didnt the long night of solace have shield generators so powerful it could plow straight into a planet and be totally fine?

The Covenant space station Uneven Elephant Unyielding Hierophant had shields strong enough to survive a collision with a small moon. We know nothing about the shield strength of the Super Carrier other than the fact that it could sit in Reach's orbit, laughing at the planet's entire defense fleet.

it did. the only way to destroy it was teleport half of the ship everywhere

weren't there like 3 other super carriers in the local covenant fleet though... I seem to recall them taking it out and a bunch more just showing up right away?

yes but only Long night of solace was named in that particular group

the only other CSO ever named is Sublime Trancendance. it belonged to the fleet that served to guard a staging front on a covie world they were using to plan attacks on humans and brutes.
not sure which spartan team did it but a NOVA bomb was onboard the CSO and it took out the ship and a chunk of that fleet

Wasn't done by a Spartan Team. It was taken along with other supposedly Forerunner stuff and other things for study by a Covenant team, and the Hugarok fixed it by accident. It was left there by an Admiral (can't recall which one), who does a short speech, before it goes off and obliterates pretty much everything in a damn big area. Vaporizing said fleet.

It's in one of the Halo books, but I'd have to reread them to find out which one. I think it's First Strike.

Also, Infinity is nearly 6 km long, but has a lot more firepower due to having a **** ton of Forerunner tech installed in it.

Ghosts of Onyx

Only two have been named, and maybe two others talked about. The ship is large, but in a fight it can't maneuver that well, and so conventional strategies can take it down. However, in Reach, there were not enough UNSC ships available to take on such a large ship and the others, so they used a slipspace drive to do the work for them once it was smuggled onto the Corvette.

I don't think Reach is very canon though.. Supposedly, Spartan II's never knew of the III's, and Halsey supposedly never knew of the III's, despite interacting with them on Reach.

Also, according to the novels Reach fell pretty quickly, being overwhelmed after a short, but intensive space battle that cost the Covvies a lot of ships, but eventually they breaked through. It was also the majority of the Spartan II's last stand, as they were sent planetside to defend the reactors keeping the Orbital Platforms firing. However, due to massive Covenant opposition, they were overrun, and were either forced to retreat, or die, leaving only a handful alive. Then the Covvies started glassing everything (as we saw in New Alexandria in Halo: Reach), except a small bit were Forerunner artifacts were located (not the mission where you have to defend Halsey's lab).

There are a few inconsistencies there that have bothered me for a while. And personally, I prefer the book storyline over the game-storyline, although that's the only conflict I can really think of.

Well, as much as I, and maybe you, dislike it, it does fit into the canon of the story.

Supposedly, the UNSC sacrificed the colony and millions of people just in the hope that the Long Night of Solace ****** up and was allowed to be boarded by the Spartans on Pillar of Autumn.

The Covenant didn't play their full hand right away, and the fleet that attacks Reach in the early part of the game, before you destroy LNS and lose Jorge, isn't the fleet led by the eventual Arbiter. The Covenant purposely stayed quiet and led small level attacks to get as much Forerunner artifacts as possible. Meanwhile, the UNSC didn't inform the rest of the fleet and ordered communication blackouts across the colony and military, so as to keep as much of the fleet away from Reach and destruction as possible.

That is, their plan was working until Holland ordered Noble Team to take down LNS and the plan failed while losing millions of lives for nothing. Then, the main Covenant fleet led by Thel 'Vadam came rushing in without being quiet at all, because the Zealots had what they wanted from the planet. That's where the timeline rejoins The Fall of Reach book.


Check out Halopedia for the whole story; don't go to the Halo Wikia. It's garbage.

I see, that explains that.
But what about Halsey meeting the Spartan III's? That can't be right, can it? It's only when she lands on Onyx that she finds out about their existence for the first time.

That's called a retcon. That's all.


I believe that she has her assumptions that there were more than just her Spartans, and in First Strike (I think) she mentions finding a file called S III or similar on an ONI Network drive.

Her gut says that there are S III's out there, but she also thinks there could have been a second class of S II's developed without her knowledge. Afterall, once her Spartans had begun deployments in full armor, she went to other projects, rarely returning to the Orion II project, and occasionally going back to Project Mjolnir.

In Onyx, she finally has the proof that there are S IIIs and not more, new class S IIs. Even in Reach, she doesn't say Noble is an S III elite team, just that they are the "new model."

So, either they retconned that away with Reach, or they just snuck it in. I don't know, but either way works.