Here comes my first article for the blog too. A curious one, for at least the people who have read through the novels should have the following question in mind. And this is my little attempt to answer it :)
Truth´s decision, Earth avoids being glassed
Why the Prophet of Truth didn´t start to glass Earth after smashing UNSC Home Fleet and breaking through the Lunar Perimeter? This is a question that, bearing in mind the usual Covenant´s tactics its puzzling and confusing to say the least. The first logical reason would be the same used for other planets which, at least for a time, escaped the fate of being glassed. Planets such as Reach: The Covenant were looking for a holy and mysterious artifact, so they avoided glassing the area, but only the area around the search point (Menachite Mountain) Thats in fact very reasonable, why spare an entire planet if you´re only interested in a tiny spot?
One could say the Covenant were afraid of taking the risk to damage Earth, because they feared it could damage also the relic, or a part of it, because they didn´t knew exactly how big it was, or to what extend it was connected to the planet. Examples of this are numerous, but the most prominent was the decision of the Fleet Of Particular Justice near the orbit of the first Halo, were they didn´t attacked UNSC Pillar of Autumn with Plasma Torpedoes or other heavy weapons in fear of damaging the nearby ringworld. Although its a plausible theory, it doesn´t fit well in the overall Earth circumstances. The Covenant seemed to knew perfectly how big was the relic, and were it was located right from the start. That´s why Regret landed on New Mombasa, and why the battle for the city was one of the fiercest in the Human-Covenant War history
The last theory I can come with, one of my own plotting, its only logical and reasonable in the wide and complex perspective of the whole Human-Covenant and Covenant Civil War conflicts, along with the Flood Outbreak and its resumed in the following statement: Truth´s Fleet didn´t had the power nor the means to glass Earth. Yeah, I know, Harvest was glassed by only ONE ship and Truth´s Fleet was of at least 20. I´m not talking of raw power, but of the functional and practical one. At first a Covenant fleet was being readied to assault the “Human homeworld” and reach Earth (At that point the Covenant didn´t had a clue about Earth and our homeplanet being the same one) They probably tough the human homeworld was perilously near of Earth, and so, such fleet numbered 500 capital ships, a more than reasonable amount of ships to easily overwhelm human defenses in their so called homeplanet. Only the intervention of the last Spartans during Operation First Strike saved Earth from the massive attack, achieving the largest UNSC naval victory in all the war after destroying the entire fleet (except for about 12 surviving ships) and its refitting station: The Unyielding Hierophant. More than the largest human victory in all the war, it represented the largest defeat to the Covenant with frightening difference, showing that the war was far from over, and mankind far from defeat (at least in the eyes of the covenant leaders)
The High Prophet of Regret, blinded in finding the relic (maybe because he knew Truth´s intention of becoming the sole leader of the Covenant?) heads to the task with a handful of ships (perhaps the 12 surviving ships from Operation First Strike are the ones who accompany him) finding out, much to his own regret, that Earth and the relic´s planet were not near to each others, but right in the same spot, because they were the same. And so, Regret´s raggedy-ass fleet is anihilated with tenacity by human forces. Even with casualties weighting more heavily on the human´s side, the Covenant sees with horror that his most appreciated relic sits in a heavily defended human world. Even better defended than Reach, which had already resulted in a terrible battle
Roughly at the same time the civil war erupts between Covenant ranks, Elites and Brutes fight each other and draw every single race in the collective to the war. This civil war, caused by the turbulent and plotted rise to power of the Prophet of Truth, results in a massive war which divides the Covenant empire and turns the biggest Covenant fleet ever seen around High Charity into a messy conglomerate of warring ships, firing into each other. The battle, along with the chaos (which surely caused more than one ship-to-ship collision) and the significant Flood Outbreak and invasion of High Charity, decimates the Covenant Fleet. All these factors join together again to turn a gigantic fleet that would had smashed Earth defenses in a matter of hours, maybe minutes, in a chaotic conglomerate of engaged factions. Seeing the flood getting closer, along with the demon and even the risk of the Elites defeating his loyal brutes, with no more time to arrange a fleet, Truth takes every ship loyal to him that can follow out of the system and heads towards Earth, joining with an already attacking Covenant strike force as part of Second Battle of Earth
The battle lasts for weeks, and a few assault tentatives of the Covenant are repelled. Mankind forces are completely worn out but still resist with a persistence not ever seen. Not even in Reach. Even in the brink of annihilation human ships don´t retreat, the troops are fighting to death and even the less combat-ready vessels launch themselves with a suicide courage which makes Covenant´s casualties catastrophic. Truth, as well, finds his new brute shipmasters less skilled and tenacious than the former elites, and if the elites were already surpassed in intelligence and skill by humans, brutes could said to be simply left in ridiculous.
However, by a mere question of numbers and superior technology, Truth´s fleet manages to break the Lunar Perimeter, smash what was left of UNSCDF Home Fleet and descent into Earth´s atmosphere. Refusing to address the menace of a planetary-scale war, Truth launches himself with all the ships towards New Mombasa´s ruins, rushing, determined to find the relic in the less time possible. The why of his decision will be discussed soon. Truth is that, except for a few isolated attacks in key zones (like the attack to FLEETCOM HQ in Australia or the disastrous attack to Cleveland) The Covenant´s fleet gathers around a single spot and massacres the area´s defenders
But humanity, in the brink of extinction, seems to refuse to accept its dark fate. Ambushes, surprise attacks and the use of even the last nuclear warhead of UNSC arsenal are still a danger to Truth´s plans and fleet. The ground advance and attack its stopped and the war on the surface becomes Hell for both sides, even with mankind being the loser by a vast difference. In that moment the wisest choice would have been send ships to glass the planet´s surface, killing the remaining humans to stop their reinforcements and ongoing, non-stop, attacks. But Truth keeps the warships in the perimeter around the yet to be found Portal. At this point we reach to the obvious conclusion of why Truth and the Covenant did not glass Earth: They couldn´t. The alien fleet its on the defensive, stopping each human attempt to retake their lost ground. Sending little groups of ships would not only leave the main force even weaker and more exposed to the human´s attacks, but would also leave the roaming groups of ships under the risk of falling into ambushes and even being destroyed. The Covenant knew that UNSC had probably ships still operative and combat ready, enough perhaps to hunt down the glassing taskforces
Covenant escort Seraph interceptors cannot work inside the atmosphere, but its human counterpart, the Longsword, not only works, but does it with enviable supremacy. Sending warships without escort (adding the fact that plasma torpedoes can hardly be fired inside a planet´s gravity well) is a suicide even for the most obtuse brute´s mind. Truth is hand-tied, the only way to guard his already few ships is to keep them together and surrounded by AA ground units. And so he does
Why so much hurry in going down to dig the relic? They could have glassed the planet from the orbit. With their ships in a secure zone, with fully operational waves of Seraph interceptors and combat-ready plasma torpedoes. Its another simple answer, if there´s something that Truth feared over human defenses and sees even more likely to his defeat its the Elite´s victory in the Covenant Civil War, or at least the survival of a significant group. A group that for sure will seek revenge over the traitor prophet. Adding the rumors of the Arbiter being still alive, seeking openly for revenge and having forged an alliance with the humans the prophet´s worse nightmares have then come true: The elites are coming after him, allied by the few surviving humans and perhaps with a fleet big enough to wipe him out of the sky (As was later demonstrated in the Ark, even with the brutes outnumbering the elites 3 to 1) the alliance will probably secure the relic and together launch an attack hard to repel. Thats the hurry, Truth´s own way of rising to power and reaching Earth places him in a life or death situation with a single opportunity of victory: Going through the portal as soon as possible, and activating the rings before anyone could stop him.
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