- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Okay, this is getting difficult, as its going from real points to speculation, on both sides. BUT
Posted by: Jordan117
Let me just say that the Earth levels are more open than they seem at first glance. While the overall path is linear, you can fight through that path in a variety of ways. The back alleys of Old Mombasa turn back on themselves; the beach, highway, and bridge can be conquered in a number of ways (or skipped altogether); the Amphitheatre is essentially a wide open, multileveled park; the city's terrain is just as varied; even the Scarab can be blasted from the catwalks or be dealt with up close. All these choices and possibilities are multiplied on the higher difficulties, too. One of my favorite challenges is the beach area on Heroic.
Yes, but thats still the problem with the level, there is only one main path. Bungie makes the path you are to take painfully clear with convienient catwalks and roads, but only one set of them, meaning "go this way, not that way!". There ARE ways to deviate, of course, but not by more than a few feet, really, it just offers a different angle.
Also, guessing from the size and scale of the city's buildings, plus the efficiency of it's maglev system, I'd say that most citizens hardly need as many roads as we're used to today. Since most people would either live in their arcologies or take the mass transit route, it looks like the roads seen in the game are sufficient to serve that particular area.
I can't really argue that one, as it is all speculation, really. The best I could say here is "Well maybe they DON'T!" Which sounds stupid. They don't give you enough view of the city to have a true definitive answer here.
Now that I think of it, the entire city is more or less industrial, even the ritzier parts. I mean, just a few hundred feet from the landscaped Amphitheatre is the pipe-laden industrial canal. I think that the overarching feel of the city is practical and industrial, but this ugliness is masked at street level by shops and promenades, at at the largest scale by sleek architectural design. For instance, the large arcology structures connected by that skybridge/cable thing: at their based they splay out into glass-walled balconies with palm trees and colored lights, while the large-scale structure exhibits some measure of aesthetic design. Just like modern skyscrapers, but at a larger scale; they're people friendly at ground level, and are designed overall to form an interesting skyline.
Okay, you've got me there, what canal are you talking about? There is only one canal that I can remember, and it was a roadway. And yes, sky scrapers are built pretty but practical, but skyscrapers arent factories, either. Generally speaking, the term "industrial" refers to factories, which are anything but pretty, and neither are their areas. Factory workers are usually lower class income, and therefore don't get the pretty houses, and live in ugly cities, like the one shown in the preview.
Considering that the service and operation of the elevator, along with the handling and processing of the all the incoming and outgoing cargo, is the city's primary industrial function, it is almost necessary that the city's industrial facilities be crowded around the elevator. The arrangement of streets around the elevator support this: a modern-day map of Mombasa shows the area to be an orderly grid, but the New Mombasa map shows that the streets have been redesigned as circles surrounding and radiating out from the elevator. This strongly indicates the importance of that installation.
Yes, but factories do not sell their own products to the public, they sell them through distributors, who have to package and sell the products from their own offices. Things aren't taken off of the production line and sold immediately.
Also consider that other areas of the city seen in the game (take Liwitoni, the neighborhood Terminal is set in) take a different architectural style -- gleaming silver towers, rather than dark industrial monoliths. All this suggests that the areas seen in the game are what 26th century industrial zones looks like. Again, skyscrapers are office buildings. They don't use skyscrapers as factories, because the equipment for manufacturing goods is large, heavy, and makes a lot of waste, in terms of chemicals and smoke. A factory building is largely an open structure to vent fumes, skyscrapers cannot be open, because of the pressure difference. Also, large manufacturing units would likely collapse the floors and make the building implode, if they were high off the ground. If they were on the floor they noise and fumes would annoy everyone above it. Factories always have been, since the industrial revolution, to today, ugly things, stocky, with huge exhaust towers, not pretty, and not skyscrapers.
There's a difference between killing humans, and reducing whole sections of a city to rubble, which is what you seem to be looking for. Note that a few areas of the city exhibit small-scale damage (cracked windows, collapsed facades, fires, etc.) indicative of small-scale battles. Hell, the sky over New Mombasa is orange from the light of countless small fires. And another quote on a repeat point about the invasion of Sigma Octanus V
And the effects of such isolated battles are exactly what is seen in the game: some scattered rubble, a few fires, etc. Keep in mind that most of the population had evacuated by then, so there wasn't really anyone for the Covenant to kill.
Did you read tFoR? In the book, they invaded to find something (the stone with Earth co-ordinates, presumably Forerunner) and eliminated all human life within several hundred miles. They leveled parts of the city, the obliterated the military bases to a flat plain, and removed mountains in the process. The only parts of the city the Covies didn't blow the crap out of were those they were using as bases (Not many). They did a lot more than crack windows and start tiny fires, they removed buildings. Thats why I'm looking for the huge damage, thats what Covies do. According to canon, Covies have been observed going hand to hand, rather than grab an MA5b to save its life. They believe we are scum, and so is nearly ANYTHING we touch, so it must be obliterated. Hell, the Prophets described the humans as "Desecrating the ring, with their filthy footsteps" That isn't war that they are waging, its genocide. Much like the trailer shows. Yes, the game shows a bit of damage, but not as much as the Covenant would wreak in an invasion.
Yes, Earth was overcrowded -- in the past! Once Slipspace was discovered, the excess population moved offworld. This migration occured centuries before the game takes place, so any adverse effects of such overpopulation would have long since been erased. Yes, they did move people off of the Earth, but not that much, that would cost way more resources than is possible. Especially when, even before the UNSC had Covie problems, there were dozens of insurrections, pirates, and rebellions. Hell, they were so bad they had to make the SPARTANS. SPARTANS weren't built to fight aliens, they were built to kill rebels. And again, with the destruction of all of the UNSC's major offworld military bases and industrial zones (Harvest and Reach especially) They wouldn't be sparing room, for pretty. Just as the US had to do in WWII, other factories would be converted into weapons factories (including car factories and small metals factories), and WWII saw in increase in factories during its time. Why? We were fighting a militarily/technologically superior foe. The same is true with the Covenant, but times 90. You don't seem to realize, the gov't is officially in panic by the time Halo 2 takes place. Everywhere would've been factoried.
I enjoy this debate too, by the way. It just goes to show you how deep and complex the Halo backstory is, to Bungie's credit. PS -- if you want to read more about New Mombasa's history as deduced from information given in-game and elsewhere, check out my article in Halopedia: http://www.halopedia.org/index.php/New_MombasaAgreed.