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"Sometimes life gives you lemons, and then you have to say 'f**k the lemons' and bail."
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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]