Posted by: YakZSmelk
This was the authors' way of explaining why the brutes weren't in the first Halo. When in reality they weren't there because Bungie had not conceived them yet, same goes with Drones.
Sure, thats reasonable, so is the explanation that it was a fleet of elite's ships. They would see no reason to include half beaten brute ships to secure the most important covenant religious artifact to date.