All that was missing from it, well... for me, was an Epic Scarab battle. I always loved those in Halo 3 & ODST.

I think this guy provides a nice succinct accounting of the canon: [url]http://boards.ign.com/halo/b5240/196236159/p1/?14[/url] It's kind of a shame that they had to create Halsey's diary to explain away all of the conflicts, but at least somebody was thinking about it.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] OrderedComa [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] C0MIC RELIEF [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] GrnDragn I don't know why we are debating this. Bungie did screw up the Canon. There are no "buts" about it. You Bungie fanboys will do anything to defend Bungie. This is blind zealotry! And to all the people who debunk "The Fall of Reach" Novel, just be quiet. TFoR came out even before Combat Evolved! It is the first source of Halo Canon. Are there inconsistencies? Yes, but these can be fixed. Halo: Reach... I don't know.[/quote] The Fall of Reach was not released until after Halo: Combat Evolved. What are you talking about?[/quote] Hello there, welcome to the battlefront, my friend, here's a flame retardant suit. To GrnDragn: I would assume that the Halo story was not very well developed when TFoR came out and that Nylund had to take many creative liberties with the duration of events and the dates of events as well as sequence, and that they have since been retconned in Bungie's own sources (aka Halo Story Bible) as they've shaped their universe. And we are now seeing what Bungie says happened, and rather than just "saying to heck with the fanbase let's do whatever the -blam!- we want" they take the already existing story and move events and dates around or extend some to fit [i]their[/i] story. And a lot of TFoR has been rendered inconsistent with other media in the Haloverse. Contrary to what some are claiming TFoR is the [b][i]only[/i][/b] book affected by Reach. First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx are not affected by it in any way that negatively affects their whole story.[/quote] After all this time, I don't know if that's ignorance or pure stubbornness that makes you say that. As I've said a long time ago and still hold to this day, what's important is the fact that Bungie changed certain facts that would have a domino effect on media written about and surrounding the entire events of the fall of Reach, though I will admit TFoR is the only novel to be heavily impacted. Btw, Nylund HAD the Halo Bible when he was writing it, and supposedly only had to make minor adjustments to fit the story with the game. Sure, Bungie can do whatever they want with "their" story, but it doesn't mean that it will make it better. Nylund was a better writer for the series than they are. And I should make clear; the canon is not shattered, only stretched and bent. The quality of the story, however, went down the drains with Halo Reach. Maybe the upcoming Halo media will revive it, but Reach was just disappointing. [Edited on 01.19.2011 8:58 PM PST]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] no name12222235 I agree with op, The pillar could have landed after the flagship pealed its armor off in the book, I mean, after all it does look pretty intact when we see it leave for halo. Cortana can clone parts of herself for whatever purposes, like downloading stuff. Any mac platforms could have easily been moving around preparing for stages of attack in certain areas, perhaps the covenant landed in a location strategically away from the guns or their generators JUST for a foothold on the ground. I don't get how Jorge screwed anything up, he was just a spartan who probably got ONI'd onto a special deployment like , I think, Fred in the GoO book.[/quote] Thank you :) nice to know I'm not the only one who doesn't think everything is blown to pieces and ruined storywise. Exactly, the Covenant seemed to have landed pretty much in the middle of hick-ville for Reach, and also Reach doesn't have many SMACS to begin with, I doubt there would be very many, if any at all, out there in that particular area. It was Kurt who they did that to in GoO, but yeah, same idea.

I agree with op, The pillar could have landed after the flagship pealed its armor off in the book, I mean, after all it does look pretty intact when we see it leave for halo. Cortana can clone parts of herself for whatever purposes, like downloading stuff. Any mac platforms could have easily been moving around preparing for stages of attack in certain areas, perhaps the covenant landed in a location strategically away from the guns or their generators JUST for a foothold on the ground. I don't get how Jorge screwed anything up, he was just a spartan who probably got ONI'd onto a special deployment like , I think, Fred in the GoO book.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] C0MIC RELIEF [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] GrnDragn I don't know why we are debating this. Bungie did screw up the Canon. There are no "buts" about it. You Bungie fanboys will do anything to defend Bungie. This is blind zealotry! And to all the people who debunk "The Fall of Reach" Novel, just be quiet. TFoR came out even before Combat Evolved! It is the first source of Halo Canon. Are there inconsistencies? Yes, but these can be fixed. Halo: Reach... I don't know.[/quote] The Fall of Reach was not released until after Halo: Combat Evolved. What are you talking about?[/quote] Hello there, welcome to the battlefront, my friend, here's a flame retardant suit. To GrnDragn: I would assume that the Halo story was not very well developed when TFoR came out and that Nylund had to take many creative liberties with the duration of events and the dates of events as well as sequence, and that they have since been retconned in Bungie's own sources (aka Halo Story Bible) as they've shaped their universe. And we are now seeing what Bungie says happened, and rather than just "saying to heck with the fanbase let's do whatever the -blam!- we want" they take the already existing story and move events and dates around or extend some to fit [i]their[/i] story. And a lot of TFoR has been rendered inconsistent with other media in the Haloverse. Contrary to what some are claiming TFoR is the [b][i]only[/i][/b] book affected by Reach. First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx are not affected by it in any way that negatively affects their whole story.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] C0MIC RELIEF [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] GrnDragn I don't know why we are debating this. Bungie did screw up the Canon. There are no "buts" about it. You Bungie fanboys will do anything to defend Bungie. This is blind zealotry! And to all the people who debunk "The Fall of Reach" Novel, just be quiet. TFoR came out even before Combat Evolved! It is the first source of Halo Canon. Are there inconsistencies? Yes, but these can be fixed. Halo: Reach... I don't know.[/quote] The Fall of Reach was not released until after Halo: Combat Evolved. What are you talking about?[/quote] It was before, though not by much. TFoR came out on October 30th, 2001, Halo CE came out on November 15th, 2001.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] GrnDragn I don't know why we are debating this. Bungie did screw up the Canon. There are no "buts" about it. You Bungie fanboys will do anything to defend Bungie. This is blind zealotry! And to all the people who debunk "The Fall of Reach" Novel, just be quiet. TFoR came out even before Combat Evolved! It is the first source of Halo Canon. Are there inconsistencies? Yes, but these can be fixed. Halo: Reach... I don't know.[/quote] -redacted- [Edited on 01.19.2011 8:48 PM PST]

I don't know why we are debating this. Bungie did screw up the Canon. There are no "buts" about it. You Bungie fanboys will do anything to defend Bungie. This is blind zealotry! And to all the people who debunk "The Fall of Reach" Novel, just be quiet. TFoR came out even before Combat Evolved! It is the first source of Halo Canon. Are there inconsistencies? Yes, but these can be fixed. Halo: Reach... I don't know.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ajw34307 [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Pipboy 3050 [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] privet caboose Reach did break canon. Infact, it breaks canon within the first 5 minutes of the game. Reach fell on August 30th. That's the day the Covenant found Reach, and decimated the UNSC Fleet. All in one day. The game says that the UNSC lost in over a months time. And without the UNSC even putting up a real fight. It was as if Reach was some random farmer colony. [/quote] Oh dear caboose. Why cant you accept that the story could have just Re-conned?[/quote] The word you're looking for is [b]retconned[/b]. And you've just said it, Reach was simply a massive retcon. You know why things get retconned? Because they contradict canon, the game contradicts canon, it is a retcon over the books. And anyone with the slightest care for Halo canon shouldn't have to accept a giant middle finger at a decade's worth of work.[/quote] I don't see a problem with retconning over the books. Only because Marvel/DC have retconned their works numerous times to make current storylines work. THat may have simply been the case here.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Alf stewert [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Beowolfe [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Alf stewert [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ZedFish [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ArtooFeva If that book were followed to the letter, then there would be no others. I have read the book and it would have ruined any chance of making good games. Halo Reach would have been a horribly dull game. Plus, Halo Reach wasn't the first thing to retcon the book. Halo Wars did, Halo Contact Harvest did and Halo Reach was just latest in the pile. I'd prefer not to follow that book thank you.[/quote]Thank you, good sir. I will add to this, by saying that of all the Halo books, Fall of Reach has the most mistakes, inconsistencies and typos. Do I trust it? Hell no. They couldn't even fix their blam with the reprint. It's a great story, but it ain't no canon masterpiece.[/quote]thing is the fall of reach is still considered canon be it having alot of inconsitencies it is still canon, what most are whinging about is events and certain characters (S3 with S2) and not caring on what other forms of media have said that cover it all up. "Spartan 3s wernt on reach"- Explained "halsey didnt know about S3 till first strike"- explained "why didnt we know of the covenant if they came sooner?"-explained everyone is just finding something to complain about even though it was and has been Explained other than the POA on reach which you could use a time frame of it going to reach after read teams drop off and chiefs extraction, but nope their just whining and nitpicking :/[/quote] They didn't need to follow TFoR to the letter...how hard would it have been to just make it so that the story FITS with the story in TFoR? Give me a week and I'll be able to write up a story that doesn't contradict canon and yet is way better (IMO) TFOR was the first novel written and released-prior to CE btw-so it was bound to have inconsistencies, but those are generally little things. What Reach did changes an entire section of things. It's called the butterfly effect, and this is directed right at you, Alf Stewart. Think about what the seemingly "insignificant" changes made to the events mean. Not just the surface, but rather if that change was made, what others would have had to been made, etc. Ps. Halo Reach's story sucks no matter how you look at it. [/quote] you saying elites being only at reach and first seen and fought at reach a small inconsistencie :S[/quote] Erm, actually, that is pretty insignificant. Nylund obviously took creative license with that, so we can ignore that, but the point is that this kind of mistakes can easily be thought through logically as soon as people realized it's inconsistent, but even that didn't come until much later. TFoR was the first ever canonical Halo info released, so to be honest there ARE some parts that do require to be fixed up, but when they are fixed up, it should be done so with logical new info. What Halo: Reach did failed this test.[/quote]Alright shoot with this non logical info Halo reach had

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Alf stewert [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Beowolfe [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Alf stewert [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ZedFish [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ArtooFeva If that book were followed to the letter, then there would be no others. I have read the book and it would have ruined any chance of making good games. Halo Reach would have been a horribly dull game. Plus, Halo Reach wasn't the first thing to retcon the book. Halo Wars did, Halo Contact Harvest did and Halo Reach was just latest in the pile. I'd prefer not to follow that book thank you.[/quote]Thank you, good sir. I will add to this, by saying that of all the Halo books, Fall of Reach has the most mistakes, inconsistencies and typos. Do I trust it? Hell no. They couldn't even fix their blam with the reprint. It's a great story, but it ain't no canon masterpiece.[/quote]thing is the fall of reach is still considered canon be it having alot of inconsitencies it is still canon, what most are whinging about is events and certain characters (S3 with S2) and not caring on what other forms of media have said that cover it all up. "Spartan 3s wernt on reach"- Explained "halsey didnt know about S3 till first strike"- explained "why didnt we know of the covenant if they came sooner?"-explained everyone is just finding something to complain about even though it was and has been Explained other than the POA on reach which you could use a time frame of it going to reach after read teams drop off and chiefs extraction, but nope their just whining and nitpicking :/[/quote] They didn't need to follow TFoR to the letter...how hard would it have been to just make it so that the story FITS with the story in TFoR? Give me a week and I'll be able to write up a story that doesn't contradict canon and yet is way better (IMO) TFOR was the first novel written and released-prior to CE btw-so it was bound to have inconsistencies, but those are generally little things. What Reach did changes an entire section of things. It's called the butterfly effect, and this is directed right at you, Alf Stewart. Think about what the seemingly "insignificant" changes made to the events mean. Not just the surface, but rather if that change was made, what others would have had to been made, etc. Ps. Halo Reach's story sucks no matter how you look at it. [/quote] you saying elites being only at reach and first seen and fought at reach a small inconsistencie :S[/quote] Erm, actually, that is pretty insignificant. Nylund obviously took creative license with that, so we can ignore that, but the point is that this kind of mistakes can easily be thought through logically as soon as people realized it's inconsistent, but even that didn't come until much later. TFoR was the first ever canonical Halo info released, so to be honest there ARE some parts that do require to be fixed up, but when they are fixed up, it should be done so with logical new info. What Halo: Reach did failed this test.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Beowolfe [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Alf stewert [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ZedFish [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ArtooFeva If that book were followed to the letter, then there would be no others. I have read the book and it would have ruined any chance of making good games. Halo Reach would have been a horribly dull game. Plus, Halo Reach wasn't the first thing to retcon the book. Halo Wars did, Halo Contact Harvest did and Halo Reach was just latest in the pile. I'd prefer not to follow that book thank you.[/quote]Thank you, good sir. I will add to this, by saying that of all the Halo books, Fall of Reach has the most mistakes, inconsistencies and typos. Do I trust it? Hell no. They couldn't even fix their blam with the reprint. It's a great story, but it ain't no canon masterpiece.[/quote]thing is the fall of reach is still considered canon be it having alot of inconsitencies it is still canon, what most are whinging about is events and certain characters (S3 with S2) and not caring on what other forms of media have said that cover it all up. "Spartan 3s wernt on reach"- Explained "halsey didnt know about S3 till first strike"- explained "why didnt we know of the covenant if they came sooner?"-explained everyone is just finding something to complain about even though it was and has been Explained other than the POA on reach which you could use a time frame of it going to reach after read teams drop off and chiefs extraction, but nope their just whining and nitpicking :/[/quote] They didn't need to follow TFoR to the letter...how hard would it have been to just make it so that the story FITS with the story in TFoR? Give me a week and I'll be able to write up a story that doesn't contradict canon and yet is way better (IMO) TFOR was the first novel written and released-prior to CE btw-so it was bound to have inconsistencies, but those are generally little things. What Reach did changes an entire section of things. It's called the butterfly effect, and this is directed right at you, Alf Stewart. Think about what the seemingly "insignificant" changes made to the events mean. Not just the surface, but rather if that change was made, what others would have had to been made, etc. Ps. Halo Reach's story sucks no matter how you look at it. [/quote] you saying elites being only at reach and first seen and fought at reach a small inconsistencie :S

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Alf stewert [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ZedFish [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ArtooFeva If that book were followed to the letter, then there would be no others. I have read the book and it would have ruined any chance of making good games. Halo Reach would have been a horribly dull game. Plus, Halo Reach wasn't the first thing to retcon the book. Halo Wars did, Halo Contact Harvest did and Halo Reach was just latest in the pile. I'd prefer not to follow that book thank you.[/quote]Thank you, good sir. I will add to this, by saying that of all the Halo books, Fall of Reach has the most mistakes, inconsistencies and typos. Do I trust it? Hell no. They couldn't even fix their blam with the reprint. It's a great story, but it ain't no canon masterpiece.[/quote]thing is the fall of reach is still considered canon be it having alot of inconsitencies it is still canon, what most are whinging about is events and certain characters (S3 with S2) and not caring on what other forms of media have said that cover it all up. "Spartan 3s wernt on reach"- Explained "halsey didnt know about S3 till first strike"- explained "why didnt we know of the covenant if they came sooner?"-explained everyone is just finding something to complain about even though it was and has been Explained other than the POA on reach which you could use a time frame of it going to reach after read teams drop off and chiefs extraction, but nope their just whining and nitpicking :/[/quote] They didn't need to follow TFoR to the letter...how hard would it have been to just make it so that the story FITS with the story in TFoR? Give me a week and I'll be able to write up a story that doesn't contradict canon and yet is way better (IMO) TFOR was the first novel written and released-prior to CE btw-so it was bound to have inconsistencies, but those are generally little things. What Reach did changes an entire section of things. It's called the butterfly effect, and this is directed right at you, Alf Stewart. Think about what the seemingly "insignificant" changes made to the events mean. Not just the surface, but rather if that change was made, what others would have had to been made, etc. Ps. Halo Reach's story sucks no matter how you look at it.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ZedFish [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ArtooFeva If that book were followed to the letter, then there would be no others. I have read the book and it would have ruined any chance of making good games. Halo Reach would have been a horribly dull game. Plus, Halo Reach wasn't the first thing to retcon the book. Halo Wars did, Halo Contact Harvest did and Halo Reach was just latest in the pile. I'd prefer not to follow that book thank you.[/quote]Thank you, good sir. I will add to this, by saying that of all the Halo books, Fall of Reach has the most mistakes, inconsistencies and typos. Do I trust it? Hell no. They couldn't even fix their blam with the reprint. It's a great story, but it ain't no canon masterpiece.[/quote]thing is the fall of reach is still considered canon be it having alot of inconsitencies it is still canon, what most are whinging about is events and certain characters (S3 with S2) and not caring on what other forms of media have said that cover it all up. "Spartan 3s wernt on reach"- Explained "halsey didnt know about S3 till first strike"- explained "why didnt we know of the covenant if they came sooner?"-explained everyone is just finding something to complain about even though it was and has been Explained other than the POA on reach which you could use a time frame of it going to reach after read teams drop off and chiefs extraction, but nope their just whining and nitpicking :/ [Edited on 01.07.2011 5:00 AM PST]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ArtooFeva If that book were followed to the letter, then there would be no others. I have read the book and it would have ruined any chance of making good games. Halo Reach would have been a horribly dull game. Plus, Halo Reach wasn't the first thing to retcon the book. Halo Wars did, Halo Contact Harvest did and Halo Reach was just latest in the pile. I'd prefer not to follow that book thank you.[/quote]Thank you, good sir. I will add to this, by saying that of all the Halo books, Fall of Reach has the most mistakes, inconsistencies and typos. Do I trust it? Hell no. They couldn't even fix their blam with the reprint. It's a great story, but it ain't no canon masterpiece. [Edited on 01.07.2011 4:30 AM PST]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Beowolfe [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] nofatchicks6921 [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] privet caboose Reach did break canon. Infact, it breaks canon within the first 5 minutes of the game. Reach fell on August 30th. That's the day the Covenant found Reach, and decimated the UNSC Fleet. All in one day. The game says that the UNSC lost in over a months time. And without the UNSC even putting up a real fight. It was as if Reach was some random farmer colony. [/quote] The Covenant decimated the UNSC fleet and got their forces on Reach's surface in one day. And how could the UNSC defend Reach for about a month without putting up a fight? If they did lose in one day, wouldn't that mean they never put up a real fight? If Reach did in fact fall in one day, then there wouldn't have been ANY possible chance for the UNSC to win the war, not even with Maser Chief.[/quote] Missing the point. The length of the battle does not directly coincide with whether or not the UNSC put up a real fight. UNSC forces have usually only won space battles when they have an odd of three to one versus the covenant. (There are exceptions, but those are extremely rare) The covenant's ship technologies simply outclass the UNSC by far too much. Most UNSC ships only have 1 MAC gun, and the smaller MACs mounted on frigates won't even break the shield of a covenant ship. The covenant, however, usually have more than one plasma turrets that can destroy an UNSC ship in a few shots. On top of that, covenant ships have shields and are usually larger than UNSC ships, meaning it takes more to take them down. The SMACs are the only true rivaling weapon against the Covenant fleet that was at Reach, and there were only 20 of them. In the novel, there were 300 covenant ships vs about 100 UNSC ships and 20 ODPs. The UNSC would have needed-at the VERY least-300 ships to match the covenant, and that's assuming that they used the same tactic of having the refit stations be sacrificial shields. According the game, there are over 700 ships at Reach...that means that the UNSC never stood a chance. How the hell did they even last more than a day? Let alone more than 2 weeks. Reach should have fallen in one day according to the novels, and with the new additions made by the game, Reach should DEFINITELY have fallen in one day. [/quote]you do know the 700 ships are in the games ending on august 30th and in the refitted FOR book. and you do know up untill the 30th we were fighting a Advance convenant war party looking for forerunner artifacts.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] TheAsterisk [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] OrderedComa Why would Bungie give the writers the whole Halo Bible? It's their most closely guarded secret, they're not going to just casually hand out the whole thing.[/quote] An [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreement]NDA[/url] covers that concern wholly. It simply isn't an issue at all. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Admonitor Hell the only way this makes sense is if the UNSC is the most inept military organization in the history of the universe.[/quote] Except for their counter-intelligence operations, which would apparently be top-notch. Essentially, all the Innies and their tin-hat ideas would be further validated by the UNSC's conduct at Reach, more than just kidnapping children and making them into killing machines could ever have done. [quote]Anyone else starting to get a Star Wars vibe from this. I personally cannot wait until they adopt a B canon model/sarcasm[/quote] To be fair, a lot of the EU that got abandoned when the [i]Star Wars[/i] prequels came out was utter crap, like when some washed-up Imperials decided that cloning the Emperor was the best way to reconquer the galaxy. [i]The Fall of Reach[/i], on the other hand, was not utter crap, but was replaced with mediocrity distilled into a plot and then pressed onto DVDs. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] GanonSmash Reach uses a 390 day calendar, so it's not in sync with the Earth's days. August 14 on Reach and August 30 on Earth are, in fact, the same day.[/quote] You're missing something: The date itself is not the (only) issue, but also the duration. Stating that the two planets use un-sync'd calendars addresses the date itself, but does nothing to resolve the discrepant durations. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] TimiderWord8 Because you need a massive amount of materials that are already available on the planet.[/quote] Except you'll eat up vastly more fuel getting a cruiser down to the surface and back into orbit than you would simply moving the components to an orbital shipyard, never mind the unnecessary risk of moving a large (almost 1.2 km long), expensive ship through atmosphere- never mind whether it was rated for atmospheric maneuvers or not. Components dropped and burnt up cost much less and pose a far lesser hazard than a whole cruiser tumbling towards the surface. Besides that, purely from appearances I'd still wager the new-build and refurbishment shipyards are in orbit or nearby in-system. A lot of the stuff on the ground looks like long-term-storage or a reserve fleet, and the more beat-up areas look like parts-stripping and scrap processing. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_fleet[/url] @Orphius_Rex: I have a regular [i]Reach[/i] box so I can't read the letter myself, but it looks as though the letter implies an attempt at least at an accurate reconstrucion made for/at the request of someone involved in wiping data and AIs from CASLTE (WHITE GLOVE), so they ought to be cleared to a pretty high level, yet you are arguing propaganda? Doesn't propaganda have to target a fairly public audience to actually be propaganda? It would seem you can't argue it's propaganda, unless it was also a staged leak to the masses. (I hope it's true, though, even if it is a cop-out.) The new game does indeed supersede the older novel as canon (as do all the games), but while it may be canon, [i]Reach[/i] is also shoddy, sloppy writing. Of greater concern- as a rewrite [i]could[/i] be done with sufficient effort to fix the canon around Reach- is whether or not all the retconning will directly affect [i]First Strike[/i] and [i]Ghosts of Onyx[/i], as well as the second and third games. TFoR sets up a fair amount of the events in the following two novels, and they relate directly to the plots of the next two main games. That rewrite has yet to be done, however. If they were going to retconn so much, then they should have addressed the effect(s) on these other novels immediately, not left us out in the cold to wonder and stew indefinitely. No good comes of that. This latest game's plot- assuming it isn't propaganda as speculated above- when taken in the context of other and previous canon can only be explained either by apathy or incompetence.[/quote] Though technically seeing as I'm not the only one with the letter, then it could have been distributed to the general public... I don't want it to be propaganda though. It was just an idea. And I did post the entire letter up there, so you can read it if you want.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] OrderedComa Why would Bungie give the writers the whole Halo Bible? It's their most closely guarded secret, they're not going to just casually hand out the whole thing.[/quote] An [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreement]NDA[/url] covers that concern wholly. It simply isn't an issue at all. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Admonitor Hell the only way this makes sense is if the UNSC is the most inept military organization in the history of the universe.[/quote] Except for their counter-intelligence operations, which would apparently be top-notch. Essentially, all the Innies and their tin-hat ideas would be further validated by the UNSC's conduct at Reach, more than just kidnapping children and making them into killing machines could ever have done. [quote]Anyone else starting to get a Star Wars vibe from this. I personally cannot wait until they adopt a B canon model/sarcasm[/quote] To be fair, a lot of the EU that got abandoned when the [i]Star Wars[/i] prequels came out was utter crap, like when some washed-up Imperials decided that cloning the Emperor was the best way to reconquer the galaxy. [i]The Fall of Reach[/i], on the other hand, was not utter crap, but was replaced with mediocrity distilled into a plot and then pressed onto DVDs. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] GanonSmash Reach uses a 390 day calendar, so it's not in sync with the Earth's days. August 14 on Reach and August 30 on Earth are, in fact, the same day.[/quote] You're missing something: The date itself is not the (only) issue, but also the duration. Stating that the two planets use un-sync'd calendars addresses the date itself, but does nothing to resolve the discrepant durations. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] TimiderWord8 Because you need a massive amount of materials that are already available on the planet.[/quote] Except you'll eat up vastly more fuel getting a cruiser down to the surface and back into orbit than you would simply moving the components to an orbital shipyard, never mind the unnecessary risk of moving a large (almost 1.2 km long), expensive ship through atmosphere- never mind whether it was rated for atmospheric maneuvers or not. Components dropped and burnt up cost much less and pose a far lesser hazard than a whole cruiser tumbling towards the surface. Besides that, purely from appearances I'd still wager the new-build and refurbishment shipyards are in orbit or nearby in-system. A lot of the stuff on the ground looks like long-term-storage or a reserve fleet, and the more beat-up areas look like parts-stripping and scrap processing. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_fleet[/url] @Orphius_Rex: I have a regular [i]Reach[/i] box so I can't read the letter myself, but it looks as though the letter implies an attempt at least at an accurate reconstrucion made for/at the request of someone involved in wiping data and AIs from CASLTE (WHITE GLOVE), so they ought to be cleared to a pretty high level, yet you are arguing propaganda? Doesn't propaganda have to target a fairly public audience to actually be propaganda? It would seem you can't argue it's propaganda, unless it was also a staged leak to the masses. (I hope it's true, though, even if it is a cop-out.) The new game does indeed supersede the older novel as canon (as do all the games), but while it may be canon, [i]Reach[/i] is also shoddy, sloppy writing. Of greater concern- as a rewrite [i]could[/i] be done with sufficient effort to fix the canon around Reach- is whether or not all the retconning will directly affect [i]First Strike[/i] and [i]Ghosts of Onyx[/i], as well as the second and third games. TFoR sets up a fair amount of the events in the following two novels, and they relate directly to the plots of the next two main games. That rewrite has yet to be done, however. If they were going to retconn so much, then they should have addressed the effect(s) on these other novels immediately, not left us out in the cold to wonder and stew indefinitely. No good comes of that. This latest game's plot- assuming it isn't propaganda as speculated above- when taken in the context of other and previous canon can only be explained either by apathy or incompetence.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] snaky jones In Halo 3 it was barley concievable to UNSC troops themselves that the dawn could fly in atmosphere so I think its unlikely the Pillar of Autumn would have been landed on the planet for work,besides why would they refit it planetside when it is so much easier in the zero G environment of space.[/quote]Because you need a massive amount of materials that are already available on the planet.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] privet caboose [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ArtooFeva [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Sparty Boy 117 [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] privet caboose Reach did break canon. Infact, it breaks canon within the first 5 minutes of the game. Reach fell on August 30th. That's the day the Covenant found Reach, and decimated the UNSC Fleet. All in one day. The game says that the UNSC lost in over a months time. And without the UNSC even putting up a real fight. It was as if Reach was some random farmer colony. [/quote] quote for -blam!- truth[/quote] The book made is look like a horribly weak fight. Other military engagements in the books took days to finish with the UNSC. In the book, UNSC ground forces and space forces were decimated in a matter of hours while in Halo Reach they actually put up a massive campaign only to lose in the end.[/quote] Horribly weak fight?! It was 750 Covenant ships to the UNSC's few hundred. Even with 20(somewhere around there, the exact number escapes me.) Orbital mac cannons, the UNSC almost always had to outnumber the Covenant to win. Not be outnumbered so horribly. The UNSC had no chance of defending Reach when that fleet showed up, it was the largest fleet ever encountered. (Until Delta Halo.) The UNSC put up a hell of a fight anyway, not only in space, but on the surface as well. First Strike elaborates on the ground battle and showed the chaos perfectly. There was no chance the UNSC could've won, not when they were outnumbered three to one. If it hadn't fallen in a day, it would've been a miracle. [/quote] This pretty much sums it up. There is no real way the UNSC could have held out for longer. When the Covenant invaded Reach, they did so with the intent of totally destroying it. They through everything at Reach. There was just no chance for the UNSC to survive for any extended period of time. The UNSC knew their best defence was in secrecy, hence the Cole Protocol, because they knew in the end that in big straight out battles they couldn't win.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ArtooFeva [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Sparty Boy 117 [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] privet caboose Reach did break canon. Infact, it breaks canon within the first 5 minutes of the game. Reach fell on August 30th. That's the day the Covenant found Reach, and decimated the UNSC Fleet. All in one day. The game says that the UNSC lost in over a months time. And without the UNSC even putting up a real fight. It was as if Reach was some random farmer colony. [/quote] quote for -blam!- truth[/quote] The book made is look like a horribly weak fight. Other military engagements in the books took days to finish with the UNSC. In the book, UNSC ground forces and space forces were decimated in a matter of hours while in Halo Reach they actually put up a massive campaign only to lose in the end.[/quote] Horribly weak fight?! It was 750 Covenant ships to the UNSC's few hundred. Even with 20(somewhere around there, the exact number escapes me.) Orbital mac cannons, the UNSC almost always had to outnumber the Covenant to win. Not be outnumbered so horribly. The UNSC had no chance of defending Reach when that fleet showed up, it was the largest fleet ever encountered. (Until Delta Halo.) The UNSC put up a hell of a fight anyway, not only in space, but on the surface as well. First Strike elaborates on the ground battle and showed the chaos perfectly. There was no chance the UNSC could've won, not when they were outnumbered three to one. If it hadn't fallen in a day, it would've been a miracle.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] brpoll [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Hamedolk It break it, whatever we wanted or not... For me the books have more value in canon that the Game of Reach.[/quote] lets clear that up "For me the books written by random people have more value in canon than the game, that was actually made by the people who started the halo series in the first place"[/quote] Go away. The books are canon. And he believes they are better and more accurate than the story told in Halo:Reach. No one likes people like you, and everyone is entitled to their opinion.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Hamedolk It break it, whatever we wanted or not... For me the books have more value in canon that the Game of Reach.[/quote] lets clear that up "For me the books written by random people have more value in canon than the game, that was actually made by the people who started the halo series in the first place"

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] LeBlanc172 I really don't understand. How can the company that created halo ruin the cannon. I really don't understand how it is possible.[/quote] i agree! Lets use logic Games=main cannon, books= extra stuff that gives us something to do when we're not playing the game

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Alf stewert [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Orphius_Rex [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Alf stewert [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Orphius_Rex With the Limited and Legendary editions of Reach, there was a piece of paper which says: [quote]You are now in possession of the most complete and accurate account that anyone has been able to assemble of SPECWAR/GroupTHREE/NOBLE's actions during the final weeks before the Covenant glassed Reach. I suspect your interest in all of this has something to do with your involvement in Operation WHITE GLOVE. Coincidentally, Halsey made multiple inquiries about NOBLE just as everything started going all to hell. She's the one loose end that may never be wrapped up satisfactorily - no body, no closure. In any event, I secured the next best thing for you. Section 0 has had it for some time - so there's that - but I think you'll find enough intel in here for your purposes. -W [/quote] Who is W? And this does leave a bit of wiggle room with the story, as it says [quote]"The most complete and accurate account that anyone has been able to assemble of SPECWAR/GroupTHREE/NOBLE's actions during the final weeks before the Covenant glassed Reach."[/quote]Therefore, the events depicted in the game can be classified as unreliable intel, subject to human bias because they are the "most accurate" anyone has been able to produce. This does not necessarily mean they are the [i]correct[/i] series of events that took place. They could have been exaggerated greatly by ONI for propaganda purposes. For example ONI would have increased the size of the Supercarrier so that when they blew it up, it showed civilians and military that the Covenant can be beaten, no matter how big their ships are. This also means that ONI would have edited out the less interesting parts, or parts that showed the UNSC loosing badly, and edited in parts such as the PoA being on Reach and then taking off, because they (ONI) thought that a single Longsword was not exciting enough to boost the troops' morale. This opens up the idea that ONI skewed the dates of the entire conflict, so as to make it look like the UNSC can hold out against the Covenant, albeit not indefinitely. Again, this would be morale boosting. This means that the [i]Pillar of Autumn[/i] is not on Reach, and the Cortana Fragment was picked up by Keyes, albeit in a Longsword, and the interactive disc (Halo: Reach game disc) has been edited by ONI to improve the storyline, to make it more epic, if you will. Noble Team's involvements in the conflict could also have been manipulated for storyline purposes, such as the [i]Long Night of Solace[/i] action. It may have just been shot by an ODP, but this was changed to make the protagonists seem more involved int the defence of Reach. This implies that Jorge died in a less heroic way, such as being assassinated by an Elite or he was blown up by a Wraith tank. ONI could have changed the details of Noble Team's deaths, so as to make the story more tragic, which leads me to the possibility that Noble Six never died, as his actions in "Lone Wolf" are falsified for the purposes of a good war movie. The reason I say they were falsified is because there were no living UNSC soldiers or civilians in the area, and the whole area was glassed anyway, erasing any recordings the helmet cameras might have made. Therefore, Six may still be alive, and floating through space in a Pelican, or on another Human colony. The part of the letter I quoted be interpreted as: [quote]"We (ONI) had a cursory look round Reach at the end of the war, found this Journal, and made up most of the rest of what's on the interactive disc (Reach game disc) to suit our needs, and show how Noble team sacrificed themselves to defend Reach."[/quote] I hate to say it but Bungie covered themselves pretty well with this one letter. Essentially this letter could make the whole Halo:Reach plot irrelevant, and there is actually another story, yet to be told. Orphius.[/quote] thats quite brilliant but wouldnt that mean we paid money for nothing in terms of campaign? but hey if we get more on reach then hell yeah perhaps a ODST thing[/quote] Well, maybe we did, but I wouldn't mind a campaign add-on clearing everything up...[/quote] same here man BUNGIE or 343 give us a halo reach ODST or DLC campaign add on Screw Multyplayer[/quote] An add on that follows Red Team? I'd love that.