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Subject: Data Drop 5 and using the Long Night for RED FLAG

Oops. I think I just lost your mind.

It would have been impossible.

To all the people that think Noble's mission to destroy the Long Night could be turned into a boarding operation, I ask what chance exactly two Spartans, cut off from UNSC support, have in boarding and holding a kilometres-long supercarrier.

It takes only those two men to light a fuse. But to capture the whole damn ship? The UNSC would need 10 times the firepower in Marathon-class cruisers to neuter the Long Night and its support contingent for long enough to capture it. Which they decidedly did not have.

That is all.

-----------------------------

EDIT:

OP here. What I am saying is that at the time that UPPERCUT was carried out, the UNSC on Reach did not have the sufficient personnel or equipment to capture the Long Night of Solace.
In several threads I have seen it suggested that ONI could simply repurpose Noble's mission to a capture. The case that I'm trying to make is that Reach at the time did not have the resources to capture the carrier. That's why uppercut was carried out. They had no nukes, only a few frigates, and no ODPs. That's why Kat had to get creative with UPPERCUT; the plan was patched together from what was available at the time: Sabres and a slipspace drive. If a more conventional option was available, it likely would have been used. If that more conventional option was available, it could likely be used to capture the Long Night. But it wasn't. Capture of the carrier at that time was simply not an option due to evident lack of resources.

And for those saying it could be captured with the addition of even a platoon of ODSTs, remember this.

There are likely still thousands to tens of thousands of Covies on the craft. They have no artillery or air support, but they have the advantage of numbers and supplies. The humans would have to bring everything with them, the Covenant have a resupply station that's outfitted for a month-long, planet-wide campaign. It would become an unwinnable attrition war on the Covenant's home turf.

The carrier would absolutely HAVE to be captured by highly unconventional means, like the capture of the Ascendant Justice. The difference is the Ascendant Justice was outfitted with about 5% of the personnel who were far less effective in combat, and it took Cortana to hack the covenant networks. I believe this had never been done before (hacking Covie ship), and there are few if any besides Cortana who could do it. Reach did not have Cortana available at this point; arguably she could have been pulled from Halsey and put on this mission, but I doubt her importance would warrant her repurposing for this, especially considering the chance of failure. She could only pull it off on the Ascendant Justice because the ship was near-empty in the first place, and a pitched battle inside the ship was unnecessary. Add that element and I doubt even Cortana could do it, which is why the logical solution was a dependable method of blowing the thing sky-high rather than risking everything on a gamble.

[Edited on 10.16.2011 8:41 AM PDT]

  • 10.14.2011 8:59 PM PDT

Welcome to bungie, you have no rights. play nice!
CLICK!

... Who says they wanted Noble team to do it?
Bip bap bam!

  • 10.14.2011 9:25 PM PDT

Oops. I think I just lost your mind.

Their resources were clearly very limited. They couldn't even nuke it. Remember that even their ability to destroy the carrier was Kat's idea. Before that, they were kinda screwed.

Also: who else?

[Edited on 10.14.2011 9:29 PM PDT]

  • 10.14.2011 9:29 PM PDT

Oops. I think I just lost your mind.

Right, the issue at the time was ONI's lack of an AI, HAlcyon-class Cruiser, and team of S-IIs. Hence Noble's destruction of the cruiser. Remember, it was Kat's idea to destroy it: before that the WAS NO PLAN. Everyone else was still thinking, and trying not to get fried. They couldn't even get a nuke, there were not a whole lot of options.

Mostly, I'm saying that they did not have time to use the Long Night in RED FLAG because it was too busy screwing them. The circumstances (Long Night's breaking cover, due to its counterattack to the destruction of one of the Viery spires) did not give the UNSC on the ground enough time to plan a capture mission. I realize this is the reason they're mad about it.

However, this thread is in response to some comments on Data Drop 5 discussions that "ONI should have called up Holland and repurposed the mission to a capture mission". This, given the circumstances and available resources, is implausible, as demonstrated.

  • 10.14.2011 9:48 PM PDT

Welcome to bungie, you have no rights. play nice!
CLICK!

Oh they most certainly could! It's pretty obvious if you sk me.

They were so trigger happy so they decided to use the slipspace bomb.

  • 10.14.2011 9:53 PM PDT

Oops. I think I just lost your mind.

Posted by: Spartan 100
Oh they most certainly could! It's pretty obvious if you sk me.

They were so trigger happy so they decided to use the slipspace bomb.


Could you explain how they could have captured the Long Night, given their resources and intelligence?

  • 10.14.2011 9:55 PM PDT

Welcome to bungie, you have no rights. play nice!
CLICK!

Not noble team...

  • 10.14.2011 10:11 PM PDT

Oops. I think I just lost your mind.

Right, but that only supports my point about the implausibility of capturing the Long Night for RED FLAG. You're just talking about it being impossible by Noble Team. Do you have any circumstances under which it WOULD be possible to capture the Long Night?

Also, I mean this in all 100% honesty, I want to know if I am missing something and there was a better option.

  • 10.14.2011 10:18 PM PDT

Cave Johnson here, we're done!

PS: If you are reading this comment while imagining my voice, don't panic. That's just a side effect of the testing.


Posted by: Irongam3r
Right, but that only supports my point about the implausibility of capturing the Long Night for RED FLAG. You're just talking about it being impossible by Noble Team. Do you have any circumstances under which it WOULD be possible to capture the Long Night?

Also, I mean this in all 100% honesty, I want to know if I am missing something and there was a better option.


At this point it's safe to assume that ONI had a plan. Simply because sacrificing a planet without having a plan is ridiculous, something that even an agency willing to sacrifice a planet would not be stupid enough to do.

But there may be reasons why Red Flag was never carried out with LNoS. And that may be because Specwar group 3 decided to unveil the cloak and force the hand of LNoS.

Let's say that SpecWar group 3 never found the jammer, that ONI had it's way and the LNoS's guard was down a tad (not a lot, just not at battle station ready given the fact that it hasn't revealed itself yet). To board the ship would take an immense amount of effort, but perhaps it sat comfortably on it's perch with it's defenses down.

Maybe a team could board it, The Halcyon Cruiser can take a heavy amount of punishment as said in the data drop, as well as reinforced in TFoR. So who's to say that the carrier will be able to shoot it down in time? The spartans had boarded a covenant cruiser through a mac round hole later on in TFoR, it's possible that this was the intended action to be taken by the PoA.

Maybe they would use an SMAC to graze it and damage it, giving the spartans a place of entrance, and drawing attention away from the PoA.

The intended result of Red Flag was to use surprise as the upper hand, and because of the actions of SpecWar group 3 and Noble Team, we will never know what they intended to do to board that ship. But I don't doubt that they wouldn't be capable of doing it.

If ONI was going to sacrifice a planet, they would have done so with a solid plan backing it up, not just draw attention and hope for the best. LNoS was the primary target, and Noble Team -blam!- it up.

  • 10.14.2011 10:47 PM PDT

"Where ere thou hast been, here or in yon world manifest? Canst thou tell what is, or what was, or what is to come? No thing shall last. Yet there are some things that will never change. History is written in blood, yet are battles really lost on the battlefield? Canst thou tell me where thou comest, and where thou goest, and what is, or what was, or what will be? For everything remains, AS IT NEVER WAS."

Posted by: fxnavarro
In fact, Noble Team was likely unaware of RED FLAG.

Noble Team - and a greater portion of the UNSC - was unaware of RED FLAG and/or the full extent of the plan.

As the OP posted the same thing on Waypoint, I'll post what I responded.

Posted by:Jack0fHearts87
Posted by:Irongam3r
It would have been impossible.

To all the people that think Noble's mission to destroy the Long Night could be turned into a boarding operation, I ask what chance exactly two Spartans, cut off from UNSC support, have in boarding and holding a kilometres-long supercarrier.

None. Try 25. That was the team for RED FLAG. If you read datadrop 5, the Long Night of Solace was deemed unusable for RED FLAG because SpecWar was too "trigger happy." And ONI can't very well scream "Wait, don't! We need that ship for this huge plot that we've been working on all Cloak and Dagger like!"


[Edited on 10.15.2011 12:15 AM PDT]

  • 10.14.2011 10:59 PM PDT

The tide is turning, brothers! Let us take our kingdom back!

How could anyone assume that it was NOBLE Team who ONI planned to use in order to steal a flagship?

That could have been ours if SpecWar wasn't so damn trigger happy.Assuming ONI wanted MC's team to board the flagship, then this statement here kills off the possibility that ONI was considering having NOBLE Team steal it.

  • 10.14.2011 11:48 PM PDT

"Where ere thou hast been, here or in yon world manifest? Canst thou tell what is, or what was, or what is to come? No thing shall last. Yet there are some things that will never change. History is written in blood, yet are battles really lost on the battlefield? Canst thou tell me where thou comest, and where thou goest, and what is, or what was, or what will be? For everything remains, AS IT NEVER WAS."

Posted by: Sigma617
But realistically, even if you had all the Spartan IIs it's still a goddamn 17 mile long spaceship. It's gonna take alot of firepower to kill all the foxtrots on that boat.

Twenty. Five. Spartan II's.

Read Stanforth's comments on John-117's service record.

  • 10.15.2011 12:14 AM PDT

Am I supposed to write something funny here?


Posted by: jack0fhearts
Posted by: Sigma617
But realistically, even if you had all the Spartan IIs it's still a goddamn 17 mile long spaceship. It's gonna take alot of firepower to kill all the foxtrots on that boat.

Twenty. Five. Spartan II's.

Read Stanforth's comments on John-117's service record.
There would be still thousands, if not millions of covies onboard.

  • 10.15.2011 3:01 AM PDT

By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.

Posted by: Irongam3r
Posted by: Spartan 100
Oh they most certainly could! It's pretty obvious if you sk me.

They were so trigger happy so they decided to use the slipspace bomb.


Could you explain how they could have captured the Long Night, given their resources and intelligence?


John, Johnson, Haverson, Locklear and Polaski managed to capture the Ascendant Justice (also a Supercarrier) by getting to the bridge and using the controls to remove the oxygen from occupied parts of the ship.

NOBLE could have easily captured the LNoS if they'd just put the Ardent Prayer on a refuelling track and surprised the Covenant (obviously not expecting humans to have captured their Corvette) and fought their way to the bridge where they'd repeat the actions of John.

Whilst Noble obviously had no idea about RED FLAG, it would have been better if Halsey had inducted them for the operation after ONI SWORD Base.

[Edited on 10.15.2011 3:27 AM PDT]

  • 10.15.2011 3:24 AM PDT

"Where ere thou hast been, here or in yon world manifest? Canst thou tell what is, or what was, or what is to come? No thing shall last. Yet there are some things that will never change. History is written in blood, yet are battles really lost on the battlefield? Canst thou tell me where thou comest, and where thou goest, and what is, or what was, or what will be? For everything remains, AS IT NEVER WAS."

Posted by: Gamer Whale

There would be still thousands, if not millions of covies onboard.

Stated by: Stanforth

Looking at his CSV en total, my first thought is that this is fabricated. His service record reads like a career composite of three full Tier-1/L5 ODST squads, back to back for two and a half decades.
Dear God, active in 207 ground engagements and those are just the ones that we're able to file on record. If I wasn't on line to approve his deployment for these, again and again, I wouldn't believe any of it.
And he's just one of the SPARTAN-II assets we'll have onboard, there's 25 of them being recalled for this op, all from a multitude of theaters, some even being pulled directly from combat.
If that doesn't scream last resort, I don't know what does.



[Edited on 10.15.2011 4:01 AM PDT]

  • 10.15.2011 4:01 AM PDT

Am I supposed to write something funny here?


Posted by: jack0fhearts
Posted by: Gamer Whale

There would be still thousands, if not millions of covies onboard.

Stated by: Stanforth

Looking at his CSV en total, my first thought is that this is fabricated. His service record reads like a career composite of three full Tier-1/L5 ODST squads, back to back for two and a half decades.
Dear God, active in 207 ground engagements and those are just the ones that we're able to file on record. If I wasn't on line to approve his deployment for these, again and again, I wouldn't believe any of it.
And he's just one of the SPARTAN-II assets we'll have onboard, there's 25 of them being recalled for this op, all from a multitude of theaters, some even being pulled directly from combat.
If that doesn't scream last resort, I don't know what does.

Well, okay, I guess they could pull ot off, unless they get stuck in one of the larger hangars. And airlock most them.

  • 10.15.2011 4:24 AM PDT

"Where ere thou hast been, here or in yon world manifest? Canst thou tell what is, or what was, or what is to come? No thing shall last. Yet there are some things that will never change. History is written in blood, yet are battles really lost on the battlefield? Canst thou tell me where thou comest, and where thou goest, and what is, or what was, or what will be? For everything remains, AS IT NEVER WAS."

Posted by: Gamer Whale
Well, okay, I guess they could pull ot off, unless they get stuck in one of the larger hangars. And airlock most them.

Even that wouldn't work. The MJOLNIR suits have air for 90 minutes, as well as a magnetic system on the boots, allowing a Spartan to remain secured in a zero-g environment.

  • 10.15.2011 4:35 AM PDT

Am I supposed to write something funny here?


Posted by: jack0fhearts
Posted by: Gamer Whale
Well, okay, I guess they could pull ot off, unless they get stuck in one of the larger hangars. And airlock most them.

Even that wouldn't work. The MJOLNIR suits have air for 90 minutes, as well as a magnetic system on the boots, allowing a Spartan to remain secured in a zero-g environment.
Actually I meant that Spartans airlock the covies (would leave "some" rangers though). And I'd say covies could lock the doors and remove the air, hoping to hold them for 1,5 hours...

  • 10.15.2011 4:51 AM PDT


Posted by: ajw34307
Posted by: Irongam3r
Posted by: Spartan 100
Oh they most certainly could! It's pretty obvious if you sk me.

They were so trigger happy so they decided to use the slipspace bomb.


Could you explain how they could have captured the Long Night, given their resources and intelligence?


John, Johnson, Haverson, Locklear and Polaski managed to capture the Ascendant Justice (also a Supercarrier) by getting to the bridge and using the controls to remove the oxygen from occupied parts of the ship.

NOBLE could have easily captured the LNoS if they'd just put the Ardent Prayer on a refuelling track and surprised the Covenant (obviously not expecting humans to have captured their Corvette) and fought their way to the bridge where they'd repeat the actions of John.

Whilst Noble obviously had no idea about RED FLAG, it would have been better if Halsey had inducted them for the operation after ONI SWORD Base.

VVho says Noble has enough understanding of covenant tech to do such an action?

Still, clearly, Noble team is composed of a bunch of idiots.

  • 10.15.2011 5:23 AM PDT

Cave Johnson here, we're done!

PS: If you are reading this comment while imagining my voice, don't panic. That's just a side effect of the testing.


Posted by: ChrisVN
VVho says Noble has enough understanding of covenant tech to do such an action?

Still, clearly, Noble team is composed of a bunch of idiots.


Well them being able to send the ship on the refueling track with the super carrier to deliver the bomb is one hint that they have enough understanding of covenant tech.


What makes you think Noble Team is composed of a bunch of idiots? They just took down a super carrier with no nukes, no mac cannons, and used only a frigate, it's slipspace drive, a pelican, and some sabres to kill one super carrier.

Seriously that's a tremendous feat regardless of whoever did it.

  • 10.15.2011 8:31 AM PDT


Posted by: tinyohyeah

Posted by: ChrisVN
VVho says Noble has enough understanding of covenant tech to do such an action?

Still, clearly, Noble team is composed of a bunch of idiots.


Well them being able to send the ship on the refueling track with the super carrier to deliver the bomb is one hint that they have enough understanding of covenant tech.


What makes you think Noble Team is composed of a bunch of idiots? They just took down a super carrier with no nukes, no mac cannons, and used only a frigate, it's slipspace drive, a pelican, and some sabres to kill one super carrier.

Seriously that's a tremendous feat regardless of whoever did it.

MC boarded a super carrier vvith a bunch of marines vvith even less resources at hand.

At LNOS, everything vvas lost (as far as I knovv) except for 1 guy (Noble 6).

[Edited on 10.15.2011 9:08 AM PDT]

  • 10.15.2011 9:07 AM PDT

Posted by:ScubaToaster
Posted by: HipiO7
This man, this man right here put it so eloquently that I actually cancelled my own 2000+ word long post.
/slow clap for respect


:)
The person who said participating is important, not winning, obviously never won anything.

ODST's captured Truth and Reconciliation themselfs.

Fred, Will and Linda captured a Covenant Cruiser.

Master Chief captured Ascendant Justice.

Obviously Six and Jorge would have had the rest of Noble Team boarding the Corvette when the Pelican dropped off the bomb along with any number of ODST's. They could have perfectly boarded the Long Night from the Corvette when it docked to refuel and kill the crew in any number of ways.

And I'd assume that once the boarding team eliminated external defenses, all off the Spartan II's in RED FLAG would board and absolutely exterminate anything that would twitch on that ship.

  • 10.15.2011 10:08 AM PDT

Am I supposed to write something funny here?


Posted by: HipiO7
ODST's captured Truth and Reconciliation themselfs.

Fred, Will and Linda captured a Covenant Cruiser.

Master Chief captured Ascendant Justice.

Obviously Six and Jorge would have had the rest of Noble Team boarding the Corvette when the Pelican dropped off the bomb along with any number of ODST's. They could have perfectly boarded the Long Night from the Corvette when it docked to refuel and kill the crew in any number of ways.

And I'd assume that once the boarding team eliminated external defenses, all off the Spartan II's in RED FLAG would board and absolutely exterminate anything that would twitch on that ship.
Has to be remembered that a 28 km ship has larger crew than 1,5 or 5 km ship. And unless they go very trigger happy with the corvette, they're facing a hangarful of enemies right away.

  • 10.15.2011 10:22 AM PDT

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