BigBossBalrog Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 6 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said: That said, Andor just barely missing its chance to avoid getting delayed due to that crybaby WGA snitch is pretty much the only thing to come out of this strike that I didn’t like. But ah well. I take solace knowing that said crybaby is in for a bad and unrewarding next few months. Enjoy flipping burgers, hack. They'll probably just scream "SCABS" when they are replaced; and get drowned out by the sizzling grill and oil I'm hopeful for the state of the industry in the next couple of years; real great time for fresh blood, foreign and indie creators! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Good Doctor Posted July 21, 2023 Author Share Posted July 21, 2023 6 hours ago, Celan said: I had to go with Nature godlike since there wasn't an Ice godlike. Ice godlikes would’ve been cool. They might even exist, since we’ve seen unplayable variants like Pallegina. * Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Good Doctor Posted July 21, 2023 Author Share Posted July 21, 2023 18 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said: They'll probably just scream "SCABS" when they are replaced; and get drowned out by the sizzling grill and oil I'm hopeful for the state of the industry in the next couple of years; real great time for fresh blood, foreign and indie creators! I think so too. Related tangent, I have a really hard time thinking about any of these Hollywood unions without this coming to mind : 2 * Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCzarsHussar Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 Replaying Halo 3 (on legendary ) it's weird how I forgot just how big of a retcon Halo 4 onward was in regards to the UNSC. Halo 3 made it very clear that Earth was the last stand, to rebuild so massively in a few years is staggering Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Good Doctor Posted July 21, 2023 Author Share Posted July 21, 2023 5 hours ago, TheCzarsHussar said: Replaying Halo 3 (on legendary ) it's weird how I forgot just how big of a retcon Halo 4 onward was in regards to the UNSC. Halo 3 made it very clear that Earth was the last stand, to rebuild so massively in a few years is staggering Yeah, considering how almost all the characters are new anyway, I’m really not sure why they didn’t just go ahead and set Halo 4 a couple decades later rather than just a few years. Not that this even begins to address my main issues with that game. * Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBossBalrog Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 5 hours ago, TheCzarsHussar said: Replaying Halo 3 (on legendary ) it's weird how I forgot just how big of a retcon Halo 4 onward was in regards to the UNSC. Halo 3 made it very clear that Earth was the last stand, to rebuild so massively in a few years is staggering The UNSC Infinity (which I think is what your talking about) was being worked on quite a bit before the war ended as a last gamble. In terms of the general more "sci-fiy" nature of UNSC technology; that's more of a artshift then an actual true retcon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCzarsHussar Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 1 minute ago, BigBossBalrog said: The UNSC Infinity (which I think is what your talking about) was being worked on quite a bit before the war ended as a last gamble. In terms of the general more "sci-fiy" nature of UNSC technology; that's more of a artshift then an actual true retcon. Nah I didn't even think of the Infinity, although as a child, I pictured something way different when reading the pre-halo 4 books. Then again, the quality of thoooose books aren't the highest, you ruined my rose tinted glasses fucker It was just how much the UNSC rebuilt as shown in the books and alluded to in Halo 4. They went from "Earth is literally all we have left, if this falls humanity is doomed to the fringes, if surviving at all" to "lmao, we're the dominate power in the galaxy. We could wipe the Sangheili out if we wanted to." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCzarsHussar Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 (edited) 15 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said: Yeah, considering how almost all the characters are new anyway, I’m really not sure why they didn’t just go ahead and set Halo 4 a couple decades later rather than just a few years. They did it so several established characters could still be around as geezers. Arbiter already was the elite version of middle aged by the time Halo 3 ended, having a very long career. Hell Lord Hood still kicking (unless he dies after Halo 4, wouldn't know) as the most senior UNSC officer left. If it had been decades, Arbiter would be in a hovercraft wheelchair, Lord Hood would be a brain in a jar, Halsey would probably have cloned herself or something I don't know, and Tartarus would finally reveal himself as having survived Halo 2. Edited July 21, 2023 by TheCzarsHussar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBossBalrog Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 1 minute ago, TheCzarsHussar said: Nah I didn't even think of the Infinity, although as a child, I pictured something way different when reading the pre-halo 4 books. Then again, the quality of thoooose books aren't the highest, you ruined my rose tinted glasses fucker It was just how much the UNSC rebuilt as shown in the books and alluded to in Halo 4. They went from "Earth is literally all we have left, if this falls humanity is doomed to the fringes, if surviving at all" to "lmao, we're the dominate power in the galaxy. We could wipe the Sangheili out if we wanted to." I actually felt this had a good explanation (one of the better ones 343 pulled out of there asses); The Sangheli (and most of the races in the Covenant) had been stiffled by the caste system; most Elites were warriors and didn't have alot of other skills culturally. The few Doctors and Scientists were reviled and ridiculed by society; all that fancy tech the had; they had almost zero ideas to maintain it In the horrible aftermath of the Covean Empire falling apart; I can see a super adaptative and numerous species (with none of the baggage) like humanity/the UNSC VERY quickly being able to amass power in these ruins to become the dominate group. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCzarsHussar Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 2 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said: I actually felt this had a good explanation (one of the better ones 343 pulled out of there asses); The Sangheli (and most of the races in the Covenant) had been stiffled by the caste system; most Elites were warriors and didn't have alot of other skills culturally. The few Doctors and Scientists were reviled and ridiculed by society; all that fancy tech the had; they had almost zero ideas to maintain it In the horrible aftermath of the Covean Empire falling apart; I can see a super adaptative and numerous species (with none of the baggage) like humanity/the UNSC VERY quickly being able to amass power in these ruins to become the dominate group. Even still, the leaps humanity made from the start of the war in 2525 to 2552 is believable. Not to mention the Forerunner elements that the Covenant jury-rigged into their tech was able to be reverse engineered flawlessly (Because the Forerunners were fucking human, damn you 343 ). Thing is, even being caught up in a devastating civil war, the Sangheili didn't go through decades of total war to genocide an entire species. They should have landed on their feet much more squarely than the UNSC could. Now with the war over, and the revelation on how humans can use forerunner tech so well and reverse engineer it known, it's believable that the UNSC would start to rapidly overtake everyone else in technologically. But it doesn't change the fact that in Halo 3 terms, the number of humans left in the entire galaxy were at most in the double digit billions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Good Doctor Posted July 21, 2023 Author Share Posted July 21, 2023 5 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said: The Sangheli (and most of the races in the Covenant) had been stiffled by the caste system; most Elites were warriors and didn't have alot of other skills culturally. The few Doctors and Scientists were reviled and ridiculed by society; all that fancy tech the had; they had almost zero ideas to maintain it Be that as it may, wasn’t the power discrepancy between the UNSC and Covenant, absurd? Pretty sure Arbiter’s fleet alone was enough to defeat any human force in existence. They only lasted so long thanks to the Cole Protocol preventing the Covies from finding targets to glass. 1 * Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCzarsHussar Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 Just now, The Good Doctor said: They only lasted so long thanks to the Cole Protocol preventing the Covies from finding targets to glass. You know, the Cole Protocol book makes me think of something. What stopped the Innies from just giving the coordinates of Earth to the jackals in that one deep space station? Regret went through all that trouble with putting trackers in smuggled weapons to find more human planets, when maintained peace with that faction of jackals could have costed that too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBossBalrog Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 1 minute ago, The Good Doctor said: Be that as it may, wasn’t the power discrepancy between the UNSC and Covenant, absurd? Pretty sure Arbiter’s fleet alone was enough to defeat any human force in existence. They only lasted so long thanks to the Cole Protocol preventing the Covies from finding targets to glass. Their Naval power. Ground engagements had the UNSC trading very equally despite their technological disadvantage. In the space though yeah; I think the figure they gave was they usually lost ten ships for every Covie cruiser they got. Though if I remember humanity by the end of it was rapidly catching up already with a ton of powerful experimental tech. However even in the Bungie days; pretty much NO one in the Covenant actually knows how to maintain their technology; except for the Engineers...who pretty much defected to humanity during the Great Schism; meaning the keys to use and replicate that shit was basically in the hands of the UNSC. 2 minutes ago, TheCzarsHussar said: You know, the Cole Protocol book makes me think of something. What stopped the Innies from just giving the coordinates of Earth to the jackals in that one deep space station? Regret went through all that trouble with putting trackers in smuggled weapons to find more human planets, when maintained peace with that faction of jackals could have costed that too. A vast majority of the Insurrection knew they'd be killing billions of humans and weren't able to measure that as a win as much as they hated the UNSC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Good Doctor Posted July 21, 2023 Author Share Posted July 21, 2023 8 minutes ago, TheCzarsHussar said: You know, the Cole Protocol book makes me think of something. What stopped the Innies from just giving the coordinates of Earth to the jackals in that one deep space station? Regret went through all that trouble with putting trackers in smuggled weapons to find more human planets, when maintained peace with that faction of jackals could have costed that too. Are we sure that Earth coordinates are something that most spacefaring humans have access to? 1 * Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCzarsHussar Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 (edited) 6 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said: Their Naval power. Ground engagements had the UNSC trading very equally despite their technological disadvantage. In the space though yeah; I think the figure they gave was they usually lost ten ships for every Covie cruiser they got. Just the Pillar of Autumn gave Arby's fleet a bloody nose and it's crew held out well on Halo, where they didn't dare glass. This was even more clear in the book When the covenant is unwilling to glass somewhere, they're clapped more often than not...ground side. Different story in space XS Edited July 21, 2023 by TheCzarsHussar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Good Doctor Posted July 21, 2023 Author Share Posted July 21, 2023 4 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said: Their Naval power. Ground engagements had the UNSC trading very equally despite their technological disadvantage. Problem was that the Covenant rarely needed to bother with ground engagements unless they were fighting over something specific. Take Reach, home planet of the Spartans. Humanity’s ground game there was the best anywhere save Earth itself. But it got annihilated in a matter of hours. * Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCzarsHussar Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 Also the Covenant having a strong distaste for AIs, what thinking computes they had were very primitive compared to the UNSC. I don't know if this distaste was prevalent before Truth forced the old prophets to retire. But it shot the covenant in the foot. Weirdly enough, Halo 1 anniversary sorta retconned this by having a covenant AI speak with Guilty Spark in a terminal cutscene. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Good Doctor Posted July 21, 2023 Author Share Posted July 21, 2023 1 minute ago, TheCzarsHussar said: Just the Pillar of Autumn gave Arby's fleet a bloody nose and it's crew held out well on Halo, where they didn't dare glass. This was even more clear in the book When the covenant is unwilling to glass somewhere, they're clapped more often than not...ground side. Different story in space XS I think this is almost purely thanks to Spartans, however. Chief was pivotal in keeping the the Pillar of Autumn from getting overrun in the first few minutes. But the newer generations of Spartans in the 343 games are notably less impressive. 1 * Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCzarsHussar Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 2 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said: Problem was that the Covenant rarely needed to bother with ground engagements unless they were fighting over something specific. Take Reach, home planet of the Spartans. Humanity’s ground game there was the best anywhere save Earth itself. But it got annihilated in a matter of hours. It's been over a decade since I read Fall of Reach. Did the planet really fall that quickly in the book? I know I'm Reach, they held out for nearly a month. But that was more nominally, trying to evacuate as the planet was being glassed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBossBalrog Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 2 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said: Problem was that the Covenant rarely needed to bother with ground engagements unless they were fighting over something specific. Take Reach, home planet of the Spartans. Humanity’s ground game there was the best anywhere save Earth itself. But it got annihilated in a matter of hours. That was retconned by Bungie; the actual battle for reach took weeks As the memes say though; "Fall it did". 2 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said: I think this is almost purely thanks to Spartans, however. Chief was pivotal in keeping the the Pillar of Autumn from getting overrun in the first few minutes. But the newer generations of Spartans in the 343 games are notably less impressive. That's cause they aint messed up child soldiers who've been bred for war 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCzarsHussar Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 1 minute ago, BigBossBalrog said: That's cause they aint messed up child soldiers who've been bred for war Who'd have guessed regular military men getting incredibly watered down chemical enhancements and no surgical ones, unlike the literal cyborgs of the Spartan 2's would be less impressive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Good Doctor Posted July 21, 2023 Author Share Posted July 21, 2023 Just now, TheCzarsHussar said: It's been over a decade since I read Fall of Reach. Did the planet really fall that quickly in the book? I know I'm Reach, they held out for nearly a month. But that was more nominally, trying to evacuate as the planet was being glassed. I’m just going off the game, but was it really a month? I thought it was like <48 hours. But even then, I think we can attribute the duration to the Covenant not wanting to destroy the artifact they were looking for there. Once they committed to destroying Reach, it fell very quickly. * Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCzarsHussar Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 It's a small thing, but to this day, the most memorable part of Fall of Reach was when one of Chief's spartan comrades had his entire arm, shoulder and part of his torso melted off by one poorly dodged blast of a hunter's canon. Man actually outlived nearly all the other Spartans too, being taken out of the field and set up with the general staff. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBossBalrog Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 The 2's were so good; the ones who became crippled and mutated by their enhancements and couldn't serve in active duty were given officer positions as ONI advisors. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Good Doctor Posted July 21, 2023 Author Share Posted July 21, 2023 6 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said: That was retconned by Bungie; the actual battle for reach took weeks As the memes say though; "Fall it did". If that’s the case, my point stands, just a little less so. The second strongest defensive position in all of human history falling decisively in a few weeks is very telling of how overwhelmingly superior the Covenant’s strength was to that of the UNSC. And if I’m not mistaken, this was just Thel’s armada. Just a fraction of the Covenant’s power. It was the civil wars and flood infestation of High Charity that ultimately broke them. * Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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