Tehan really has his thoughts compiled...

If you read the books, the humans used random coordinates to jump away from battle. The Covenent had no Idea where the human's home planet was. The didn't expect it to be the one place they never jumped to. I'm guessing that becuase the covenant's home was so heavily guarded they always jumped back there to lead their enemy into a trap. They probably think the humans do the same thing. So I don't think they weren't expecting us to be in the one part of the Galaxy we were avoiding.

Heres my understanding of it, Regret didnt know there were humans on earth, he thought they all died on Reach. The way he found "The Ark" was from 343 GS. The reson there are no civilins is because they evacauted to somewhere else. Regret wanted to be the one to find "The Ark" so he got a fleet. But most of the covies didnt want to "disobey" the other prophets, so Regret couldnt get an army, only the ones who were eager to get to "The Ark." Sound good?

Okay... Theory. Regret comes to Earth, because he's hunting down something forerunner-ey found by scanners/holy scripts/forerunner records/goose livers (more on this later). He lands in Mombasa (sp?) and gets his soldiers to rustle up something interesting. Then young Keyes shows up with everyone's favourite mean green fighting machine and regret has to pull the plug and bolt with tail tucked firmly between the legs. Where to? Worl, one of his soldiers found a data stash/message crystal/love letter/another goose liver which has coordinates on it to Delta Halo. Maybe he knows it is to Delta Halo, maybe he panics and chooses a destination like Cortana did by jumping somewhere specified by captured intel. Regret finds Delta Halo. Rejoices, because delivering up another of the sacred rings would probably repair relations with Mercy and Truth. Cue big green style walking in and splattering Regret over the pavement. Meanwhile, the Arbiter has hunted down our old friend 343, which got interrogated (whoops, 'plied with questions') by Truth and Mercy, and revealed Delta Halo coordinates, and they wander over with their posse just as everyone's favourite cyborg finishes playing punching-bag with Regret. Chances are Regret wasn't going to guide those that want to spank him for jumping the gun right into the only thing that can redeem him. Methinks Regret was using DH as the ace up his sleeve, up until MC panicked him into jumping the gun again by starting the Great Journey early. Meanwhile, our incarnation as a Squidlips fetches the index and a reclaimer (Miranda for those of you playing along at home) only to have Head Mohawk filch them with help from Big Glowing Hammer. Cue big fall into the lair of Big Boss Flood. Back to the whole reclaimer thing, I am quite confident that a lot of us are of the opinion that the Forerunners were human, or possible an ancestor of the human race, hence the whole missing history part by 343 in HaloCE. Cue brute betrayal, civil war, plugging the index into the big control panel, getting it out again with a nice display of gymnastics by Miranda, then the Cliffhanger. The remote control is on "The Ark". Truth is hauling buttocks to Earth on board the handy-dandy two-in-one ubership/power plant. Co-inky-dink? I think not. Earth has a shipload of different lifeforms, yes? So (and please don't flame me here) perhaps the Forerunners gathered up all the interesting/perdy/useful critters from around the universe, dumped them all in a big nature reserve, left behind a few park wardens behind (Forerunners as humans? Forerunners as monkeys that evolved into humans? Forerunner pets/servants that are/evolved into humans? Who knows?) and somehow shielded it from the Flood and the Halos, and put the remote control for the Halos their for good measure. Flood war is lost, flood bearing down on the happy little planet we find ourselves inhabiting now, someone pushes the emergancy button and with a happy little -plip- there is nothing left, save the shielded Ship With Two Of Each Species. Holy flurking schnit. Idea. Noah's Ark, gathering up all that can be saved to protect them from the flood that wiped out everything else. The Ark. The Flood. Wow. So, why did Regret come to Earth? To find the remote control, to find some random piece of forerunner kibble, to investigate a ping on his spider sense, whatever. But didn't the conversations from the universe wossname have an archeological dig thing? If that was on Earth, they might have accidentally triggered a signal of some sort that called in the covenant. I don't have the booklet myself, so this is all speculation - I only ever read it once and I was concentrating on translating the covie stuff. Well, that's a nice big piece of brain food, although it doesn't fit into the original question, it's a nice piece of speculation to ponder. Please don't embaress me too much when pointing out the inevitable flaws in my logic.

I am a monkey a big pudgy munky I dont think the Ark is Earth

other wise why would they come here?

He found the location of the Ark, ad went to it before Truth because HE wanted to be a God: that is the Covenant religion, activate the Halos and become a God, correct? Clearly he was greedy, and now he [b]regrets[/b] his actions...

They went to earth looking for a crystal that had direction to a new halo bc it not the ark they went looking for bc they hadent capshered gs343 yet they got him aafter regrit went to earth and if u read F O R you will see that the covies went to a planet to get a crystal but MC stop them but the covies fallowed CPT.Keys whit a probe and destroyed reach and my proff of this is that cortona used the crystal to find the 1 halo

You never know i could be on reach.

...we didn't. it's just the only thing that makes sense, haha.

Wait, I'm confused--I thought that ship that the Chief hopped on at the end was the Ark? Shows how much I pay attention. How did we figure out the Ark was on Earth again?

didnt gs343 say something like this why would u want to destroy this missing data what do u call this human history.i reconmend that u play the maw under any defficulty and when u get the part where gs343 talks mc listen closely to their convertsation

i thought they were supposed to self destuct the ships so the covenent wouldnt get their alien hands on them

THE FACTS the Covenant had found Forerunner star-maps relating the location of the Ark, and had assembled a massive fleet to retrieve it. At the end of First Strike, the MC blows up all but a few ships of the huge fleet, and Regret grows impatient for another fleet to form, and jumps the gun heading to Earth to gain the Ark. Then he realized "Oh, this is the human homeworld, too. Crap." The letter from Truth to Mercy about Regret pertains to his impatience. see it fully translated, with chatacter key, here --> http://stormchasr03.tripod.com/prophet.html Hope this helps.

I think that the covanent was surprised because when they attacked reach in such numbers and found so many humans they must have assumed that the humans were based on that planet.

if you guys played halo 1 theres a part where guilty spark say to the spartan that he has a level 2 suit but that he needs a level 9. also only humans are the reclaimers why.

srry but in the book there are a number of things that don't happen. this lil detail is one of them. there obviously arn't any spartans in halo 2 after that lil attk but also the arbiter at the end of the book is being dragged in for hearing his actions about losing the flag ship to the humans to allow that to happen while in the game they only mention that he is held responsible for the destruction of halo for not doing enough. srry the story would be to complicated if they factored in extra spartans and time warp stones into the game.

Algae Boy...what i mean by scrapped is like deleted, or unused int eh game. Like the ATV< THE flame thrower, the E3 Demo...because they couldnt be fitted into the game. That what i mean.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ultimatespartan Also that letter in the halo 2 special editions set says this... To thine own eyes, Prophet of Mercy Dearest Brother, I hope this finds you well. My sorrow and anger precede me with regard to the atrocity and heresy at Halo. We shall avenge this destruction with some of our own. Work proceeds apace on our battle plan. The Sangheili will do what is asked of them, and the Jiralhanae will show the humans what our strength looks like at close quarters........................................ ................................................. .............................By my own hand Prophet of Truth[/quote] Yea in the book and the special edition manual with the elite on it, (the one with the covenant theme that is written like it is written by the covenant), it seems that the covenant know the location of earth and that they know that its our homewold. It talks about earths structres cities and agricultural fields and stuff like that, then it talks about our forces and weapons. it also says that they are invading earth. According to this i think the covenant do know the location of earth, and do know that its our homeworld. i dont see how Regret said No human presence was foretold. maybe he found something about the ark, and didnt realize it was earth and didnt make the connection that the location of this forerunner artifact was also the location of our homeworld. i just dont see how "no human presence was foretold", if it seems like the covenant know our homeworlds location and are planning and invasion.

Pg 198 only says coordinates ended in Sol System, then the comment that "the Covenant were headed to Earth". The coordinates could have very well ended directly on top of Earth, so it would not be an assumption in that case. Earth is mentioned yet again in 237. I don't think both she and MC would simply 'assume'. This is only further strengthened by the massive fleet that was prepared for those coordinates in First Strike. There is no other reasonably explanation on why they would send the largest fleet ever known to humans (prior to Halo 2) to retake a simple artifact if they did not believe significant resistance (aka humans) would be encountered. Anyway, there is still another big piece of evidence that I personally have not seen anyone here or on HBO mention yet. [Edited on 2/13/2005 3:48:17 PM]

On Pg. 198 Cortana found that the covenant had the coordinates to Sol, so she asumed they also knew were earth was. It is not stated that the covenant knew the location of Earth. It also says nothing about how the covenant found the location of Sol. [Edited on 2/13/2005 3:33:46 PM]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] opogjijijp [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ultimatespartan Yes it did....read just a bit harder[/quote] What page?[/quote] Pg 237.

i think it was because he thought that all of us had run away from earth to go to reach and just left +plus+ dont they call us a paricite mabey they thought we just go from one planet to the next.

The Covenant believed Reach was our homeworld, just wait and see. All the quotes about "where were you when we burned your planet" and "the destruction of the humans" point to the fact that the Covenant thought they had us beat. So, they went on to try to 'transcend', but found out that they didn't glass our homeworld afterall. The conversations in the LE booklet were from a variety of times, so any talk about corraling the humans into a smaller area could easily have been from before the fall of Reach.

HELLO!? Dudes, if you read the flood, then you would remember that the covies put a lil spy on the fall of autum..... I think that has some relevance.

this game is soo confusing.....