[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] TwistedDippy666 Humanity only had a chance in fights when they outnumbered covenant 3:1, it was the other way around for reach, the length of the fall is about right seeing as how handicapped the UNSC were. Also the specialist covenant ship with the prototype weapon was eliminating ships in seconds. Also the Autumn was built in zero gee conditions as it was too heavy to be built in atmosphere, it was never deisgned to land on a planet, hence why keyes crashed it into halo. Also the spartan 3's never went near Reach at all, nor did they get mjolnir.[/quote] Actually it wasn't, the numbers Nylund gave were pretty damn close to exactly even in terms of ships...and that's not including the SMACs and other orbital defenses around the planet. Just about half of the Fleet of Particular Justice (which numbered 314 or so ships as I'm sure you know) was wiped out before they could even engage the UNSC due to blundering into a mine-field and the SMACs opening fire. After losing so many ships before the battle even really began the Covenant was left with roughly 150 ships against the UNSC's own 150 ships. And each SMAC, in terms of capability and as a military asset equals about the same amount as three UNSC ships in a space battle as a single shot can gut a whole Covenant cruiser of almost any class. Going off of TFoR alone the UNSC and Covenant were just about equal in terms of military assets and ships. And the whole 3:1 thing is not a universal law like so many of the people against Reach or in support of TFoR's account of things seem to believe, that's when the UNSC stood the best [i]chance[/i] of winning, but it was not the only time they could ever do anything. The whole Keyes' Loop incident for instance. Captain Keyes beat three or four Covenant ships with just his one, and there are more than that too. 30-45 minutes is not realistic or believable at all, not with the way Nylund had set everything up, and especially not with Reach being the very heart of the UNSC military. I always hated TFoR's depiction of events and thought it incredibly and laughably stupid...but that's just on its own. With Reach added into the mix, the battle as laid out in TFoR actually makes sense. And yet...in Combat Evolved (the first game and the foundation of the whole series), it had a landing routine and actually landed on Alpha Halo as opposed to crashing and wrecking completely. It was a controlled crash-landing, obviously the Autumn can land...doesn't mean it's meant to fly around in an atmosphere like the frigates can, but it can land and get up into the air again safely....and IIRC, the Autumn was supposed to the UNSC's original way of getting off Alpha Halo too. SIIIs didn't get Mjolnir, they got SPI. Noble Team, however, are not average SIIIs, they matched every single one of Halsey's standards for the Spartan II program, and thus like all of the others like that they were pulled from their companies before the suicide missions and given Mjolnir armor and outfitted as proper Spartans would be. That's what the plan was for the SIII Gamma Company main characters in GoO as well, being fielded either as Headhunters or as full Spartan IIs in everything but name like Noble were depending on the outcome of that last training exercise. And how do you know they were never on Reach? That's a pretty bold claim right there, we only ever saw the battle from the quite limited perspective of Master Chief and Keyes for the space battle in TFoR, and a little bit of the ground battle around the generator complex through the eyes of Red Team in First Strike. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Swiftkillswitch3 I place the books, as I always will, as more canon and more core-based than any of the games. Reach is the one in which I will never consider canon.[/quote] So, you'd rather place information from secondary sources over what comes directly from the creators and developers themselves? No offense, but I find that more than a bit odd to take as a position. The material directly produced and released by the original creators of the series is what should be held in the highest regard.