I Think people miss the fact there are writing flaw or some one overwriting here that is inconsistent. Elites were at war with the Prophets before and would have some sort of tech even after so long being the prophets tools. Yet in HALO Wars they had science lances study human tech compared to there's. Not saying the Covys knew every thing but there had to be some basic understanding for a race who worked so long with the Prophets despite not wanting to disturb forerunner tech. To narrow down Elites in such a way as to say they are too afraid or did not want to is just a writing oversight as the Covys before the split did have science lances. They could have gleamed some tech. I do not doubt the real reason for Prophets freaking out was due to them losing control of forerunner tech. Thus losing Political Power. Brutes being new were given wepons and as were many of the other races who did not want to or did not care to understand the wepons given yet i suspect Jackals were much smarter than most would suspect. Elites have been too long with the tech and would not entirely be reliant on Engineers to fix everything. Factions fighting for supplies and parts even hidden factories that are hidden will happen but what of the Prophets themselves ? Arbiter will need to secure what he has and get parts but the issue of pursuing Prophets factories or even understanding the tech would be a on going goal that i think has been missed. Besides there are too many rings and such just for humanity to explore. Over all if you look back i think you can tell that 343i ignored some of what was done to do what they wanted as far as writing. So a race that has Science Lances even directed by Prophets are barely able to keep things going ?. I doubt it. Even if it were directed at understanding another races wepons or tech you would need to understand your tech despite a taboo. Elites had allot too ingrained to just one day wake up and not understand it at some point. They might not be able to make more due to lack of tools or have tech to do so but that is moot. Humanity was able to secure there logistics clandestine in some cases to keep things going or else they too would have lost right off. If humans would have got crafty and they use old hulls for food production. In some cases planets like Arcadia before it was hit a second time it produced much needed food for UNSC. People do not realize that with out supplies or any such you will loose this is why when the Flood took High Charity it cut off a Major supply venue for Covy forces. Not to mention being able to use the Chaos of the Great Journey to crash onto it. Flood do not need supplies just hosts so such things as food or water mean little. Human and Covy forces need such things not to mention parts to repair vehicles and such. Example to keep a force of 1000 front line men supplied you will need 1500-2000 men mechanics, medics, cooks, supply clerks, Administrative personal, intelligence, communication techs ect. During war time supplies can get strained. Medical supplies and Parts. Part of the reason why UNSC was losing was due to colonies being put to the torch with military installations or factories that could produce much needed supplies or wepons. Each world lost diminished UNSC in some way not only with personal but with supplies. Fall of Reach took out allot of the UNSC fighting strength not to mention is war time production and Shipyards with it to hurt operations. Logistics were haphazard at best and at times it did have a flow but when you are on the defensive most of the time it was strained. Despite all this UNSC was able to pull it together going to ground or when needed facing Covy juggernaut. So humans came up with a Hide N Seek strategy while the Covys flew around burning human colonies they found to find out if humans were hiding forerunner tech at the behest of the Prophets.