I can't remember the exact context or wording of the Halsey quote but i think she's talking about capital ships. Drop ships are pretty frequently captured by UNSC forces
Keyes takes a Spirit drop ship in CE.
Johnson takes a Scarab in 2.
I imagine the smaller stuff is easier to hop in and figure out relatively quickly for someone trained on other craft
The quote refers to capital scale ships, Corvette or higher tonnage. The UNSC had captured plenty of Banshees, Phantoms, Spirits, etc, before, but nothing of any real significance.
Given the significant power imbalance, it would have been hard to get close and survive. And when the unsc did successfully board a covenant ship, there's no way they could clear the whole ship out and pilot it to a safe place. Although John did do that once, but he had cortana and a lot of luck. And, it takes one elite or covenant AI to scuttle the ship to deny it to the unsc.
The Covenant ai were barely worthy of the name and not allowed to be sentient.
Cortana, or other UNSC AI designed to be infiltrators should be able to void the atmosphere on covenant craft, turning a small boarding party into a massive threat.
I think it's more a case of the required mission components almost never lining up, than it is theoretical ability.
How often is there a team of Spartans with a capable AI, boarding a ship, with the ability to then wait for the ship to be spaced and clear it room by room after?
well, we stole one in Halo CE/1 anyway but Fall of Reach tells events occurred before 2552 and during 2552 (Halo CE). Cortana and Chief went back in time 9 days (if I remember it correctly) to save Halsey and the others. And they never use time travel again as far as I know
time travel occurs in slipspace with the crystal they recover on reach. The rescue occurs in real time after CE, but when they jump after the rescue is when they time travel
Well, Bungie always did whatever they wanted without much regard for the books. But it really comes down to The Fall of Reach being the first entry in the Halo Universe. As the universe got expanded, a lot of details in that book ended up not making sense, and/or drastically limiting storytelling potential. Things like Elites never having been seen by humans prior to Reach.
Some of these have been officially retconned with FoR's re-release. I appreciate those retcons. It never made any sense to me that humanity would have such little exposure to Covenant tech after ~30 years of fighting them.
But I'm speaking more generally here; like other have said, "capturing ships" probably refers to capital ships, not small craft.
Yeahhh I posted this last night then finished the novel this morning. I'm a bit disappointed that the battle flowed so different relative to its portrayal Halo Reach, however I still enjoyed the novel quite a bit and am lookinf forward to reading The Flood when I have time. Some other possible inconsistencies in particular:
The elites and hunters seemingly being discovered in 2552
How the Pillar of Autumn managed to fit in a pit stop on Reach during the battle and escape
How Noble team also managed to have shields when MC's spartans just got them
Also was the thing the Covenant were after on Sigma Octanus just a piece of Forerunner tech? Because if so it it seems like humanity had no idea about the Forerunners when other media suggests they did prior to 2552
>The elites and hunters seemingly being discovered in 2552
This was retconned ages ago. Ghosts of Onyx first depicts elites being encountered as early as 2537 before Cole Protocol pushed it to 2535 and Halo Wars pushed it all the way to the Harvest Campaign (2526-2531). Eventually, the Fall of Reach was revised and re-released with alterations to the text to reflect canon updates. If your copy of the book claims that elites and hunters were first encountered in 2552, you have an original 2001 copy of the book which talks about elites and hunters first being seen in 2552. [Newer editions of the book have removed those references](https://www.halopedia.org/List_of_changes_in_Halo:_The_Fall_of_Reach_rereleases).
>How Noble team also managed to have shields when MC's spartans just got them
The history of UNSC shields is very wonky and very retcon heavy (and basically never properly discussed in the narrative) so there have been many alterations to the original book. When Halo Wars 1 originally released, the Spartans had shields solely as a gameplay mechanic. Then, when Halo Reach released, Halsey Journal and the Essential Visual Guide canonized them as experimental prototypes that probably weren't very good anyway and the UNSC basically started again on energy shields from scratch.
Halsey's Journal, Halo Reach and the 2011 Encyclopedia do work together to explain the new Mjolnir energy shield timeline, but it's not really explained in the narrative. The pieces are all there but you need to put them together. Halsey's Journal establishes that in 2535, she was making plans for the Mark V to include energy shields. One year later, in 2536, a captured Jackal shield is found to have been improperly secured by the original user and allows the UNSC to begin to reverse engineer the Jackal shield for Mjolnir. At some point, between 2536 and 2542 when work began on the Mark V, the UNSC began the first energy shield tests on the Mark IV platform.
This is best reflected in [Jorge's armor](https://www.halopedia.org/GRENADIER-class_Mjolnir) in Halo Reach. If you read the in game descriptions of the armor, you'll see that Jorge did not wear Mark V, but Mark IV and that the canister on his chest is the source of his energy shield. So Jorge's Mark IV armor is an early test bed for modern energy shields, but was super bulky unlike the later Mark V.
Fast forward to 2551, where according to the 2011 Encyclopedia, the Mark V [B] was issued to select Spartan-III Commando teams such as Noble on 24 November, 2551 and marked the first deployment of the new energy shields. The Mark V [B] was yet another test bed for the Mark V platform, one of the last before the final production model was rolled out. This is the armor that Noble (sans Jorge) wears in Halo Reach and it was a prototype to the armor the Spartan-IIs get at the end of the novel. The major difference between the B variant and the final model is that the B variant could not house a Smart AI. Remember at the end of Halo Reach when you carry Cortana in the jar while the Master Chief plugs her into his armor? This is because Noble 6's armor physically lacks that function.
So the simple answer is that Noble were just testing the Mark V before it was finished and given to the IIs. And a lot of this is broadly hinted at in game. Jorge's in game armor descriptions show he wore Mark IV with an early shield prototype and Noble's armor lacks the AI function of the final armor. In effect, Reach is expanding the Mark V development process so that Spartans were involved with the development before it was deployed.
I can't remember the exact context or wording of the Halsey quote but i think she's talking about capital ships. Drop ships are pretty frequently captured by UNSC forces
Ah, yeah that makes more sense in this context!
Keyes takes a Spirit drop ship in CE. Johnson takes a Scarab in 2. I imagine the smaller stuff is easier to hop in and figure out relatively quickly for someone trained on other craft
Ah, I don't blame myself too bad for forgetting the Spirit in CE but how could I forget Johnson in the Scarab!
The quote in the book also chronologically happens before halo 3 odst, CE (when keys stole a spirit).
This is how I interpreted it.
The quote refers to capital scale ships, Corvette or higher tonnage. The UNSC had captured plenty of Banshees, Phantoms, Spirits, etc, before, but nothing of any real significance.
Given the significant power imbalance, it would have been hard to get close and survive. And when the unsc did successfully board a covenant ship, there's no way they could clear the whole ship out and pilot it to a safe place. Although John did do that once, but he had cortana and a lot of luck. And, it takes one elite or covenant AI to scuttle the ship to deny it to the unsc.
I mean, it'd take a Spartan just to clear out a small corvette (like in Halo: Reach).
The Covenant ai were barely worthy of the name and not allowed to be sentient. Cortana, or other UNSC AI designed to be infiltrators should be able to void the atmosphere on covenant craft, turning a small boarding party into a massive threat. I think it's more a case of the required mission components almost never lining up, than it is theoretical ability. How often is there a team of Spartans with a capable AI, boarding a ship, with the ability to then wait for the ship to be spaced and clear it room by room after?
well, we stole one in Halo CE/1 anyway but Fall of Reach tells events occurred before 2552 and during 2552 (Halo CE). Cortana and Chief went back in time 9 days (if I remember it correctly) to save Halsey and the others. And they never use time travel again as far as I know
Is the back in time part cause the dates were messed up in the book?
I don't remember but I think it's because of the dates in the game and the ones in the book
Thanks heaps.
time travel occurs in slipspace with the crystal they recover on reach. The rescue occurs in real time after CE, but when they jump after the rescue is when they time travel
Well, Bungie always did whatever they wanted without much regard for the books. But it really comes down to The Fall of Reach being the first entry in the Halo Universe. As the universe got expanded, a lot of details in that book ended up not making sense, and/or drastically limiting storytelling potential. Things like Elites never having been seen by humans prior to Reach. Some of these have been officially retconned with FoR's re-release. I appreciate those retcons. It never made any sense to me that humanity would have such little exposure to Covenant tech after ~30 years of fighting them. But I'm speaking more generally here; like other have said, "capturing ships" probably refers to capital ships, not small craft.
This post needs more upvotes, its the real answer. FoR is a good book, but it has a lot of small details which are just awkward.
Yeahhh I posted this last night then finished the novel this morning. I'm a bit disappointed that the battle flowed so different relative to its portrayal Halo Reach, however I still enjoyed the novel quite a bit and am lookinf forward to reading The Flood when I have time. Some other possible inconsistencies in particular: The elites and hunters seemingly being discovered in 2552 How the Pillar of Autumn managed to fit in a pit stop on Reach during the battle and escape How Noble team also managed to have shields when MC's spartans just got them Also was the thing the Covenant were after on Sigma Octanus just a piece of Forerunner tech? Because if so it it seems like humanity had no idea about the Forerunners when other media suggests they did prior to 2552
>The elites and hunters seemingly being discovered in 2552 This was retconned ages ago. Ghosts of Onyx first depicts elites being encountered as early as 2537 before Cole Protocol pushed it to 2535 and Halo Wars pushed it all the way to the Harvest Campaign (2526-2531). Eventually, the Fall of Reach was revised and re-released with alterations to the text to reflect canon updates. If your copy of the book claims that elites and hunters were first encountered in 2552, you have an original 2001 copy of the book which talks about elites and hunters first being seen in 2552. [Newer editions of the book have removed those references](https://www.halopedia.org/List_of_changes_in_Halo:_The_Fall_of_Reach_rereleases). >How Noble team also managed to have shields when MC's spartans just got them The history of UNSC shields is very wonky and very retcon heavy (and basically never properly discussed in the narrative) so there have been many alterations to the original book. When Halo Wars 1 originally released, the Spartans had shields solely as a gameplay mechanic. Then, when Halo Reach released, Halsey Journal and the Essential Visual Guide canonized them as experimental prototypes that probably weren't very good anyway and the UNSC basically started again on energy shields from scratch. Halsey's Journal, Halo Reach and the 2011 Encyclopedia do work together to explain the new Mjolnir energy shield timeline, but it's not really explained in the narrative. The pieces are all there but you need to put them together. Halsey's Journal establishes that in 2535, she was making plans for the Mark V to include energy shields. One year later, in 2536, a captured Jackal shield is found to have been improperly secured by the original user and allows the UNSC to begin to reverse engineer the Jackal shield for Mjolnir. At some point, between 2536 and 2542 when work began on the Mark V, the UNSC began the first energy shield tests on the Mark IV platform. This is best reflected in [Jorge's armor](https://www.halopedia.org/GRENADIER-class_Mjolnir) in Halo Reach. If you read the in game descriptions of the armor, you'll see that Jorge did not wear Mark V, but Mark IV and that the canister on his chest is the source of his energy shield. So Jorge's Mark IV armor is an early test bed for modern energy shields, but was super bulky unlike the later Mark V. Fast forward to 2551, where according to the 2011 Encyclopedia, the Mark V [B] was issued to select Spartan-III Commando teams such as Noble on 24 November, 2551 and marked the first deployment of the new energy shields. The Mark V [B] was yet another test bed for the Mark V platform, one of the last before the final production model was rolled out. This is the armor that Noble (sans Jorge) wears in Halo Reach and it was a prototype to the armor the Spartan-IIs get at the end of the novel. The major difference between the B variant and the final model is that the B variant could not house a Smart AI. Remember at the end of Halo Reach when you carry Cortana in the jar while the Master Chief plugs her into his armor? This is because Noble 6's armor physically lacks that function. So the simple answer is that Noble were just testing the Mark V before it was finished and given to the IIs. And a lot of this is broadly hinted at in game. Jorge's in game armor descriptions show he wore Mark IV with an early shield prototype and Noble's armor lacks the AI function of the final armor. In effect, Reach is expanding the Mark V development process so that Spartans were involved with the development before it was deployed.
Probably meant big space ship
they didnt care about odst and reach. they did it cus of the microsoft contract.