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This topic has moved here: Subject: Halo Reach Did not Destroy the Canon
  • Subject: Halo Reach Did not Destroy the Canon
Subject: Halo Reach Did not Destroy the Canon

Ah, ok, I knew she mentioned SMACs somewhere.

  • 11.12.2010 4:06 PM PDT


Posted by: OrderedComa

Posted by: Fatal Factor
Well thanks for the kind words. Most of my posts go unnoticed.

Its plausible for ackerson to want to blow john up cos he has a personal vendetta, but on the same day as john is spose to go into cryo for a last ditch mission to capture covt leadership to try and save the species. Seems abit contrived.

I dont kow what you mean by scorpian rockets, scorpians dont have rockets.

I thought someone else would have tried to make a new timeline of the fall of reach by now or attempted to to show how silly it all is. Mabye theres one on halopedia or something i dunno.


I think the Autumn tried to leave the day after the test, not a hundred percent sure, but people do all kinds of crazy things when they're holding a grudge like Ackerson.

I believe Halopedia might have a full timeline, I think I saw one in another post about canon.

I can't remember what they're actually called, rockets was the only word I could think of that kinda fit the Scorpion's amunition.


A tank fires.....tank shells?

To the other guy, Jorge isnt a revitalised spartan, its mentioned he has over 30 years service and is solid as a rock............the revitalised spartan thing was to give us something to work with regarding the spartan numbers which were -blam!- up for years. basically any time we find a rouge spartan now we can account by saying oh its a wash out!

  • 11.12.2010 4:10 PM PDT

|***************************************| |***********************\____
|-----------HALO REACH------------------ | |--YOU'RE ON------------||[_\\____,
|._....______________________...._|_|._....______________||-----/ __|
|(@)(@)\_______________|(@)(@)__|(@)(@)\___________[==]/(@)l

I really don't understand. How can the company that created halo ruin the cannon. I really don't understand how it is possible.

  • 11.12.2010 4:13 PM PDT

"Find where the liar hides, so that I may place my boot between his gums!" - Rtas 'Vadum

Posted by: Fatal Factor
Question is, why was the supercarrier there in the first place and utilising such methods?

Such measures would only be taken providing that they knew it was a Human Colony world in the first place, and that it was defended by such powerful weapons. Seeing that the Covenant have steamrolled most other colonies, it does not make any sense for them to treat Reach with extra care given that they have no intel of its defensive capabilities whatsoever. And that is assuming that they even know it is a Human world in the first place.

It is much too soon for the Iroquois tracking device. There is also the Sigma Octanus artefact though, which could have had Reach on its co-ordinate system due to the Crystal beneath Menachite. So it could be a reliquary vessel - a big ass one. It still does not answer the question of why they would adopt such a pedantic approach to the planet. The artefact would not identify Reach as a Human world, or reveal information of its defences.

An after thought though. If they were at Reach due to the Sigma Octanus artefact, then as they approached Epsilon Eridani, their Luminaries could have highlighted a significant Human presence there, leading to the extra precautions. I am not sure how far the Luminaries operate to though.

Apologies if this has already been talked about to death, I have not been following the Reach story for a while. ;)

  • 11.12.2010 4:27 PM PDT

By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.

Posted by: LeBlanc172
I really don't understand. How can the company that created halo ruin the cannon. I really don't understand how it is possible.


Well it's quite simple, you see. Bungie have this thing called the Halo Story Bible, that particular book seemed to have been purposefully burned whilst they were creating Reach to cater to the masses and alienating the fans of the series who actually care about the canon.

  • 11.12.2010 4:27 PM PDT


Posted by: ajw34307
Posted by: LeBlanc172
I really don't understand. How can the company that created halo ruin the cannon. I really don't understand how it is possible.


Well it's quite simple, you see. Bungie have this thing called the Halo Story Bible, that particular book seemed to have been purposefully burned whilst they were creating Reach to cater to the masses and alienating the fans of the series who actually care about the canon.


Have you ever seen the Halo Story Bible? I don't think so, that document(s) is held by Bungie alone, actually I think it has been passed to 343 now, my point is, that you don't know what it contains, so there is no feasable way you can know for certain that Bungie making the game they want goes against there outlines or not.

The books are cannon, but the games are top of the cannon food chain, what ever the game says is fact. And while the various writers of the Halo books do get a portion of the Halo Bible when they writer their book, they only get the little pieces that pertain to their subject, so what they write could in fact not work with what Bungie has planned for later installments.

And besides, there are only minor problems the game made that are quite easily fixable, and I heard that most of them are indeed fixed in Halsey's Journal.

  • 11.12.2010 7:26 PM PDT
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Posted by: Horse Repairman
RC RuNz the internet. Like the superintendent.

Posted by: SouthPoIe
Clone is an internet God.

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RC Clone is the anti-thesis of a lurker.

Posted by: privet caboose
Reach did break canon.

Infact, it breaks canon within the first 5 minutes of the game. Reach fell on August 30th. That's the day the Covenant found Reach, and decimated the UNSC Fleet. All in one day.

The game says that the UNSC lost in over a months time. And without the UNSC even putting up a real fight. It was as if Reach was some random farmer colony.

The Covenant used less ships in the battle for Harvest and they also caught the UNSC off-guard.

  • 11.12.2010 7:40 PM PDT

Signatures are for squares.

Posted by: RC Clone
Posted by: privet caboose
Reach did break canon.

Infact, it breaks canon within the first 5 minutes of the game. Reach fell on August 30th. That's the day the Covenant found Reach, and decimated the UNSC Fleet. All in one day.

The game says that the UNSC lost in over a months time. And without the UNSC even putting up a real fight. It was as if Reach was some random farmer colony.

The Covenant used less ships in the battle for Harvest and they also caught the UNSC off-guard.


The Covenant caught the UNSC off guard at Reach too. With a 700 ship fleet, not a measly group of Covenant from one stinkin' corvette.

And what I meant by "Reach was some random farmer company" is that we only saw a few frigates, and no orbital macs. No huge armies, nothing like how it was depicted in Fall of Reach and First Strike.

The UNSC actually put up a decent fight in Fall of Reach, for only having 300 or so ships and a handful of Orbital macs. They managed to wipe out many Covenant ships.

In the game we didn't see anything on the scale we were promised.

  • 11.12.2010 8:09 PM PDT
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And what I meant by "Reach was some random farmer company" is that we only saw a few frigates, and no orbital macs. No huge armies, nothing like how it was depicted in Fall of Reach and First Strike.


Yep. Halo 2 had a bigger since of scale.

  • 11.12.2010 8:21 PM PDT


Posted by: privet caboose
Posted by: RC Clone
Posted by: privet caboose
Reach did break canon.

Infact, it breaks canon within the first 5 minutes of the game. Reach fell on August 30th. That's the day the Covenant found Reach, and decimated the UNSC Fleet. All in one day.

The game says that the UNSC lost in over a months time. And without the UNSC even putting up a real fight. It was as if Reach was some random farmer colony.

The Covenant used less ships in the battle for Harvest and they also caught the UNSC off-guard.


The Covenant caught the UNSC off guard at Reach too. With a 700 ship fleet, not a measly group of Covenant from one stinkin' corvette.

And what I meant by "Reach was some random farmer company" is that we only saw a few frigates, and no orbital macs. No huge armies, nothing like how it was depicted in Fall of Reach and First Strike.

The UNSC actually put up a decent fight in Fall of Reach, for only having 300 or so ships and a handful of Orbital macs. They managed to wipe out many Covenant ships.

In the game we didn't see anything on the scale we were promised.


Noble Team couldn't be everywhere at once, and they were mostly given "behind enemy lines" sorta stuff, which is why we didn't see too much of the main battle, which seemed to have been centered in space and at the generators in the books.

They seemed to be putting up a pretty decent fight in the game too, just because we see a few Covenant ships planet side does not mean that the space battle was going poorly.

The Covenant group from the Corvette were something like an advance recon/strike team, they were probably sent there to observe the defenses of Reach and try and sabotage/take control of key positions, such as the Visegard Coms Relay and Sword Base.

  • 11.12.2010 8:27 PM PDT
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Posted by: opogjijijp

And what I meant by "Reach was some random farmer company" is that we only saw a few frigates, and no orbital macs. No huge armies, nothing like how it was depicted in Fall of Reach and First Strike.


Yep. Halo 2 had a bigger since of scale.


Earth > Reach

And most of the game your one foot soldier on the fringes of a planet with a population of 300 million. Really not that big, just for a colony.

So therefore, the planet was not as densely populated or reenforced as some imagined. As for the SMACS people keep complaining about, they were there, but what? Were you expecting to see them from the surface?

As for the space mission, it was probably located in some out of the way little ship yard, purposely done so to keep the Sabres and frigate away from the main action. Space is big, so unless you were in the middle of a massive battle cluster like in Halo 2, you wouldn't see anything.

  • 11.12.2010 8:28 PM PDT
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Posted by: privet caboose
Posted by: RC Clone
Posted by: privet caboose
Reach did break canon.

Infact, it breaks canon within the first 5 minutes of the game. Reach fell on August 30th. That's the day the Covenant found Reach, and decimated the UNSC Fleet. All in one day.

The game says that the UNSC lost in over a months time. And without the UNSC even putting up a real fight. It was as if Reach was some random farmer colony.

The Covenant used less ships in the battle for Harvest and they also caught the UNSC off-guard.


The Covenant caught the UNSC off guard at Reach too. With a 700 ship fleet, not a measly group of Covenant from one stinkin' corvette.

And what I meant by "Reach was some random farmer company" is that we only saw a few frigates, and no orbital macs. No huge armies, nothing like how it was depicted in Fall of Reach and First Strike.

The UNSC actually put up a decent fight in Fall of Reach, for only having 300 or so ships and a handful of Orbital macs. They managed to wipe out many Covenant ships.

In the game we didn't see anything on the scale we were promised.


Reach... really isn't that important in the greater scheme of the Haloverse. It was built as a sacrificial lamb, designed only to give birth to the Spartans then get burnt horribly. Sure, it is humanities' "Biggest Colony" - that is to say that it has the population of the modern day U.S. spread out over a planet larger than Earth. Most of it would be wilderness and farmstead as a matter of course.

Why, the only thing the planet has going for it are Orbital defenses, the Spartan Training Grounds, and CASTLE Base. The problem is that you can't show most of this without breaking canon even more.

Go defend the Orbital Defenses? Why, hello there, Spartan IIs!
Head to Castle Base? The HSB is tearing itself apart to save you the trouble.

... and that's why I hate prequels. I must say, though, that the whole "pass the torch" thing you did at the end of H:R was pretty crafty. Dare I say that it's the best a prequel can ever aspire to.

  • 11.12.2010 8:53 PM PDT

July 24, 2552
0728 Hours: Noble Team is ordered to investigate a possible Insurrectionist activity at the disabled Visegrad Relay. Shortly after, the team learns that the Covenant are responsible for the attack on the relay. After retaking the relay, Noble Team discovers a data module on one of the dead staff. WINTER CONTINGENCY is declared.

[edit]July 26, 2552
1128 hours: A Covenant corvette attacks ONI Sword Base. Noble Team is deployed to secure the base and surrounding outposts. After the corvette is destroyed by orbital bombardment, Noble Team meets up with Dr. Halsey and hands over the data module retrieved from Visegrad Relay.

[edit]August 12th, 2552
0800 hours: The UNSC Army begins a full scale assault on the Viery Territory. Noble Team is sent to gather intelligence of Covenant-occupied sites and to destroy a EMP-emitting Covenant tower. The UNSC learn too late that the tower served as a teleporter linked to a cloaked Covenant Supercarrier. The UNSC Grafton is destroyed by the Supercarrier's energy projector.
2007 hours: Covenant invasion of Reach is fully underway. Noble Team begins developing a plan to destroy the enemy Supercarrier with a Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine used as a makeshift bomb. Auntie Dot informs Noble Team that 60% of the UNSC fleet is in route to Reach, the first battlegroup is set to enter the system in 48 hours.

[edit]August 14th, 2552
1248 hours: Noble Team assaults and retakes the Sabre Launch Facility and use it as a staging point for a battle above Reach. Using the Slipspace Drive from the UNSC Savannah, Noble Team disables and boards one of the Covenant corvettes and use it as the detonation point for the bomb. Due to a malfunction with the triggering mechanism, a member of Noble Team is forced to detonate the bomb manually. The Supercarrier is destroyed just as a Covenant Fleet arrives above Reach.
1248 hours: Covenant forces once again attack Sword Base and occupy the site. Dr. Halsey escapes capture by hiding under the facility.

[edit]August 23, 2552
1534 hours: The Covenant fleet begins glassing targeted areas of Reach, and a battle breaks out in New Alexandria. Noble Six and remaining Army infantrymen assist in the evacuation of civilians from the city.
1857 hours: Noble Six links up with the rest of Noble Team. The team destroys three jammers installed by the Covenant, allowing the UNSC to safely evacuate all personnel from the ONI HQ. When the team reunites, they are ordered by Colonel Holland to proceed to Sword Base. Another member of Noble Team is killed by sniper fire shortly afterward.

[edit]August 26, 2552
The remnants of Noble Team are extracted by a Pelican from the ruins of New Alexandria.

[edit]August 29, 2552
SPARTAN-B312 and a team of ODSTs secure a landing zone for Noble Team's Falcon. Later Noble Team proceed inside Sword Base only to learn their true mission: escort a part of Cortana to the Pillar of Autumn.


[edit]August 30, 2552
Reach being glassed by the Covenant.
0447 Hours: The Remote Scanning Outpost Fermion detects more incoming Covenant vessels. An emergency message is relayed to FLEETCOM. The outpost then self-destructs per the Cole Protocol due to an unsecured science library and nearby Covenant forces.
0500 Hours: Another fleet of 314[15] Covenant vessels exits slipspace on the edge of the system.
0517 Hours: Admiral Roland Freemont (FLEETCOM Sector One Commander) issues a general order to all vessels in the Reach, Jericho, and Tantalus systems.[16] All vessels and stations initiate the Cole Protocol and rush to Rally Point ZULU.
0534 Hours: Covenant vessels make pinpoint slipspace jumps attempting to destroy any incoming or outgoing human vessels before they can regroup. A Covenant Carrier targets the UNSC Pillar of Autumn but is destroyed.
0545 Hours: The Covenant vessels begin a frontal assault. As the Covenant and human fleets engage above Reach, it seems to be a stalemate, as Covenant ships take out UNSC ships, while the UNSC ships and MAC cannons take out an equal number. The first salvo by the UNSC vessels destroys a third of the remaining Covenant fleet. A Covenant supercruiser arrives and destroys several UNSC ships while outside human weapons range.
0558 Hours: Station Gamma Dockmaster AI Doppler is unable to implement the Cole Protocol on the UNSC Circumference, an ONI prowler docked at Reach Station Gamma, due to measures taken to maintain the secrecy of Operation: HYPODERMIC. Doppler sends priority message to FLEETCOM concerning this violation. Covenant intrusion software detects this oversight, and the Covenant deploys troops to seize the NAV database aboard the Circumference.
0616 Hours: The SPARTAN-IIs are dispatched from the Pillar of Autumn. John-117, Linda-058, and James form Blue Team and go aboard the Dock to destroy the Circumference, while the remainder form Red Team and head to the surface of Reach to defend the power generators for the MAC guns. James goes MIA when a Needler hits his thruster pack and propels him into space during combat. Blue Team continue through the station, rescuing Staff Sergeant Johnson; Private O'Brien, Private Bisenti, and Pvt. Wallace A. Jenkins from Kig-yar and Sangheili.
0620 Hours: Most of the Covenant fleet retreats from the system after deploying more dropships toward the surface. The UNSC fleet fires on the ships, destroying many although hundreds still land on Reach.
0621 Hours: The boarding craft are landed and the armory is overrun; the Covenant fleet re-enters the system. The Covenant split their 150+ remaining ships. One fleet attacks the UNSC ships, while another takes out the MAC cannons and send in troops to land on Reach. The UNSC try to split their 50+ remaining forces to engage the Covenant, but there are too many platforms to cover and too many casualties. The Supercruiser continues to destroy UNSC ships, allowing the other ships to attack the MACs. Eventually the supercruiser is destroyed by the Pillar of Autumn, but the UNSC fleet is practically decimated so it is too late to do any good.
0631 Hours: Red Team's Pelican is shot down. They have no choice but to jump from the crashing Pelican and make a "hard landing" on the ground. Results in four dead and six seriously injured.
0637 Hours: John-117, the clinically dead Linda-058, and the Marines board the Pillar of Autumn.
0647 Hours: Captain Keyes of the Pillar of Autumn orders the vessel to retreat from the system. However, Dr. Catherine Halsey contacts the Autumn, urgently requesting that Keyes drydock at the Aszod ship breaking yards on Reach to collect Cortana's fragment and the vital information she held.[17] Keyes used the brief time on the surface to make minor repairs to the Autumn. [note 1]
0649 Hours: Red Team sets up defenses around ODG Facility A-331.
0711 Hours: Fred-104, Joshua-029, and Kelly-087 plant a nuclear warhead through the gravity lift in a landing Covenant cruiser, leaving Joshua-029 MIA, (presumed KIA) in the process.
0720 Hours: The Covenant destroys ODG Facility A-331 by aerial bombardment, though some Spartans escape. The surviving MAC guns are now offline and are quickly destroyed by plasma torpedoes. Remaining UNSC vessels have no choice but to retreat. The Covenant warships are split into two groups: five ship teams that hunt down the surviving UNSC vessels and a group of ships that align themselves in formation and begin to glass Reach.
1652 hours: The remainder of Noble Team head to the Aszod ship breaking yards to deliver a fragment of Cortana, which holds important navigation data, to the Pillar of Autumn. SPARTAN-B312 successfully delivers the package to the Autumn and allows the vessel to escape by destroying an incoming Covenant battlecruiser. The Pillar of Autumn, pursued by a dozen Covenant vessels, retreats from the system, heading for Installation 04.
2000 Hours: SPARTAN-B312 is one of the few standing survivors at the ship-breaking yards of Aszod and the planet Reach. The SPARTAN makes a final stand, fighting off waves of Covenant forces, until overwhelmed and eventually killed by a squad of 7 Sangheili warriors.

  • 11.12.2010 8:56 PM PDT

All the events up to August 30 were caused by a pre-invasion fleet that got ahead of the main fleet.

  • 11.12.2010 8:58 PM PDT
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Posted by: sharku57
All the events up to August 30 were caused by a pre-invasion fleet that got ahead of the main fleet.


... said fleet was not originally going to be in the Halo Story Bible, but that's what Retcons are for.

  • 11.12.2010 9:24 PM PDT

Signatures are for squares.

Posted by: sharku57
All the events up to August 30 were caused by a pre-invasion fleet that got ahead of the main fleet.


According to Reach, the official invasion started on August...14th wasn't it?

Regardless, the UNSC didn't expect the Covenant at Reach, AT ALL, on August 30th. It was a complete surprise. Yet, in the game the Covenant had been on Reach for more than a month!

  • 11.12.2010 9:31 PM PDT
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░█▀▀ ░█▀█ ░█ ░█▀▀ ░░█▀▀ ░█▀█ ░█ ░█ ░░░
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My best thread evar!


Posted by: ROBERTO jh

Posted by: C SEC Agent
1. Reach's fall was extended tenfold in the game compared to the book.

2. PoA was never on Reach.

3. Where were the Orbital MAC guns?

4. By extension of #2, Cortana couldn't have been getting a piggyback ride from N6.

5. Jorge

The list goes on, up until around the number 15.


3) They pwned the first Corvette

4) She was a copy of the real Cortana, not the actual Cortana

5) a "revitilized" S-II that washed out but didn't die.

the answers go on.


Sigh, since these seem to be the same things said over and over agian against my own comment, I'll address these.

3) The 20 SMACs only fired once throughout the entire game?

4) Cortana did not learn to copy herself until First Strike if I remember correctly. Even if I don't, PoA was never on Reach, so the "fragment" could never have made it their anyways.

5) Stupid excuse. The existence of Noble Team is bad enough and near canon breaking, but the fact that they somehow kick an SII that apparently washed out despite showing no issues in combat in with them is just pathetic.

As I've stated before, this game has a great story.

It just is not Halo's story.

  • 11.12.2010 9:46 PM PDT
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If you think nobody cares about you, miss some car payments.
Hard work never hurt anyone, but why take the chance.
The first sign of maturity is that the volume knob also turns to the left.

New Gamertag and profile: SHENANIGANS4780

Since it seems that the account didn't transfer, that's my new account everyone.

Where can this timeline be found? That's really in-depth. Also, which book is red team in? I think i must've not read it because I can't seem to remember it.

Which is the one where Halsey goes into the underground caverns, as well as flies off with spartan kelly? It's been too long...

Posted by: sharku57
July 24, 2552
0728 Hours: Noble Team is ordered to investigate a possible Insurrectionist activity at the disabled Visegrad Relay. Shortly after, the team learns that the Covenant are responsible for the attack on the relay. After retaking the relay, Noble Team discovers a data module on one of the dead staff. WINTER CONTINGENCY is declared.

[edit]July 26, 2552
1128 hours: A Covenant corvette attacks ONI Sword Base. Noble Team is deployed to secure the base and surrounding outposts. After the corvette is destroyed by orbital bombardment, Noble Team meets up with Dr. Halsey and hands over the data module retrieved from Visegrad Relay.

[edit]August 12th, 2552
0800 hours: The UNSC Army begins a full scale assault on the Viery Territory. Noble Team is sent to gather intelligence of Covenant-occupied sites and to destroy a EMP-emitting Covenant tower. The UNSC learn too late that the tower served as a teleporter linked to a cloaked Covenant Supercarrier. The UNSC Grafton is destroyed by the Supercarrier's energy projector.
2007 hours: Covenant invasion of Reach is fully underway. Noble Team begins developing a plan to destroy the enemy Supercarrier with a Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine used as a makeshift bomb. Auntie Dot informs Noble Team that 60% of the UNSC fleet is in route to Reach, the first battlegroup is set to enter the system in 48 hours.

[edit]August 14th, 2552
1248 hours: Noble Team assaults and retakes the Sabre Launch Facility and use it as a staging point for a battle above Reach. Using the Slipspace Drive from the UNSC Savannah, Noble Team disables and boards one of the Covenant corvettes and use it as the detonation point for the bomb. Due to a malfunction with the triggering mechanism, a member of Noble Team is forced to detonate the bomb manually. The Supercarrier is destroyed just as a Covenant Fleet arrives above Reach.
1248 hours: Covenant forces once again attack Sword Base and occupy the site. Dr. Halsey escapes capture by hiding under the facility.

[edit]August 23, 2552
1534 hours: The Covenant fleet begins glassing targeted areas of Reach, and a battle breaks out in New Alexandria. Noble Six and remaining Army infantrymen assist in the evacuation of civilians from the city.
1857 hours: Noble Six links up with the rest of Noble Team. The team destroys three jammers installed by the Covenant, allowing the UNSC to safely evacuate all personnel from the ONI HQ. When the team reunites, they are ordered by Colonel Holland to proceed to Sword Base. Another member of Noble Team is killed by sniper fire shortly afterward.

[edit]August 26, 2552
The remnants of Noble Team are extracted by a Pelican from the ruins of New Alexandria.

[edit]August 29, 2552
SPARTAN-B312 and a team of ODSTs secure a landing zone for Noble Team's Falcon. Later Noble Team proceed inside Sword Base only to learn their true mission: escort a part of Cortana to the Pillar of Autumn.


[edit]August 30, 2552
Reach being glassed by the Covenant.
0447 Hours: The Remote Scanning Outpost Fermion detects more incoming Covenant vessels. An emergency message is relayed to FLEETCOM. The outpost then self-destructs per the Cole Protocol due to an unsecured science library and nearby Covenant forces.
0500 Hours: Another fleet of 314[15] Covenant vessels exits slipspace on the edge of the system.
0517 Hours: Admiral Roland Freemont (FLEETCOM Sector One Commander) issues a general order to all vessels in the Reach, Jericho, and Tantalus systems.[16] All vessels and stations initiate the Cole Protocol and rush to Rally Point ZULU.
0534 Hours: Covenant vessels make pinpoint slipspace jumps attempting to destroy any incoming or outgoing human vessels before they can regroup. A Covenant Carrier targets the UNSC Pillar of Autumn but is destroyed.
0545 Hours: The Covenant vessels begin a frontal assault. As the Covenant and human fleets engage above Reach, it seems to be a stalemate, as Covenant ships take out UNSC ships, while the UNSC ships and MAC cannons take out an equal number. The first salvo by the UNSC vessels destroys a third of the remaining Covenant fleet. A Covenant supercruiser arrives and destroys several UNSC ships while outside human weapons range.
0558 Hours: Station Gamma Dockmaster AI Doppler is unable to implement the Cole Protocol on the UNSC Circumference, an ONI prowler docked at Reach Station Gamma, due to measures taken to maintain the secrecy of Operation: HYPODERMIC. Doppler sends priority message to FLEETCOM concerning this violation. Covenant intrusion software detects this oversight, and the Covenant deploys troops to seize the NAV database aboard the Circumference.
0616 Hours: The SPARTAN-IIs are dispatched from the Pillar of Autumn. John-117, Linda-058, and James form Blue Team and go aboard the Dock to destroy the Circumference, while the remainder form Red Team and head to the surface of Reach to defend the power generators for the MAC guns. James goes MIA when a Needler hits his thruster pack and propels him into space during combat. Blue Team continue through the station, rescuing Staff Sergeant Johnson; Private O'Brien, Private Bisenti, and Pvt. Wallace A. Jenkins from Kig-yar and Sangheili.
0620 Hours: Most of the Covenant fleet retreats from the system after deploying more dropships toward the surface. The UNSC fleet fires on the ships, destroying many although hundreds still land on Reach.
0621 Hours: The boarding craft are landed and the armory is overrun; the Covenant fleet re-enters the system. The Covenant split their 150+ remaining ships. One fleet attacks the UNSC ships, while another takes out the MAC cannons and send in troops to land on Reach. The UNSC try to split their 50+ remaining forces to engage the Covenant, but there are too many platforms to cover and too many casualties. The Supercruiser continues to destroy UNSC ships, allowing the other ships to attack the MACs. Eventually the supercruiser is destroyed by the Pillar of Autumn, but the UNSC fleet is practically decimated so it is too late to do any good.
0631 Hours: Red Team's Pelican is shot down. They have no choice but to jump from the crashing Pelican and make a "hard landing" on the ground. Results in four dead and six seriously injured.
0637 Hours: John-117, the clinically dead Linda-058, and the Marines board the Pillar of Autumn.
0647 Hours: Captain Keyes of the Pillar of Autumn orders the vessel to retreat from the system. However, Dr. Catherine Halsey contacts the Autumn, urgently requesting that Keyes drydock at the Aszod ship breaking yards on Reach to collect Cortana's fragment and the vital information she held.[17] Keyes used the brief time on the surface to make minor repairs to the Autumn. [note 1]
0649 Hours: Red Team sets up defenses around ODG Facility A-331.
0711 Hours: Fred-104, Joshua-029, and Kelly-087 plant a nuclear warhead through the gravity lift in a landing Covenant cruiser, leaving Joshua-029 MIA, (presumed KIA) in the process.
0720 Hours: The Covenant destroys ODG Facility A-331 by aerial bombardment, though some Spartans escape. The surviving MAC guns are now offline and are quickly destroyed by plasma torpedoes. Remaining UNSC vessels have no choice but to retreat. The Covenant warships are split into two groups: five ship teams that hunt down the surviving UNSC vessels and a group of ships that align themselves in formation and begin to glass Reach.
1652 hours: The remainder of Noble Team head to the Aszod ship breaking yards to deliver a fragment of Cortana, which holds important navigation data, to the Pillar of Autumn. SPARTAN-B312 successfully delivers the package to the Autumn and allows the vessel to escape by destroying an incoming Covenant battlecruiser. The Pillar of Autumn, pursued by a dozen Covenant vessels, retreats from the system, heading for Installation 04.
2000 Hours: SPARTAN-B312 is one of the few standing survivors at the ship-breaking yards of Aszod and the planet Reach. The SPARTAN makes a final stand, fighting off waves of Covenant forces, until overwhelmed and eventually killed by a squad of 7 Sangheili warriors.

  • 11.12.2010 9:47 PM PDT

It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.

Posted by: chickenlittle
Cheeto is the only one among you that doesn't suck.

A: No one cares. Nylund was a -blam!- for making Reach fall in like, thirty seconds. The new course of events is infinitely more interesting.
And furthermore, you have no idea what kind of fight the UNSC put up. You only saw a small part of the conflict. Within that time, the UNSC fleet arrived and fought. They even say that in the game.

So next time before you post something really, really stupid, play the game, and think about how retarded it is that the hub of UNSC power in the galaxy would fall in less than a day, when other worlds fell in weeks, or even months. Don't be stupid.
Posted by: privet caboose
Reach did break canon.

Infact, it breaks canon within the first 5 minutes of the game. Reach fell on August 30th. That's the day the Covenant found Reach, and decimated the UNSC Fleet. All in one day.

The game says that the UNSC lost in over a months time. And without the UNSC even putting up a real fight. It was as if Reach was some random farmer colony.

  • 11.12.2010 11:56 PM PDT

On hiding dead bodies:
Posted by: Psuedo
Posted by: teh Chaz
Inside another dead body. It's the last place they'll look
A corpse within a corpse.
CORPSEPTION.
Win.

I probably should have been paying more attention to the cutscenes, but AFAIK:

1) The Viery Territory.
Viery was the sole location of the Covenant invasion by the Supercarrier, IIRC, which is a very large landmass on Reach's supercontinent. Granted, the area was evacuated, but that could only happen between the 25th July and the 11th August, after the Covenant had been discovered on Reach. The fact that ONI was able to keep this a secret not just from the Civilian population, but also from the majority of the UNSC is just not feasible.

2) Operation: UPPERCUT
This battle goes even against a book release with Halo Reach, as well as common sense.
Halsey's Journal states at one point that the most powerful UNSC shipboard reactors are not capable of generating a shield "over a cabin, much less an entire ship". Here, we have ships far smaller than Longswords or Pelicans, with reactors more powerful than that of a UNSC Cruiser or Carrier-type vessel. WTF. Because clearly, they are larger than a ship's cabin, and yet have a full (rather powerful) energy shield.
A 27km long Covenant Warship was fully visible, and in low orbit over Reach's Viery Territory. For two days before it was destroyed. If people couldn't see it now, they were willingly acting blind. And if they didn't see that, they sure as hell saw the massive 20km+ slipspace rupture that formed in the middle of it, and then the Supercarrier (what was left of it) crash.

3) Operation: EXODUS.
(Yes, I'm sure this wasn't an actual operation, but w/e)
Somewhere between the 14th and 19th of August, a massive Covenant Fleet arrived in orbit - described as "the whole damn Covenant Fleet". This fleet remained in orbit, engaging the UNSC, right up until Reach finally fell on the 30th.
Yet we are still meant to accept that this Fleet mysteriously disappeared without the knowledge of much of the UNSC (despite that fact that 60% of the UNSC fleet was recalled to Reach), for a new fleet to arrive on the 30th, and finally defeat Reach.

4) Pillar of Autumn.
The Pillar of Autumn was on Reach's surface. What for? Granted, they were collecting Cortana's fragment, but it would have made astronomically more sense to just have a Pelican waiting for 6, which would make orbit and rendezvous with the Autumn. The last time I propose this idea, people said "well it's more likely to be destroyed and the fragment lost"
If 6 had been killed on the mass driver, then the entire ship would have been lost, from being glassed. Then it would have been of even less use.
However, neither Blue nor Red team's missions can have been undertaken or completed because of PoA on Reach. Blue's never made orbit, and a Prowler would not have been left in a space dock for over a month with sensitive navigation data. Eventually, they would have just SMAC'd the station. Which they really should have done in TFOR. Sure, they'd have lost Johnson, Bisenti, O'Brien and Jenkins, but for the greater good and all that.
Red Team's mission could not be taken because by the 12th, Orbital Defences had already been 'compromised' - probably safe to assume they mean surface reactors for ODPs were offline.

So, there we go - canon was broken.
Posted by: Cheeto666
A: No one cares. Nylund was a -blam!- for making Reach fall in like, thirty seconds. The new course of events is infinitely more interesting.
And furthermore, you have no idea what kind of fight the UNSC put up. You only saw a small part of the conflict. Within that time, the UNSC fleet arrived and fought. They even say that in the game.

So next time before you post something really, really stupid, play the game, and think about how retarded it is that the hub of UNSC power in the galaxy would fall in less than a day, when other worlds fell in weeks, or even months. Don't be stupid.
Posted by: privet caboose
Reach did break canon.

Infact, it breaks canon within the first 5 minutes of the game. Reach fell on August 30th. That's the day the Covenant found Reach, and decimated the UNSC Fleet. All in one day.

The game says that the UNSC lost in over a months time. And without the UNSC even putting up a real fight. It was as if Reach was some random farmer colony.
Having Reach fall within 5 weeks does not fit with any previously known battle.
After a 3-day battle for Jericho-VII, the Covies gave up and just glassed it. Harvest was originally defeated by a single Covenant warship in little over a week. Madrigal was glassed without any UNSC intervention, and Sigma Octanus IV almost was.
The Covenant are like a toddler in their battle antics. They start to lose, or it drags on, they get bored and glass the planet.

[Edited on 11.13.2010 1:41 AM PST]

  • 11.13.2010 1:20 AM PDT

By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.

Posted by: OrderedComa
Have you ever seen the Halo Story Bible? I don't think so, that document(s) is held by Bungie alone, actually I think it has been passed to 343 now, my point is, that you don't know what it contains, so there is no feasable way you can know for certain that Bungie making the game they want goes against there outlines or not.

The books are cannon, but the games are top of the cannon food chain, what ever the game says is fact. And while the various writers of the Halo books do get a portion of the Halo Bible when they writer their book, they only get the little pieces that pertain to their subject, so what they write could in fact not work with what Bungie has planned for later installments.


I don't have to have read the Halo Story Bible to know that Reach breaks canon, you need only compare it to the novels.

The writers don't get "a portion" of the Halo Bible, they get the whole thing. Nylund and Buckell aren't going to write novels that are canonical when they know bollock all about the bigger picture. Where one idea develops, another forms.

And besides, there are only minor problems the game made that are quite easily fixable, and I heard that most of them are indeed fixed in Halsey's Journal.

You heard wrong. Halsey's Journal only fixes a few, and "fix" is the wrong word to use. Covering up the amount of S-IIs by simply stating she lied is not a fix, it's a sloppy cover up. Maybe you should read the Journal before spreading around that it fixes the inconsistencies.

  • 11.13.2010 2:11 AM PDT
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My friend, you would not tell with ſuch high zeſt
To children ardent for ſome deſperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum eſt
Pro patria mori.

I think the point is that canon is what you see on the screen first, and read in books and other materials second. So the new reality is that the original Fall of Reach book is the story that's breaking canon now.

Isn't there a new version of the Fall of Reach out? I've not been able to read it yet - I only recently found an EU shop that had Evolutions in stock - but I'd imagine if that's been updated some of the new inconsistencies with the original could have been ironed out.

  • 11.13.2010 2:44 AM PDT

By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.

Posted by: Sir Fragula
Isn't there a new version of the Fall of Reach out? I've not been able to read it yet - I only recently found an EU shop that had Evolutions in stock - but I'd imagine if that's been updated some of the new inconsistencies with the original could have been ironed out.


See, you'd think that, but...

  • 11.13.2010 2:51 AM PDT

On hiding dead bodies:
Posted by: Psuedo
Posted by: teh Chaz
Inside another dead body. It's the last place they'll look
A corpse within a corpse.
CORPSEPTION.
Win.

Posted by: Sir Fragula
I think the point is that canon is what you see on the screen first, and read in books and other materials second. So the new reality is that the original Fall of Reach book is the story that's breaking canon now.
The phrase 'gameplay balance' should put absolute paid to the idea that games are greater than books. Sure, the events depicted in a game may well (unfortunately) beat those in a book, but you can't seriously tell me that a SPARTAN needs an upgrade to his powered assault armour in order to run, or do a roly-poly.

Or the fact that in a book, a single FRG-wielding grunt can kill a fully-armoured SPARTAN in one shot, whereas books and cinematics show time after time, SPARTANS taking on dozens of Elites at a time, and emerging victorious.

In Ghosts of Onyx, 200 S-III class SPARTANS fought thousands of Covenant infantry with nothing more than their bare hands and their rifles.
In Reach however, a single Elite Officer (the second lowest Elite rank) can and will consistently own a shielded, armoured S-III in close quarters (melee) combat.

For storyline, I will grudgingly accept that a game may beat a book in terms of canon-status.
Gameplay effects such as movement, weapon power and general capability, NOTHING will beat a book, because a book cannot and will not ever be toned down for gameplay balance - which a game obviously will.

Additionally, it's nice to see a Ninja taking part in canon discussions. It's just too rare a sight.

[Edited on 11.13.2010 4:09 AM PST]

  • 11.13.2010 4:08 AM PDT
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"Time was your ally human. But now it has abandoned you. The Forerunners....have returned. And this tomb... is now yours". - The Didact

I agree with people here,Reach in the game didn't looked like a military planet
This is what we should have seen in game:
http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100921111905/halo/ima ges/0/01/BootCamp_-_Reach.png


(damn you Bungie)

1.If It is supposed to be the military planet of the UNSC,then why don't they have any nukes on Reach.Carter says their nukes are either out system or went down with ships.WTF?

2.Where was the UNSC fleet,WTF is the UNSC fleet doing out of system.Auntie Dot says the USNC fleet is underway to Reach,i thought that a military planet like Reach would already have +150 ships and Trafalgar.

3.So if we should belive the Halo Reach timeline,then why is John and his other sII's chilling on Reach on the 29th of August while the covies were attacking Reacjh in full force.
Bungie clrealy said -blam!- you to the books

4.
14 August
According to Auntie Dot,Dr Halsey was still in SWORD base during operation uppercut,when you saw those strange explosions on surface during that sabre docking cutscene"

According to the game Halsey was all the time in SWORD base
23 August,Noble planned to retake SWORD base
29 August Halsey was still in SWORD base

So she was stuck in SWORD base between 14 August till 29th.But that contradicts the book again.The fall of reach and Halsey journal shows us that HALSEY was briefing the spartans on operation Red Flag on the 27th i think,but yet she was still on SWORD base all the time(seen in the game)

How could she be in sword base at the same time as talknig with her sII's?

More other canon breaches are already said by others in this thread
Damn you Bungie -blam!-s

  • 11.13.2010 4:32 AM PDT