Guys, no offense, but... both of these factions kinda suck. [b]UNSC[/b]: Statistical, efficiency-driven elitists whose primary concern is an optimum output at the cost of morality and self-government. The UNSC and ONI essentially are a police state where people are forced to cater for the mother planet (Earth) and are treated as second-class citizens. Humans on the Outer Colonies matter as much to the UNSC government as the villagers in a RTS matter to you, the player. They're there to fuel the economy and keep everything running, and you're only concerned when something's stopping the cash flow. They're not above an extreme measure in order to ensure the maximum gain at the most minimal of losses. The nuking of Far Rim, the Spartan-II Project, and even Cole Protocol recognize this. "The needs of the Many outweigh the needs of the Few." That quote from Spock is taken to an absurd extreme with the UNSC. Buuuuut... [b]Insurrectionists[/b]: Glory-hungry, arrogant jackasses whose self-serving motivation is to make themselves heard and known to humanity. Any type of 'noble' or 'just' cause they have is buried underneath the billions, maybe trillions of dollars in collateral damage and the millions of dead military personnel and civilians that they've made in order to make their big mark in the galaxy. I hate to compare them to something so petty, but they are essentially like Internet's Anonymous: A group of pompous attention-whores who sometimes have the right cause in mind, but are more concerned with being remembered rather than changing the world for the better. They'd save a planet if it caught someone's attention, and nuke it if it garnered even more. They have no concept of self-preservation, sustainability, or future aside from the short-term renown and fame. Honestly, I'm with the UNSC here, but only because their model, while cruel, does guarantee a future. While they were horribly outmatched against the Covenant and the timely schism of the Elites and the Prophets along with the remnants of the Spartan-II project barely squeezed a win for humanity in the Human-Covenant War, you have to realize that the UNSC made a lot of smart choices in stalling or delaying the Covenant while special projects like the Spartans focused on weaker, vulnerable parts of the Covenant infrastructure. If the Insurrectionists were in charge, they'd strap a bomb on every ship they could find and send them to High Charity in the vain hope that one of them explodes in Truth's face. No side is in the moral right here, but from an objective standpoint, the UNSC is arguably better.