[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Madness87 But the Covenant still maintained the strongest fleet. Without them, humans had no chance. So if they already had the strongest fleet and were headed home, why would humans all of a sudden surpass them? [u]You missed what I said: The Covenant shattered into dozens of seperate fighting forces that battle each other. Collectively, the Covenant would still be superior, but they aren't, and the ability to maintain their technology and improve upon it disappeared with the Huragok (who we now control, which is why the Infinity is so powerful)[/u] And Earth had fallen. They had attacked select locations, but the destroyed the entire UNSC homefleet. If they were in power in other places, high charity wouldn't have been able to crash into the planet, nor would the Covenant be able to drop in Scarabs at will. [u]High Charity never crashed onto the planet and Scarabs were never air dropped on earth. That was the Ark. How long's it been since you played Halo 3?[/u] And for conversation's sake, let's say they did find the coordinates, why would they just go to Requiem? And even then, the captain in charge didn't even care for Chief, who basically saved Earth and humanity? [u]They went to Requiem because Infinity's primary directive is to seek out and explore Forerunner worlds to gain their technology and find new places where the UNSC can expand and regrow. Requiem, a shield world treassure trove of Forerunner technology, would be a huge find. Infinity is like the starship Enterprise, so naturally, it went exploring.[/u] How could Mendicent Bias divert Chief? All that happened was the slipspace portal closed and the half with the arbiter made it through and Chief's didn't which is why it drifted. You mean to tell me Bias pushed it so accurately it would drift exactly 4.5 years directly to Requiem? [u]Again, you're ignoring what I'm saying: if you're right, how did the Chief survive the Halo blast at the Ark at all? He got through the Portal, but because Forerunner's mastery of slipspace is akin to our mastery over steam engines, he split the ship and sent John to Requiem to "atone for his sins." John emerges in the star system with Requiem in it, and 4.5 years later, the Dawn drifts close enough to Requiem to be captured by its gravity. I don't get what's so hard to believe about that.[/u] My point is, we are in space the Covenant and humanity were not able to reach. Humanity had clear limitations in the previous games. All of a sudden they have clear understanding of Forerunner technology and structures when it was AI like Cortana who were responsible for finding these things out. It's also convenient how they supposedly found the locations of the remaining Halo's. [u]The Huragok engineers that work for us were responsible for the sudden advancements in technology, and Halsey was responsible for coming to the scientific understanding of that technology. Star maps have been found at various sites, like Onyx, that lead to other locations important to the Forerunners. And only Installations 05 and 03 were found; the other 5 are still missing.[/u] My point being, you can't give clear answers because you don't know, none of us do, so then why should we accept it? They rebuilt the Spartan program which was basically running on fumes at the height of our empire and power, and now it's better than before? That fleets are rebuilt, that we have the ability to project unmatched power to the edge of the galaxy? Even if they left a lot of colonies untouched, the largest and most important ones were sttacked. [u]I have given you clear answers. Whatever questions I can't answer are unanswerable not because their is no answer, but because there is so little information, they are [i]unaskable[/i]. The Spartan program was not running on fumes, Gamma was being rotated out of training right at the end of the Covenant war. But with the destruction of Onyx, the deaths of Ackerson and Kurt, and improvements in technology, the SIII program continued in a new format under the management of Parangosky and Osman. The SIV program merely continues and achieves the goals the SIII program strived for, which was the ability to have Spartans become more the common soldier than unique supermen, to eventually have "100,000 Spartans defending humanity." So really all that changed was the location, management and name. This is one of those unaskable questions: we don't know [i]how much[/i] of the fleet is rebuilt, only that we do have a fleet. No one ever said the Home Fleet was the size or strength it once was. And the Infinity, being in essence a Forerunner exploratory vessel, is [i]designed[/i] for long distance travel into the far reaches of space. It was initially designed as a mobile base of operations to work out of if the Covenant destroyed earth, so being able to go where no man has gone before (heh) is in its job description. And yet another unaskable question: we do not know the strategic importance of the colonies that were ignored. All we know about them is that they were close to earth, making them inner colonies, making them highly valued.[/u] Thanks for the answers. I guess I have to live with these questions, hopefully Halo 5 clears it up, but I wanted the story to move forward in a realistic manner. Not to have "ancient evils awaken" and every assumption we know be turned around.[/quote] It has gone in a realistic manner, you're ignoring the answers.