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This topic has moved here: Subject: Confused by Harvest
  • Subject: Confused by Harvest
Subject: Confused by Harvest

Head Down/ Chin Up!

Quick question fellas! Found myself watching Halo Legends again the other night (I dont know why, it sucks) and on the making of and such they discuss the timeline for noobs! So on the DVD they state that Harvest was glassed following the arrival of the Covenant!

How does this fit in with
a) Contact Harvest - the novel
b) Halo Wars - where it states it took them 5 YEARS to "get Harvest back" (why would you when its been glassed?)
c) The general timeline that says Harvest was glassed upon first contact!

Cheers

  • 02.10.2011 10:29 AM PDT

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Posted by: Dedworth Mean
Quick question fellas! Found myself watching Halo Legends again the other night (I dont know why, it sucks) and on the making of and such they discuss the timeline for noobs! So on the DVD they state that Harvest was glassed following the arrival of the Covenant!

How does this fit in with
a) Contact Harvest - the novel
b) Halo Wars - where it states it took them 5 YEARS to "get Harvest back" (why would you when its been glassed?)
c) The general timeline that says Harvest was glassed upon first contact!

Cheers


A) Contact Harvest basically ends before word officially gets back to the UNSC as to what occurred there. What little of the civilian and militia population evacuated before the planet got glassed. When the scout force assigned to figure what happened to Harvest and why it went dark finally arrived the planet was already glassed.

B) Quite frankly I'm puzzled by this too just because Harvest wouldn't be a viable planet to sustain and protect once they secured it. We know that in reality from the Reach data pads that "glassing" does not mean that a planet is necessarily completely uninhabitable, but rather that its associated with sheer devastation that is unimaginable with current human conventional/unconventional weapons. We can see in the cutscene that, even after the five year campaign, all of Harvest still isn't burning. You can also relate this to Reach and how it was reclaimed despite being glassed. Of course that took who knows how long. It's also possible the battle was simply for morale purposes and/or thinking that Harvest would be the place to stop the alien threat right then and there before it spread. Who knows really in regards to this.

C)When all is said and done it still is. First contact is made. Population retreats. Scout forces find parts of Harvest "glassed". The old description of the entire planet being a smoldering ruin no longer holds any weight and has been rectonned. No single Covenant ship can completely glass a planet in the timespan it took for UNSC scout forces to deploy there, but for all intents and purposes the sheer devastation caused still means that Harvest is still considered glassed to some extent by the time Cole mobilizes.

  • 02.10.2011 10:46 AM PDT

Don't worry, you're still your mom's favorite Bnet member.

The Covenant first find and attack Harvest in 2525. The war doesn't officially begin until 2526, and Halo Wars takes place five years after that, 2531. Harvest was never completely glassed, it was just considered glased because of the sheer devastation they had unleashed upon it. By 2531, I don't think the Covenant had attacked too many worlds anyway (Maybe four max), so they might as well have tried to save Harvest.

[Edited on 02.10.2011 11:29 AM PST]

  • 02.10.2011 11:28 AM PDT
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Reach isn't the only planet that's gone under three or four different fates all in the same canon.

Anyhow, "retaking Harvest" is easily explainable as a morale booster. You've got to take back what is stolen from you, even if it is ruined now.

Nobody can agree on how big the fleet Cole encountered at Harvest was. Some works say it was one big ship, others say it was a small fleet. It was probably glassed sometime before Cole got there, though.

  • 02.10.2011 12:09 PM PDT
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Posted by: FleetAdmiralBob
Nobody can agree on how big the fleet Cole encountered at Harvest was. Some works say it was one big ship, others say it was a small fleet. It was probably glassed sometime before Cole got there, though.


"Halo Wars: Genesis" states that Cole's fleet engaged a single Covenant Battleship. "The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole" backs this up. I would assume that Rapid Conversion, the carrier in Contact Harvest got backup and left, after witch the other ships left as well, leaving the single, massive battleship which Cole destroyed.

  • 02.10.2011 2:49 PM PDT

Glassing, for the most part, was over-stated by UNSC in the Novels. They never revisited a glassed planet(besides Harvest), and never stayed to watch it get fully glassed.

A fully glassed planet has no atmosphere, the bulk of planets that was glassed was simply enough to make it uninhabitable(For the most part, or simply to destroy UNSC bases and cities).

As for retaking the planet, at that point they most likely wanted to reclaim Harvest and drive the Covenant out. Harvest had been one of the UNSC's biggest food producing colony, and they did have some terraforming tech that they could use.

  • 02.10.2011 2:58 PM PDT

I like Halo games, nuff said.


Posted by: FleetAdmiralBob
Reach isn't the only planet that's gone under three or four different fates all in the same canon.

Anyhow, "retaking Harvest" is easily explainable as a morale booster. You've got to take back what is stolen from you, even if it is ruined now.

Nobody can agree on how big the fleet Cole encountered at Harvest was. Some works say it was one big ship, others say it was a small fleet. It was probably glassed sometime before Cole got there, though.
It's more than one because didn't he fight the supercarrier? May be wrong but I don't know.

Also for thought in One of the books a UNSC Battle Group is 8 ships and a prowler.

  • 02.10.2011 5:28 PM PDT