Vote for storyline change.

[Big Boss]

Dec 2, 2009 13:06:40 GMT -6 @nex said:

It's like sending fanfiction to an author. They really won't be interested.

Aww screw you guys! We all write some excellent shit, I really want to snuff it!

Plus, the Second Death Star is aboot 2x the size of the First Death star,....just saying.

[elando]

1st Death Star is 150 Miles in diameter, 2nd Death Star is 900 Miles.

High Charity is 216 Miles long.

Also, you want to snuff it?

[Big Boss]

I sorry on two accounts

1. I forgot that the Second Death Star was so fucking big that the Falcon can fly through the unfinished portion of it.
2. I'm feeling a weird combination of loneliness, destructiveness, boredomness and fairly amused.......-ness. Cuz you have to admit, we write some good shit.

[dusty]

I pick option 4. feint an attack, that causes the covenant to scramble thier forces. I say we do this by nuking a halo ring or something. Then hit 'em.

Dont ask me for the details thats someone elses job.

like finding the rings

[caster]

I don't think that it would have been taken straight to High Charity. The Covenant aren't exactly sure what the data even means. The Covenant went after it because the humans didn't want them to have it. So it must have been important.

When Shri downloaded the data the Engineer that hacked the system stated that the data had everything from how water plumbing worked in Pirth, Arcadia to some stellar coordinates. Not, what they were. The Covenant didn't have the time to go through the data while in combat.

Keep in mind the Covenant have a vast number of ships and personnel dedicated to everything from artifact recovery, to forerunner research, to resupply efforts, mining efforts, battle fleets. Just because a battle-detachment took some guarded data surely wouldn't mean they would jet-set directly to High Charity to interrupt the politics going on there. They're has to be some kind of contingency plan. The leading fleet master in the Covenant appears to be the Prophet of Regret. As he tends to stay on the front lines of battle. As I posted the Cleric of Piety has appeared to have contacted the Prophet of Regrets fleet and informed them of captured human data.

We know that Regret knows a greater deal about Humanity and what they mean to the Great Journey and anyone else on the forward lines. So, surely he would be interested in this data. To see what it meant. Would it be far fetched for him to command and edict for the information not to be sorted through while on the Pious Charity? Would he want a lowly Cleric or anyone else for that matter to see what the humans might have stored on that data....Like what happened during their first contact at Harvest? I wouldn't think so.

So, logically Regret wants to see the data for himself. Have it discerned by his loyalist of followers (that they might be gladly silenced if the data needed to be expunged from Covenant records). He would see the data....If it warranted further scrutiny from the Covenant leadership (although surely the data would be highly altered and manipulated for presentation before the High Council).

I would say it would be logical for the Pious Charity to meet a detachment of Regrets fleet in a location other than a front line engagement. Perhaps Regret is cataloging more artifacts, perhaps he asks the Charity to meet him at a resupply planet or a refit platform. Some place generally out of the way of any place other high ranking officials could be made aware of the data.

This place, wherever it happens to be would no doubt supported by Regrets detachment but also a detachment of the Fleet of Ebullient Piety (The fleet Pious Charity is from) not to mention any smaller vessels that would be at any refit/ resupply planet/station or mining colony as part of normal operation procedure.

This would scenario provides us with the pitched battle conditions the UNSC have to face given the circumstances of the data captured, but it doesn't lead to some outrageous end-game scenario. Because, no matter what, if the data makes it to High Charity and wide publicity there may only be a few good battles out of the whole thing

So, the UNSC in this presented arc have to retrieve the data before Regret can decide what it means and what to do with it. Perhaps at the end of everything the Hierarchs decide to expunge the data, that's one route (although unlikely). Who knows what they might do with it. But, we are jumping the gun saying it goes right to High Charity.

Remember the politics involved in the Covenant and ultimately what it might mean for the Covenant leadership, especially to Regret, Mercy, and Truth who just want to keep their leadership intact.

Edit:

This would give the humans the time to create a task force to retrieve/destroy the data. Maybe learn something for themselves, Covenant Resupply areas, leadership caste, etc. Assuming the Charity is given the order to leave the human data as is....Then the Charity would have to regroup with Regret, and wait.....Wait for regret to fully debrief the command staff of Pious Charity, while also waiting for his engineers and Grunt translators to meticulously sort through all the data. Then surely, given the sensitive nature, purge those translators (so they can't spread the truths they would know), then go over the collected knowledge himself, before probably contacting Truth to see what parts of the data needed to be expunged and which parts would be brought back to the High Council for consideration.

This gives the UNSC a chance to attack some time during this process. I would say just before all the data has been sifted through by the Translation Teams. Since the data hasn't been read by Regret. And, in the event that the humans can't complete the mission before that time. Then there is some leeway as Regret would have to sift through the data himself (that's a bit of data there) before finally sending a message to Truth, then getting orders on what to do (whether it is delete, alter, transport, forget the data).

[elando]

Thats fail enough Caster. I see what you're saying but remember, this is pertentially the tactical find of the entire war for the Covenant. Also, Regret may be the leading Prophet in knowledge about the Humans but this is still only 6 years into the war.

I suppose, even if we do choose some random space station, we'd still get the epic battle without blowing up High Charity.

Also, Dusty, No one in UNSC even knows the Halos exist, or where a Covenant planet would be. All we have are the coordinates the Assault Carrier Caster was on jumped to.

[nex]

But he does have a good points: The Hierarchs don't just stay at High Charity. They move around far too much.

[elando]

Ah, as UD kindly pointed out to me, Regret is actually at High Charity right now according to Canon storyline since he Evac'd there after the Shield World was blown up in HW so it would be logical that if they took the Data to him he'd be at High Charity...

[maxii1]

TBH Whichever story line is chosen I'm fine with it..........

LETS GO!

[elando]

Well looks like its definately going to be Option 2, no doubt about that.

Now to decide on the full story...

[caster]

I forgot that we were still early in the war. I could still see the Hierarchy being sketchy about presenting the data unaltered to the High Council. The revelations of Harvest would still be fresh in their minds.

[elando]

Just because it goes to High Charity, doesn't mean the 3 main prophets of Truth, Regret and Mercy would present the findings to the high council. They didn't present the information that the Humans were the forerunner relics because they feared it'd cause civil war. With this information they would no doubt keep it very close to them at high charity to ensure the humans wouldn't get it back, but also because they could easily have just one Engineer working on it and keep their most loyal guards guarding it so that the information couldn't leak to the rest of the populace.

Covenant society is quite different to our own. I doubt there would be any resistance to the prophets, at least, none that would be worth talking about. Most rebellions are destroyed and dealt with quite quickly so the information would be very safe.

[caster]

Yeah, good point. It just seems like for the RP this is an end-game pitched battle scenario. Not sure where we would go afterward. Then again, I really don't have to worry about that.

That said, option two. Full commitment. Anything less than All Spartans - Option Three would likely fail.

[monkeyjoe14]

I like the idea but how are going to get on high charity I mean that thing shoots down anything bigger than a banshee if it doesn't have clearance codes. So unless we get the clearance codes and an impressive covenant ship we aren't getting anywhere near there unless we want to be turned into BBQ and molten metal. Just saying.

[Jakob]

Maybe prowlers? Although I doubt there stealth capabilities would last long.

[inhert]

Well monkey thinking about a plan of attack there way be a way that the UNSC can attack without putting lives at risk. First we would need to locate High Charity, this would be done with Prowlers of course. Get them to the area that the Pious Charity jump after it left Arcadia, then they could ride its slip space wake to where ever it went. Once at the Pious Chariy's destination the Prowlers would get the slip space coordinates for where High Charity is. This of course would be done like normal in preparation of the assault, but the only difference would be that coordinates for jump inside High Charity its guarding fleet. Once the Prowler has plotted the coordinates and done what ever else it had/wanted to do it should jump away.

Once the UNSC fleet has the coordinates of the High Charity and fleet they can enact their two part assault plan. The first step is focused on weakening the High Charity and fleet so the UNSC have a chance at surviving. This means that the UNSC will prep 10-20 (or any other number) of unmanned and slip space capable Longswords, and arm them with SHIVAs. These Longswords would be programmed to jump to the coordinates of the High Charity, directly into the middle of it's fleet and release their munitions. Their priority should be disabling electronic systems on board all ships making them dead in the water and the slip space engine so they cannot run. Hopefully the attack would catch the Covenant forces off guard causing confusion.

The UNSC would then take advantage of this confusion and enact the second part of its plan, the full scale assault. Doing the full scale assault after such a preliminary attack would greatly benefit the UNSC as, hopefully, the Defense Fleet around High Charity and even High Charity its self would be shields down and dead in the water. In the case of High Charity after the Longsword strike would be the best chance of boarding it.

This is only my idea, I am willing to change it as it is discussed. I am willing to scrape it if others more knowledgeable of the Halo universe deem it an action that the UNSC would not do. But I do believe that it is a sound battle plan that would level the playing field for the UNSC, if not tilt the battle to their favor. Also it would speed up the mission, instead of slugging it out in space, take who knows how many loses once the UNSC assault force gets into the battlefield they have the opportunity to directly assault high charity. This plan is not factoring in the fact that some Covenant ships may be spared from the nuclear blasts so they could still be combat ready when the UNSC would still be facing a fight.

[nex]

Human slipspace jumps can be off by 100,000s of miles. They are notoriously inaccurate. And considering the size of a covenant fleet, as of yet unweakened by wars.....the defence fleet would be immense.

[Soulstep]

Why don't we just charge straight at 'em, and have Prowlers recording it to show the epic battle on Youtube

[monkeyjoe14]

Inhert, not to sound rude but your plan has several faults.

1. Longswords are incapable of slip space travel.

2. Covenant ships are armed with anti missile lasers that would shoot down most if not all the missiles.

3. I don't know how you think a shiva nuclear missile that could fit on a longsword would be able to damage a covenant ship when it has fully charged shields and such.

4. As Nex has stated human slip space travel is incredibly inaccurate and as the prowlers entered realized where they were and started moving the covenant would be on their asses, same for the longswords.

Now that I have made a clear point I have only two suggestions.

The first would be to send a sizable force to battle the covenant fleet while prowlers rode in with their stealth plating and drop ODSTs into High Charity after laying a mine field behind the covenant armada. When the covenant realize what as happened they will go into full panic mode and run head first into mines and at the very least distracting them, possibly giving the UNSC the upper hand. Meanwhile, the ODSTs find the data and retrieve it.

Second is that we battle our asses off in space then drop ODSTs and pelicans into High Charity, which I mind you has slip space capabilities.

Damn, I think I just went on a rant.^^ Yep that's a rant alright.

[nex]

Either way, an attack on High charity is near impossible, so why are we still trying?

[inhert]

Monkey I don't see your comments as rude. They are helpful I came up with my idea with very little knowledge of the halo universe so I assumed that longwords were capable of slip space travel, and that human slip space travel was accurate. As for the anti-missle lasers I thought the fact that the longswords where in and amongst the Covenant fleet that they would still detonate and cause some damage.

[caster]

NOVA Bomb.....

What about kind of a twist on the original spartan mission? Attack and capture a Covenant ship and take that to High Charity to dock. Some Covenant ships are even big enough to hide smaller Covenant ships in. You could perhaps even hide a prowler or some such in the larger Covenant ship if you had to. Good get away plan, not to mention it would be completely stocked with all human materials needed for an operation. Capture an Engineer and use it to transmit the codes...

[maxii1]

I am liking that idea Caster, capture an enemy ship, stock it with goodies and go..................

I think we have a voted choice for the next mission Elando, it seems fairly decided.

[elando]

Right, it seems theres alot of confusion around the 2nd option. People seem to have different oppinions on the scale of the defence fleet and so on so let me just outline the plan me and UD drew up.
___________________________________________________
One lone Prowler warps into the coordinates that we got from Caster's AC when it jumped. It scouts around, takes pictures and radar readings, possibly sets up some kind of Nav Bouy then warps out.

Then the fleet that the humans put together, which would be about 2000 ships in size due to this being early on in the war and we worked out that even by 2552 the humans were able to easily scrape together 152 ships in a hurry just from 3 different systems, as well as the fact that Earth has 4 fleets at least guarding it in 2552 which would amount to about 800 ships. The fact that in 2531 we still hold almost all colonies out of the estimated 800+ worlds the UNSC has I'd say that at least half of those would have a fleet which would amount to anywhere between 50 and 150 warships. Therefore a fleet of 2000 warships this early on in the war would be easy to come by, especially since most of these colonies would be able to support and industrial shipyard/weapons producing plant and so on.

Those 2000 warships would then warp in to the system out of the sensor range of High Charity, form up and then fly towards High Charity.

Heres where the plan comes together. 6-10 Halcyon cruisers, packed with about 1000 troops each, would be escorted by 2-4 Frigates and fly towards designated points on High Charity, at ramming speed, all firing their Mac cannons around that certain point. Just at the last minute the Frigates will break formation and join the space battle, which is there to provide a distraction for the infantry inside.

The Halcyons would continue on their course and ram into High Charity, hopefully smashing through the outerwall into some kind of compartment/open area. The honeycomb structure of the Halcyon will protect it from impact better than any other ship in the UNSC fleet.

Once inside theres no doubt that the Covenant would seal off that area imediately. The Marines and ODSTs aboard the Halcyons will disembark in sealed space armour and proceed to cause as much havok inside HC as possible. Any doors they come across will need to be cut through with a plasma cutter and they will have at least one Spartan with each ship carrying a smart AI which they will plug in to any outlets they can find. These AI's will have a remote deletion device which will be used if any become infected or compromised/captured.

Any of the Halcyons which are not in working order after impact will have their crews reroute to a working Halcyon. All those which arn't working after impact will have their memory core wiped and will be set to auto destruct if the resulting blast will not harm any of the Marines inside HC or any of the other Halcyons. If none survive, the crews will go with their Marine detatchment and search for an alternative escape route.

While this is going on, the fleet will engage the Covenant defence fleet and High Charity. A select few longsword and pelican squadrons will be tasked with flying inside High Charity by any means nessecary and attempt to fuck up anything on the inside.

2ndary objectives include evacuating Infantry from HC and kidnapping either an Elite or a Prophet.

High Charity shouldn't warp out if there are Marines inside and I think the charging process for its FTL drive would be too long to be able to warp out before the Marines get inside when they are detected.

As for High Charity's defence fleet, the fleet is described as hundreds of ships, not thousands. When it says its able to destroy anything in a nanosecond, thats because of the sheer size of the fleet, not some advanced weaponry. With so many UNSC ships they wouldn't be able to produce the same firepower that they can against single targets. I'd say they'd have about 50 Assault Carriers, 200 Battle Cruisers and a range of other ships probably amounting to 400-600 in total. This isn't because High Charity isn't important enough to defend, its because Covenant ships are superior to most in the galaxy and because they don't see their main enemy, the humans, as much of a threat.

No doubt that once the Human fleet has engaged the covenant one they will have about 2-24 hours before covenant reinforcements arrive.
_______________________________________________


Now, its all well and good saying, "Why don't we just hijack a covenant ship?!" but you have to remember that in 2531, we don't have alot of knowledge on Covenant language, society and so on. We'd have no way of piloting the ship even if we did manage to somehow disable to self destruct which they'll activate if the ship is getting close to being captured.

You say there is no where for us to go if the UNSC succeed but there are. By destroying or at least sevearly damaging High Charity, we show the Covenant we are a force to be rekonned with. They will no doubt redouble their efforts to wipe us out. Also, if we manage to escape with a prophet, we may be able to learn about the Halo rings, thus openning up a way to go to them. If we somehow manage to steal the Forerunner Dreadnought, we'd no doubt be taken to Earth, which in turn would reveal where Earth is to the Covenant and doom us all, and be taken through the portal to the Ark where we'd have to discover its true purpose and so on.

There are options open to us, don't you worry...

[nex]

Dislike.

There's adjusting canon, then there's destroying it.

Plus we have no where near enough people to RP a space battle of that size, which'll make it worse. 90% of ships will be NPCed, even if everyone RPs 5 ships. Thats not even starting on the troop numbers. It would damn near impossible to RP, so why are we trying?


Option 4: The ship that escaped did take alot of damage. Who's to say that it's slipspace capacitors could fail, and it drops out prematurely at an Unknown planet. Hell, we could even throw in some forerunner ruins to keep them around. Then we could have a more immediate attack, with much easier numbers (If the other covenant ships follow they can reinforce at a later point).

Lots of ground warfare (The entire contents of a covenant cruiser far outstrips most troops)

[elando]

Ok Nex you deserve a cookie for that.

I suppose I'm kinda rushing into things cuz I want an epic battle but your idea is good. We could work with that.

Anyone else agree?

[nex]

Yay, another cookie!

That idea still needs refining. For instance, the ship would have to be in extremely close proximity to any forerunner building to prevent the human fleet from attacking from orbit (At least in the begining).

But it also resperates the three seperate objective groups (Spec-ops, marines and Navy)

[Jakob]

I agree with Nex

[inhert]

An attack on Casters ship as it is at an unknown planet sounded like the best option that has came up so far. This way if the the crew and ship survive as long as the UNSC forces get to the data it wouldn't matter if the cruiser linked up with the rest of the covenant.

[Seraph]

Yeah ok. As much as an epic battle would be awsome. I'm still pretty new and havn't rped at all here.

I say Yay!