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  • Subject: The Battle of Reach: The facts
Subject: The Battle of Reach: The facts

For those who are unfamiliar with Reach itself:

The Battle of Reach was one of the largest and bloodiest engagements in the Human-Covenant War. It was fought between the UNSC Defense Force and the Covenant in August of 2552.

Background
Despite suffering a severe defeat at the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV, the Covenant managed to place a tracking device on the UNSC Iroquois and use it to find Human colony worlds. When the Iroquois returned to Reach, the Human presence, and its extent on that world was disclosed and later revealed to the Covenant fleet. Ironically, the location of Reach was already known to the Covenant; a previously recovered Forerunner artifact indicated Reach held another artifact.

Battle
Opening Skirmishes
The approaching Covenant fleet was first detected in slipspace by Remote Scanning Outpost Fermion. The station's commander, Chief Petty Officer McRobb, sent an emergency message to FLEETCOM and ordered self-destruct to prevent the station's data from falling into enemy hands. A few minutes later 314 Covenant ships exited slipspace at the outskirts of the Epsilon Eridani System. Admiral Roland Freemont ordered all ships in the system, as well as those in the Jericho and Tantalus systems, to rendezvous at Reach in preparation for the coming assault.
The Covenant moved in on the orbital defenses before the UNSC fleet fully consolidated. 53 late arriving UNSC ships, including the UNSC Pillar of Autumn, ran a gauntlet of screening Covenant warships as they attempted to link up with the main fleet. At the beginning of the battle, only about a hundred UNSC ships were readily available to defend Reach.

Space Battle
The main Covenant force moved in on the orbital defenses. The initial salvo of plasma torpedoes was mostly absorbed by three sacrificial refit and repair stations. The defenders returned fire.
The Orbital Defense Platforms and a nuclear minefield combined to take down a full third of the Covenant fleet, about a hundred ships, were destroyed in the first human salvo. However, the next Covenant salvo significantly damaged the UNSC fleet and moved in for the kill. They destroyed numerous Super MAC platforms before retreating.
A previously unknown warship type, the Covenant Supercruiser, carrying a new weapon, the energy projector, revealed itself destroying the UNSC Gettysburg and the UNSC Minotaur before withdrawing temporarily. The attacking fleet regrouped after deploying Spirit dropships to the surface.

As the surviving dropships disgorged thousands of troops, the Covenant fleet began another attack. Some ships made pinpoint slipspace jumps putting them within the UNSC formation. This left them vulnerable for a short time but allowed them to strike the ODPs directly.
The supercruiser returned and destroyed the UNSC Herodotus and UNSC Musashi from beyond ODP range. The UNSC Pillar of Autumn engaged and destroyed the supercruiser.

The UNSC orbital defense was significantly reduced by this point, with the Human ships scattered and being hunted down, but the fatal blow was inflicted ground side as Covenant troops disabled the ODPs by destroying Orbital Defense Generators. Without the ODPs the remaining defenders were overwhelmed.

Ground Battle
Thousands of Covenant landed on Reach in an attempt to destroy the Orbital Defense Generators, and were intercepted by Marine forces who were able to defend against the first few waves of Covenant forces while sustaining heavy casualties. The remaining SPARTAN-IIs who were not assigned to Reach Station Gamma were sent to Orbital Defense Generator Facility A-331 to assist in the defense of the station. Unfortunately, their Pelican, Bravo 001, escorted was shot down, resulting in the deaths of four Spartans (including Malcolm-059), and some others were wounded as well.
Near their crash site, the surviving Spartans discovered the shellshocked remnants of Charlie Company, composed of only four Marines.

Charlie Company had been assigned by Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb to find the prototype NOVA Bombs. They were forced to help defend the Orbital Defense Facilities on their way to their objective. Unfortunately, as the Covenant neared the Orbital Defense Generators, someone at HIGHCOM panicked and ordered Longswords to bomb everything within 500 meters, resulting in the destruction of the Covenant, but also catastrophic friendly fire: Charlie Company was reduced to four men, and its leaders: Lieutenant Jake Chapman and Lieutenant Buckman were killed.

Reach being glassed by the Covenant.The Spartans, after being briefed on the situation by Charlie Company, responded to a distress call from Whitcomb, who requested immediate evacuation.
Frederic-104, commander of the Spartans, split the remains of Red Team into four groups: Team Alpha (Frederic-104, Kelly-087, and Joshua-029), which was tasked with eliminating an encampment of 10,000 Covenant and their hovering cruiser (without doing anything that could damage the Orbital Defense Generators), Team Beta, tasked with defense of the Orbital Defense Generators, Team Gamma (Li-008, Anton-044, and Grace-093), ordered to retrieve Whitcomb, and Team Delta (the Charlie Company marines and wounded Spartans including William-043, Isaac-039, and Vinh-030), ordered to secure the Spartans' fallback point at CASTLE Base.

Team Alpha hijacked three Banshees and approached the Covenant encampment (they were ignored by the Grunt Zawaz, who assumed they were Elites on a secret mission) and used Fury Tactical Nuclear Weapons within the shields of the Covenant ship, destroying the encampment and negating the EMP effect that would have disabled the Orbital Defense Generators. Joshua was killed in the process by mass light weapons salvos from the 10,000 Covenant ground forces encamped around the Cruiser.
The remaining Spartans of Team Alpha then fell back to CASTLE Base, blasting their way through the remaining Covenant in the area with two commandeered Wraiths.
Team Gamma accomplished its mission and fell back to Camp Independence with Whitcomb, where they survived the partial glassing of the planet.
Team Delta fell back to CASTLE Base, but in the process lost the remaining Charlie Company marines and every Spartan save for Vinh, Isaac, and William. When the remnants of Team Alpha and Team Delta arrived at CASTLE Base, they found Catherine Halsey there.

Unfortunately, Team Beta was unable to stop the Covenant, who attacked in swarms of thousands. The Orbital Defense Generators were compromised, and the Covenant (after eliminating the powerless, immobile ODPs in geo-synchronous orbit around the planet) began the glassing of Reach.

Mission to Reach Station Gamma
During the space battle, the AI Doppler, controller of Reach Station Gamma, was unable to destroy the vital information onboard the UNSC Circumference, an ONI prowler involved in Operation: HYPODERMIC. As the Covenant deployed troops to the station, Doppler reported this violation of the Cole Protocol to the Pillar of Autumn before self-destructing himself to keep from further violation.
In response, Captain Jacob Keyes sent John-117, Spartan-James, and Linda-058 to the station. They accomplished their task and destroyed the NAV database onboard Reach Station Gamma, but at the cost of James and Linda. While onboard, they rescued some marines onboard the station: Sergeant Major Avery Junior Johnson and Privates Wallace Jenkins, Bisenti, and O'Brien. They then were evacuated by Pelican back to the Pillar of Autumn. Linda-058 was clinically dead, but there was a chance of saving her, so she was placed in a cryo-chamber.
John-117 asked Lieutenant Hall to scan for James (who was blown into space) and after they were unable to find him, the Pillar of Autumn made a slipspace jump to Installation 04 pursued by a dozen Covenant ships.

And so begins Halo CE...




[Edited on 07.27.2009 7:31 AM PDT]

  • 07.27.2009 7:29 AM PDT
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Good information.i think you play as beta team.

  • 07.27.2009 7:40 AM PDT

Well, that's what it's for.

Note: Sam died before the battle for Reach, about 25 years before.

  • 07.27.2009 11:46 PM PDT

Bravo!!

and for the guy talking about Sam dying 25 years before... We all know, he didnt even mention Sam probably a nice way to get this topic overwhelmed by people for Sam and against him thanks...

  • 07.28.2009 12:54 AM PDT

The mention of Sam is just for those who may think that the silhouetted Spartan on the left is him. I agree that it might be Sam as he's the right size, but that would contradict current Halo cannon set in the first novel - The Fall of Reach.

[Edited on 07.28.2009 2:29 AM PDT]

  • 07.28.2009 2:12 AM PDT

I have no signature... exept for this one...

Dang! I slammed right into the wall!!

  • 07.28.2009 2:19 AM PDT