- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Eh... A Covenant said that, but I'm not sure what is so shocking about that.
The fourth comic took place during the beginning of Halo 2 when Earth is first hit by the 15 capital ships (it is confirmed THEY were looking for the Ark, that's why they didn't expect humans to be there, so that alone tells us the Ark is on Earth in some shape or form).
A Covenant I believe did say "Secure the Ark", but humans at this point didn't have a clue what the Ark was (Well, ONI may have, we don't know the answer to that). But I don't think anything is new in the fact of a covenant saying "secure the ark". We discovered a long time ago that's why the covenant fleet that small even came to Earth, Regret was looking for the Ark - Not the human race. (That was all hinted at within 10 minutes of playing Halo 2 "The fleet that destroyed reach was 50 times that size")
Anywho, I don't really understand what you're trying to get at - but do know that the fourth comic takes place during the Regret incident at the beginning of Halo 2 and only shows mainly a few brief moments of covenant and civilians fleeing when the scarabs and covenant ground forces landed. Unfortunately, nothing new there. Like I said, we've known for a long time the 15 ships that hit Earth at the beginning of Halo 2 were not there to wipe us out, they didn't even know humans would be around the Ark - Let alone the ark be on our homeworld. They wanted the Ark, not the human race. That's why they lost, that's why they came so unprepared. The attack at the END of Halo 2 was a totally different story, that was an invasion to take Earth. They can't GLASS it (bombard it, like they did Reach) because they can't destroy the Ark. But it's a much larger assault proper for a homeworld and without some kind of intervention, based on Reach being pwned and being the human races primary military planet, we'd lose.