- PLUT0NIUM 235
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- Honorable Member
first, the power will be transferred like said above, using microwaves, its rather efficient now and Halo is 500 years in the future!
second, would guess the reactors would be enormous, since firing a 3,000 metric ton round at those sorts of velocities would require some massive massive current, perhaps its not viable to have that sort of generator in orbit, it would make the platform a potential bomb and hugely increase its size.
another thing is by having them ground-side the enemy have to go through the entire orbital defence system before having a shot at the reactors powering it, reactors mounted on the platforms themselves, one has a runaway and that is potentially a large segment of the defence system destroyed, damaged or shut down. also the generators could be extremely hardened ground-side, buried deep under the ground in well armoured bunkers, making them hard to target and nail from orbit. in Fall of Reach it never mentions whether the platform generators are on the surface, exposed or in hardened bunkers, just mentions the Covenant coming to 'take them out...', being exposed would mean they would likely send Seraphs and Banshees, not ground forces, which suggests they are not on the surface, though the transmitter (if obvious) would be a simple target!
Edit: also electromagnetic pulse, if it can occur where the defence platforms are is irrelevant, since its rather simple to make something resistant to that sort of thing, its not like these are 'civilian' stations, plus they would have to be hard radiation shielded due to the fact they are quite high orbit due to stellar radiation, cosmic radiation and what not, wouldn't be very good if a solar storm could take the entire defence system offline would it?
[Edited on 06.03.2011 4:44 AM PDT]