’ve seen them do it a thousand times.” - FS 155
Didn't mean to go overboard with the quotes...
Nylund mentions the destruction of Reach and its effects on the atmosphere. He also makes it a point to mention that Reach was a rush job and was nothing like the Covenants usual glassing.
Still, with 3/4 of the world burning, I think Halsey and Admiral Whitcomb should've had a hard time breathing or breathing at all.