- spartan120
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I've noticed several people complaining about the quality of the content in the original 'The Fall of Reach' novel, authored by Eric Nylund, mainly regarding the title event, the fall of the military industrial planet, Reach.
More often than not, people are citing the battle, which supposedly lasted two hours, the sizes of the respective fleets, and the tactics used.
[The introduction of various elements of the Covenant species/hierarchy withheld, although I never had much of a problem with this at all as it added to the mystery and fear of how little we knew about the Covenant]
Please, if you have an issue with the original [not the 're-issued'] novel, point them out here, so that I can get the lowdown. If we can lay out the issues, perhaps they can be rectified with genuine logic, though I'm willing to concede to fair points :)
To address the issue of the length of the battle:
- The initial space engagement lasted two hours, yes, however, Reach fell over a period of roughly 23 days [The withdrawal of Ascendant Justice/Gettysburg from the system after retrieving the surviving members of Red Team, Vice Admiral Whitcomb, Doctor Halsey and the mysterious Forerunner Crystal] after the initial invasion fleet arrived. Evidence of this is found in the novel First Strike, granted there are time/date anomalies created by various encounters with alien [Forerunner] artifacts, not subject to the accepted laws of space and time.
It would be naive to assume that the amalgamated Red Team were the only survivors of the assault on the planet, and that they were also, the only element of survivors conducting a guerrilla campaign against the Covenant.
That the Covenant glassed the poles of the planet is a logical move, granted that most weather is driven from/by the poles of a planet with an atmosphere/gravity, similar to that of Earth.
-To address the tactics used by the Covenant fleet, to quote, 'Zerg Rushing' the planetary defences. If you have an issue with that, you must be stupid. If you outnumber an enemy force by several factors, its only logical to assume you will overrun/overwhelm their defences. Simple as it may be, it works, as proven by the fact that the primary defences for the planet fell with the initial invasion wave.
Again, please point out any discrepancies regarding the novel, with particular attention to contradictions with Halo Reach. I personally dislike Halo Reach from a story stand point, but I'm happy to discuss this further with the community :)
One rule in this thread:
Keep it clean.
Thanks,
~Ben.