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  • Subject: Retconing the Reach Retcons: Fan-Fixes for Inconsistances
Subject: Retconing the Reach Retcons: Fan-Fixes for Inconsistances

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While reading another thread, this reply caught my attention:Posted by: MegaMuffin16
I think changing the dates could have somewhat slipped it into canon. They could have easily had this game take place over the course of 3 days.
August 28: Noble Actual, Winter Contingency, Sword Base, Nightfall
August 29: Tip of the Spear, Long Night of Solace, Exodus, New Alexandria
August 30: The Package, The Pillar of Autumn, Lone Wolf

He's right; the entire campaign of Halo: Reach could have taken place over the course of a few days. I mean c'mon, July 24th-August 30th; over a month, and this elite group of Spartans is only sent on nine missions? Sure, if the missions had lasted days I could understand that, but even factoring in travel time and assuming the missions played in campaign took as long as realistically possible, there was still a lot of downtime where Noble could have been deployed elsewhere.

So let's run with this; Halo: Reach takes place over the course of three days. I honestly feel this would create a much more logical series of events:

August 28th

- The Covenant supercarrier and accompanying corvettes were only intended as an excavation force under orders from the Ministry of Tranquility, explaining the Zealot-led scouting party. They were only sent to Reach to scout for Forerunner artifacts, and encountering humans was unexpected, much like The First Battle of Earth in Halo 2.

- The Ministry of Tranquility detachment, consisting of the supercarrier and several corvettes, arrive in the Epsilon Eridani system around 0100 hours UNSC time. Preliminary scans of the system indicate life in the system.

- Upon discovering the new reliquary was a human colony, the Covenant already present at Reach report their findings and call in the fleet. However, a Covenant attack force is already being assembled to attack the final destination of the UNSC Iroquois, which the Covenant had covertly attached a tracking device to after the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV. Because of the report that Reach is a military juggernaut, and there is a Forerunner reliquary present on the planet, the Covenant leadership triples the size of the Reach invasion force.

- The Covenant corvettes, which are in fact stealth corvettes, amongst the group are dispatched to scout the planet and the coordinates of the reliquary. The supercarrier, for a while, remains on the edge of the system, jamming the radar of UNSC sensor outposts, which is actually mentioned in Halsey's Journal. While there, it also gathers valuable information on Reach's orbital defenses, which allow many of the ships in the main invasion force to bypass the SMAC stations altogether.

- The corvettes approach Reach via normal space to avoid alerting the UNSC via slipspace ruptures, and essentially drift though Reach's atmosphere before arriving planetside.

- The Zealot team is dispatched to Visegrad, takes care of Sorvad and his team there, then eliminates the army detachment sent to investigate.

After this, the following missions occur:
1. Noble Actual
2. Winter Contingency

- Because their stealth had been compromised after the events of Winter Contingency, the corvettes abandon their stealth tactics and attack Sword Base. Reach is put on high alert, The Cole Protocol is enacted, and all nearby UNSC vessels are recalled to Reach, which trickle in one by one other the following two days. Knowing the corvettes alone don't stand much of a chance against Reach's defenses, the covenant supercarrier also activates its stealth protocols and makes its decent on Reach. Like the corvettes, it drifts in as to avoid detection, setting up shop in the Viery Territory, where it begins to deploy troops ground side via short-range teleporters, in order to gain a foothold on the planet.

3. ONI: Sword Base

- After taking Sword Base and the nearby corvette is destroyed by MAC bombardment, Noble Six and Emile are given a mission.

4. Nightfall

- The Covenant is amassing an army, and nobody knows where the troops are coming from. Six and Emile are recalled in order to prepare for the morning assault.

August 29th

5. Tip of the Spear

- After the spire one is destroyed, the Long Night of Solace abandons stealth in order to protect the other teleportation terminals. The UNSC Grafton is destroyed, and the supercarrier retreats to orbit, where it wont be vulnerable to the MAC cannons of UNSC battleships in low orbit. (Think of the corvette in the end cutscene of Sword Base; with more and more UNSC battleships arriving, it'd be like shooting fish in a barrel.) Needing to focus its auxiliary energy reserves on shield strength now that it's been discovered and will likely come under attack, the Long Night of Solace never reactivates its stealth field.

- For Noble Team, the rest of the afternoon is spent fighting against Covenant ground forces and such, ending with them in the cave seen in the opening cutscene of Long Night of Solace. Upon reaching the atmosphere, the Long Night of Solace crushes all attacks by UNSC battleships, (the ship is -blam!- 26km long!) prompting Kat to come up with Operation: UPPERCUT, then:

6. Long Night of Solace

Before I get started, I feel this needs to be said:
Note: while I'm not a big fan of the absence of SMACs in Reach, there only 20?.20 stations for the entire planet. Think about it; in Halo 2, Earth had 300 orbital defense platforms, and the Covenant were [i]still able to punch a hole in the perimeter and descend upon Mombasa. Add the fact that a ship the size of the Long Night of Solace likely has shield strength to rival the likes of High Charity and the Unyielding Hierophant, and attacking it with a few SMAC ODPs seems like a lost cause. (Conventional tactics weren't going to work on this beast.)

Now imagine a 1/15th of that firepower needing to cover a planet 3/4 the size of Earth. Also, they never state how mobile SMAC stations are; for all we know, once they're in their geosynchronous orbit, that's about it. Despite that, the planet is on high alert after the discovery of Covenant forces; would it make sense to risk all of the planet's orbital defenses to attack one ship while enemy reinforcements are likely on their way? (Which they were) Remember, the Covenant don't do anything half-assed.


- The supercarrier is destroyed, but not long after, the main invasion force arrives.

- Major population centers such as New Alexandria are attacked. In orbit, the remainder of the UNSC fleet arrives, and the full scale Battle of Reach begins.

- Noble Six plummets to the surface, only surviving due to an orbital insertion pack, which can be seen if you pay close attention during the ending cutscene for Long Night of Solace. He aids UNSC units within the city, including clearing a path for Gunnery Sergeant Buck to escape, then links back up with the rest of Noble Team. Reach is falling, and the population is being evacuated.

7. Exodus
8. New Alexandria

- Kat is killed, and the remainder of Noble Team waits out the rest of the night in a fallout shelter below the Sinoviet Tower. Prior to this, they're ordered by Colonel Holland to destroy Sword Base.

August 30th

- Noble is picked up by a pelican searching for survivors in the now-destroyed city of New Alexandria. The remainder of the morning is spent en route to Castle Base.

9. The Package

- Halsey gives them Cortana's fragment, and departs for CASTLE Base, escorted by Jun. Carter, Emile, and Six head to Azoid, which is hours away from Sword Base, which has been destroyed. The pelican carrying Noble is attacked en route, and Carter is mortally wounded.

10. The Pillar of Autumn

- Carter, somehow managing to survive hostile airspace, but still as good as dead, sacrifices himself and crashes his pelican into a Covenant scarab, clearing the way for Emile and Noble Six.

The Pillar of Autumn:In this version, the Autumn never enters atmosphere. After sending SPARTAN-II Red Team groundside to defend the power generators for the ODPs, and sending Blue Team to Reach Gamma Station to destroy the UNSC Circumfrance's navigation data, the Autumn receives the hail from Dr. Halsey. Knowing Halsey means business, Keyes, sends seven pelicans groundside to rendezvous with Noble Team in Azoid. Three pelicans make it to Azoid, with four being shot down by Covenant air support. One pelican docks to retrieve the package from Six, and Emile is killed, because Emile is a hot head and didn't think to check his motion detector for another Zealot.

Six still has to cover the remaining pelicans' retreat, and mans the MAC gun. In a skirmish with Covenant dropships, one pelican is shot down, while Six and the remaining two clear out the rest. However, the Covenant cruiser appears, which the pelicans don't stand a chance against. Six still has to shoot down the cruiser, and the pelicans escape to orbit to link back up with the Pillar of Autumn. The Autumn retrieves the Master Chief and flees to "random" coordinates.

Captain Keyes does not join any of the pelicans that travel ground side, because he's the captain of a ship just sent on a desperate suicide mission into enemy space in an attempt to turn the course of the war and secure the fate of his species, and risking his life to be present during an extremely dangerous mission where he likely wouldn't even survive to make it to the objective, is -blam!- stupid.

Senior officers aren't sent into hot combat zones to do work that a dozen of expendable Marines can accomplish.

11. Lone Wolf

- Noble Six holds out for about an hour before getting raped by a dozen Zealots.


[Edited on 03.11.2011 12:45 PM PST]

  • 03.11.2011 12:31 PM PDT

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Q&A
Q: If the Covenant were reported to be on Reach prior to August 30th, then why wasn't Operation: RED FLAG scrapped?

A: As stated in the opening cutscene for Tip of the Spear, after defeating the Covenant at Sword Base, their ground forces, while still a formidable threat, were contained to Viery Territory.

In previous Halo fiction, it was not uncommon for ONI missions to be prioritized over those of conventional troops. Just looking at Halo: ODST, we see Dare's mission to acquire a Covenant Engineer take priority over The Squad's original one, with a massive Covenant capitol ship posing a direct threat!

It's not the first time it's happened to Spartans either: in The Fall of Reach (page 113), the Spartans continue their mission to the Damascus Testing Facility on Chi Ceti IV despite that their escort, the UNSC Commonwealth, was engaging a Covenant battleship. The Spartans ended up destroying the ship in the end, resulting in Sam's death, but the mission to acquire the MJOLNIR armor came first.

RED FLAG was easily one of the most important missions of the war, so while the UNSC Army handled the Covenant advance force, those involved in RED FLAG went about their business.

Q: Why would Dr. Halsey still perform John and Cortana's field test with Covenant on the ground? And why would Ackerson go to the lengths he did with the Covenant on his doorstep?

A: As said before, RED FLAG was some important -blam!-, and Cortana was the key to the success of the mission. At 0600 on August 29th, the test was performed, and the situation with the Covenant on Reach was "contained." The assimilation of Cortana with John was vital, and Halsey had to know it would work.

As for Ackerson, his status as a complete bastard is only reinforced by the Covenant's presence on Reach.

Q: What's with Halsey jumping back and forth from Sword to Castle Base?

On page 229 of TFoR, at least in my copy, it lists Halsey's location (her office) as being in "Omega Wing - Section Three Secure Facility."

Sounds a lot like Sword Base to me; in fact, I can't even find Castle Base being mentioned in that section of the book.

Q: Why does Halsey bother doing/saying any of the things she does/says in Ghosts of Onyx is she had already met Noble Team?

A: It says in Halsey's Journal that she knew Noble were Spartans, just not hers. It could have been the second class of Spartan-IIs that was planned, or a competing program. I believe Halsey didn't find out about Ackerson acquiring files on her S-IIs until First Strike, well after Reach fell.

Ghosts of Onyx only served to confirm her suspicions about the SPARTAN-III program.

[Edited on 03.11.2011 3:55 PM PST]

  • 03.11.2011 12:32 PM PDT

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Seems fairly logical to me. The events of Halo didn't take that long either if I remember correctly.

Reach's campaign always felt like just a few days anyway.

  • 03.11.2011 12:39 PM PDT

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Oh my God, I inspired a thread :D

  • 03.11.2011 12:47 PM PDT
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I like this, just one question, does Halsey ever meet with Noble team in your timeline?

  • 03.11.2011 12:54 PM PDT

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Posted by: mneo
I like this, just one question, does Halsey ever meet with Noble team in your timeline?
Yes. While Halsey didn't know about the S-IIIs (In the Legendary Edition journal she mentions they may be class 2 S-IIs), I doubt she would have time to ask questions in 3 days while the planet is falling.

  • 03.11.2011 12:58 PM PDT

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Posted by: Spartan 104 S2AM
Seems fairly logical to me. The events of Halo didn't take that long either if I remember correctly.
You are correct sir.
September 19: Pillar of Autumn, Halo, Truth and Reconciliation
September 20: The Silent Cartographer, Assault of the Control Room
September 21: 343 Guilty Spark, the Library, Two Betrayals, Keyes
September 22: The Maw

  • 03.11.2011 1:00 PM PDT

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Finally someone who wants to do something constuctive abut Reach instead of complain about it. Myself and a few others (Agustus,kippa etc.) started a project a while back for fan made explanations/retcons in order to merge the stories of both the game and novel together as coherently as possible. Our explanation for the early arrival of the Zealots and corvettes was identical to yours. Great minds think alike ;).We also had an explanation as to how the PoA was on Reach without altering any of its part in the battle described in the novel and allowing it to be drydocked too.

After Action Report of UNSC Pillar of Autumn
Battle of Reach
August 30 2552

0558-0616

Pillar of Autumn launches Spartan teams Blue and Red on their respective missions.

Engages and destroys three Covenant ships at Reach Station Gamma as well as the Covenant "sniper" capital ship.

0637

Blue Team return to PoA

0647

PoA prepares to leave Reach. Arrival of UNSC battlegroup at Reach. Orders to regroup and buy time for evacuations.

1547

Priority transmission received. Orders: Primary Objective: Land at Aszod shipyards. Pick up tier 1 asset. (Cortana's updated other half)

Secondary Orders: Evacuate UNSC personnel.

1652

Captain Keyes picks up package. PoA flees Reach.


OK, now to clarify the details in this explanation. Our fan-made retcons begin at 0647. Everything up until this point is per The Fall of Reach. However, instead of leaving Reach and jumping off to Halo at this time, another UNSC battlegroup arrives in-system. In the opening cutscene of Long Night of Solace Dot explains that 60% of the UNSC fleet were en route and the first battlegroup would arrive in 48 hours. This is obviously the case as the ships are arriving from different systems, some being further away than others. This explains why this last battlegroup were so late arriving i.e farthest away at the time of recall. FleetCom order all remaining ships to regroup and reinforce orbital defences, buying time for the still ongoing evacuation process.

Cpt. Keyes later receives orders from Fleetcom High Command/ONI Section 3 to pick up a vital update for Cortana. This works much the same way Noble Team were snatched up for the delivery: "You belong to ONI now". Orders are orders.

The Pillar of Autumn lands at Aszod shipyards, where a huge evacuation process is taking place as the Covenant have destroyed all other evac points on the continent. (Dot states this) After collecting Cortana(2), the PoA flees Reach making a "random" jump to Halo.

  • 03.11.2011 1:08 PM PDT

Very nice a logical retcons

  • 03.11.2011 2:00 PM PDT

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Posted by: JADE27
Very nice a logical retcons
I helped :P

  • 03.11.2011 2:06 PM PDT

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I think the last cutscene should still have shown the Autumn jumping. We could have seen the Pelican ascend, and then see the ship jump. Seeing the Autumn was just mesmerizing, even if it broke canon.

  • 03.11.2011 2:35 PM PDT
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imo, there shoulda been another (real) level after POA, and the POA (level) would be named differently. Wouldn't it be cool to return to the space environment in the end, except this time reach is glassed? It would really emphasize on the fact that reach was glassed, and it was an actual large scale battle. But it would also satisfy those who wanted more of the space portion.

And canonically, it woulda fit much better into canon, as POA was never nor could it ever be on land.

As an ending, because Halo reach is mostly about (or at least should) the fall of reach, and I'd rather die seeing reach itself set up in flames than to die on land, and not see much. It feels much more like defeat, and failure.

  • 03.11.2011 2:47 PM PDT

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  • 03.11.2011 3:56 PM PDT
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Posted by: Sparty Boy 117
imo, there shoulda been another (real) level after POA, and the POA (level) would be named differently. Wouldn't it be cool to return to the space environment in the end, except this time reach is glassed? It would really emphasize on the fact that reach was glassed, and it was an actual large scale battle. But it would also satisfy those who wanted more of the space portion.

And canonically, it woulda fit much better into canon, as POA was never nor could it ever be on land.

As an ending, because Halo reach is mostly about (or at least should) the fall of reach, and I'd rather die seeing reach itself set up in flames than to die on land, and not see much. It feels much more like defeat, and failure.

I Agree, actually I have always thought that LNoS should have been the last mission of the game with N6 delivering Cortana to the PoA in space.

  • 03.11.2011 7:00 PM PDT

My preference is this:

When it was discovered that reach was being attacked but such a relatively small force, the UNSC decided to, rather than reinforce the planet, to send all their mac stations to the other side of the planet, and to send their fleet away.

When the covenant attacked with just one ship, as deadly as it may have been, they did not want the covenant to call for reincforcements, which would imply an entire planet burning fleet. So they made reach seem like a semi-defenseless colony so the covenant would hopefully feel no need to reinforce their forces.

As such, they needed a way to destroy the ship without the covenant getting a chance to reply and call for reinforcements. To this end they use noble team. The plan being to plant a bomb on a corvette, and when it goes to refuel with the mothership, boom. The ship would be desintegrated before they have a chance to call for backup.

But halsey being smart, realizes that it is only a matter of time before the covenant return to investigate reach, so they are all living on borrowed time. The covenant WILL return, and they will destroy the planet.

To this end she devises operation red flag. The intention being to capture a prophet and use it as a hostage to end the war, and hopefully causing a ceasefire before reach is even attacked and therefore saving earth/humanity in the process.

But little do they know that the covenant, having discovered the artifact near sword base weeks earlier, already have a fleet en route to reach. Just as the S-IIs are about to head deep into covenant territory aboard the POA, the covenant fleet attacks on august 15th/

word

[Edited on 03.12.2011 4:34 AM PST]

  • 03.12.2011 4:30 AM PDT
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The only problem I can see is the transition from LNoS to Exodus.

In the current Reach, Six falls to the planet with a re-entry pack and spends two weeks getting from his random-drop-point to the Evac site in New Alexandria.

HOWEVER

In this "proposed Reach", he makes the transition from LNoS to Exodus in less than a day.
This means that he either has to fall to the planet's surface with pinpoint accuracy (unlikely), or travel across Reach's terrain at Superman-esque speed (impossible).
Aside from that, I see it working.

  • 03.12.2011 4:49 AM PDT

2 weeks? I'm pretty sure it's 2 days. Or 4...

  • 03.12.2011 5:47 AM PDT
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Posted by: Wazooty
2 weeks? I'm pretty sure it's 2 days. Or 4...
In all honesty, since I can't rely on my crappy memory, I'm borrowing that one from another thread. Apologies if it's wrong.

  • 03.12.2011 5:51 AM PDT

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Posted by: ZedFish could have just been chance that he landed near New Alexandria, couldn't it have been?
Or perhaps we have a new mission included between LNoS and Exodus, where 6 jacks a banshee and makes his way there.

[Edited on 03.12.2011 5:54 AM PST]

  • 03.12.2011 5:53 AM PDT
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Posted by: MegaMuffin16
Posted by: ZedFish could have just been chance that he landed near New Alexandria, couldn't it have been?
Or perhaps we have a new mission included between LNoS and Exodus, where 6 jacks a banshee and makes his way there.
It seems a little convenient to be able to land *near* a city on a planet bigger than Earth, but the Banshee idea makes sense.

  • 03.12.2011 6:18 AM PDT

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Posted by: ZedFish
It seems a little convenient to be able to land *near* a city on a planet bigger than Earth, but the Banshee idea makes sense.
Reach is bigger than Earth? Damn I need to look that up...
Regardless, I think a night mission where you take a Banshee would be cool. (And finally, we get another Banshee mission. I love them in CE/2/ODST) And then perhaps at the end of it, a Phantom or something shoots down the Banshee and 6 jumps out, and walks (runs) down a highway littered with abandoned cars to reach where Exodus begins.

  • 03.12.2011 7:07 AM PDT