So they really want us to belive that keyes, halsey, and the rest of the S-IIs were COMPLETELY unaware that the "other side" of reach was being burnt to the damned ground?
Completely stupid way to justify it.
What about Jun saying "Gauntlet red and echo teams". Bungie wouldn't have Jun say red team unless he meant the spartan-II red team. They know it would just annoy and confuse the fans to mean otherwise. That happens on august 24 (I think).
What about auntie dot saying "60% of the UNSC fleet is en route to reach" on August 14th? 60 percent of the ENTIRE FLEET. And 343 wants us to believe that halsey and keyes and the spartans were completely unaware of what was happening?
Here's an idea, retcon the date the invasion happened in TFOR. Change it to the 14th. Make it so red flag was ABOUT to go forth on the 14th, when the full covenant fleet showed up, and it was abandoned on that same day to defend Reach, just like in the book, but a different day.
Then extend (fill in, etc) the events in TFOR to happen over the two week period that H:R has, ENDING on the 30th. That version kicks the hell out of the bullcrap they just told us.
Make it so red flag was being prepared soon after the covenant showed up on Reach (late july). The admiralty realizes that the covenant have found Reach. Even though it's a small force, sooner or later a fleet will come to destroy it (they believe that pulling back reaches major defenses will also delay the onset of a REAL fleet since the covenant see it as no real threat), the situation is extremely desperate; there's little choice but to go through with RED FLAG. On Aug 14th, the spartan-IIs were gathered aboard the POA, preparing to go on the op, when the ENTIRE fleet of particular justice shows up.
Their justification for pulling their forces back still works. The mac cannons, the fleet, etc was pulled back to try and lull the covenant in. But what we did not anticipate was their entire fleet showing up so soon; as we didn't know what the covenant were TRULY after (there's a REASON sword base was one of the first places they scouted). The covenant knew as soon as they discovered sword base that Reach was their biggest target to date, not because of the human presence, but because of the forerunner artifact, which led to their ultimate goal, a sacred ring, hence its importance and hence their reasoning for sending such a massive fleet. Then halsey makes the connection: if a fleet of that magnitude showed up on the 14th, they had to start preparing weeks ago, but what could they have possibly known about reach weeks ago that caused them to prepare the biggest fleet the UNSC had ever seen? The artifact under sword base - one of the first places they scouted in the game. Halsey, realizing what the covenant are truly after, begins to try to figure out why about the artifact is so important to them. The next two weeks she researches it and discovers it's a map to another location. She starts poking through oni's files detailing with covenant digging and so on. The earliest file she finds is the last log from the ship spirit of fire, 19 years ago. It details how they were chasing the covenant after they discovered a map of some sort on one of Harvests poles. It was the last report before the ship went MIA. In a great revelation Halsey begins to understand the covenants real purpose for the last 27 years, something the UNSC never fulled realized, is NOT solely the destruction of humanity: they've been searching for alien artifacts. It just so happens that they are all on human worlds, something that piques her interest. It is through that that she quantifies that the artifact that it leads to is "humanities last hope, in light of reaches fall", even though she doesn't know EXACTLY what the coordinates lead to. Given that all these artifacts in the files (including the red crystal from cote d'azur) were on human worlds, she makes the connection they were there for a reason, and that they are "A birthright from an ancient civilization."
Was it that hard? Really?
How friggin stupid do they take us for?
I swear I could make a better story than them.
For example:
Aug 14th-Not hours after LNOS is destroyed, the fleet of particular justice shows up in full force. The spartans aboard the POA are split into two groups. Blue team conducts a space operation to destroy a nav core (James dies, lindas "death" is retconned to happen later, but in a similar manner...keep reading). Red team heads to the surface to defend the planet. Retcon so instead of having as many spartan-IIs be initially killed and injured during the "ride" to the planets surface, more survive the fall and are instead hurt and killed during the 2 weeks of fighting.
Aug 14-29 - Blue team completes their mission and heads down to reaches surface to defend the planet. Spartan-II deployments, consisting of Red teams Alpha through Gamma and Blue team work on various operations across the planets surface over the time period, evacuating civilians, defending orbital generators, etc.
August 29 - All spartan-II deployments are ordered to fall back to the pillar of autumn, which is now docked at aszod shipbreaking yards. Having abandoned red flag, Keyes, following up on a lead given to him by his wife, has a new mission for the spartans to embark on.
August 30, later that day - Blue team is the first squad to make it to the POA, followed by noble team with Halseys package. John, Linda and what is left of noble team attempt to defend the platform, awaiting red teams arrival. As communications have been cut, their status is unknown. Covenant ships bearing bearing down on the POAs position mean they have to leave, whether red team is there or not. In the ensuing battle, Linda is "killed", followed by Emile. With covenant ships bearing down on the Autumn and only 2 spartans left, one of them makes the selfless decision to stay behind so the autumn can escape, and the other spartan can live to fight another day.
[Edited on 10.14.2011 11:02 AM PDT]