By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.
Posted by: Tyrant122312
First thing is first. The Prophet of Regret. Why did he make a pit stop at Earth before traveling to Installation 05? Even though the portal to the Ark was there, why not stick around? Which leads me to my next question. If all of the Halo rings could be fired from the Ark, why feel the need to travel to Installation 05 at all?
IIRC, Regret discovered Earth's location in Halo: First Strike and sent his fleet there. many of the ships were destroyed and Regret's was the only one to actually make it through Earth's orbital defenses.
How he discovered Installation 05, I can't remember. I'm not sure that was even explained, however I don't think he knew that the Ark was there, it was when his ship made the jump that the slipspace rupture revealed its existance.
Later in the story, Tartarus was sent to reunite the index with 05's core. Again, if Truth was heading to Earth for the purpose of traveling to the Ark, wouldn't it have made more sense to keep the Chieftain of the Brutes with him? Why send him down to the control room if he was already planning on activating all of the Halo rings?
Truth had his own personal army of Brutes so Tartarus wasn't really needed, and the Forerunner Keyship wasn't even close to being scratched by humanity's dwindling defenses. If Tartarus failed, Truth would have a backup plan.
Next, Cortana stayed behind on High Charity in case Tartarus used the index, which he did. At this point, the Flood were just beginning to invade High Charity, so the Gravemind's corruption had really yet to set in. Why didn't she detonate In Amber Clad's reactors to destroy the city and the ring? Seems like they came awfully close to setting them off for her to stand by and do nothing.
I believe Hipi07 gave a good answer for this.
And finally, when did we learn to understand the Covenant? Even Cortana had to translate Regret's wordings to the Chief in the mission "Regret", yet the human soldiers like Miranda and Johnson can understand Tartarus and the Arbiter.
In Halo: First Strike, Cortana discovers a means to translating the Covenant language and installs it into translators. Miranda, Johnson and Hood would all have neural implants so they could have the software downloaded too.